Previously, I published a post on “How NOT to Start your Novel: Common Mistakes to Avoid.” That post is helpful for optimizing the first 5 pages of your manuscript, which is important if you are querying literary agents or editors. But let’s talk about issues I often notice in the body of unpublished manuscripts.  I’m […]

When I read queries during my internship at the literary agency, I would often reject an author after the first sentence of the manuscript. That might sound harsh, but I learned that when I continued reading, my first instinct was nearly always right.  If you’ve read my post “A Literary Agency: An Intern’s Perspective,” you […]

  In the summer of 2019, I was fortunate enough to intern remotely at a literary agency. Just to give you a sense of what it entailed, the bulk of my time was spent reading queries, evaluating partial and full manuscripts, writing reader reports, and maintaining publishing contacts. I also wrote a few editorial letters […]