Hooks
Hooks 229, 228, 227, 226, 225, 224, 223, and 222
Hook #229
Science Fiction
Jessie Connell can handle being kidnapped by a homeless man calling himself “Achilles.” An unemployed bartender, Jessie has had plenty of run-ins with eccentric criminals and low-lifes. But being taken back in time to 2500 B.C., where she must fight a sinister alien posing as a Sumerian goddess, is a tough new reality to accept.
Jessie’s last night of court-mandated community service ends with her falling into a war between aliens and time travelers. The alien Nefarlum posed as the gods of the ancient world. For centuries, they have experimented on humans in the hopes of turning mankind into a billion-strong army with which they can conquer the stars. Now, warriors from various periods of human history-would-be “godkillers” recruited by an enigmatic time traveler-have assembled to fight the Nefarlum. Only they need Jessie to succeed.
What help can an out-of-work bartender with a criminal record offer? The answer lies in Jessie’s past and her previous life. For Jessie learns she is the clone of an Amazon queen and lover of the alluring yet bloodthirsty Achilles. The same Achilles who kidnapped Jessie needs her to free the fabled city of Sumer from the diabolical “goddess” Ishtar. Yet doing so will sever Jessie’s link to her twentieth century existence. With an apocalyptic time-war looming between godkillers and Nefarlum, Jessie faces the choice of sacrificing her identity to save mankind’s past and future. Unless she can find another alternative, one neither aliens nor time travelers could ever image.
A new world awaits Jessie…if she can take it.
Notes:
Judge’s Comments: You’ve got a great opening sentence here, but after that, things get somewhat muddled. Since you mention Achilles at the end of the first sentence, starting the second one with a clause that refers to Jessie forced me to think just enough that it drew me out of the text. Beyond that, I think the first paragraph is strong. By acknowledging that this is a tough reality for Jessie to accept, you buy some
of the suspension of disbelief necessary when you’re dealing with time-traveling alien goddesses.
For me, the second paragraph felt like a major change of focus. You’ve told us that Jessie has been kidnapped, that she’s supposed to fight an alien goddess, and that this is predictably bewildering for our bartending heroine, but then, instead of building
on that, you (a) reference Jessie’s community service, which comes out of nowhere and seems superfluous, and (b) spend the rest of the second paragraph talking about alien politics, without any reference to Jessie. To strengthen this hook, frame the back-story more in terms of Jessie’s discovery of it, so that we don’t lose sight of our MC during the info dump. I’d also like to get a better sense for Jessie’s conflict, because as it reads now, she’s choosing between staying in the modern world (where she is unemployed and constantly has run-ins with criminals and low lifes) and waiting for aliens to enslave her entire race, or fighting a war alongside a mythic lover from a past life. This could just be me, but I’m having trouble seeing why option A is appealing enough to provide Jessie with a dilemma.
Overall, I think you need more of a focus on Jessie personally. Aim for the tone of the first paragraph throughout, and if there’s any chemistry between Achilles and Jessie in her current incarnation, I might opt for playing up that element and giving fewer
specifics about what the evil aliens are trying to do. All we really need to know is that they’re evil aliens who want to enslave mankind, and that a force of good is traveling through time and amassing an army to stop them. The details about the Nerfarlum posing
as gods probably bring a lot of richness to the story, but in the hook, it primarily made me think “Huh. Sounds like Stargate.”
Hook #228
Young Adult/Fantasy
On April 2, 2003, ten year old Bronwin Sykes
emerged from a five day coma, her brain miraculously
spared after a Guinness Book record-setting fever of
108.5. However, her doctors were mystified as to
why she was left allergic to most of the modern
world. The police were mystified over the
disappearance of the highly controversial child
psychologist and dream scholar Dr. Lawrence
Fellowes, Bronwin’s estranged grandfather. Their
only eye witness claims that just before she fell
into her coma, she watched him vanish through a
glass wall in his South Carolina hothouse, never to
be seen or heard from again…
…except when his unpublished, much rumored
masterwork, How to Raise an Interesting Child,
arrives years later as Bronwin’s most unexpected
fifteenth birthday present.
Homeschooled and shuttled from doctor to doctor,
an adventure-starved Bronwin hopes to find clues to
her grandfather’s disappearance inside her
mysterious new book. What she doesn’t expect is the
handwritten note from Dr. Fellowes, challenging her
to use the book to find him. And that trying to read
any further makes really terrible things happen,
like transporting her and fellow outcast Molly to a
world suspiciously stitched together from the
nightmares she dutifully catalogued in her dream
journal while spending the summer with her
grandfather. Forced to rely on the increasingly
sinister book to navigate a land of terrifying
twins, flesh-eating angels and a certain handsome,
long dead explorer, Bronwin discovers frightening
powers of her own as she comes face to face with the
beings that are holding her grandfather prisoner.
When she learns the truth about the esteemed doctor,
she also learns the secret behind why the world is
plagued by nightmares - and why Dr.
Fellowes may be locked up for an extremely good
reason.
Notes:
This hook has a lot of good elements in it, but there
were a few things that threw me. The first was
Bronwin’s allergy. The double passive (her doctors
WERE mystified as to why she WAS left allergic) seems
awkward in comparison to your really well-constructed
and intriguing first sentence, and throughout the
hook, I never got a real sense for what exactly this
allergy entailed, or whether or not it has a logical
connection to her nightmares and the things she
discovers during the course of her journey into the
sinister. If the allergy has some really neat tie-in
to the supernatural elements you’re playing with here,
I think that’s interesting enough to merit at least an
allusion in the hook. If, on the other hand, the
purpose of Bronwin being allergic to everything is the
contribution it makes to her character and her desire
for adventure, you’d be much better off introducing it
through Bronwin’s perspective, rather than the
doctors’, and a sentence that gives us a better look
at what this means for Bronwin (can she only enter
clean rooms? Is she living in a bubble? Has it kept
her isolated from other kids her age? And if so, how
exactly does she meet Molly?) would go a long way
toward giving your reader a better idea of who Bronwin
is. I’d also recommend re-working the sentence about
the police being mystified- it took me a while to
figure out that Bronwin was the witness in question
(is that right?), because I couldn’t quite wrap my
mind around why she would have been spending time with
her “estranged” grandfather.
The set-up here- the isolated, mysteriously ill girl
who has to journey into a world constructed of her own
nightmares to save a person who might not deserve it-
has a lot of appeal, as does the mystery of what
exactly happened to throw Bronwin into her coma, but
in order to really grab the reader, I think your hook
needs to tap into what’s going on in Bronwin’s mind
when she wakes up. If Bronwin is isolated and haunted
by incomplete memories of what happened that summer,
we need to see that, because then her subsequent
journey takes on a lot more meaning. I’m not sure
what the tone of your book is, but if it’s surreal and
creepy (which is the impression I get from the plot),
try to capture that more in the tone of your hook. I
love the elements here; they just need a little more
finessing. Hook #228, send in your pages!
Hook #227
Urban Fantasy (or Contemporary Fantasy if angels and
demons in don't fit as 'urban fantasy')
The Sufi Creation story tells a different tale of
Lucifer's fall from Heaven -- that Lucifer left, of
his own accord, because he loved God too much to kneel
before man. 'Divine Invention' is a modern twist on
this classic tale.
If God created man in his own image, then surely he
created woman in that image too. Lucifer loves with
all of his heart the feminine Principal of
Divinity, but cannot bring himself to cherish the
masculine Omnus. Torn by his own inability to
love both sides equally, Lucifer turns his back on the
Heavenly Domain, forsaking the love of Divinity for
the cold comfort of the land of men.
Adbita, Divinity’s darker sibling, waits to tempt
Lucifer into joining her court but is rudely rebuffed
by the now neutral Lucifer. Imagine the agony that
Lucifer feels when he realizes that in retaliation,
Abdita has slowly been subverting Divinity's creation
-- blighting her vision, one human soul at a time.
What can Lucifer do to stop her, if he even can? What
wouldn't he do for the love of Divinity?
