Let's try this hook thing again...

Thanks to more feedback, I give you:

Nine years have passed since the Dead ended civilization, leaving only tiny splinter societies behind. Darrell Williams, a black doctor in a rural white town, is one of the few survivors in a countryside of roving monsters and encroaching wilderness. When his house is stormed by his undead neighbors, he escapes with his daughter, Lela, to find asylum with refugees in an abandoned electronics factory.

Yet something about the post-civilization world is changing. The uneasy equilibrium between the survivors and their supernatural tormentors is suddenly lost. The Dead are becoming erratic and aggressive, and seem to have a particular interest in Darrell’s family. Four-year-old Lela discovers clues to the twisted logic that drives them -- but then she disappears. Darrell is left to search for answers and his daughter with only the help of strangers in a hostile, ruined world.

Nothing is simple with hooks, is it?

One More Hook

All right, thanks largely to Heather (sorry, I don't have a link!) and Karen, I've got a splendiferous new version of my hook to share. This one really is a lot tighter and gets to the point better. Thanks so much to everyone who has offered feedback during this whole (long) process!

Nine years have passed since the Dead ended civilization. Darrell Williams was once a respected black doctor in a rural white town, but now he is one of the few survivors in a countryside of roving monsters and encroaching wilderness. When his house is stormed by his undead neighbors, he escapes with his daughter, Lela, to find asylum with refugees in an electronics factory many miles downriver.

Yet something about the world has changed. The normally-predictable Dead are suddenly erratic and aggressive, and seem to have an unusual interest in Darrell’s family. Four-year-old Lela discovers clues to the twisted logic that drives them -- but then she disappears. Darrell is left to search for answers and his daughter with only the help of strangers in a hostile, ruined world.

Hooking Again...

Looks like I haven't posted a new version of my hook since June, but I have been working on it on-and-off steadily since then. I think I've gotten a lot better at this whole process in general. Here's the shiny latest version:

Nine years have passed since the Dead ended civilization. The few remaining survivors huddle in isolated towns that have been refit to repel the nightmare creatures prowling the countryside. Darrell Williams was once a respected black doctor in a rural white town, but now he is haunted by the memory of his wife, Mary, slumped against the furniture store window where she was inexplicably murdered by transients. He will never forget how the undead rage transformed her as she rose to kill the family she had cherished only moments before.

One quiet morning his house is stormed by his neighbors, all of whom apparently perished during the night in a fire that his four-year-old daughter, Lela, glimpsed in her dreams. The two find asylum with refugees in an electronics factory many miles downriver, but the Dead are escalating out of control there, too. As the creatures become unusually erratic and aggressive, little Lela discovers clues to the twisted logic that drives them -- but then she disappears. Darrell is left to search for answers and his daughter with only the help of strangers in a hostile, ruined world.

Keynotes

Anne Mini recently made a very interesting post on keynotes, or book concepts, as part of her excellent ongoing Book Marketing 101 series. I highly suggest you check it out. The rhetorical question style of keynote is definitely not something to try on literary agent Nathan Bransford, who is well known to loathe rhetorical questions, but for my own keynote that's the style I chose. This keynote certainly won't be in my hook or query letter, but as a one-liner to pique someone's interest (or get them to ask about my full hook) it might be just the ticket.

Here's my keynote for ALDEN RIDGE:

What would you do if you had to choose between your daughter's soul and the life of every other living person you knew?

My new hook.

Nine years have passed since the undead ended civilization, and now all that remains are small bands of survivors huddling in isolated towns. Ex-doctor Darrell Williams lives with his four-year-old daughter Lela and three other survivors in an abandoned electronics factory. Others weather the assaults of the relentless undead in the nearby ruins of Alden Ridge, but Darrell hasn’t been able to enter any town without suffering a panic attack since his wife Mary was murdered. Yet when his tiny community begins to undergo a nightmarish transformation, Darrell is forced to stray from the factory’s shelter.

