A revised query hook & a Flogometer prize

This business of writing novels has a never-ending learning curve, doesn't it? Even after you've learned enough about craft and storytelling to create a passable novel, then you've got to learn how to write a query letter. And the "hook."

"Hook" is what blogging agent  Miss Snark calls the collection of words that she wants to see in a query letter that compels her to ask for a sample of the novel. In her recent Happy Hooker Crapometer go-round, almost 700 writers submitted 250-word hooks to be judged. Or, in her case, snarked.

I was one of them. Here's the hook I submitted:

What if what we think of as "magic" is real? Not the anything-is-possible sorcery of Harry Potter, but the control of a natural energy to cure illness . . . to "fly" . . . or to kill?

What does having that ability do to people? What happens if we discover them living in secret among us?

In FINDING MAGIC, Ailia, a healer, has that ability. So do the clans made up of her kin that hide from normal society, fearing persecution. And so does Gabriel River, a man who "sees" when people lie and has been isolated by his otherness since childhood.

Ailia is a woman who loves too much. Crushed by grief when her beloved husband is killed, she aims to end her life -- but a pit bull of a Homeland Security agent discovers her "difference" and charges into pursuit.

Fleeing to protect her kin, Ailia draws Gabe into her escape. He learns that he and his five-year-old son share the lineage that gives Ailia her abilities, a gift that's driving Gabe's son into autism. Ailia's heart goes out to the child, and her desire for life returns.

But then a clan leader, seeking revenge for the murder of his son by ordinary people, creates a way to infect non-clan humankind with mad cow disease. With Homeland Security closing fast, only Ailia, with Gabe's help, can stop the plague. She's forced to choose between living while others die and sacrificing her newfound life to save humanity from a gruesome death.

Here's Miss Snark's reaction:

Too many people roaming around to make this easy to follow. Give us the main person. If she's got magical abilities why does she fear persecution? Surely she can just blister any enemies with a sneer? -- oh wait..thats Miss Snark! I meant to say blister her enemies with a wave of her hand.

And you've got a lot of bad guys: homeland security, rival clan leader, a plague.

I'm not sure what "real magic" is exactly and this doesn't help me figure it out. ( I know poodles can fly; I've seen it. And if you think people can't fly you haven't seen Miss Snark on the rope line for the red carpet at: Oceans 11, Oceans 12, syriana, the good german,the perfect storm, good night and good luck..well, you get the idea.)

You said "what does having that ability do to people" but we don't see anything about what it's like.

Okay, so for her it didn't work. However, a query letter based on this hook has so far generated requests for a partial and a full from agents, so there must have been elements that worked for them.

I could just tell myself that, well, this business is subjective and that maybe I don't need to rework my hook. Miss Snark's opinion is just the take of one person. And she doesn't even handle fantasy. And two agents did go for it, right?

Wrong. The learning curve is still there. While my query worked with two agents, it failed with, well, a multiple of that. Maybe a better "hook" would have made the difference. Maybe I can answer some of the questions/objections noted by her Snarkness.

So I rewrote the hook for my novel, using some of the insights garnered from Miss Snark's comments on hundreds of them. I have no idea whether or not this version would pass her muster. For one thing, it's more than 100 words longer. And I don't know if it has enough single-character focus to engage her.

But maybe it's better, although I'm feeling it's too long -- more of a mini-synopsis. Tell me what you think. Here's the version du jour.

The premise: While the anything-is-possible sorcery of Harry Potter is fantasy, I got to wondering: what if there's a real, limited-but-powerful natural energy that some people can control to manipulate objects . . . to cure illness . . . or to kill? What would having that ability do to people?

The story: Like most of her kindred, Ailia can control the free-flowing energy they call lledri. As her clan's healer, she uses it to cure sickness and heal wounds, but it can't help her overcome grief from her husband's murder. She's about to end her life when a pit bull of a Homeland Security agent detects Ailia's use of lledri. The agent attacks, believing that she's found a new kind of terrorist.

