Seven of Many Reasons Why Lit Agents Reject Your MS

In my neverending quest to move my manuscript (MS) to a literary agent and onto publication, I read info from a few ‘writerly’ resources. One of these stores of knowledge comes from Meg La Torre of iWriterly YouTube videos. I love that she gets to the point, the videos are brief but cover the subject, and she puts out new info every week.

One of the latest videos features seven lit agents who give their top three reasons why they reject manuscripts. Now, a few of the items are what we writers often hear: show don’t tell, character voice, and info dumps, but this latest video (December 4, 2019) gives us many more points.

The following are a few screenshots of the video:

1. Strong first page. Here are some criteria developed over at Flogging the Quill:

   A First-page Checklist

   • It begins to engage the reader with the character
   • Something is wrong/goes wrong or challenges the character
   • The character desires something.
   • The character takes action. Can be internal or external action: thoughts, deeds, emotions. This does NOT include musing about whatever.
   • There’s enough of a setting to orient the reader as to where things are happening.
   • (Go to the site for more)

1.  Editorial Vision

This area also includes editing issues: too many problems with pacing, issues with point of view, talking heads, or amateur writing.

 3. Expectations. Did the writer deliver on the query representation?

Your query highlighted specific goals, stakes, or story, but your first ten pages don’t reflect your representation. This may be a problem of not starting in the right place, a slow pace, or an info dump instead of starting in the now.

4. Is Your Story Idea Unique Enough?

What distinguishes your novel from the hundreds of other fantasy, sci-fi, or mystery novels out in the bookstores. Is your book told in a fresh way? What makes it new and exciting in an oversaturated genre? Remember, the agent has to ‘sell’ your MS to an editor and team.

5. Problematic Content. Harmful stereotypes, offensive representation.

If this area isn’t clear to you, perhaps you can read about the need for a sensitivity reader.  The person should be able to spot cultural inaccuracies, stereotypes, bias issues, or problematic language. This doesn’t cover only ethnicities, but areas of gender, abilities, etc.

In my writing group of seven women (a diverse group of Anglo, Latinx, bi-racial, and multi-ethnic), we spot problem areas and learn from each other, including having a sensitivity reader if we believe this will improve the MS.

   6.  Plot and Character Arcs

This can be anything from a lack of change in the character, plot holes, inconsistencies in the timeline, or jumping around too much in the storyline. Does your novel have enough conflict, does the conflict raise the stakes in the story, does the character act and react through the story, so we know what she’s thinking or why she’s taking action. Do we care?

7. World Building

Building the world begins on the first page. This is difficult because you don’t want to dump a whole lot of info but enough to provide context to the reader. The setting allows your reader to visualize the environment and characters better. This is a critical area for fantasy, speculative, sci-fi writers who must construct an imaginary world.

To learn more about the reasons, lit agents reject an MS, watch the presentation. If you click the “Show More” beneath the video on the iWriterly YouTube page, you will see a list of the participating agents and links to their agencies and social media.

Thanks for reading and I hope this is useful for any of my blog followers who are writers. Keep on writing!