on Jane Friedman site:

So much querying advice is the same. No matter which article you’re reading, which podcast you’re listening to, or even the particular genre you’re working in, the guidance rarely varies: Start with story. Spend your first paragraph hooking ’em with plot, characters, conflict.

It’s fine advice as it goes, but when it reaches this level of ubiquity, a problem arises. Most every writer is pitching agents in the exact same way, and it follows that agents’ inboxes are full of lookalike queries. Under these conditions, is it any wonder that agents rarely respond in any personal way, instead relying on form rejections? Perhaps the reason form rejections predominate is because form queries predominate.

Pause for a moment and imagine you’re an agent. Every hour of the day, every day of the year, your inbox is filling up with queries, and 90% or more of those queries spend the first paragraph breaking out all the usual story details about who’s involved, what’s at stake, yada yada rising action, bla bla bla cliffhanger, ad infinitum. The mind glazes over. To read through it all must feel like you’re singlehandedly bailing out the Titanic, and we all know how that story ended.