We are so happy to bring you this episode with Jessica Watterson, agent at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. We talk about plotting, tension, and exercises for making sure that each chapter moves your work forward.

We also discuss revise and resubmits (and what agents look for in requested changes), how agents write pitch letters (and sometimes test them on their families), and whether agents go on editorial power trips (not…usually, but we’ll expand on that).

Then, we move on to the rare occasions when agents give notes in rejection letters, how agents process responses on the projects they send out, and—perhaps most exciting—how one call with an agent friend (and her feedback) turned a project from months of rejections to a deal within a week.

Also, for fun, we discuss the mischief we’ve gotten into as agents as conferences.

Then we wrap up with talking about Jessica’s upcoming class, What The Hook?, which will be September 22, 8:30 pm Eastern. Sign up here: https://manuscriptacademy.com/what-the-hook.

You can find Jessica on Twitter at @JessWatterson.