MORE Agent Chapter 1 Pet Peeves and Writing Cliches

Note: This is part II of
the discussion on Chapter 1
no-no's. See part I here!

The current issue of Writer's Digest magazine (Sept/Oct 08) has a piece in it that I wrote on literary agents' chapter 1 pet peeves. For it, I basically just contacted a whole bunch of agents - new and experienced, fiction and nonfiction, Christian and not, juvenile and adult - and asked them all what they hate to see in chapter 1.

They gave a lot of great feedback - real good practical stuff touching on cliches and pet peeves and overused beginnings. Here is some of the responses that we put in the printed article:

Agents Chapter 1 Pet Peeves:

"Most agents hate prologues. Just make the first chapter relevant and well written."
- Andrea Brown, Andrea Brown Literary Agency

"Slow writing with a lot of description puts me off very quickly. I like a first chapter that moves quickly and draws me in so I'm immediately hooked."
- Andrea Hurst, Andrea Hurst Literary Management

"Avoid any description of the weather."
- Denise Marcil, Denise Marcil Literary Agency

"I don't like it when the main character dies at the end of Chapter 1. Why did I just spend all this time with this character? I feel cheated."
- Cricket Freeman, August Agency

"A cheesy hook drives me nuts. They say 'Open with a hook!' to grab the reader. That's true, but there's a fine line between an intriguing hook and one that's just silly. An example of a silly hook would be opening with a line of overtly sexual dialogue. Or opening with a hook that's just too convoluted to be truly interesting."
- Daniel Lazar, Writers House

" 'The Weather' is always a problem - the author feels he has to set up the scene and tell us who the characters are, etc. I like starting a story in media res."
- Elizabeth Pomada, Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents