Try some; it's good.
Wherein I ramble about books, movies,
music, TV shows, my life, and occasionally, hot emo boys.
My Books
Current WiP
My ValentineGuide sequel = DONE
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Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Workshop Wednesday - the Hook
I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack. Miss me?
First, I hope you all enjoyed the holidays, however and whatever you celebrate, and now I trust you're all ready to embrace the new year with all its challenges. You are? Fabulous!
Onward to the day's topic then. (No, I'm not going to re-tell the story about the escaped criminally insane guy who terrorizes young lovers making out on a lonely country road.)As I was skimming through blogs to see what I've missed over the past three weeks, I came across this post by Agent Kristin on Romancing the Blog. What she says about the importance of a good hook is certainly worth reading, but sometimes writers mix up hooks with simple plot devices. Miss Snark has been helping with the development of hooks for the crapometer as well, but she's asking for a hook in under 250 words.
Here, I'm going to do it a little bit differently. I sold Guide recently (more news on that in a subsequent post), so I've been working on book blurbs for it, which includes a hook (occasionally called a tagline). One of these needs to be fewer than two hundred characters (that's including letters and spaces!) At the most basic level, the hook is exactly what it sounds like: a twist that draws your reader into your story from the jump and makes him / her want to read on. You should be able to put your finger on what that would be, and if you can't, then maybe you've written a story that (eek!) doesn't have one (or needs a stronger one, something that pops). So for the purposes of this Workshop Wednesday, think about the book you just finished and then try to come up with a one-line hook that will make me drool.
Here's what I came up with for Guide:
Good girl gone bad -- anything goes in the name of research.
Is that the best I can do? You tell me. Does it make you want to read more? I'm still pondering since it can be hard to boil the premise of your book down to one killer sentence. Now you try! We'll talk about them in comments, and maybe we can help each other out.
Tomorrow, I'm reviewing Twice Upon a Road Trip by Shannon Stacey for Ebook Thursday. Stay tuned.
First, I hope you all enjoyed the holidays, however and whatever you celebrate, and now I trust you're all ready to embrace the new year with all its challenges. You are? Fabulous!
Onward to the day's topic then. (No, I'm not going to re-tell the story about the escaped criminally insane guy who terrorizes young lovers making out on a lonely country road.)As I was skimming through blogs to see what I've missed over the past three weeks, I came across this post by Agent Kristin on Romancing the Blog. What she says about the importance of a good hook is certainly worth reading, but sometimes writers mix up hooks with simple plot devices. Miss Snark has been helping with the development of hooks for the crapometer as well, but she's asking for a hook in under 250 words.
Here, I'm going to do it a little bit differently. I sold Guide recently (more news on that in a subsequent post), so I've been working on book blurbs for it, which includes a hook (occasionally called a tagline). One of these needs to be fewer than two hundred characters (that's including letters and spaces!) At the most basic level, the hook is exactly what it sounds like: a twist that draws your reader into your story from the jump and makes him / her want to read on. You should be able to put your finger on what that would be, and if you can't, then maybe you've written a story that (eek!) doesn't have one (or needs a stronger one, something that pops). So for the purposes of this Workshop Wednesday, think about the book you just finished and then try to come up with a one-line hook that will make me drool.
Here's what I came up with for Guide:
Good girl gone bad -- anything goes in the name of research.
Is that the best I can do? You tell me. Does it make you want to read more? I'm still pondering since it can be hard to boil the premise of your book down to one killer sentence. Now you try! We'll talk about them in comments, and maybe we can help each other out.
Tomorrow, I'm reviewing Twice Upon a Road Trip by Shannon Stacey for Ebook Thursday. Stay tuned.
Labels: Workshop Wednesday
Oh, man! I just did a hook and now you want a tagline, too? Oh, dear.
I'm gonna need a day or two on this one. My head is still all over the place from the holidays and my little one waking me up at 5 this morning after I went to bed at one. Gah!
Did you have a good break?
First, a big congratulations on selling Guide! I'm so pleased to hear that and can't wait for details.
Second, I wanted to mention that I've been reading Loser's Waltz and loving it (especially the bit about hoping the shoes are made from real men--that gave me quite a chuckle).
Third, I like your tagline for Guide.
As you may have realized from my blog, I'm definitely having trouble with this tagline thing. But then, I'm having trouble getting my book out in under 125,000 words, so brevity is clearly not the soul of my wit!
