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INSIDE THE ART, CRAFT AND BUSINESS OF WRITING for Film, TV, Books, Stage, Print or Digital Media (with Particular Attention to Comedy)
7 Reasons Agents Stop Reading Your First Chapter
Blogger Livia Blackburne reports on the reasons a panel of literary agents lost interest in books.
Please note that this panel was at a public conference (a horrible environment to try and present your work), and listening to it read out loud by some actor (a horrible way to present prose fiction), but sometimes that’s the only way to obtain access to agents. Anyway, I think the list of reasons that agents (or readers) lose interest is pretty good:
- Generic beginnings
- Slow beginnings
- Trying too hard
- TMI (Too Much Information)
- Clichés
- Loss of Focus
- Unrealistic internal narrative
Check the full article here in Writers Digest.