James is a pathetic loser that has managed to do one
decent thing in his life: he saved Beth, a young
prostitute who took him in when he was penniless and
on the streets. Together they flee to Las Vegas where
James will face a test of his sanity and Lucifer will
realize that James has an ability that he desperately
needs to succeed in thwarting Abdita's plan.
How far will Lucifer go to gain Abdita’s confidence?
Will James survive the coming clash with his sanity
intact? Can James and Lucifer together, stop
Armageddon?
Notes:
I had a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around this
hook, especially the mechanics of Lucifer’s fall. Why
exactly does Lucifer love the female and not the male?
And why would the fact that he loves one more than
the other compel him to leave heaven altogether? I’m
also really unclear on what the proper pronouns in
your second paragraph actually refer to. It seems
like Divinity and Omnus are beings, but the way
they’re introduced makes it really unclear exactly who
and what they are. Are they meant to be the two
halves of God? Or are they the male and female
versions of what God created? Regardless, when you’re
putting a new spin on something this well-known, it’s
important to be really clear about how your version
differs from the original- and that especially
includes new players.
Try re-working this hook with fewer broad statements
like “If God created man in his own image, then surely
he created woman in that image too,” and give us
action and specifics. Be clear about who the players
are and really sell us on Lucifer’s motivation. Steer
clear of sentence construction that ask questions or
command the reader. It’s better to tell us how far
Lucifer will go to gain Abdita’s confidence than to
ask us; it’s better to show us Lucifer’s agony than to
ask us to imagine it. If Lucifer is the focus of your
story, I don’t think you necessarily need to name or
give specifics about James, because that part felt odd
and rushed; if James is at the center of the story,
then you need to rework the hook with that in mind.
Hook #226
Fantasy
Every civilized Garatinian knows the barbarian steppe tribes scalp
their enemies and drink from their skulls. When Marcus, younger son of
a wealthy and powerful family serving as legionary tribune in the army
sent to conquer the barbarians, is captured by them, he expects slow
torturous death or slavery.
Instead, Marcus is adopted into the nomadic Hishtra to take the place
of a dead tribesman. Their bizarre gender roles and casual promiscuity
appal him, but slowly he adapts to their close-knit kin society. He
even becomes the lover of Red Mare, a powerful shaman. When Marcus at
last escapes, he is almost reluctant to return home -- almost.
Marcus finds a cold welcome. His return spoils his ambitious family's
plan to exploit his "death" as a rallying symbol against their
political rivals. His countrymen look down on him for assimilating,
even having been marked with one of the savages' tattoos.
Eventually Marcus returns to the steppes with another army sent to
crush the tribes' resistance. As one of the few Garatinians who can
speak Hishtra, he hopes to mediate and prevent wholesale slaughter.
Yet he is bitter and resentful, hating himself for having adapted to
the grasslands and Red Mare for "tempting" him.
Red Mare has her own troubles. Outcast for allowing Marcus to escape,
her shamanic talismans destroyed by her rivals, she is powerless and
surviving on sufferance.
For the Hishtra to survive, Marcus and Red Mare must work together
against enemies within both peoples driven by suspicion, greed, and
lust for conquest. Caught between factions of Hishtra who will brook
no compromise and Garatinians who intend to annihilate the barbarians,
how can they prevent the destruction of an entire culture?
Notes:
This feels very much like a summary to me, but on the
plus side, you’ve done a good job with showing us the
characters and conflict. That said, reading over
this, I can’t quite figure out what the hook is. It
reminds me of a lot of historical fiction I’ve read
that concentrates on the relationship between the
settlers and the Native Americans, and you don’t give
us enough insight into the fantasy elements to really
sell me on this taking place in a fantastical world.
Hook #225
Fantasy
The future seems bright for the pilgrim hostel nestling at the foot of a
holy and magic mountain. The war is over. Humans, elves, dwarfs and even
orcs can travel freely. After years of neglect, the hostel will soon be
thriving. At least that's what Ceri and Wil believe when they arrive to
take over as wardens.
But things don't go smoothly. The hostel and the stove like to play
tricks; and the previous warden still haunts the building. And when they
discover that the magic mountain is to be sold and moved away, they
realise that they face losing everything.
