#MSWL: General Likes and Dislikes

My manuscript wish list changes depends on what I am actively seeking so check this page or my agent’s page on awfulagent.com for my most updated wish list.

You can check my other pages here and here to see my manuscript wish list for fiction and non-fiction but this page provides a general overview of my likes and dislikes.

My General Likes and Dislikes

Whenever I open to queries, I generally discover things about my likes and dislikes that I plan to collect here to make it easier for querying writers to identify whether we’d be a fit for each other.

Please note, while these are all “wish list” items, I know that it’s very difficult to find an agent who matches your project 100%. My rule of thumb is that if you’re project matches +60% of my MSWL, it’s worth a shot to submit to me even if there’s something in the “anti” list. I’m always happy to be surprised in my reading!

General Likes

Complicated but loving family dynamics especially between mothers and daughters or sisters
Stories in which children see their parents (particularly mothers) as people
Stories about immigrants that meditate on on what it means to live within the diaspora and are ultimately at peace with being from multiple worlds
Grumpy x sunshine
Friends to lovers
Rivals to lovers – I love competitions but in a fun, healthy way! Rivals from competing restaurants, rivals vying for a special prize, etc.
Fake dating – especially if there’s a lot of hijinks involved in try to sell the fake romance
Forbidden romance
Second chance romance
Secondary worlds with not too heavy worldbuilding or magic systems
Anything set in Texas – I am on the hunt for the right Texas story that clicks for me, whether it’s a contemporary or historical setting. However, please note that I do NOT want stories about cross-border violence, harrowing migrations journeys, cartels, etc.
Fantasy settings that highlight underrepresented mythologies, folktales, or creatures – My dream project would be an adaptation of a story included in The Seven Wise Princesses by Wafa’ Tarnowska
Ghosts – friendly ghosts or vengeful ghosts, I love them all
Witches – quirky witches or dark sorceresses, I love them all
Scams and con artists – I don’t want to be scammed and I don’t condone scamming per se but I’m just mesmerized by the audacity of scammers. I’m a huge fan of podcasts like Scam Goddess and Scamfluencers and those are the types of scam stories I enjoy
I did enjoy Zutara and Dramione ships but I have to say my true heart lies with Kataang and Harmione – I really enjoy relationship dynamics where one leads with their heart and the other leads with their head and the two of them work together for a common goal
Bookshop and library settings – It was a dream of mine as a child to get locked in the library overnight, probably inspired by the Arthur episode “Locked in the Library!”
“Maybe it’s magic, maybe it’s mundane”
“There’s a magical world secretly operating alongside ours!”
Hijinks in rom-coms – I want to be like, “Oh boy, oh boy. How are these rascals going to get out of this one?”
Magical detective of manners a la Sherlock Holmes with cozy vibes
Nuanced villains or antagonists, especially in romance – I hate when villains are one-dimensional and obviously odious like Chris Kattan in The Wedding Bride parody from How I Met Your Mother. Even when someone is definitely the bad guy, I want them to feel like a real person and not a cartoon
Mexico settings – my family is from Zacatecas so I’d particularly love a story set here

General Dislikes

Portal fantasies – I am very sorry but I read too much fanfiction that began with “and then the TV/book/object began to glow and suddenly I was transported into this magical world.”
Angel/fallen angel/seraphim/etc fantasy – I don’t know what it is; I really enjoyed reading The Book of Revelations as a child but I just don’t connect with these
Cop/law enforcement/FBI characters – I like law enforcement/police procedural shows (Castle, The Wire, Brooklyn 99, etc.) but for whatever reason, I just don’t connect with them in novel form
Generally speaking, I do not connect with books that deal with serious and traumatic subject matter such as sexual trauma, self-harm, abuse, school shootings, etc. as the defining plot – I have a limited emotional bandwidth and I just generally am not in the right headspace to tackle stories like this
Particularly in romance, I hate it when the MMC “takes care” of the FMC but it’s really just him bossing her around and taking control of her life even if it’s doing something ostensibly nice like cleaning their room – I am the younger sibling so I greatly value my autonomy and independence and things like that read as infantilizing and frustrating to me

Random Things About Me and My Dream Projects

I would categorize myself as one step above a “no sabo” kid so I would especially love projects that have a sympathetic perspective on characters who have lost their mother tongue or have lost connection with their family’s heritage and are learning to reclaim it.
The Smiths and Morrissey have a really big following with Mexicans and Mexican-Americans so I’d really love a project about Latine fans wrestling with their love of the music and trying reconciling it with Morrissey’s controversial statements and beliefs
I really, really want a Maid in Manhattan in book form – that is one of my favorite movies that will always match my MSWL
My cultural consciousness was formed by a local channel called KDFI 27 that would run re-runs of sitcoms from the 1970s-1990s such as Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Living Single, and A Different World. As such, I really love those time periods and similar premises to those shows.
I love reading advice columns and subreddits (sometimes love to hate, depending on the quality of the columnists)
I was on Tumblr during the peak years. Yes, I know what to respond with when you say, “I like your shoelaces.”
I’m a Sagittarius sun, Libra moon, and Capricorn rising which I think explains a lot about my personality