As a literary agent, I’m often asked what I look for in a manuscript. Here’s what I tell writers:
I want your book to turn water into full-bodied Merlot.
I want your book to make me hear colors and taste sounds.
I want your book to resurrect the muse of literature, give her a tasteful makeover, then slap her in the face.
Send me a manuscript that feels as powerful as witnessing the birth of my first son.
Think outside the box! Think 50 Shades of Gray but a children’s board book. Think Cujo but written by Jesus Christ.
I’m interested in reading the next big YA novel about a rag-tag crew of misfits on an impossible quest–but set in a dimension where there is no thought or memory. And the sun is a blazing light of unrelenting horror that dissolves the human mind. And the dimension is ruled by a plum-shaped, balding man who reminds me of my father. And at the end of their journey, the crew realizes that the real treasure is the merciful jaws of death.
I want a manuscript that burns bright and hot, cutting down my heating bill by 32 percent.
I crave the sort of get-rich-quick book that shows a guy how to make a quick $2,000 by selling old baseball cards.
I’m burning for a manuscript that will wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me that it loves me.
No chick lit (girl stuff) or bit lit (tech-bro thrillers) or knit lit (textile-themed cozy mysteries).
I’m a sucker for pet detective paranormal erotica. But nothing that’s going to make me blush on the subway.
On the hunt for a manuscript that erases my dark spots and age lines. Bonus if it stops my parents from getting divorced in 1978.
I represent hard Sci-Fi, which means stoic men and aliens and technology in deep space. Not soft Sci-Fi, which is written by mothers. Space is hard and cold, and no one can hear you scream. Women sound ugly when they scream, and spacemen need a break.
Seeking graphic novels without talking animals. Also no talking humans. Ideally: no talking.
Actively seeking diverse voices to tell fresh and compelling stories about white men.
I represent the type of author who will go back in time, kill baby Hitler, garrote baby Hemmingway, then re-write A Farewell to Arms as an upmarket rom-com.
Your book should open my third eye. Ideally, it would also open my first eye, which is swollen shut after that Soft Sci-Fi writer punched me. Now I can’t see, so I’ve been judging manuscripts by mouthfeel. Please send me 1,000 tender, silky pages with an astringent tang.
Send me a horror thriller that will give me nightmares–but not that nightmare with the piano recital, the pizza dough, and the feral pigs.
Send me a book that limns the boundary between poignant beauty and piercing pain, that strokes the gentle loam of the human soul, and that can be made into a 13-movie franchise.
I need a book that gives me the high of MDMA without the risk of faintness, dehydration, or a nosy mall cop telling me to put my shirt back on in the food court.
Please send me a literal bag of gold.
Surprise me! Maybe I don’t know what I’m looking for!
Probably not your book.
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Rumpus original art by Natalie Peeples
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