90% of Writers Make THESE Writing Mistakes Interview with Ex-Literary Agent Karyn Fischer

Learn more about Karyn Fischer

Jessica Berg Literary Agent Interview

Want to know what literary agents really think when they read your submission? 

In this interview, former literary agent and current book coach and writing expert Karyn Fischer shares insider knowledge on how to write a novel that stands out. 

Discover the top mistakes writers make, why 90% of submissions aren’t ready, and the essential writing tips you need to elevate your work.

Whether you're preparing to query or refining your first 10 pages, this episode will help you improve your craft and increase your chances of landing an agent.

• The top 10 writing mistakes that make agents reject manuscripts—and how to fix them
• How to hook a literary agent in the first 10 pages of your novel
• What stakes really mean in thriller writing and why they’re critical to success

Transcript

Karyn Fischer: [00:00:00] most agents will request 10 pages, but know quickly if it's an auto reject.

Unfortunately, some it's after one or two pages. Some it's after one or two paragraphs, no matter how great your idea is, if the writing doesn't match, it's going to be an uphill battle for you.

David Gwyn: Okay, this week we're heading back into the Storyteller Society vault here. This conversation with Karen Fisher will change how you value and evaluate your work. If you want to ensure your submission stands out, make sure you listen closely.

This is just a small snippet of about a one hour session that the Storyteller Society spent with Karen. She also shared a document that outlines all of these things that she talks about. She has examples and, and how to fix them. These are all inside the Storyteller Society. , you can sign up for Cohort 2 now, but depending on when you're listening to this, uh, it might be closed. 

Either way, we're all about providing value here at Thriller 101, so you're gonna get a sneak peek of some of my favorite insights that Karen shares,

David Gwyn: so that you can improve your work. 

[00:01:00] But really quickly before we do that, last week on the podcast I talked to literary agent Jessica Berg.

Jessica Berg: So I really enjoy character driven narrative. Like, it still has to have plot but I love something that feels morally complex. We've got a really voicey character, and I always love anything that straddles a genre. You know, I think gone are the days where it's thriller and it's thriller and there's nothing else. 

David Gwyn: She shared all about what needs to be in your opening pages to hook a literary agent, so if you want to check out that episode that's linked down into the description. So if you want to link to that episode that's down in the description.

You'll hear me introduce Karen, and then she'll take over from there. 

Karen is an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach and a former Children's and YA Literary Agent with Bookstop Literary Agency. Before turning to agenting and coaching, she was a serial publishing intern, a bookseller and book buyer at an indie bookstore, and an agency assistant.

She holds an [00:02:00] MFA in creative writing and writes middle grade and young adult fiction. She started Story and Prose Book Coaching and Editorial Services in 2021 with the goal of helping more writers. By offering 10 plus years of industry knowledge, tough love and honesty, and true passion, she helps aspiring best selling fiction writers hone their craft and write better books so that they're more likely to get published.

And Karen is here to help us elevate our line level writing for maximum impact. I'm super excited about this. I've heard Karen present before bringing in a ton of information and value. She did share and I like to like that Karen and she may talk about this a little bit, but kind of like the different areas, like you've got a, you know, writing, you've been an agent, a bookseller, book buyer, an indie book story, like you've got a little bit of everything.

And I feel like that's really helpful when it comes to understanding kind of publishing as a whole. 

And so that's why I think Karen brings a lot of that expertise that we can really benefit from from hearing from so cool. Karen, I'm going to turn it [00:03:00] over to you 

Karyn Fischer: great, thanks so much. I am thrilled to be here. Yeah, I do have a lot of just different background knowledge about the book industry, and so I'm glad to hear that kind of most of you are interested in the traditional publishing arena, since that's kind of where my experience has come from.

So tonight I'm going to be talking to you about more kind of like the line level stuff

what are agents looking for in fiction? So mostly they're looking for a great story, and that means characters and transformation, a great hook, something they can sell, great writing. So that means, again, line level things, fiction writing. and that prose and fiction storytelling skills. 

What is it like in the slush pile? So most people, most agents will request 10 pages, but know quickly if it's an auto reject.

Karyn Fischer: Unfortunately, some it's after one or two pages. Some it's after one or two paragraphs, no matter how great your idea is, if the writing doesn't match, it's going to be an uphill battle for [00:04:00] you. I know that's not great news to hear, but it, there you have it. Query letters cannot save you, though they can of course help.

So, 90% ish, that's kind of my own just guess, of submissions are submitted before they're truly ready. What that means is I was just seeing so much that just had potential, but it wasn't there yet.

So, what is the good news in all of this? Elevating your writing may not be as hard as you think. Most novice fiction writers are making the exact same mistakes among each other, and I'm going to get into those, and they are fixable mistakes. And the top 10 mistakes that I'm going to go over show up in two ways.

There's story slash foundational level mistakes, and then there are also scene or line level mistakes.

So these top 10 mistakes, as if he was novice writer are, so the story foundation level mistakes are not enough characterization. Not enough interiority, no or low stakes.

And then the scene line level mistakes [00:05:00] are a cliche beginning cliche language. Author intrusion, stilted or unrealistic or pointless dialogue, a misuse of flashback, mistakes in time and space, And telling not showing. 

