Great post on writing and querying no-nos

deborahmarkus · May 24, 2012

A friend showed me this -- I have a lot of respect for those willing to be gonged!

http://www.roniloren.com/blog/2012/5/23/what-will-make-an-agent-gong-your-pages.html

dsoul700 · May 25, 2012

Interesting read.

Browland86 · May 25, 2012

That sounds like it would be nerve-wracking for the authors. But it helps me better understand what agents are looking for and what turns them off.

It's funny that zombies are a turn-off for a lot of the agents. I suppose there is a glut of zombie stories these days, but some of them (Walking Dead) are still very popular.

Jamesaritchie · May 25, 2012

That would take guts, even if it is all anonymous. But all those things that get gonged should get gonged, and writers should know it. Except maybe for the zombies.

When agents and editors say no zombies, they usually mean the same thing as when they say no vampires, or no anything else. They usually mean no more crap like all the other crap out there. Either show me something brand new and incredibly exciting, or forget all about it.

lambauman · May 25, 2012

That's a great article. Thank you so much for posting.

Good to know zombies are on the out. I was never into it anyway. ^_-

justbishop · May 25, 2012

Very interesting, thanks for the link

Might need to rewrite my WIP's beginning now, though (my MC is just waking up).

Silver-Midnight · May 25, 2012

Interesting post.

mrsvalkyrie · May 25, 2012

Thanks for the link. I printed this out to put with my notes so I can refer to it when I complete my WIP and make sure I didn't **** anything up. Haha.

espresso5 · May 25, 2012

Wow. My query starts with a question. Oops. Thank God I read this before I sent it out.

celticroots · May 25, 2012

A good article. I'll have to rewrite the beginning of my WIP. (it starts out with my MC being chased through the woods.)

deborahmarkus · May 25, 2012

espresso5 said:
Wow. My query starts with a question. Oops. Thank God I read this before I sent it out.

Whew! Yeah, from what I've read, this has evolved. It used to be that agents didn't mind the question-beginning, and some even really liked it. But I think it's something that's so easy to do that lots of people did it, and now agents can't stand it.

Purple Rose · May 25, 2012

Thank you for the link. Interesting!

Susan Coffin · May 25, 2012

A great article! Thank you for sharing it.

Gordon · May 26, 2012

Wasn't guilty of most of these, but the zombie thing made me laugh. And worry.

My currently-being-shopped MS has dead people in it - not ghosts, definitely not zombies... just, um, dead. Surreal, absurd, and mostly funny. I realized in reading this list that my query, which mentions the dearly departed, might be construed by agents as, well, zombies, which are apparently frowned upon.

I've considered running the query through Query Hell, but haven't, for a variety of reasons... maybe I should..

GFanthome · May 26, 2012

It was a good read and I suspect a good lesson to learn if you're a newbie writer. I really admire the courage it took for the writers to anonymously submit their works for this "game". The thing is, I can't see myself doing this, even though I haven't made any of the mistakes cited. The reason being, I suspect that the panelists would be looking forward to any reason to hit the gong at least once, even if an author's work was good enough for further consideration. In this milieu, all of the authors would likely be gonged as part of "the show".

LoopyLinde · May 26, 2012

GFanthome said:
I suspect that the panelists would be looking forward to any reason to hit the gong at least once, even if an author's work was good enough for further consideration. In this milieu, all of the authors would likely be gonged as part of "the show".

Oh no. That thought just popped my fantasy bubble of having the one query all the agents loved. Gasps of awe, being offered representation right there and then by several agents, watching them fight over possession of pages. Paper flying everywhere.

Sigh.

GingerGunlock · May 26, 2012

Some things that were cliche I had no idea. Not that I've done most of them (That I can think of) but I also haven't seen them. I wonder how that happened?

Great article, though I would get too angry at the gong.

Great post on writing and querying no-nos

deborahmarkus

dsoul700

Lone Fire

Browland86

Jamesaritchie

lambauman

justbishop

Proud Literary Sadist

Silver-Midnight

mrsvalkyrie

Hounds of Justice

espresso5

celticroots

deborahmarkus

Purple Rose

practical experience, FTW

Susan Coffin

Tell it like it Is

Gordon

GFanthome

At the computer, opening a vein

LoopyLinde

GingerGunlock

paralibrarian