Darrell knows he is Alden Ridge’s only hope, for he alone has seen this before -- he and Lela are the sole survivors of the collapse of nearby Stantonsburg. He must quickly discover why the land rots, why animals are becoming supernatural aberrations, and why the townspeople are undergoing the most terrifying changes of all -- despite the risk that saving every other living person he knows may mean surrendering Lela to the dark force that touched her when Stantonsburg fell. As Alden Ridge descends into chaos, he frantically searches for a way to save both his daughter and the town.

Hook? Oh, no--I'm sorry, I meant Hook.

What's in a name? Not much, it would seem, when it comes to business terminology. I see this all the time in my day job--you'd think that "project" and "role" and "prospect" and "fund" would all be fairly simple terms, yet these words (and their many peers) have an array of nuanced meanings depending on what business unit of what company you are talking to. Be glad you don't have to keep all that straight, at least.

Yesterday it finally dawned on me that this same situation exists in the publishing industry, at least in a few instances. Everyone means the same thing when they say "SASE" or "manuscript" or "agent," of course. But what about "hook" and "synopsis?" These two words in particular seem to have variable meaning depending on who you talk to, and that's something that is important to remember.

When it comes to synopses, most people mean the same general thing--the question here is of length. Some agency websites are kind enough to specify their required synopsis length, but others are not. Sources on the web also vary widely, with some people stating that a synopsis as long as ten (or more!) double-spaced pages is required, while others are noting that a single page double-or-single spaced is as much as you should provide (and that an agent won't want to read more than that, anyway). Bear in mind that I'm only talking about synopses for finished fiction works, here--"synopses" in the context of non-fiction or as part of a proposal for an unwritten novel are something else entirely, and not something I know much about. Feel free to correct me on this, or take someone else's advice if you prefer it, but the best I can tell is that a good length for a fiction synopsis is 1-3 pages double spaced (2 probably being ideal). As always, your mileage may vary.

When it comes to hooks, however, two entirely different beasts are called by that same name. Here again it is a question of length, but it is also a question of use. Yesterday, literary agent Nathan Bransford made a very interesting post on How to Craft a Great Hook. In this post he discusses a different kind of hook from what I've been talking about on this blog--I've been discussing hooks of the sort that were featured in the hook contests at Fangs, Fur, & Fey and Lit Agent X in recent months. In Nathan's parlance (and incidentally, in Beverly Swerling's), a "hook" isn't a multi-paragraph introductory overview of your book that goes in your query letter. In their terms, a hook is just one or two lines--probably fifty words or less. It's the one-liner response that you would give to someone in an elevator.

This is a very different meaning of "hook," and Nathan clarifies the difference in the comments on his blog:

I've always thought of a "hook" as being a sentence or two. So yeah, 50 words or less. And yes, I definitely want to distinguish between a query letter and a hook. A novel should have a strong hook, but that doesn't necessarily need to be stated explicitly in the query letter. All of the things you mention (setting, characters, etc.) should be in the query letter, but they don't have to be in a hook.

This is very interesting to me. It reminds me that you need to have a simple way to very concisely sum up your wonderful concept. If not, your agent will certainly have to come up with a one-liner before they start pitching it to editors. This sort of "one-liner hook" is easier in some ways than the longer "query hook" (because there is less emphasis on detail), and yet harder in other ways (because there is less room to include detail).

I can't post my one-liner hook for THE GUARDIAN because it gives away the central twist, but here's my one-liner for ALDEN RIDGE:

A man struggles to find a home for himself and his young daughter in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by the undead.

That's the heart of the story, right there. Everything else is obstacles or complexity or characterization or themes or setting, and while that's incredibly necessary to the book itself and even to the "query hook" in a more limited way, I'm pretty sure my one-liner says about all it needs to. But who knows. To those of you who are writing/have written novels, what are your one-liner hooks?

What exactly is *in* a hook?

I just keep getting great comments on my hook revisions--this has been really wonderful. What I'm starting to realize is this: my old longer hook wasn't ineffective simply because it was longer--it was ineffective because it covered a lot of disparate ideas without really going into depth with any of them. The end result was that you sort of knew what I was talking about, and you probably had a good idea that there was a lot going on in the book, but it just sounded to confusing and muddled to be that enticing.

