DFWCon Gong Show just keeps breaking records

This week’s literary query Gong Show – a highlight of the annual DFW Writers Conference – regularly breaks some of its own records, and the 2019 event was no exception. Mellifluously voiced conference member George Goldthwaite picked up the first randomly selected query from an anonymous author and began to read. The six agents arrayed at his side listened attentively, waiting for a point in the query at which they would have stopped reading if it arrived in their inbox. And at which they would strike the small gongs provided to them to indicate their lack of interest.

This year’s agent participants were Margaret Bail (Fuse Literary), Tina P. Schwartz (The Purcell Agency, LLC), James McGowan (BookEnds Literary Agency), Savannah Brooks (Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency), Erik Hane (Red Sofa Literary Agency), and Nikki Terpilowski (Holloway Literary Agency).

If a query was gonged by at least three agents, Goldthwaite would stop reading, and the agents would explain themselves. The point of the exercise was to help writers tailor their queries – in most cases, their initial contact with an agent – to best pique an agent's interest. (Note: agents were not allowed to gong a query simply because it for was a literary genre they did not represent.)

image: ktphotography from pixabay

Goldthwaite paused briefly as he finished reading the first paragraph of the first query. The gongs remained silent. Another paragraph, and still the agents forbore to strike their gongs. And still another paragraph, with silence continuing. And then the query ended. 

It was the first time in the history of the convention’s gong show that the very first entry had made it past the gauntlet of gongs and applause rocked the room.

In all, of 11 queries read, one other made it past the gong squad (although with a single gong strike), tying the show’s previous record of two winners. 

I might have congratulated myself that readers of this blog are learning from my annual reports of what it takes – or doesn’t – to push their queries past the automatic reject function of literary agents. Unfortunately, some of us still have some learning to do.

In the past, a significant reason query letters receive multiple gongs has been their excessive length. It's an understandable issue – with manuscripts that may run to the tens of thousands of words, writers may long to cram the whole story into a one- to two-page query letter.

There is a place for such a summary. It’s called a synopsis, which some agents will request alongside the query. Perhaps tellingly, the initial, no-gong query letter was for a 450-word picture book. Did fewer words in the manuscript enable the author to escape the temptation of an overly wordy query?

What surprised me this time around was the number of queries whose writers appeared not to understand what genre they were writing or what age readers they hoped to reach. Possibly I should have been better prepared for some of this after my stint as a slush pile reader for the 189 entries in DL Hammons’ WRiTE CLUB contest. Other slush pile readers, especially those who write or read young adult fiction, questioned the relative lack of YA entries. However, repeatedly, I found writing samples labeled "adult" whose voice and material strongly suggested a younger audience. (I did not rule out entries whose readership or genre category seemed misplaced, leaving that to agents.) 

A 45,000-word gong show entry labeled MG (middle grade) concluded with proclaiming its appeal “all the way up to adult men.” Three gongs rang out simultaneously at that phrase. 

Admittedly, adults often read books aimed at younger readers, but “If it’s MG, own that appeal,” agent Brooks said, to which Terpilowski noted, “The same. It’s my pet peeve. We need to think of stories in categorical terms.” And “it helps to think about where it would be shelved in a library,” Schwartz said. 

Other gripes cited more than once by agents were vague, unspecific language, cliched or (ahem) generic language in a query. Another query received multiple simultaneous gongs when the writer outlined a story premise and then wrote, “this is not that story.”

Opening with unlikeable characters, gross-out language, and depressingly sad situations were also reasons for gong strikes.

And if writers truly wanted to rile agents, there were few better (or worse) way to accomplish that than to assure them that the story was “intriguing,” or that it was a “good fit” for them.

“That’s for me to decide,” Bail said, adding, “and then it went on too long.” 

Goldthwaite's reading, of course, disguised any errors of spelling, punctuation, and formatting. And an agent's failure to gong didn't imply that they would read a query for a genre they don't represent. So, I'll add this admonition – always read the agent's website for particulars!

And of course, keep your eye on this site for more helpful tips from the Dallas-Fort Worth Writers Conference.