Why Agents Stop Reading: What Your Opening Pages Need to Deliver
You hover over the send button. Your query is polished, your pages are formatted, your heart is doing that fast, uneven thing it does when you’re about to be seen. You’ve worked for this. Maybe for years. You take a breath and hit send.
Somewhere, on the other side of the screen, an agent opens your sample pages. They read the first line. Maybe a second. Maybe the first paragraph.
And then they decide to stop reading.
Not because they’re cruel. Not because they didn’t give it a chance. But because they’ve trained themselves to read for signals. They’ve seen thousands of openings. They know what resonance feels like when it hits. And they know when it doesn’t.
This post is here to decode those signals.
What are your first five pages actually telling a reader (whether you meant them to or not)? What makes an agent lean in—and what makes them click away?
Let’s break it down.
What Makes Agents Keep Reading: Opening Page Techniques That Work
1. Start with movement, not setup.
Ground the reader quickly, but don’t linger in exposition. Lead with tension, desire, conflict—something charged. This doesn’t have to be a literal fight scene or an argument. In fact, it shouldn’t be. We want to start in a moment that situates us inside your character’s before while showing that everything is about to shift.
In Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas, the opening line drops us into action and emotion immediately: “Yadriel wasn’t technically trespassing because he’d lived in the cemetery his whole life.”
With that one line, we get voice, contradiction, tension, and stakes. We know where we are (a cemetery), who we’re with (Yadriel), and what’s at risk (he’s doing something forbidden, something that matters). There’s cultural specificity, mood, and movement, and we haven’t even hit the second sentence. That’s what opening with intention looks like.
2. Use character voice, not just clean prose.
Clarity matters, but voice is what makes a page stick. Let us hear how your protagonist sees the world, not just what’s happening in it.
In Michiah Johnson’s The Space Between Worlds, we start with: Even worthless things can become valuable once they become rare. This is the grand lesson of my life.”
In two lines, we know we’re in the hands of someone sharp, cynical, and self-aware.
3. Keep your sentences working.
Every sentence should be doing more than one job—advancing action and deepening emotion, worldbuilding and character interiority.
In Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, the very first line does it all: “By the time Alex managed to get the blood out of her good wool coat, it was too warm to wear it.”
In that one sentence, we get action (someone has bled), aftermath (she cleaned it), character priorities (it’s her good coat), and a subtle shift in season that mirrors a shift in tone.
And it doesn’t stop there: “Spring had come on grudgingly; pale blue mornings failed to deepen, turning instead to moist, sullen afternoons, and stubborn frost lined the road in high, dirty meringues.”
Now we’re rooted in setting and mood. The language is lush, but it isn’t just decorative—it’s doing emotional work. This isn’t just spring. It’s a season that reflects Alex’s own internal state. Cold. Resentful. Half-thawed.
That’s what layered writing looks like.
4. Make your stakes emotional.
We don’t need to know the fate of the galaxy by page five, but we do need to know what your protagonist wants—and what it will cost them.
In We Are Okay by Nina LaCour, we open on a quiet moment: “Before Hannah left, she asked if I was sure I’d be okay.”
That one line tells us everything. Someone is gone. Someone is pretending they’re fine. And beneath it all, there’s a loss we don’t understand yet, but we feel it.
What Makes Agents Stop Reading: Common First Page Mistakes
1. Pages that open in a vacuum.
If we can’t tell who the character is, where they are, or what matters to them by paragraph two, we’re already drifting. This often happens when a story opens on floating dialogue, vague internal monologue, or action without context.
Take this opening line: I had the dream again. The one with the shadows.
It leans on intrigue, but without grounding, it creates too much distance. And it’s a bit boring We don’t know who the narrator is, where they are, or why this dream matters. We’re reading in the dark—and not in a fun, gothic way.
Now try this instead: Last night, the shadows in my dream had teeth. This morning, there’s dirt under my fingernails and a bruise blooming behind my ear.
Suddenly, we’re somewhere. We feel tension, aftermath, a touch of the uncanny. Something happened. Something might still be happening. And we want to know more.
That’s the power of specificity. It grounds us in the moment and opens a door into the emotional and narrative stakes—without explaining everything.
2. Pages that dodge specificity.
You’ve only got five pages. If your prose stays too vague—talking around conflict, hinting at feelings without naming them, or leaning on placeholders like “something wasn’t right”—readers won’t connect. Lines like “I had a bad feeling” or “Everything changed that day” are filler when you could be showing us what actually happened and how it felt.
The reader isn’t waiting to be spoon-fed every detail. But we do need anchoring. Specificity is what builds trust and momentum. It’s not just about listing details—it’s about choosing the right ones. The ones that carry emotion. The ones that deepen tension. The ones that make us feel the shift.