I think that my new shorter hook is better because it is more focused, and because it does go into slightly more detail with some of the issues. The idea was to be concise, so as not to lose a busy agent's attention and so as not to muddle the core hook itself with a lot of extraneous information. I think the new hook accomplishes that goal.

That said, what I'm hearing from the most recent comments is that I'm still not going into enough depth in the new shorter version. If you look at it one way, that makes sense--to get shorten my hook, I basically just cut out all the peripheral concepts and improved the wording. That was a good first step, but now I need to flush out my hook even more with the details whose lack seems to be frustrating the commenters. Rather than just stating a few unusual things, I need to give or at least hint at the reasons behind things.

Hear that? That was the sound of a light bulb clicking on for me. How to write a hook: "Give semi-detailed info on the single most interesting aspect of your book." Okay, got it. It will take me a while to come up with the next version, since this is a bit of a different approach, but I'll post it as soon as I have something. That might be tonight, or it might be a few days from now (I forgot to check the three-day Muse forecast). At any rate, thanks to everyone has weighed in. All the various ideas and opinions continue to be indispensable.

Another New Hook Version

Based on yet more excellent feedback from the comments, here is a revised version (and yes, Colleen, I did give in and switch the first two sentences after all).

Nine years have passed since the undead grey men ended civilization, and now all that remains are small bands of survivors huddling in isolated towns. Darrell Williams is living with his daughter in an abandoned factory near the ruins of Alden Ridge. His companions have turned the factory into something of a fortress—but when the town starts to experience an unexpected transformation, Darrell is forced to leave his daughter and stray from the factory’s shelter. He finds the landscape literally twisted as it is consumed by a dark force that also makes the grey men increasingly aggressive. For Darrell to have any hope of saving his daughter and the others, he must unearth the truth about what is happening to Alden Ridge . . . but his discoveries will lead him to the most difficult decision of his life.

Hopefully this is a lot more vivid, but do your worst.

How many times can I rewrite the same hook?

Time will only tell, but I'm learning from each one. Hopefully this is useful in some way for everyone else as well; in any event, I really appreciate all the feedback that everyone has offered.

Here's the deal this time: I've been mulling over everyone's comments on my prior version, and reading the excellent Post-Hook-Contest Reflections (One and Two) at Fangs, Fur, & Fey, and something has occurred to me. My prior hook, even when tightened, was just too long. I decided to go look once again at the backs of some of books I've previously bought, and this also helped remind me that less is more. While I do still think it is important to hint a depth in a hook, I also think it's good not to be too complex. So here goes:

In 2018, Darrell Williams is living in an abandoned factory near the ruins of Alden Ridge. Nine years have passed since the undead grey men ended civilization, and now all that remains are small bands of survivors huddling in isolated towns. Darrell’s companions have turned the factory into something of a fortress—but as Alden Ridge starts to undergo another transformation, even this is of little solace. The landscape of the town is being twisted by a dark force that also makes the grey men increasingly aggressive. For Darrell to have any hope of saving himself and the others, he must unearth the truth about what is happening to Alden Ridge . . . but his discoveries will lead him to the most difficult decision of his life.

This one is only 128 words, rather than the prior 212. I know that it completely ignores some interesting plot elements that the other versions included, but that's kind of the idea. As the judge at the FFF contest said, I need to focus on the forest more so than the trees. How do you think I did?

Rip away, everyone.


UPDATE: I've made a slight change to the last sentence, combining it with the one before. I think this gives a better beat for the ending of the selection. Thoughts?

Even more hook tightening

Here's, the current version, even further tightened based on some excellent suggestions from Karen Mahoney:

Ever since his wife was murdered, Darrell Williams has cared only about keeping his four-year old daughter safe, but doing so is becoming increasingly difficult even in his isolated riverside home. Nine years have passed since the undead grey men ended civilization, and while most of the scattered remaining humans have settled into a routine of bare survival, the order of Darrell’s life never quite recovered. When everyone else in the town near his home is killed in an attack by the grey men, Darrell and his daughter flee to Alden Ridge, where they are welcomed because he was once a doctor.

