SPOTLIGHT FEATURE: Michelle Richter from Fuse Literary

Good morning, everyone!

Welcome to the all-new and improved Townhouse! We’re back with the Spotlight On series, starting with a fantastic interview with Michelle Richter.

Michelle joined Fuse Literary in 2014 as a member of their New York office. For an idea of what she’s searching for as an agent, just take a look at her Twitter bio: ‘Murder=my fave.’ She loves all things suspenseful and is on the lookout for a good mystery, psychological thriller or heist novel. She represents authors including Alan Orloff (I Play One On TV, published July 2021), Tara Laskowski (The Mother Next Door, published October 2021), Kellye Garrett (Like a Sister, published March 2022) and E. A. Aymar (No Home for Killers, coming February 2023).

Michelle is active on Twitter where you can stay up to date on news about her and the clients she represents. She also does Agent One-to-One sessions with Jericho Writers, so don’t miss out on a chance to get her feedback on your work by booking your session here.

Check out some highlights from our interview with Michelle below.

“I talk to authors about their books, their vision and their career goals – not just their current goals, but where they want to be a few years from now.”

Hi Michelle, thanks for speaking with me today! I’d love to learn about your work as an agent and what you’re looking for at the moment.

What brought you to agenting?

Before I was an agent, I worked in finance for about a decade and finally it reached the point where it was just sucking my soul out. So, I quit my job, went to grad school, got a Master’s in Publishing at Pace University, and then I worked in editorial for about eight years at St. Martin’s Press. After that, I finally decided that I wanted to be at the other side of the table. Agenting lets me do all the things that I love about working with authors without having to do the things that I didn’t love so much – I still have meetings, but not as many as before!

What’s your favourite part?

The best part is when you can see that you’ve made the perfect match between author and editor. Sometimes you realise it when you’re negotiating the deal or when you’re in the first call with them both, but sometimes it comes a little bit later. You can hope you’ve made a good match, but you really feel it when you see their working relationship and all of the support and understanding that comes with it. That’s really the most wonderful part about doing what I do: knowing that I put these people together in the best possible way.

I also really love when an author can grow their career. Anyone who drops their debut and becomes an immediate bestseller is the exception to the rule, really. Far more often, you see them grow from a smaller publisher or a smaller book until they really break out and find a broader readership and a bigger publisher, and that’s really exciting to be a part of.

How do you get to know your authors and figure out what’s what would be best for them and their career?

Communication is obviously key, so I talk a lot to authors about their books, their vision and their career goals – not just their current goals, but where they want to be a few years from now. At the same time, I also make those connections with editors and listen to them talk about what they really want for their list. Sometimes, they’ll talk about one of their wishes and I’ll say, “Oh, I have the perfect thing for you!” So, a lot of it is just listening to editors, listening to authors and then trying to find that synchronicity.

What’s at the top of your wishlist?

I even have it in my Twitter bio that murder is my favourite. Mystery, suspense, thrillers, those are my favorites. I really love domestic suspense and psychological suspense, and I love a thriller with a page-turning pace. Heist novels really grip me – things like Blacktop Wasteland which put me on the edge of my seat.

I’m seeing so many fresh new voices coming up, and so I want to keep looking for those. I’m especially looking for voices that we’re not seeing enough of so far. I would really love to have more queer voices in mystery, thriller and suspense, like P. J. Vernon and Halley Sutton and Layne Fargo. Books from international voices and writers of color are also very welcome – I’ve been really fortunate to work with Kellye Garrett, for example.

I’m also looking for women’s fiction and book club reads, especially if they also combine a little bit of suspense – something like Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You. Finally, I love some rom-coms and contemporary romance – Christina Lauren, Emily Henry, Farah Heron, that kind of thing.

I probably gravitate more towards stand-alone books, but it would be really great to have somebody who could also do a series.

What would you prefer not to receive?

I don’t love political thrillers. I would only want espionage if it’s done in a fresh, interesting way – like Karen Cleveland who did a really good job with her debut Need to Know, about a female CIA operative. I don’t really go for military thrillers either, especially if they’re really macho. If you’re describing yourself as similar to Tom Clancy, you’re probably not for me.

Religious and inspirational books aren’t really for me, whether fiction or non-fiction. Neither are paranormal, fantasy, or science-fiction – though I could do a mystery with some science-fiction elements.

I also don’t do anything Middle Grade or lower. I might do an occasional YA, but I’m not going to represent kids’ books.

What does the day in the life of an agent look like for you?

