As a writer, I have been feeling so stifled lately by literary agent demands.

I trained myself to write on classic literature—not whatever MFA slop is coming out today—and this is apparently hurting me tremendously.

So in a traditional novel, you start with something called “exposition,” which is a fancy word for “background.” In other words, before the book moves aggressively forward, we need to “plant the seeds” as my old English teacher used to call it.

Not according to literary agents.

I’m currently querying a novel called Blue Snow, and I have about two chapters or roughly fifteen pages of backstory, which are some of my favorite parts of the book—you have these fun character sketches and an introduction to the themes I’m going to explore.

These introductory chapters are on the slower side… because that is how literally every single novel I’ve ever read starts out.

So I send these two chapters out, and I get the following response from a literary agent:

I'm still waiting for a stronger sense of what each section is doing dramatically, not just psychologically. What I'd want to help clarify is how early we can feel the pressure of consequence—not just rumination.

This is totally nuts.

Mind you, she’s only seen 10 pages but not enough is happening for her yet. Her language says everything: “dramatically,” “consequence,” “pressure.”

Really?? Within the first 10 pages?

She labels backstory as “rumination” and paints psychological function as a negative because to her, psychological interiority must mean the writer doesn’t know what they’re doing—and all because the story isn’t moving forward at the speed of a bullet train.

But anyone who has read real literature knows that that’s not how it works. Real literature requires time, patience, and interiority.

I have no words for this industry. If you want a plot that escalates within four seconds, write an action film. Seriously, don’t be a novelist.

It’s so sad that there’s no room for slow openings, backstory, and interiority in publishing today—and all in the name of “the pressure of consequence.”