Tag: how to write a hook

5 query-writing tips you can learn from my horrible experience

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Facepalm! [img by striatic]

Years ago, naively believing my novel was finished, I submitted a draft of a query letter to an online community called Writers Net for feedback. The query was horrible, and several people offered advice.

I wrote draft after draft based on a myriad of tips, but never seemed to make any progress. We all got frustrated, zingers were exchanged, more patient folk tried to explain again and again, and eventually I stupidly decided to go with an excerpt of the book, and left the forum. To my chagrin, you can still find the entire conversation when you Google my name.

But now that I have a successful query letter (if not a finished novel), I stopped to wonder what went wrong on that forum. To find out, I trekked back to the scene of the crime and reread 4+ pages of facepalm moments and harsh reminders of the gross literary inadequacies of my youth (which wasn’t even that long ago).

Here, I pinpoint where things went wrong—and explain how you can avoid the same mistakes.

 

1. We didn’t understand one another

We were all writing English, but I didn’t really understand what they were telling me and they didn’t understand why. I should have realized this when, after several drafts, I wasn’t getting any closer.

Lesson learned: If you need feedback, don’t post your work on a public forum (or blog) run by strangers. Get to know the people first. Read their other posts. Make sure you understand their semantics and respect their opinions before you ask them for advice.

 

2. Conflicting advice

Some said to focus on the protagonist, forget the alternate story; others said to focus on the way the two stories fit together. Some said to simply state the connection between the two; others said that was boring. Some even posted examples of successful queries that broke major rules. And since I didn’t know these people, I didn’t know whose opinion to choose.

Lesson learned: If getting advice from a group, don’t try to please all of them. See if you can identify and solve one general problem they all agree you have. (I had two: the hook was confusing and boring.)

3. I didn’t know what “show, don’t tell” meant for a query letter

I asked how “just tell us what it’s about” fit in with “show, don’t tell,” but they didn’t understand the conflict. I’ve since learned: Telling in a query letter refers to fluff language like “gripping,” “page-turner,” “heartwarming,” or anything that tells the agent how the book is going to make them feel.

Lesson learned: Don’t tell the agent how to feel – tell them the parts of the story that will make them feel that way. (Read more about showing vs. telling here.)

4. They kept telling me what was missing, but not what was needed

Chop a book down to two paragraphs and of course things will be missing. Anyone can point out what isn’t there, from the villain’s motive to what makes the protagonist relatable. But that doesn’t mean these things belong in the query. I kept cramming facts in, but the real problem wasn’t that it lacked information: it was just boring.

Lesson learned: Write down the most interesting (yet plot-relevant) facts about your characters, world, and story. Try building your hook around those things.

5. I attempted to tell what the story was really about

This is what everyone tells you to do, and what they told me to do. But it’s wrong.

Lesson learned: If your plot is complex, you cannot tell what it is “really” about. You don’t have the space. Instead, tell what the story seems to be about, in the first fifty pages of the book. (More on that in this post about hook-writing.)

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Have you ever had a bad experience with an online writing community? What did you learn from it?

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Hooking interest with a killer hook

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Between two marketing campaigns, a video, a cousin’s wedding, and a best friend coming into town, I didn’t write a new post this week.

The I in AIDA

HOWEVER – my absence is your excellent opportunity to learn (or review)  how to write a hook – that thing that’s going to grab the interest of friends at cocktail parties, literary agents in query letters, and bookstore browsers who glance at the back cover.

This post explains what a hook is, how to write one, and how you’ll know when you’ve written a good one.

This post gives examples of hooks that will help you write yours.

Have fun, and if you like, post your hook in the comments for some feedback!

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Everything you need to know about writing a query 3

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PART THREE: Everything else

Wrapping up the series with an annotated sample query! Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

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[Your contact info: name, street address, phone number and email address (include email address even if sending snail mail; the agent may request pages by email. If sending an email query, move your contact info to the bottom]

[The date (spell out the month)]

[The agent’s contact info: their name, their agency’s name, their agency’s street adress. If sending an e-query, do not include date of agent contact info.]

Dear Mr. Snuffleupagus, [use accurate spelling and designation in the salutation. If querying a woman and unsure of marital status, just include her full name: “Dear Sally Snuffleupagus,”]

[Jump right into your hook. In high school, you learned to start a business letter with an introduction and a short explanation of the letter’s purpose. Forget that. Literary agents get dozens or hundreds of queries daily; they don’t need to read “My name is X and I was wondering if you’d be interested in representing my book.”]

[Summarize your book’s stats: title, word count (taken from your word processor and rounded to the nearest 500), genre, if it’s a first novel, and if it is part of a series. It’ll look something like:] Crime Time is an 80,000-word crime drama, and my first novel. It is the first in a trilogy, but can stand alone.

[If you’re querying this specific agent for a particular reason, like you talked to them at a writers’ conference, are a regular reader of their blog, or a fan of another author they represent, say so. Also mention whatever qualifies you to write the book, like an English degree, or any publishing credits or writing awards. Don’t bring up self-published work unless you sold a heck of a lot of copies. Briefly mention any life experience related to the subject of your book, like if your book is a crime drama and you’re a police officer, or if it’s about special needs children and your son has Down Syndrome. Otherwise your personal life is irrelevant.][List any materials you’re including with the query – NO MORE AND NO LESS than what is outlined in the agent’s submission guidelines (these can usually be found on the agent’s website, in Writer’s Market, or on AgentQuery.com). If it’s a snail mail query, include an SASE (self-addressed, stamped envelope – so the agent can respond without copying your address and paying postage).]