Together with Elaine Ward and the other inhabitants of an old factory, Darrell hopes he can finally create a good life for his daughter. But the grey men in the wilderness around Alden Ridge are becoming more violent, and it is clear that the town will soon fall. The situation deteriorates even further when two men claiming to be military scouts arrive in town—they say theirs is a mission of aid, but Darrell believes they were involved in his wife’s murder. Darrell and Elaine’s only hope of saving Alden Ridge is to discover the secrets behind the rise of the grey men and the fall of the modern world.

Thoughts? It's about 30 words shorter than the last version, and definitely flows more quickly in a few key places. Rachel, does this help with the issues you had with the last paragraph? Thanks to everyone who has been kind enough to offer suggestions and criticism!

Yet Another New Hook

After considering the comments of the judge from the Fangs, Fur, & Fey contest, I've come up with a completely new version of my ALDEN RIDGE hook. I think this shows more of Darrell's character, and shows more of the overarching conflicts in the story, and is less like a synopsis than before. Here it is:

Ever since his wife was murdered two years before, Darrell Williams has cared only about keeping his four-year old daughter safe, but doing so is becoming increasingly difficult even in his isolated riverside home. Nine years have passed since the undead grey men first appeared and ended civilization, and while most of the scattered remaining humans have settled into a routine of bare survival in small towns, the order of Darrell’s life never quite recovered. When everyone else in the town near his home is killed in an unexpectedly coordinated attack by the grey men, he and his daughter flee to Alden Ridge, where they are welcomed because Darrell was once a doctor.

Together with Elaine Ward and the other few inhabitants of an old factory on the outskirts of town, Darrell hopes he can finally create a good life for his daughter. But the grey men in the wilderness around Alden Ridge are becoming more aggressive and violent, and it is clear that the town will soon fall. Darrell and Elaine do their best to try to hold the people together, but the situation deteriorates even further when two men claiming to be military scouts arrive in town—they say theirs is a mission of aid, but Darrell believes they were involved in his wife’s murder. Darrell and Elaine’s only hope of saving Alden Ridge is to somehow discover the secrets behind the rise of the grey men and the fall of the modern world.

Thoughts? Suggestions? These are the questions that I'm most conscious of:

1) Is it still too much like a synopsis?
2) Do you get enough of a sense of Darrell's character?
3) Does Darrell seem more heroic in this version?
4) Does it bug you that I reveal next to nothing about Elaine?
5) Does the last line need a better transition from the one before it?
6) Is there any place where it just seems like I didn't give enough info?
7) Does any part of it (first paragraph in particular) still seem too much like lead-up?
8) Do you get enough sense of the setting?
9) Anything else that rubs you the wrong way?
10) Finally: Does this seem like a genuine improvement over my old hook, or is it just different?

All comments are much appreciated.

UPDATE #1: This has been slightly revised after some awesome comments at FFF.
UPDATE #2: This has been revised again for clarity in a few places based on some more great comments at FFF, and the last paragraph has also been tightened a bit in response to excellent feedback from Rachel Olivier.

10 Thoughts on hook writing

After reading a large selection of the hooks over at the Fangs, Fur, & Fey contest, and getting feedback on my own hook, I've started to recognize what makes a hook fade into the background. Not making my own hooks do so is still a huge challenge, but at any rate I'm now better able to judge the hooks for books I don't have any other knowledge on. Hopefully that will have some value to my own hook-writing, but that remains to be seen.

Here are the general things that I have found that kill my interest in a hook:

1. Everything is too generic. The story and characters just seem to be a composite of existing published books in the genre, with nothing new.

2. No emotional connection with the characters. Or worse, the reader quickly comes to hate the characters. We have to see these characters as actual people, and they have to be in situations that one way or another make us identify with them in some way. They can't be too godlike, or nothing but flaws.

3. The plot/setting/premise seems flawed or unrealistic. Generally speaking, when someone reads your hook, what you tell them is all they know. So when key information is omitted, or your description is such that it seems like there is a simple and obvious solution (even though the obvious solution might well be disqualified in the book itself), that seems like a logic error to the reader, and that's pretty fatal.

4. Overly wordy. Too many hooks just aren't economical with word choice, and so the rhythm and clarity of the writing both take a huge hit. Even writers who are excellent in longer form will freeze up and have all sorts of awkward wording in this ultra-short format.

