When agents read the first page, we are reading diagnostically. We are deconstructing the pitch, the story, and the writer. We read to find reasons to keep reading long before we are ready to represent the writer.
Page One is about you being in charge of the page and taking your reader into your imagination, your world, your story. It is the place where a writer shows the sparks that set off the alchemy of agency interest. Pitching to Page One is how the agent understands what is on offer.
It is not that this is the only aspect of your work anyone will pay attention to—it is the place where a writer shows the energy that will carry a whole book. The first page must work the way your query does: it has a job to do, and you are building a case for reader interest.
Your reader has not yet had the chance to become involved with the character’s journey and why we want to take it with them. You want to show a story arc here—one that takes place in a fascinating world, rich with colorful characters and situations.
PitchCraft® and the Place–Person–Pivot Formula
PitchCraft® is the writing you do about your writing. It is the speaking you do about your writing. And these are needed tools. From Pitch to Page One, writers need to know that their pitch has much more work to do than to query an agent—the very first “elevator pitch” will take many forms, morphing into brand and mission statements, used for community and platform building.
For both query letters and first pages, I have a PitchCraft® formula: Place – Person – Pivot. These are the first reader takeaways. These are the elements the reader needs to become oriented, invested, and immersed in a story—any story.
Place
Where do you take me? What is the story universe?
Establish time, place, and tone fast. You, as author, know the scope and theme. We don’t. We need to be oriented—to feel we have entered a world that is alive, vivid, and specific. For memoir, this means the reader must know where they are and when. For fiction, it means the setting must signal mood and meaning—an invitation into your created world.
Your first lines are the entryway. They are not the time for abstract reflection, theme, or commentary. Start with the story. Ground us. Make it visual, sensual, and specific.
Person
Who do I meet, and why do I care about their story?
We need to know whom we are following, what is distinctive or human or fascinating about them. When you introduce a character or narrator, define them fast—remember, you have watched the movie at the keyboard, but we have not. I don’t know if your hero is thirty or sixty, gay or straight, human or alien, or a poodle. Without that visual or emotional anchor, the story isn’t as engaging as it might be.
Readers follow people, not ideas. Even the most elegant prose cannot compensate for a lack of emotional identification. Give us a sense of voice—tone, perspective, and sensibility.
Pivot
How do I enter the story at a lively, dramatic, interesting place?
This is the moment something changes. It could be the point where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, where the reader is dropped into motion. It could be your personal story—when something extraordinary, catastrophic, or magical happens. It needs to be dynamic.
The pivot is what propels your narrative and signals that something is at stake. It’s the moment we, the readers, come into the story just in time to see something start the story in motion.
What Not to Do
Writers sometimes forget that the first page is not the time to lead with theme words—redemption, transformation, self-discovery. Theme words are the enemy of immersion. Theme is what we understand later, not what we are told at the top.
Don’t begin with the nadir because you assume we’ll be wowed by the shift in later chapters—we may never get there. Don’t introduce a dull version of your protagonist just to set up their later brilliance. Start with something alive.
Don’t overload us with backstory or commentary. Backstory kills momentum. Commentary distances the reader. Keep us in the present action.
Don’t forget that your first page is the place to prove you can tell a story, not explain it.
What Agents Look For
When reading, agents ask: Where am I? Who am I with? Why does it matter?
We want immediacy. We want to feel that we’ve been taken somewhere new. We want to hear a voice that is confident enough to lead us through. We want to feel we are in capable hands.
We are also thinking beyond the page: Is there a definable audience? Is this voice and story transportive, distinctive, or saleable? Can I imagine an editor championing it? Can I imagine readers buying it?
The first page is where we begin to form that impression.
How Page One Relates to Platform
When we read, we’re not just responding to words—we’re assessing potential. Agents look for authors who understand the importance of platform, who can define their ideal intended audience and demonstrate a path to reach them.
As an author, you must be an impassioned ambassador for your book. The springboard through which you do this is your platform. It defines your ideal audience and provides a blueprint for getting to those readers.
First pages are connected to this idea—they introduce not only a story but a sensibility, a worldview, and an audience relationship.
Publishing is an emotional business. Sharing words is passionate work. Agenting, by contrast, is the diagnostic side of that passion. It is midwifery. When I read a first page, I am looking for the pulse—the heartbeat of the story.
I want to feel that I would be a strong choice for the writer—not just that the writer is publishable, but that I am the right choice to shepherd the book to fruition.
For me, Page One is the writer’s calling card. It tells me not only about the story but also about the writer’s instincts—their sense of craft, timing, and connection.
Remember: the agent is listening for clear, core points about why the book will appeal to an audience. All backstory and process should be put aside. Focus instead on immediately interesting the reader in why you, why now, why this book.
What Works on Page One
The most successful first pages orient, engage, and propel. They give a sense of place, introduce a person we care about, and pivot us into motion. They demonstrate control of voice and timing. They offer texture and tension.
Readers must feel that each line drives the story forward and that each paragraph builds toward revelation, discovery, or change. The energy must rise.
From First Writes to Last Rights, client representation is about working with writers at many stages of creation and in many formats—whether this leads to traditional publishing, self-publishing, or digital media.
The same applies to the writing itself: from first word to first page, you are always inviting someone into your world.
As a writer, you are not simply putting words on paper—you are creating an experience. That begins the moment an agent reads your first line.
Think of your first page as your performance. Hone it the way you would a pitch. Know that it is both an introduction and an invitation.
Remember your three essential markers—Place, Person, Pivot. Orient, engage, and propel. Let us feel what changes—and why we should follow.