Some of the townspeople try the direct approach and attack the Earth
Mages contracted to fly the mountain to its new location. But violence
makes no impression on men who are capable of moving millions of tons of
rock.
But then Wil has a better idea. Why not raise enough money to put in a
higher bid?
Getting everyone to work together is not easy, especially when some of
the inhabitants most affected by the threatened move are not even human.
Wil becomes so wrapped up in the cause that he doesn't realise that his
obsession is threatening his marriage. Ceri, feeling neglected and cut
off from friends and family back home, is tempted to escape from all her
problems by running away with the young Earth Mage who has dazzled her
with his good looks.
Some of the fundraising methods are rather unconventional; others are
barely legal, and before the target is reached, a legacy of the recent
war threatens the lives of everyone. But by sticking together and
pooling their skills and knowledge, it's just possible that the solution
to one problem will also turn out to be the solution to the other.
Notes:
My first reaction to this hook is that the writing
itself needs a little reworking. You can break the
rule about starting a sentence with a conjunction, and
it’s not a big deal, but starting four sentences in
one hook with the word “but” is pushing things a
little, if only because the repetition of that
particular sentence structure makes for uninteresting
reading in terms of the language used. I know this is
nit-picking, but when you’ve only got three hundred
words, you really have to make them count and use the
hook as an opportunity to show off your writing, as
well as your ideas. For the same reason, be careful
about using a semi-colon AND a conjunction (“The
hostel and the stove like to play tricks; and the
previous warden still haunts the building”); you only
need one of them.
In terms of content, I think you need to decide what
the heart of this piece really is. If the focus is on
Ceri and Wil, and their relationship, then you need to
introduce that much sooner. You don’t even tell us
that the two are married until you mention that their
marriage is in trouble. If you want to focus more on
the people living around the mountain, then give us a
better sense for what the mountain means to them and
what its purpose actually is. So far, all we know is
that the mountain is “holy” and “magic.” For me,
that’s not enough to make me care that the mountain is
being carted away by Earth Mages.
This seems like it might be a fantasy tale that
parallels what happens when a big corporation
threatens to bulldoze a cherished town landmark, and
the townspeople band together despite their
differences to stop it. If that’s the case, then the
charm of your story is in that parallel, and I think
you need to try to make what your fantasy characters
are going through seem more universal and
approachable. Don’t worry so much about the magical
elements; concentrate on the people, and the
fantastical setting will speak for itself.
Hook #224
Fantasy
The king and queen are many years dead, the kingdom of Macaria decaying, and a threat looms in the north; the ruthless Iztak of Enzi, once a lord of no account, has overtaken neighboring holdings and named himself Archduke. So, who is the young woman captured along the border between Macaria and his domain - the woman dressed as Iztak's elite guard, the Enzish, and who is marked with his seven-pointed star? Some think she fled him, others that she was sent, but she possesses an ancient skill held only by those with royal blood. That skill could make her queen.
Notes:
This hook is far too generic. Right now, it’s
impossible for me to differentiate it from dozens of
other fantasies already on shelves. A hook needs
characters. It needs a conflict. You’ve hinted at
some mystery and intrigue here, but you don’t give us
anything to tell us what the stakes are. What is the
girl’s skill? Who is she and why should we care about
her? What does she want? What do ANY of the
characters want? I’ll presume that the Archduke wants
to rule the world/kingdom, but if the only
motivation/goal/desire in your hook is the villain’s,
and that desire is the basic stereotype of all
villainous desires, then you’re not telling your
reader anything that matters. You’ve got a good sense
of timing, and some of this vagueness is intriguing,
but if you want the intrigue to matter, you’ve got to
give us something to care about first.
Hook #223
When Nickolay Panov went to New York City for an international dance competition twenty five years ago, he was considered one of the best ballet dancers in Russia .The Americans say he was murdered. The Russian say he defected. In any case, he never returned.
Svetlana was only three years old when her father disappeared. In the mail today, Svetlana received a letter with an invitation inside to a salsa dance competition in New York City. At the bottom of the invitation was a note, “Please come to the competition and enter, my little lady.” No one but her father had ever called her that.
