Fun With Agents: Lists of Clichés

Anybody who has glanced at getting seriously published knows that one of the best ways to do this is to get an agent. By the way if any one of you out there is thinking “No, the best way is self publishing,” then kindly slap yourself in the face because I can’t reach across the internet and do it myself.

Moving on, if you’re not familiar with literary agents, here’s the gist: they get about 15% of whatever a publisher pays you for your book and in exchange, they market your manuscript to some of the biggest and best publishing houses on the market, places that otherwise wouldn’t even give you the time of day. There are agents for every fiction and non-fiction subject and genre, from cooking Italian cuisine to sappy Victorian-era romances to sci-fi erotica and, of course, YA books.

Many of these agents, especially the newer ones, maintain blogs where they post submission guidelines, publishing news, and sometimes what their cat had for breakfast. I’ve noticed a trend recently among several agents. They’ve been posting lists of clichés they see in the submission letters they get, especially fantasy clichés.

In the past few years there’s been a bunch of interest in the fantasy genre due to things like the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, Harry Potter, and even that piece of garbage Eragon. So it’s really no surprise that the countless budding young authors out there would start producing fantasy manuscripts and step all over a bunch of familiar tropes and over-used clichés.

So here’s some of the more prominent complaints/observations I’ve seen on various agent blogs:

1. The quest for a magic ring or talisman that will save/destroy the world or aide/kill the Big Bad.
2. A mystical portal that leads between worlds.
3. A prophesized hero that comes along and saves everybody and their mum from total destruction.
4. Dragons.

Now, I will be the first to admit that those things are very abundant and often executed with all the grace of a drunk, retarded hippo in the fantasy genre. However, and this is my problem with some of the agents that post these lists, these things in and of themselves are not bad. Having a dragon in your fantasy book does not mean it is bad fantasy.

For the most part, I hate dragons. If something had a dragon on the cover I’d pass it up immediately and move on to something else. Until very recently I would have said anything with a dragon as its main feature was bound to be twenty kinds of shit, but then I picked up the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. It’s not YA, but it is a really wonderful, original series. Long story short, it’s historical fantasy focusing on the Napoleonic wars if there had been dragons around at the time and it’s truly fascinating, well-written, and engaging.

Now let’s look at a book series that contains all those cliché elements that agents so despise: Harry Potter. Magic talisman or object that saves/destroys etc etc? Check, in the first book, as well as the sixth and seventh. Mystical portal that leads to another world? It’s a bit of a stretch but Platform 9 ¾ fits this pretty well. Prophesized hero? You bet’cha. Dragons? Ye-up. But Harry Potter is great because Rowling is a solid writer who knows how to use character and pen a good story. She’s not perfect, but despite having a ton of familiar fantasy tropes littered throughout her books, they’re all really fun.

Now, look, I don’t mind if an agent says they don’t want to see those things because they don’t like them. I can dig it. Not everybody likes fantasy and that’s fine. But when an agent says “Don’t send me items X,Y,Z just because there are a lot of them,” that’s stupid and narrow-minded, and they’re cutting themselves off (and possibly the literary world at large) from some potentially awesome books.

But I’d even be okay with that if these same agents didn’t then ask for a different set of clichés in the same breath. I realize high fantasy isn’t the popular kid on the block right now. As far as fantasy goes, agents and publishers alike seem to be favoring the urban fantasy genre, stuff like Twilight, and Wicked Lovely (and on a somewhat related note, a lot of YA urban fantasy, most in fact, seem to be aimed at young ladies. A blog entry for later, perhaps).

Still, I’m flummoxed when I see an agent say “No more magic rings,” but then ask for a vampire romance in the next line. I’m not kidding. Do you, Dear Reader. Have any sodding idea how many YA books out there just have vampires in them? I did a little test yesterday while at Barnes & Noble. I went to the Young Adult section, and walked briskly past it. In that brief time span of perhaps two seconds, walking past and looking quickly over only one side of the YA book shelf, I counted five, FIVE, relatively new releases that had vamps as their main selling point.

And agents who say “No overused stuff please” are outright asking for this!

There’s nothing wrong with vampires, but if an agent is going to tell me they’re not overdone at this point I’m going to hit them with the combine works of Stephenie Meyer, Anne Rice, and any one of the other dozens of works by vampire savvy authors.

So here’s what all this boils down to: There’s always going to be ideas in the YA world and beyond that are familiar, and yes, overdone. But for a good author, that doesn’t matter. A good author can take any idea and make it into a great book. So agents, please, dismissing ideas just because you don’t like them is fine, but dismissing ideas just because they’re familiar is really stupid.

By the way, a good agent I came across recently (and who rejected my recent query, but it’s cool, I can take it) who mentions these clichés but is still quite all right with looking at books that have them is Colleen Lindsay. She seems super nice and she mentions China Mieville as one of her favorite authors, so the lady’s got serious good taste. She’s also relatively new and building her client list, so if you’re a hopeful author like me, give her a shot.

Addendum: If anybody can tell me what the big draw for YA audiences is with vampire romance, I’d really appreciate it.

Addendum 2: The Sequel: By the way, I know I harped on one particular cliché, The Philosopher's Stone, earlier and that it too was used in Harry Potter. The difference is, Rowling is actually a good author, while Abalos is not.