The Guide to Literary Agents has a terrific post on agent pet peeves. Quoting numerous agents representing various genres, the post lists everything from cliched phrases ("It was a dark and stormy night" - wow, people actually still write that?) to flowery writing that doesn't move the book forward. Also mentioned: waking from a dream in Chapter One, a run-down list of physical attributes, and characters moving around in the scene, but essentially doing nothing.
Before submitting to your dream agent, check out this article.
1 comment:
Thanks, Jeannine. Very helpful stuff. Interesting that several of them mentioned hating being addressed as "Dear Reader." I also hate that. But think about it a minute -- TALE OF DESPEREAUX does that constantly. And it won a Newbery.
Also heard at this year's Eastern PA SCBWI conference that having your protagonist look into a mirror (and thus describe herself) is becoming a cliche.
Oops. Might have to rewrite a scene.
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