This is the second in a series of articles on writing a book proposal. In this article, I want to talk about that infamous “hook” that everyone speaks.

What is a “hook?”

In fact, the hook is not part of the proposal is part of the letter. By submitting a proposal to an editor or agent, including a letter in the top that says the editor or agent what you are getting. (So ​​I know it’s a book proposal, not a load of toilet paper.)

The catch is that part of the letter that called the editor by the collar and forced to read the proposal. Editors may have dozens of proposals a week. However, each editor has the same 40-hour work week for all others. (All the editors who read this article are inhaling -?? “40 hours What is a weed
Randy smoking? “) So well, the publishers have the same 80 hours a week than the others.

So when you open the publisher of the proposal for you, your first sentence is: “Please God, help me to find a quick reason to say NO.” (The second sentence is: “Please, let this be the
JK Rowling follows. “)

Editors to work fast. A good editor can scan a letter in less than 10 seconds and see if it is not good. And a letter that is there in the
page as the cooked tofu is not good.

A hook does not have to be sexy. It can be as simple as this:

“I recently met you at the XYZ Conference of writing, and asked me to send the proposal for my novel, Alphabet Soup. I am enclosing here.”

That’s not sexy. That is simply telling the editor that is already interested in your proposal so you can put on the stack. That’s all you need.

If you use this hook, you better be telling the truth. If you are in this stage of the game, it is very likely to be captured and he was dog meat. NOT based on a poor memory editor!

If you have not met the editor at a conference, then you have to draw attention to the enormous merit. Here is an example of a hook used for years to capture the interest of a top agent in New York. This was for a historical novel he was writing:

“Have you ever wanted to murder were legal? Not so many centuries ago, is gone!”

The next paragraph of my letter said the old “law of the avenger of blood” and then gave a brief summary of my protagonist seeking revenge.

The agent liked that hook therefore requested the first chapter. He liked the chapter enough to ask the full manuscript. He did not like the story enough to want to represent me, but at least she reads it. Without a good hook, he would never have happened.

What made this work hook was its paradoxical nature. How is it possible murder legal? If you use a paradox of this kind, must be able to explain quickly
and then tie the game in their history.

Another option for your hook is to focus on himself. If you have any special qualifications to write his novel, this may be particularly effective. For
example, none of these pajamas lit a publisher:

“I have been a homicide cop in Los Angeles for 30 years and I’m writing a series of police procedures in Hollywood.”

“I work in the laboratory of a Nobel Prize winning chemist and I’m writing a novel about big science has gone wrong.”

“I am a cardiac surgeon medical writing a novel.”

“I have traveled in herds so long that I have no left intact bone in my body, and I’m writing a novel about a seller of Mary Kay with marital problems.”

Oops! No! If you are going to show what an interesting person you are, your life better than tying your novel. Have the latest in a novel about “rodeo clowns”
or “gay cowboys” or “a comedy ranch” and you have something to do.

A hook is a summary of a sentence in its history. However, if you have a strong enough short one sentence, then you do not need a hook. And more
summaries of a sentence may be enhanced by a good hook.

Here’s an example from one of my own books, where I made the hook with one-sentence summary:

“I am a theoretical physicist at Berkeley to write a novel about a rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul.”

Not bad, eh?

Note that the summary of a sentence would have been quite strong for itself: “A rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul.”

But seeing how hard it is to include the hook: “… I am a theoretical physicist at Berkeley to write a novel”

In this case, the hook makes it clear that bring something to the party just over an intriguing history.

In the end, your writing will stand or fall on its own merits. However, a good hook (and a good summary of a sentence) can give you a chance to fight with that annoying editor still up at 2 am cut open envelopes and hoping that everyone is too horrible for words or too great for hitch.

A hook at the end of my own: to discuss the role of hooks, one-sentence summaries, and letters in the conference on the proposals in my fiction 201 per course, I
just released today. Yes, I am a clever devil, not me?

About the author:

The award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake guy” Advanced Writing fiction published E-zine, with more than 21,000 readers each month. If you want to learn the art and the marketing of fiction, and make your writing more valuable to publishers, and have fun doing, http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com visit.