Every day is so different, but just thinking about different things I’ve done this week… I had a video call with an editor at a new imprint, I worked through blurb requests with a client, and I got an advanced reader copy from another client’s editor so that I can send it to my film/TV co-agent. Then, there’s reading queries, requesting manuscripts, rejecting manuscripts, working on edits for clients, working on pitch letters… There’s a lot of juggling things, making lists that you never completely cross off – but it’s pretty great and I get to work with wonderful people, so that keeps me going!

Things you like and dislike in a query letter?

I really love if somebody can do a great tagline at the beginning, but I know that’s difficult to do and not everybody can manage it. If you can come up with that attention grabbing headline at the beginning – you know, “My book is X meets Y,” or any snappy pitch that if you mentioned it to me at a cocktail party, my head would whip around – I love to see that.

I also want to know about the plot. I don’t want to know what you want me to think about the themes and I don’t want you to tell me how to feel, I want you to let me figure that out myself. But tell me about the plot and about the characters. And give me your bio, especially if you’ve been represented before!

I don’t like it when people are overly familiar or creepy. It can be really lovely when someone says something like, “I saw something you posted on Twitter and it made me think you might like my pitch.” That can be great! But sometimes they’ll comment on my appearance or tell me we share a birthday, and I find that a bit weird.

I’ve also seen things in manuscripts and queries that are misogynist, racist, transphobic… Just don’t be weird, and don’t be hateful. It sounds so simple, but I’ve seen a lot of queries that break those rules.

How about synopses?

So, some agents and editors ask for synopses and some don’t want them. In my experience, they’re usually read after the query and the partial manuscript, maybe even after the full manuscript. Personally, I know they’re awful to write, but I think they’re super helpful! I want them to be one to two pages, really no more than three if you have to stretch it. Authors should go ahead and reveal spoilers in their synopsis, don’t hold back with them. You have to put the whole plot in there. I would say be careful about including things that aren’t really moving the plot along – we don’t need to know every single detail of a character’s development or every single person we encounter. What we want are the major highlights of the plot and how they move the characters to act going forward, like “X happens, which makes character A do Y.”

What about the manuscript?

What I’m really looking for, especially in opening pages, is a voice that really grabs me. The books that have really knocked my socks off have had a really strong and unique voice right away, and I don’t know that you can actually teach that. I think that’s something that these writers just have in them, so that’s what I’m really looking for.

I would say, don’t start by describing the weather or having your character waking up, in the shower, looking in the mirror, driving their car… I find daily morning routines boring. But also, don’t start in the middle of a sex scene or violence. I understand I’m doing a lot of crime fiction, but you don’t need to open in medias res with somebody being killed or hurt, or in the midst of a sex scene. Maybe for some people, that’s fine, but it’s not for me!

Are there any recent deals that you would like to talk about?

There are a couple of them coming out in February! One is called Halfway to You by Jennifer Gold, and it is women’s fiction. It’s about a podcast producer who goes to interview her favourite author and finds out that they have a lot in common that she didn’t know about – they both have family secrets. It’s a dual timeline, a little like One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle. This is Jennifer’s third book and she just gets better and better with every book; I’m really hoping that people fall in love with it the same way I did.

Then there’s one by E. A. Aymar called No Home For Killers. It’s a thriller about Panamanian American siblings. The brother is dead, the two sisters are trying to find out who killed him but their relationship has been fractured since their mother’s funeral. One of the sisters is a former social worker; the other one is a masked vigilante. So, I’m really excited about that!

Lastly, Saving Myles by Carl Vonderau, that is coming out next year as well. It’s kind of Ozark meets Defending Jacob,and it’s about a man with a troubled son. The father hopes that when his son comes back from the rehabilitation camp he was sent to, they’ll have a chance to restart their life, but his son is still obeying the rules that suit him. When the son travels to Mexico to buy drugs, he ends up being kidnapped, and the father gets pulled into this really fraught situation trying to get him free.

Any last pieces of advice?

There are lots of great resources for how to improve your query letter and your opening pages. You only have a small amount of space, so you want to try and grab us. Don’t waste time on things that are just filler.

Do your research. Make sure that you’re querying somebody who actually represents what you’re writing. I see so many people who are trying to misidentify their work in order to submit to somebody who’s not actually open to it, and that really doesn’t benefit you or us.

And lastly, remember that we’re people, just like you, and we want writers to succeed.

If you’re looking for some of those great resources Michelle mentioned, do check out our free posts about writing a query letter and a synopsis. Or, better still, if you’re a Premium Member, our lovely Writers Support team will be happy to offer you a free query letter review!