Just before Nickolay disappeared several priceless paintings and icons from a major museum were stolen. While he was often accused, there was no solid proof ever offered tying him to the theft. There was some evidence that the stolen goods had been shipped to America. The CIA and the Russian Government still pursued all leads connected to the heist, as well as the “New Russians”.
Why has her father surfaced after all of these years? Svetlana wanted answers, even if it meant entering the late night sultry world of Salsa dancing in St Petersburg and New York City.
Notes:
I should start off by saying that I love the fact
that you’ve set your mystery/thriller type story at
against the background of competitive dancing, and I
found your first paragraph really intriguing, but the
structure of the hook struck me as a little
disorganized. First, you talk about Nickolay. Then
you switch to Svetlana. Then you’re back to Nickolay
and more back story. And then we’re back to Svetlana
again. I think you could get rid of the second back
story paragraph (the one starting with “Just before
Nickolay disappeared”) altogether by including a
single sentence in the first paragraph indicating that
there was some suspicion that his disappearance might
have been tied to the museum theft. You could insert
something pretty easily right after “The Russians said
he defected,” and then you would be able to deliver
the entire back story with the punch of your first
paragraph.
The second thing I’d like to see out of this hook,
content-wise, is a little more about Svetlana and the
stakes of what becoming involved in this mystery means
for her character. The back story is great, but what
about the story itself. Is there gunfire? Does she
find her life at risk? Give us just a taste of the
action to come, and you can really up the tension and
momentum carried by the Svetlana-portion of the hook.
As a reader, I want to know that the excitement
begins, but does not end with the back story, and for
that, I think your hook needs just a little something
more.
Hook #222
Thriller
When Washington ’s most expensive prostitute is brutally murdered, hidden agendas and powerful personalities collide. Robert Tucker is trapped in the middle. A 235 lb Secret Service agent who lives with his mother, the only way he can prove that he isn’t the killer is by revealing a scandalous secret about his best friend the president. Tucker remains loyal but the killer strikes again and again, displaying growing confidence, anger and willingness to act out his violent, narcissistic fantasies. Each victim is shocked when, just moments before dying, they realize that someone they trust - someone so prominent - is a sadistic sociopath. Tucker has no alibi. He’s being framed by someone close enough to know when he’s home alone and someone who’s trying to force him to reveal his devastating secret.
Locked in a battle of wits, and facing death row if he loses, Tucker must unmask the killer. He visits the darkest corners of a serial killer’s mind and finds three clinical characteristics also common in politicians. Friends become suspects. So does a seemingly devout congressman and an ambitious senator’s aide. A colleague’s formerly innocent words, “I’m good at what I do,” now sound like the bragging of a narcissistic killer.
The lies pile up higher than the bodies and the only thing increasing faster than the pressure on the president to betray his closest friend is the danger; powerful people would be happier if Tucker were dead and the killer isn’t the only one planning a shocking surprise.
Notes:
I think this hook nails the structure of what a hook
needs to show us. We know who, we know what, and you
really give us a sense for the escalating tension of
the book. Well done on that. Writing wise, there are
a few things I noticed here that you could clean up a
bit. I’d avoid using the word “narcissistic” twice,
especially since it’s somewhat unclear what
“narcissistic fantasies” that involved killing another
person would be. Also, you should probably go back
over the whole thing, paying special attention to your
use (or non-use, as the case may be) of commas,
because there are at least four or five places where
your sentences aren’t quite grammatical. On a similar
grammar note, it should be “So DO a seemingly devout
congressman and an ambitious senator’s aide,” and if
you start a sentence with “A 235 lb Secret Service
agent who lives with his mother,” then the subject of
that sentence is technically supposed to be the person
to whom that refers.
Content-wise, this seems to be pretty standard
political thriller fare. The one thing that jumped
out at me was the reference to the psychological
similarities between serial killers and politicians.
While I love how clear and focused your hook is, it’s
also important to set your story apart from everything
else out there, and I think it could be worth thinking
about what it is that makes your story unique.