5. Voice and style get lost. In too many hooks, perhaps even including my own, the writer is so focused on efficiently conveying information that their own voice and style get lost. It can make for a rather boring or monotonous read if care is not taken.

6. The presentation is too complex. Complex ideas are great in books, and one of the beautiful things about books is that they are long enough to express these ideas while still telling an engaging story. Unfortunately, hooks are far too short to do this, and from a standpoint of sales it seems like the engaging story part wins out. Hinting is complexity is good, and striking new ideas are great, but trying to explain too many plot twists or too much of your complex worldbuilding can really bog down a hook in a bad way. Remember: you're obviously going to have to leave some parts of your book out of your hook--otherwise there wouldn't be much need for a book-length version, would there?

7. The material is too simple. There were a few hooks posted that were just way too short. They were on the order to 50-100 words, and just did a little bit of description of the world and the overarching problem. Some didn't even mention any specific characters, which is obviously a problem. Even though you can't (and shouldn't) outline every part of your story in your hook, there needs to be enough there to properly hint at all the great things that await those who read the entire thing.

8. Misspellings. This one seems pretty inexcusable to me. This is a short enough piece of text that it should be highly polished. If you've got one or two misspellings in your hook, it's a red flag that your ms might be littered with them. It seems like a lot of people don't know the difference between "lose" and "loose," which is really a pet peeve of mine. Almost as much as "their" and "there" and "they're," and "lead" versus "led."

9. Rhetorical Questions? Have you ever had your eyebrows plucked by a superhero waitress? It's really irritating when a question is asked that has an obviously negative answer. Or, if the answer is obviously positive, it still begs a negative answer from the irritated reader (Have you ever wished you were fabulously rich?). Maybe this doesn't bug some people, but I know that agent Nathan Bransford has commented on this several times before.

10. Self Praise. This just doesn't work. Discussing how brilliant you think your book is, or all the wonderful lessons that it has to teach humanity, just doesn't come across. You can't claim that your own book is smart or funny and have a reader believe you--you have to show them. Really, this is back to that "show, don't tell" mantra.

So, that's my ten things (in no particular order). Now, which ones have I fallen prey to? In THE GUARDIAN's hook I had a problem with #1, having things sound too generic. In ALDEN RIDGE's current hook, I'm perhaps a little bit too distant from the characters, thus indicating #2. In the past, I've had a lot of trouble with #4, being overly wordy, but I hope I'm past that now. Item #6 (too complex) has been something that I've intentionally been avoiding, but that often makes me fall prey to #7 (too simple). It's a fine line, and I have yet to find the perfect balance there. At least I don't do any of the others (that I know of).

Hook writing is a tricky business, and in many ways requires different skills than actually writing a good book does. But it's one of those necessary evils, so we all have to get really good at it. That's why I started so early with my hook for ALDEN RIDGE--it gives me months and months to rethink it and revise. There's nothing worse than spending a year or more to write your book, then a month or two to polish it and make revisions based on beta reader feedback, and then sending out queries with a crappy hook that you wrote in a few hours or days. That's what I did with THE GUARDIAN, and that was a mistake. Please don't do the same!

My Hook is Posted

In the Fangs, Fur, & Fey contest, my hook was #129. I didn't make it to the pages round, but the judge did have some good comments:

Sounds like a nice creepy post-apoc tale, and the writing seems smooth. I
do indeed want to know why the gray men rose and the modern world fell.
Unfortunately this is more a recitation of plot events (they go downriver, they
find other survivors, there's an expedition that ends in disaster, etc.) than a
sense of what the story is actually about. It feels like you're standing too
close to the forest so all you can point out are trees-- you need to stand back
and give us a better sense of the shape of the forest itself, the overarching
scope, the throughline, of the story. If Darrell and Elaine need to save Alden
Ridge from Stantonsburg's fate (which was what, exactly? 'overrun' vague.
Details would be good here), and they need to discover the secrets behind why
their world is the way it is, then that should form the focus and body of your
hook -- right or wrong, that's the sense of story I'm getting here, because it's
the last sentence of your hook that engages and intrigues me. The rest feels
like lead-up. Also, give us some sense of characterization, who Darrell and
Elaine are. Right now they're just names. And I'm assuming Darrell is the
protag?