Because Ailia and the clans of her people live apart, fearing a return of the persecution of times past when they were tortured for being witches, she can't let the clans be discovered. She runs.

Ailia draws Gabe River into her escape, a man who "sees" when people lie and has felt isolated by his otherness since childhood. He learns that he and his five-year-old son share the lineage that gives Ailia her abilities, a gift that's causing what seems to be autism in Gabe's son. Ailia's heart goes out to the child, and her desire for life returns when she decides to help him.

But Ailia and Gabe are captured and then tortured by the Homeland Security agent. A clan leader offers to free Ailia if she will help him take revenge on humanity for the death of his only son. She refuses, so he breaks Gabe free instead, for the same purpose. Then Ailia escapes to warn her people that their secret has been exposed.

The clansman dupes Gabe into using his exceptional lledri "touch" to do recombinant genetic manipulation that creates a highly infectious, mutant strain of mad cow disease. It will wipe out non-clan humanity.

With Homeland Security closing fast, only Ailia, with Gabe's help, can prevent a pandemic. She's forced to choose between living while others die and sacrificing her newfound life to save Gabe, his son, and millions more from a horrific death.

As you can see, I persist in thinking that the idea of the story has some interest. I've sent out more queries using this hook. We'll see. I suspect that sooner or later I'll redo this one as well. If you have any constructive criticism regarding the above, I'd be glad to hear from you. Every little push up that learning curve helps.

---

Coming soon: the Flogometer Critique.

I thought Miss Snark did a marvelous service for writers with her examination of many, many hook samples. I want to offer a similar service to you: a critique of the FIRST 200 words of your novel. That's the equivalent of the 15 double-spaced lines that appear on a manuscript's first page when the chapter starts about 1/3 of the way down (as it should), with 1-inch margins.

Your writerly objective: to create an opening page that compels me to want more. This should make you really concentrate on making every word count, and make sure you raise at least one story question in those first few paragraphs.

The Flogometer is NOT YET OPEN for submissions. I figured you might want to take a little time to really focus on those first 15 lines and do a little editing and polishing. They had better gleam like the steel hooks they should be. It wouldn't hurt to browse through the FtQ writing category   for coaching that may help.

What will happen is that I'll post with brief notes, i.e.

• Read more, with reasons why, plus notes if I see places for improvement.
• Pass, with reasons why.
  

There's a prize, too -- a mostly free edit of someone's first 3 chapters.

I'm working out just how to structure this, and will lay it all out in a coming post, but I'm thinking that I can offer a "prize" to the most compelling novel opening: an edit of the first three chapters if I have permission to post excerpts from the edits on FtQ.

I'll email the writer with the best opening (IMO, though I will urge people to comment) and offer the edit. As you see in the archives, many writers have done this with shorter samples, and they haven't regretted it. If the winner doesn't want their work to be posted, I'll move on to the second-ranked opening. There are no free lunches, and the price for this edit is my use of it in the blog.

It would be helpful if you were to let me know if you're interested in submitting something to the first ever FtQ Flogometer Critique (email: ray @ editorrr dot com). But please don't send any submissions yet.

For what it's worth,

Ray

Free edit. Email a sample for an edit that I can post here.

ARCHIVES .

© 2007 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[MizTreeze]

Revised version is MUCH better (I understand it, at least), but still too long IMHO.

[Mai]

By allowing yourself so many words, you set yourself up for dilution of impact and focus.

There are issues of distraction and unevenness of intensity and flow: In the premise, the personal nature of "I got to wondering" distracts from the communication you're trying to initiate. Leading a paragraph with a conjunction such as "while" or "but" puts the brakes on for the reader -- is this what you want to do at any point? To draw someone into an escape is a contradiction in speed, unless escape is a game they're playing on a lazy afternoon.

The focus on your main character still isn't strong enough. Why not say she can't heal herself? It's more direct than saying lledri can't help her, and thus stronger.

I think if you cut it to half the word count, you'll have something quite good.