Many authors are constantly wondering how to make agents love their work. The reason is that agents act as the gatekeepers to the realm of traditional publishers. They are notoriously difficult to impress. The only thing that can get an author’s foot in the door with agents is to write an excellent story. The following are some ways that authors can turn ordinary stories into extraordinary ones.

Going beyond the five senses

Any writer has to stimulate his readers’ senses, including sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste. His words should inevitably cause readers to create mental pictures of the scenes in his book. Evoking readers’ senses is a great way to make them feel as if they are part of the action. Authors who excel at stimulating the five senses of their readers are loved by literary agents. However, agents have gotten used to this and they now expect more. There are other ways to make the reader to feel what is going on in a scene. For instance, an author can make his readers experience motion in his scenes. He can also make readers experience varied emotions such as happiness, fear, hatred, excitement, etc.

Make characters unpredictable

People only behave rationally sometimes. The rest of the time they take unpredictable and inexplicable risks. Any good author should know that although characters and their actions have to be believable, they don’t always have to be rational. Sometimes things like love and sex make people behave irrationally. An author can easily create a plausible reason that explains erratic behavior by his characters. Unpredictable characters are more likely to get a reader’s attention than those that behave rationally. A character’s unpredictability keeps readers guessing and it keeps them hooked to the story. Sometimes they will not even notice that they feel the character is more genuine because of his/her irrational behavior.

Don’t think about prettiness

Agents can’t stand authors who willingly censor their works, even for decency’s sake. An author should be willing to take the gloves off every time he sits down and starts writing. That gory scene of a massacre or horrific train wreck might be the thing that makes an author like your work. When writing, an author should go back to the time when he was a young person and knew nothing about what was decent and what was not. He should fight off the urge to use euphemisms to spare the feelings of a handful of readers because he will annoy more in the process.

Don’t dumb things down too much

An author should not underestimate the mental capability of the average Joe. Oversimplifying a book could have disastrous consequences. A writer should be true to his intelligence when writing a book. Chances are that if there are people who like his books, then they are just as intelligent as he is. Over explaining is also something that an author has to avoid. It is good to leave readers’ imaginations to flesh out the details, as long as the author has already said enough.