Also, how and why did this woman Elaine 'coerce' him into what seems a
rescue mission? If she's forcing him to do something he doesn't want to do, that
doesn't really seem like a promising start to a relationship--and Darrell
doesn't seem particularly heroic. Which is fine if that's how he starts out the
story – caring only for himself and his kid -- but he needs to change and grow
through the story, and the reader needs a better sense of how he does that.

Some potential here, but not ready yet. Pass.

So, looks like I'm getting better at hook writing, but I'm still not as good as I would like. On the bright side, I think my sample pages are so vastly much stronger that they alone will be a big aid in convincing agents that they want to request a partial when I start submitting ALDEN RIDGE. I'll have to keep working on my hook, too, of course, but fortunately I've started early and can go through a number of drafts if I have to. Hmm. It's a lot easier to recognize what's good and what's not in other people's hooks than it is to craft one of my own. But I feel like I'm getting better, and that's all anyone can really do--keep getting better.

Hooks

The first 25 hooks are up for the Fangs, Fur, & Fey contest. If you have time, it's great reading and I'm sure the authors would all really like community feedback. There's already been a lot of feedback from many people, but one can never have too much information, right? So far I've been making comments for each of the hooks posted, but I don't know if I'll be able to continue that through the entire contest--only 10% of the entries have even been released so far! Hopefully the judges will keep releasing them gradually, which will make this easier on everyone else, but I know they have lives too, and their own work.

All of this commenting has cut into my writing time a lot, but I don't mind a bit. In the process of reading all these hooks, I'm starting to see them more like an agent or an editor would, and that's invaluable for my own hook writing. It's funny how certain hooks just immediately stand out because of their ideas or voice, while others lose me nearly as immediately because of muddled language. Plus, it's always easier to recognize what others do right--and wrong--than it is to see in your own writing. If you're a student of hook-writing, as any aspiring novelist has to be, reading and reviewing these hooks can be a pretty valuable experience.

Revised ALDEN RIDGE Hook

After a lot of editorial help from my wife, I now have an updated version of my ALDEN RIDGE hook to show you. The content is basically the same as the first version, but the writing is condensed by about 70 words or so, and it includes a lot more descriptive imagery. It also eliminates a few awkward wordings ("Those two alone," for instance), and combines several sentences that were previously only expressing half-ideas. Here it is:

The year is 2018, and it has been nearly a decade since civilization ended at the hands of the undead grey men—all that remains are small bands of survivors huddling in isolated towns. Darrell Williams and his four year-old daughter Lela drift downriver after escaping from Stantonsburg, which has been overrun. They find shelter at an abandoned factory just outside of Alden Ridge, where Elaine Levine-Ward and several other survivors have been living ever since That Day. No one notices the menace that has drifted downriver with them.

When Darrell arrives, the rest of the factory’s inhabitants have not yet returned from scavenging sulfur at an abandoned farm. Elaine coerces Darrell into an expedition to find them—but the rescue ends in disaster. After nine years of constancy, the grey men are suddenly becoming more violent and aggressive, and frighteningly persistent. Soon other dark creatures—some of them human—begin creeping into town. Darrell and Elaine’s only hope of saving Alden Ridge from Stantonsburg’s fate is to somehow discover the secrets behind the rise of the grey men, and the fall of the modern world.

My opening and closing sentences are virtually unchanged, but the interior of the two paragraphs had a fair bit of work done on them. I think the ending sentence of the first paragraph is particularly more powerful than in the first version (which was pathetically generic, cliche, and empty, I now realize). Hopefully this new version of the hook will maintain a constant, high level of reader interest throughout. But there's always still room for improvement. Any thoughts?