Talking more about not enough character. What does that mean? That means that what we're looking for is a character that has a desire with obstacles and a backstory. We're looking for voice, right? You want to know who this character is and what, how they sound when they talk, what they want, who they really are and what makes them tick.

Karyn Fischer: Not enough interiority. What I mean by that is that the thoughts and feelings should be on the page. If they're not on the page, then the audience can't really connect to what they're thinking and who they are and their journey as a whole. So you want to get those thoughts and feelings on the page so that the reader can connect with.

your character and what their obstacles and desires and what their story means to them. Low or no stakes. So you have to ask yourself, what does [00:06:00] the character have to gain or lose? If there's nothing that you can point to and there's nothing at stake, then the reader is going to lose interest. So it's all about stakes, especially in thriller .

I mean, I think that like you want thrillers are so great because they're propulsive and there's a lot of energy and tension and there's usually higher stakes. Oftentimes it's life or death stakes or you know, danger. So it's stakes is definitely a really big one for thriller writers, especially.

David Gwyn: So Karen then went on to share an example that she wrote, talked about what was wrong with it and how to revise it. As I mentioned, the full recording of this conversation along with the download that shows the examples and how to fix it are in the Storyteller Society community.

Joining this cohort would mean you get access to this and all other previous guests recordings. But as I mentioned at the top, we're all about value here at Thriller 101, so I do want to share Karen's advice on how ready your book needs to be before you submit it to agents. I know that's something that's probably on your mind, so here's what she had to say.

obviously we want to be 100 [00:07:00] percent ready with our book when we send it out to agents, but that seems impossible. Like, is there, this is maybe a two part question. How ready does something need to be? Obviously like the best we want, but like, is there, is there a level of leeway when an agent gets something that they'll say like, Hey, this, something here's not working, but I'm still going to, you know, read more or whatever it is or follow up because it has this other thing.

Are you able to identify like where those, where that line is? 

Karyn Fischer: I think it really comes down to the agent. But yes, so I have two, two things to say about that. Number one is I remember getting, you know, as I'm going through slush and I would get sometimes occasionally these writers would pull their submissions I don't care about typos

it's like there's a few typos or like, you know punctuation errors or whatever. It doesn't matter. That is, that is that's not a big thing. The story is kind of the biggest thing. Is it working as a whole? And now if an [00:08:00] agent, they could look at something and say, gosh, like I'm really, really hooked.

I'm really, you know, three quarters in. But the ending falls apart. So in, in that kind of case, there's two things that could possibly happen. One thing that could happen is they would just reject it and say, I really love it, but dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Or they could say, I really love it. Can you fix it?

And then resubmit it. So that's a re a revise and resubmit. And so again, it's really it's based on the agent and how much time they have and how much they really loved it. If they loved it, if they love the voice, if they love the concept, they love what you're doing, but it's not quite there. Some agents might say, Okay, I'm, I'm willing to put the work in with this author and do it and others might just say, I'm not willing to it's not there yet.

Bye. You really just, yeah, I definitely want to make sure that it's as good as you can make it. And so my biggest bit of advice would be get that feedback from other people because you know, it's just, it's really important to have other eyes on it. And like, and really [00:09:00] honest feedback at that too.

You know, your, your wife or your, you know, uncle or grandparent, they're not going to really give you the, that, the kind of advice you need. 

If you, want to get in touch with me, you can email me.

I'm at Karen at storyandprose. com or you can visit my website storyandprose. com. I have a weekly newsletter where I share craft tips motivational content, and some publishing insights.

David Gwyn: Great. Karen. Thank you so much. This, this was awesome. I feel like there's so much stuff here. We, we meet almost every week to like share pages and, and read and do critique group and stuff like that. And I feel like people, I imagine people are like looking at this, like, Oh man, before we have our next one, like there's some stuff I gotta, I gotta get in here.

This is great. , I think the one thing that I found really interesting, and I hadn't really heard about it this way, but I think it makes a lot of sense, is that stakes aren't what a character has to gain, it's more what they have to lose, and I think sometimes as writers we think like, oh, like if they, [00:10:00] Just solve the problem, do the thing, whatever it is, like they'll get something, but that it's, it's more powerful to think like, well, what if they, what do they have to lose if they don't get that thing?

And I think that that is like a really important distinction for us to make, especially like you mentioned as, as thriller writers that, you know, the stakes have to be deadly in some way. And so like, that has to be early on, we have to establish that there are some serious stakes of what's going on.

That's what this character stands to lose which I think is 

really, 

really important.

All right, and we'll wrap it up there. So if you liked this episode and want more with Karen, her links are down in the description. Karen shared some really valuable insights that I think should be something that you think about before you submit to an agent. I'm really stuck on a number that she shared.

90 percent of writers submit before their book is ready. So my challenge to you this week is to choose just one of the issues that Karen outlined during this episode. And just ensure that that's [00:11:00] solid in your first, like, 10, 15, 20 pages. You can move on, , to the other ones, but it can feel overwhelming when you hear that list from her.

So, this week, just fix one of the things. And if you would, shoot me an email, let me know which one you're gonna fix, and I'll hold you accountable. I'll send you an email back at the end of the week and say, hey, how did you do? That's it for Thriller 101. I will see you all next week.