How Agents and Editors Make A Decision ONLY From A Partial

I often hear back from an author who I rejected complaining that "If I had read the entire book, I would have seen how good it was." I do know, that for a lot of authors, there is a belief that it is impossible to judge a book on just those first 3 chapters or that first 100 pages. In reality, it is a lot easier than you think.

First of all, if you think of someone submitting the first 100 pages of a text, this is easily 1/3 of the book. If you have not hooked the reader in that amount of time, I am sorry to say this, but you are not going to suddenly hook that reader when they hit page 101. The odds are, by this point, they have already tossed your book aside and moved on to a new author.

But what about the first 3 chapters? This is the amount I look at and make a decision. So, what am I looking for?

The first thing I look at is the writing itself. It is very easy to see if the writer has a command of the language, the structure and the storytelling. Essentially, I am looking at their knowledge of the craft and their ability to execute the writing. This is not going to change throughout the book. At this level, I am looking at the use of dialogue, narration and the balance of the two. I am looking at their uses of word choice, character development and fluency.

I can also see at this level if this writer relies on elementary styles of writing that might be seen from someone just learning the craft. These are those things you just learned in a workshop, someone told you to use it because "it would make the story better" but you really don't know how and why to use it.

The second thing I look at is the synopsis. This is where I am really looking at the plot of the story. While those first three chapters might be great, the synopsis is where I can see if you have dumped all of the good stuff at the beginning and then panicked. For many writers, they wrap that story up too soon, and then realize, they still need another huge chunk of words to make it marketable. This is where they start to "add stuff" to the story to make it go further. When I see something like this, it tells me that the author probably lacks the depth of storytelling.

You really see this when you have someone submitting a project for a category or series line and the word count is lower, and yet the story would need something at a very large single title length to cover it all.

I know you have worked hard on your story and you want us to read it, but I want you to also think of your own reading habits (or even TV and movie habits). Do you really stick with something that is not hooking you? The odds are, you too "reject" that story and move on to something new.