Alden Ridge Hook, and Fangs, Fur, & Fey Contest

Never pass up an opportunity for good feedback. To that end, I note that there is a contest going on at Fangs, Fur, & Fey. Hopefully you've all seen this contest before now, especially if you're an urban fantasy writer. But the contest is open to writers of fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, and other genres, so you might be able to participate even if you don't write urban fantasy. They will be accepting up to 180 hooks, which will be public posted and reviewed by a panel of judges. The best 12 will get to submit the first 5 pages of their work, and those will also be publicly posted and reviewed. The winner gets to have their first 50 pages or first 3 chapters critiqued by literary agent Rachel Vater. That's a great prize, but just being part of the contest itself, and having your hook reviewed, would be wonderful.

So, I've been working on a hook for ALDEN RIDGE, which I'm presently billing as supernatural thriller. Obviously ALDEN RIDGE isn't finished yet, but that isn't a condition of the contest. Since this book is my primary focus right now, this is the one that I'm going to submit to the contest. It opens tonight at 12 AM, and that's when I intend to make my submission. Here's my hook (which has no more spoilers than the back of a book):

The year is 2018, and it has been nearly a decade since civilization ended at the hands of the undead grey men. All that remains of our world are small bands of survivors huddling in isolated towns. Darrell Williams has been living with his four year-old daughter Lela in Stantonsburg, but after years of attacks their town is finally overrun. Those two alone escape to Alden Ridge, a neighboring town with fully thirty survivors. There the situation has not yet become dire—but everything starts to change when Darrell and Lela arrive.

Elaine Levine Ward has been living with her boyfriend Jeff in an abandoned factory just outside Alden Ridge ever since That Day. When Darrell arrives, it has been nearly a full day since Jeff left to scavenge sulfur from an abandoned farm. Elaine reluctantly gives Darrell and Lela shelter on the condition that Darrell will help rescue Jeff—but the rescue ends in disaster, and Elaine and Darrell barely escape the farm with their own lives. After nine years of constancy, the grey men are suddenly becoming more violent and aggressive, and frighteningly persistent. Soon other dark creatures—some of them human—begin creeping into town, and there are more deaths. Darrell and Elaine’s only hope of saving Alden Ridge from Stantonsburg’s fate is to somehow discover the secrets behind the rise of the grey men, and the fall of the modern world.

What do you think? Suggestions would be appreciated, and I'd be more than happy to look at the hooks of others, too.

Combined Hook

I got wonderful feedback on the two hooks that I posted this morning. Thanks to everyone who voiced their opinion; it was all a really great help! The general consensus seemed to be that there were good and bad aspects to both of my hooks, however, and so I'm now putting forth a third hook that attempts to combine the good aspects of the original two hooks. If you have any more comments (good, bad, or ugly--don't hold back), I'd love to hear them. No matter what, I think that this is definitely the strongest hook I've ever had--though there's always room for improvement.

Oh, and one other thing: this new hook doesn't even touch on the Big Spoiler, and there's nothing else here that I wouldn't be comfortable putting on the back of the book. So, read on without fear.

At age twenty-four, with a college degree under his belt and a good job as a guardian magi for a small company, Sean Sunderland feels like he has a pretty good handle on his life. What he never suspected was how much of his life was based on lies. The Otherworld in which he works is actually just one small part of an ancient world that few suspect exists, and a race of demons wants Sean for its own because of magical powers he doesn't even know he has. Even Sean's parents seem to be hiding something--his connection to the Otherworld may be stronger than he knows.

It isn't until the demons try to capture Sean that he becomes aware that his world isn't what he thought. Though he hides his abilities from his family and most of his coworkers, those who are aware of his true nature are unwilling to let him return to the life he loved. The free peoples of the Otherworld want Sean to unseat the lord of the demons, the demons demand that Sean join their ranks or die, and a ten thousand year old vampire needs Sean's help to save his descendants from a malevolent phantasm. Somehow, Sean will have to master his powers well enough to protect himself and those he cares about not only from the demons, but also from the darkness within himself.

New Hooks

Okay, well, based on the feedback that I have received I have now cooked up another couple of hooks that I can potentially use. The hooks themselves have a lot of spoilers in them, and so have been blacked out--you have to highlight them with the cursor to see the text. That way, those of you who don't want anything spoiled won't accidentally read these without meaning to.

