What is the fuss? #queryfail

Recent Miss Snark's First Victim blog asked for opinions on agents and interns (remember an intern is under the supervision of an agent) who quote from queries as a learning tool on twitter. This could be an invaluable tool for writers. Apparently, there have been some authors who have taken objection to the practice.

I am not a follower of the tweet catagory mentioned in the blog, but here is my initial take on this. For any agent who is offended by my comments, my apologies, but I assume you have the same sense of humor as the prospective client is to have when they find their query commented on in a public forum... Seriously guys on both sides! Lighten up!

Yet...

"Personally, I couldn't care less, but on a professional level--perhaps. An agent has no responsibility to an unsigned author, yet there is a level of privacy assumed in the query process. For example, I doubt any of us would deny that sharing a premise, a plot line, a character quirk that the agent thought was clever would be 'all right'.

Here is the possible problem on a professional level. First, the new practice of not replying to queries places another layer of anonymity and distance between agent and prospective client. In that environment, imagine the possible anger when author sees their query picked apart publicly later? And remember, prospective authors are often following the agent in question. Tweetdom is public, blogs are public, forums are public--agents are not without responsibility when in the public eye.

Agents are professionals. Professionals do not use their knowledge or expertise to snark or ridicule others. The agent should have replied courteously with the obvious error and then could have asked to share on a blog or tweet or whatever without naming names etc. Then it would have been a true learning experience for all, without the vague possibility of harming another.

Signed Ann Landers... or maybe Pollyanna in the heartland. :-) "