Like the tag line for Guide, 'good girl gone bad' might be a bit vague or cliched, but the 'anything goes...' opens up possibilities that definitely leave me curious!
Pitches and hooks and tag lines, oh my! I thought 250 wrds was agony, you want 250 characters INCLUDING SPACES? I'm getting ready to agent search for the latest wip, so the timing of this is perfect. I need all the help I can get, so have at it, folks!
1st attempt:
Cougar 98.7’s Dream Date contest brings together Lacy Monroe, an outspoken talk radio host, and Reid Walker, a handsome fire fighter who thinks she should be censored. He reconsiders censorship when he discovers the joy of being with a woman who speaks her mind. But when a telephone stalker questions Lacy’s virtue based on her radio persona, she decides in addition to being her Mr. Right now, Reid could be right. (417 w/spaces) ACK!
A dream date contest brings together controversial DJ, late night Lacy, and a disgruntled listener who thinks she should be censored. (133 w/spaces)
All comments welcome (but I'd appreciate it if you'd leave the WTF's? out :)
Can't wait to hear the details of the sale, Annie!
Anyhow. Yeah. I had a good break.
Lemme think...
kay, how about...
Too hot for the FCC - right wing meets left wing... in the middle of the mattress.
(Or something along those lines)
Whatcha think?
I liked the work you were doing on query letters, Jac. Yay for Workshop Wednesday!
Glad you liked our little "workshop", such as it is. Totally coincidental, of course. And we're carrying on again today and possibly tomorrow as well.
I'll think about a tagline for yours, although "Who would've thought she could con the con man out of his heart?" would make a great one, I think.
Interesting idea. I love that line in the query letter, even though it's not mine.
How about "Who would have thought an straightlaced Victorian spinster could con the con man out of his heart?" A little longer, but it gets across time period despite the modern word ("con" is 20th century and American) and also sets up the conflict--the heroine's uprightness contrasted with the hero's naughtiness (even though he's really a very good, noble guy!).
Oh, that's GOOD.
I like the addition of "Victorian" because that identifies the time period. However, if you remove it, you've got some fabulous alliteration, which is great in a tagline.
Dream Date contest brings together Lacy Monroe, an outspoken talk radio host, and Reid Walker, a handsome fire fighter who thinks she should be censored.
Isn't that 250ish characters?
It needs to snap. If the main characters strike sparks off each other, then it needs to reflect in the tagline.
And I think I'm going to post several versions of this new tagline for mine on my blog (with and without the "Victorian")and see which one works best for the my "public." (I like to pretend I have one, LOL!)
T'anks for the input, ladies! Back to the drawing board.
Jaq, if you dropped 'spinster' (which is a word that also has slightly dull connotations) you could keep the alliteration by using "Victorian vixen" or "virtuous Victorian virgin" ???
He was a half-Arab bastard duke. She was a spinster. He had a huge throbbing erection. No man had ever penetrated her vagina. He would penetrate her. She would like it. No spinster should think about things like throbbing erections.
That's a parody of course. But I digress. Too much alliteration isn't good. I think virtuous virgin vixen wanders into purple-helmeted warrior territory. :D
I think "straightlaced spinster" is almost the perfect two-word description for my heroine, at least when it comes to setting up the conflict between her and my hero. She is slightly dull when the story begins; she's certainly very off men, LOL!
See, I think it's okay for a character to be "dull" in the beginning, because it gives you room for them to grow over the course of the book. This is quite different than having a dull story, in my opinion. Furthermore, often it provides an interesting contrast if one character is staid and the other is wild.
Uhm. Where was I going with this again? Oh right! I think "straitlaced spinster" works wonderfully.
Alliteration hmm 'mouthy meets moral in the middle of the mattress' :)
mouthy meets moral in the middle of the mattress
Although I think you think you're joking, I love this! But then, I'm a sucker for alliteration (my CPs are always pointing out to me the places were I overalliterate, LOL!)
*raises hand* I like it too!
Or maybe you could do something with the phrase "Morality check?" It popped into my head for some reason and I have a tagline on the tip of my tongue in relation to it. I'll keep pondering.
(Annie, are you pondering what I'm pondering?)
(I think so, Lain, but where are we going to find a duck and a hose at this hour?)
Forgot to say congrats Annie! Go you!!
And lol on the purple prose. I almost woke the baby laughing.
I have a LOT of news to post so I'm going to devote a whole blog entry to it (with particulars) soon. There's just too much stuff going on (and cha-cha-changes! *sings*) for me to handle it in a PS type addendum to another entry.