Fundamentals

How to Hook a Reader on the First Page

Why These Four Elements Are Fundamental to Getting an Agent or Editor’s Attention

A first chapter is a promise between a book and the reader. — Eric Smith, agent, P.S. Literary

When you’re sending your work out to agents and editors, either as a novel or short story, it can feel like a kind of mercurial process. Sometimes it even feels like you’re sending your work into a void. Will they respond? Will they like it? Will they hate it? You’ve put a lot of work into the thing you’re sending out. How can you know how it will be received?

That’s the writer’s perspective. But from the perspective of an agent or editor, the major factor is time. People involved in publishing are always overtaxed, probably underpaid, and generally busy people. One of the reasons I always encourage writers to spend some time volunteering for a magazine or journal as a slush reader is that you get to see what it’s like fielding hundreds of submissions at once. It’s a lot of work. In the latest Interstellar Flight Press call for novellas, we received close to 200 submissions (180 to be exact.) That’s a lot of submissions to read through! I’ve heard of agents who get 100+ queries a day.