Take this version: “I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. Everything was blurry. My head hurt. Someone’s name was on my lips, but I didn’t know why I’d said it. The trees around me swayed in the wind as I tried to figure out what was going on.”
It wants to be mysterious... but it’s just vague. There’s no urgency, no voice, no distinct image. We’re told the narrator is confused, but we’re not invited into that confusion, we’re just circling it.
Now look at the actual opening from The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton: “I forget everything between footsteps. “Anna!” I finish shouting, snapping my mouth shut in surprise. My mind has gone blank. I don’t know who Anna is or why I’m calling her name. I don’t even know how I got here. I’m standing in a forest, shielding my eyes from the spitting rain. My heart’s thumping, I reek of sweat, and my legs are shaking. I must have been running, but I can’t remember why.”
This is also an amnesia scene, but here, the disorientation is alive. There’s rhythm. Physicality. Voice. The confusion is visceral. We’re dropped into a moment, into a body, into a voice that’s reacting in real time. There’s tension because there’s texture.
3. Pages that list events but don’t build pressure.
Some openings move fast but feel flat, because things are happening, but we don’t feel any tension beneath them. If your character wakes up, goes to school, talks to friends, and then walks home... that’s a sequence. But it’s not a story yet.
Without emotional layering or a sense of looming disruption, even well-written scenes can feel weightless. Action means nothing without implication. Your first five pages need to build pressure, not just show movement.
Take this example: My alarm went off at 6:30. I got dressed, grabbed my bag, and caught the bus. At school, I met up with Marisol by the lockers. We talked about the math test and how Coach Riley had finally shaved his beard. I sat through first period half-asleep and doodled through chemistry. By the time I got home, my mom had already left for work.
This is emotionally flat. The sentences are doing what they’re told, but nothing’s pulling us forward. There’s no undercurrent, no conflict, no contradiction or instability to keep us wondering what’s really going on.
Now let’s revise: My alarm didn’t go off. Not that it mattered. I’d been awake for hours anyway. The kitchen light was already on, which meant Mom was gone, and the dishes from last night were still piled in the sink. I grabbed my bag off the floor—still damp from yesterday—and didn’t bother changing my shirt. No one would notice. Except maybe Marisol. I hoped she wouldn’t say anything. I didn’t feel like pretending today.
The same basic sequence—waking, leaving the house, going to school—but now there’s emotion, character, something wrong under the surface. We don’t need explosions or arguments to feel stakes. We just need a reason to keep reading.
Your pages don’t have to open loud. But they do have to open charged.
4. Pages that hold back.
If your most compelling idea, image, or emotional tension doesn’t show up until page twenty, you’ve waited too long. A slow burn isn’t the same as a slow start. Agents are asking for resonance. Don’t save your weirdest, wildest, most brilliant material for later.
Give us something unforgettable right away. Because if we don’t care by page five, we’re not going to keep going.
Here’s a version of a haunted house story that waits too long: I moved into the house on a Thursday. It was smaller than I’d expected, but clean enough. The landlord gave me a key and warned me about the wiring. I unpacked a few boxes, turned on the kettle, and sat on the front steps to watch the neighborhood settle into dusk.
It’s quiet. It’s competent. But it’s also withholding. If this is a haunted house story—or a descent into grief or obsession or violence—it’s hiding that fact. There’s no tension, no strangeness, no reason to lean forward.
Now let’s revise: The house was smaller than I’d expected, and the walls didn’t blink when I walked in this time. I considered that progress. I thanked the landlord. Took the key. Promised I wouldn’t talk to the neighbors. “Not like last time,” I said, and smiled too wide. He didn’t ask.
Now we have voice. We have tension. We have weirdness—not explained, just implied. The house is strange. The narrator is stranger. Something is off, and we want to know what.
You don’t need to give away the twist. But you do need to give us a thread worth pulling.
First Pages Are a Promise
The first five pages are where you teach a reader how to read your story. Where you prove the emotional weight is real. Where you show that the writing won’t just hold, it will deepen, surprise, and haunt.
No matter your path—hobbyist, hopeful, or building a writing career—there’s a place for you inside The Residency.
Choose the path that fits your season. With structure, support, and community, you’ll build momentum and keep showing up for your work.
Tiffany Grimes (she/they) is the founder of Burgeon Design and Editorial, a queer founded boutique editing and design house for brave creatives. At Burgeon, we specialize in book editing, coaching, and web design for the individualists, nonconformists, and trailblazers of the literary world. If you’re a maverick, outsider, rebel, renegade, dissenter, disruptor, or free spirit, you’ve come to the right place.
