Snag An Agent--Use Micro Tension

So I've been in the submission process for awhile now (okay, "awhile" being a relative term since it takes most people a long time to find an agent), and I've gotten good advice from various sources; books, blogs, twitter tweets. But the best piece of advice I ever got was from my writer friend and mentor Linda. And just this morning, I learned the technical term for the piece of advice Linda gave me: micro-tension. A few months ago, when I wrote my very first synopsis for FLYNN, I sent it to Linda to see if the written storyline made sense to a fresh pair of eyes. When she handed it back a few days later, I could tell she wasn't exactly satisfied. I asked her to be frank with me, and she gave me this suggestion. "When you're writing a novel synopsis, it has to do more than make sense. It has to read so that every single sentence makes the agent want to read the next sentence after it." Those few words pretty much changed my synopsis and query writing, and it also influenced my prose writing as well. After all, if you can write an intriguing query and synopsis, but then your prose scrapes along like a dry bone, what have you really accomplished? Micro-tension is the "technical" term for this. Each piece of your novel should keep the reader moving to the next piece. Structure your sentences so that they lead the reader into a question, set up tension to be deflated, or hint at something that the reader wants to know about. Of course you have to be a little flexible with this. If you literally make every single sentence a tantalizing question (or even every second or third sentence) your audience will get annoyed by the end of the second paragraph. Just be aware of whether your novel is coaxing the reader onwards, or talking at the reader. Micro tension works at the sentence level, at the chapter level, and at the book level for anyone writing a series. Each sentence should make you want to read the one after, each chapter should make you want to flip to the next, and each book should make the reader check the back pages for info on the sequel's release. Happy Writing! RHDavis