That’s how an agent reads the first page.
Querial Killers: How Not to Get an Agent (Even If You Are a Brilliant Writer)
Your reader takes in information in a very different way. Your reader needs a way in, to become engaged and immersed in the storytelling. As author, you know the scope of your story and know the themes that fuel and inform it. Not so the reader. We need camerawork to point us. This is your story portal, the place to spotlight the ‘story’ universe; you want to create this right away.
You need to convey reader takeaways quickly. We need to get things fast. We read to zero in on the Zeitgeist, seek sales engines, and to identify the salient points for the primary audience—the ideal, intended audience—be engaged by the all-important voice and to determine the answer to two pressing questions: Why you? Why now?
The best pitches give off sparks, create a moment, or pose a provocative question, just to give a taste of the project. What are the key elements? And how does a writer/author do it effectively to key audiences: agent, publisher and reader?
Why would you read you? Why?
“Pitchcraft” is the writing you do about your writing. It is the speaking, engagement, and promotion you do about your writing. There needs to be more rising energy—that builds to an epiphany, a discovery, an admission, an understanding, or an experience. The reader should feel as though every scene drives the story forward, ends in such a way that s/he just has to know what happens next. Otherwise, it is a whir of details enwrapped in intelligent writing.
Do: To get a literary agent to respond to your writing you need to supply the Eureka Moment. Understand that as a writer you are always going to be asked to introduce your work, to share your enthusiasm for your writing, and to get others excited about what is exciting to you. Pitchcraft is the writing that you do about your writing, the speaking that you do about your writing, the communicating that you do about your writing—and this is every bit as important as the writing itself. You need to put as much passion and as much crafting and as much imagination into your pitch as you do the writing.
We really do think of ourselves as book dowsers—meaning there’s a kind of visceral reaction when you do come across an author-to-be. When it comes to your pitchcraft, your pitch is a message in a bottle but it’s also a job interview, it’s something of an x-ray to an agent and an agent is looking to make a prognosis for your career as an author—not just commune with what you’re doing as a writer.
Here are the most common mistakes writers make when they set out to woo and win a literary agent:
Don’t: You may have ideas from your books but you’re only going to pitch them one at a time. Why is that? Because we tend to short-circuit if too much is going on—it diffuses the message that this work could work. And that’s what your pitch is. Your query is a message in a bottle. It is the opportunity to have an agent review your work with a specific focus on market readiness and publishing potential.
Do: To get an agent from the get-go, start in a logical place, yet from a compelling perch.
Do: Encapsulate in clear core points the coming attractions that whet the reader’s appetite for more.
Timing is everything. Does the query afford immediate possibilities? Or would it be deemed early, in terms of crafting?
When forming first impressions, I think about the author’s intentions, and I evaluate how the execution of the query letter syncs up with those intentions. This is not necessarily based on the ‘facts’ of the matter, just the impressions that lingered.
Takeaways. Takeaways are what one takes away, what I could tell you hours or days later about the story I think I’ve read—or what the book is about.
We want to see how your memoir offers a relatable series of stories and insights. Does your premise dovetail with new interest in female-led narratives? Do you approach an alt universe in a fresh and imaginative way?
Orient the reader to the book by bringing these elements forward: place, person, pivot. Remember, you are introducing your observations—culture, time period, people you met or made up. I did not get a very clear picture of you. It is a bit tricky to get a bead on the narrator.
As someone who is reading a query—your material—for the first time, I need you to establish the time and place much, much more for the reader who may not be familiar with either—or to demonstrate the unique features or retelling that is on offer.
Is your memoir a potpourri of interesting moments and musings—but does it pair seamlessly with introducing what would be deemed a memoir (of a year in a challenging and changing landscape, interior and exterior)?
These are strong examples of writing that would work in a memoir. Who would be interested—and why—is made clear. This is also informative for anyone who wonders what the experience would be like, which, remember, is the reason readers would buy your book.
It is only for me to react. And to share those first responses. My thoughts divide into author intentions—and ways to enhance reader experience. To illustrate points, I am drawing from the pages—not in the order they are presented.
You are well set up as the reliable narrator of your life and times as you are, in effect, the hub of the wheel. That said, the premise would benefit from more focus on aspects that are not as reliant on a recounting of comment-driven narrative, but more storytelling.
Step one is to round out the observations and insights and use the fact-based timeline—the things that stand out in your memory—to weave more of an experience for your reader.
Find your voice. Hone your idea. Your pitch is a performance. Whether you deliver it in person or on the printed page, hone the on-page elements and in-person aspects of the pitch to create the actual script you will use in a query letter, at a conference, and beyond.
Your pitch must get an agent from the get-go. Start in a logical place, yet from a compelling perch. It must encapsulate in clear core points. Create coming attractions that whet the reader’s appetite for more—and show why your work matters to others, not just to you.
Avoid querial killers. That’s how to get past the gatekeeper.
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Katharine Sands is a New York literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency. She has been a popular speaker on writing and publishing topics for Poets & Writers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and for countless writer conferences from New York to Maui. Katharine has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books including fiction, memoir and nonfiction. She is the agent provocateur of Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye, a collection of pitching wisdom from leading literary agents. Actively building her client list, she likes books that have a clear benefit for readers’ lives in categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, and fresh looks, which might be at issues, life challenges or popular culture. When reading fiction, she wants to be compelled and propelled by urgent storytelling, and hooked by characters. For memoir and femoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed. Click here to watch her interview on YouTube.