Option 1 (focus on powers):

Sean Sunderland grew up thinking that his greatest gift was simply to become a guardian magi who could protect corporations from magical intrusion and the specters that roam the Otherworld. But when the demons try to capture him after his college graduation, Sean discovers that he is one of the last Thaumaturges--powerful magi who can work magic without the runes and amulets that are normally required. Sean's magic is virtually unlimited, bounded only by what he can comprehend in sufficient detail. The problem is, though Sean can already create 300 meter fireballs and slow time, he has very little control over his magic. His magic seems to make him invincible, but the reflexive nature of it also makes him dangerous to everyone around him.

Though he hides his abilities from his family and most of his coworkers, there are ancient creatures who are not willing to let him ignore his abilities. The Eldest Dragon wants Sean to unseat the lord of the demons, the demons demand that Sean join their ranks or die, and a ten thousand year old vampire needs Sean's help to save his descendants from an evil phantasm. Sean knows he will ultimately have to face the demons--but what he doesn't realize is just how terrible their power is, for they are Thaumaturges also, and much more practiced. They kill him and turn him into one of them. Somehow, even as a demon, Sean will have to master his powers well enough to protect himself and those he cares about from not only the other demons, but also the darkness within himself.

Option 2 (focus on intrigue):

At age twenty-four, with a college degree under his belt and a good job as a guardian magi for a small company, Sean Sunderland feels like he has a pretty good handle on his life. What he never suspected was how much of his life was based on lies. The Otherworld in which he works is actually just one small part of an ancient world that few suspect exist, and a race of demons want Sean for their own because of magical powers he doesn't even know he has. Even Sean's parents seem to be hiding something--his connection to the Otherworld may be stronger than he knows.

It isn't until the demons try to capture Sean that he becomes aware that his world isn't what he thought. As Sean is pulled ever more into a struggle as old as humanity itself, it becomes increasingly clear that the life he had struggled for years to build is lost. Even his newfound powers aren't enough to resist the demons--it isn't long before they kill him and turn him into one of them. Despairing at his undeath and desperate to escape the demon civilization in which he is now held captive, Sean must hold fast to his human identity if he ever hopes to escape and save those who still matter most to him.

For those of you who wish to read these hooks, please let me know what you honestly think of them. It would also be useful to me to know which parts catch your eye, if anything does. And also the reverse: what seems prosaic or cliche? I might do a third hook sometime soon, if these don't seem strong enough. For those of you who wish to have nothing spoiled, I'd suggest staying out of the comments section for this particular post, too.

Hook Advice?

All right, here's an area where my knowledge and skill at sales/marketing are apparently falling short: the hook. I think I'm pretty good at writing synopses now, and good with some other aspects of the query letter, but I'm having trouble distilling a compelling hook for THE GUARDIAN, which is after all a relatively complex book. The faults in my hook are most recently evidenced by literary agent Rachel Vater's hook critique, to which I submitted my hook (I'm #25, but don't read it if you don't want to know a major spoiler). Her entire comment was: "Alternate worlds, demons trying to kill people with magical powers for some reason. Nothing here really caught my eye."

Ouch. I even sent her my new-and-improved version of my hook, rather than the one I had previously been sending to agents. I've gotten personal responses based on my writing quality, I think, more so than my query itself, and I think my query--most specifically the hook--has been what has been holding me back from getting more requests for the full. Certainly I've gotten good comments from the two professional readers who have read the entire thing (Matt Bialer and Beverly Swerling), but neither one of them decided to read the entire thing because of my hook or query letter alone.

So, I'm realizing that if I hope to get another agent to pick up THE GUARDIAN based on the query letter and sample chapters alone, my best chance at that is to have a much stronger hook than I presently do. I've already gotten some excellent advice from Karen Mahoney, but I thought I would make a formal post about this and see what ideas or techniques everyone else has, too. For some reason, as much as I've read comments from agents and other writers, I just don't quite "get it" yet when it comes to hooks. Somehow my book, which has been praised as being very original by those who have actually read the whole thing, comes off sounding more than a little cliche when I try to write my hook (in all fairness, I tried writing hooks for other works, like THE MATRIX and THE DARK IS RISING, and somehow I manage to make those sound cliche, too. Yikes, I must be doing something wrong).

So, any thoughts?