 Thank you for your time and consideration. [or craft your own thanks]

Sincerely,

[Your signature (if snail mail)]

[Your Name]

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Remember: the query must stand on the strength of your story alone. No fancy paper, weird fonts, illustrations, or writing the query from a character’s perspective.

BONUS TIP: a goofy email address like writergirl15 or lollipopsandbazookas can kill your professional image. You can get a secondary email address based on your real name (like john.smith or jsmith) free through a webmail provider like Yahoo or Gmail.

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Learn about writing a hook and read sample hooks.

Everything you need to know about writing a query

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PART ONE: THE HOOK

A hook, a.k.a. elevator pitch or logline, is 2-3 sentences explaining what your book is about. It’s the heart of a query letter, the thing that gets the agent to request pages. It is also the second hardest thing you will write (next to your synopsis, which we’ll discuss later). But here are some tips that made it easier for me.

The Technical Stuff

Write in third person, present tense. Anything else will get you in trouble. Even if your book is in first person, past (“I did this, I went there”), write the hook in third, present (“He does this, he goes here”).

Keep it short. The entire letter should fit on one page in Times New Roman, 12pt. That means the hook is one or two short paragraphs.

State facts, not opinions. No fluff phrases like “thrilling page-turner,” “harrowing adventure,” “heart-wrenching tragedy” or any of the things you want reviewers to say after you’re published. That’s bragging. Don’t include your book’s theme (e.g. “about trying to find hope amidst despair,” “about love conquering against all odds”). That’s telling, not showing, remember?

 

How You’ll Really Get it Done

Start with one sentence. I took this advice from Nathan Bransford. It’s painful, but it works. Write in one sentence, as short as possible, what your book is about. Then, expand in one or two more sentences, including whatever makes your story different from everyone else’s.

Write what it seems to be about, not what it’s really about. If your story seems too complicated to narrow down to a hook, this tip is your magic key. I struggled with the same thing for years. In one book I had two storylines and at least five major characters, three of whom had back story to be explained before any of it made sense. In 2-3 sentences? Impossible. So I turned my thinking around. Yeah, when all is revealed, it’s really a complex political chess game involving secret organizations and entire worlds, but what it seems to be about, what happens in the first chapter – is a bunch of kids stranded in the wilderness. So I went with that. And it worked.

You’ll know when you’ve found The One. I read this somewhere and then experienced it myself, so I swear by it now. I sent out multiple versions of a query letter thinking each version was alright, but I never got page requests back. That was my problem; it was decent, okay. But I wasn’t in love with it. Then when I finally hit upon The One, I felt it, deep down – and I got page requests days or even hours after submitting it. So learn from my mistakes, keep rewriting your hook and don’t submit a query until you know. And none of this “I think I know.” You’ll know.

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Still confused? Read some exciting hook examples!

How to write a hook: a lesson from film adaptations

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I love the 2005 film adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, but I hate the 2002 film adaptation of the same author’s The Time Machine. Here’s why – and here’s how it will help you write a hook and sell your book.

The War of the Worlds is modernized. The characters are warped. There’s more personal drama than there was in the book. And Tom Cruise is in it. So why do I still like it? Because the central point of the story remains intact: Martians invade Earth, no human weapon can stop them, but ultimately they are defeated by disease – which they long ago eliminated from their own planet.

In The Time Machine, they also changed characters and added personal drama, but that wasn’t what bothered me. Once the Time Traveler gets stranded in the future, the story should get back on track. But it doesn’t, because the two futuristic peoples, the Eloi and the Morlocks, are all wrong. The Eloi are smart, strong, tribal people, who fight the Morlocks as best they can. No doubt the screenwriters thought this was much more interesting than the weak, stupid people that the Eloi were in the book. They almost get the Morlocks right – frightening creatures who live underground, know a lot about machinery, and regularly kidnap Eloi – except that the Morlocks occasionally come out in daylight.

These changes collectively ruin Wells’ original concept. In the book, *SPOILER ALERT* the Time Traveler discovers the Eloi and the Morlocks are both evolved from humans. The Eloi were the upper class – rich and lazy. They paid the lower classes to work for them, and over generations gradually became stupid and weak. The Morlocks were the working class. They spent long hours cooped up in dark factories, growing allergic to the sunlight. But the work kept them sharp, and when other meat sources ran out, they began killing and eating the weak upper class. The masters became the food of the servants.

This was a fascinating and thought-provoking concept – a warning to both classes. Not so with the movie. The Time Traveler just ends up hooking up with the Eloi girl, who is a sort of Xena Warrior Princess, instead of the airheaded child she ought to be. The screenwriters cut the heart out of Wells’ story and replaced it with a cliché.

Is there a moral to this rant? Of course! It’s important to be able to recognize the core of the story, the plot twist or character detail that turns a dime-a-dozen time travel or alien invasion story into something unique and brilliant.

What unique feature is at the heart of your story? Can you describe it in one sentence? That sentence is called a “hook” – your number one tool for selling your book to literary agents, publishers and readers alike. Also known as an elevator pitch, the hook beomes your query letter – which is your foot in the door for getting published.

 Just think twice before you sell the movie rights.

More resources:

More about writing a hook

Hook examples