How to Write a Great Novel

I look for a writer who really has an understanding of what they're trying to write. I think one of the things even thinking about the light we lost is it's about first love. All of us remember that first love and so that automatically if I saw that in a query would draw me into that. So people who can really write about that beautifully, who can engage, set their book apart from something else are the ones that I really look at. It's important that they tell me maybe comparable titles, not the Harry Potter's or the Stephen Kings but books where it shows me that they read and they understand literature.