Before You Do Anything

There are a few things agents look for immediately when they open a submission. The first is voice - not in the abstract, precious sense that writing teachers use, but simply: does this feel like a real person wrote it? Is there a distinct intelligence behind the prose?

The second thing agents look for is momentum. Does the opening move? Not necessarily in terms of action - literary fiction can open with a character at a window - but in terms of forward pull. Does the reader want to know what happens next?

The third is confidence. Not arrogance. Confidence. Writers who are unsure of themselves often betray it in their prose - through over-qualification, through unnecessary flashbacks in the first chapter, through starting a sentence three different ways before committing to one.

These are learnable. None of this is mysterious. But learning them requires seeing them in action, understanding why they work, and applying them - deliberately - to your own manuscript. That's what the rest of this chapter is for.