hooks and Harry

So is anyone reading the “hook” Crapometer postings on Miss Snark’s blog? I’ve skimmed a few (she says, eyeing her mountain of copyediting) and though I’m not quite sure what she means by a hook (something like a back cover blurb, I’m thinking), it’s fascinating to get a glimpse of what agents have to go through in their query slush every day. I wonder how they do it without losing all sight of what’s really good?

She’s passed on things that I personally, have found interesting, and requested stuff that left me cold. I guess that’s why you query a lot of agents, huh? There’s no accounting for taste. I am mystified by how many have sent her hooks for genres she knows nothing about. (Often, the science fiction and fantasy hooks have responses like, “Um, sounds good, but I really know nothing about this genre.”) I don’t know how helpful her response is to them. It also gives you insight into how many people have truly wacky story ideas. (And how many people have hoary ones.)

And of course, it makes you look at your own work in a whole new light. I honestly have no idea what Miss Snark would say about the hook in my query letter. Probably that it sounds too much like a synopsis. And yet, plenty of people found it hooking indeed. If I cut it back to the first two paragraphs, you basically have my 176-word back cover blurb:

Elite Eli University junior Amy Haskel never expected to be tapped into Rose & Grave, the country’s most powerful–and notorious–secret society. She isn’t rich, politically connected, or…well, male.

So when Amy receives the distinctive black-lined invitation with the Rose & Grave seal, she’s blown away. Could they really mean her?

Whisked off into an initiation rite that’s a blend of Harry Potter and Alfred Hitchcock, Amy awakens the next day to a new reality and a whole new set of “friends”–from the gorgeous son of a conservative governor to an Afrocentric lesbian activist whose society name is Thorndike. And that’s when Amy starts to discover the truth about getting what you wish for. Because Rose & Grave is quickly taking her away from her familiar world of classes and keggers, fueling a feud, and undermining a very promising friendship with benefits. And that’s before Amy finds out that her first duty as a member of Rose & Grave is to take on a conspiracy of money and power that could, quite possibly, ruin her whole life.

The blurb of my second book clocks in at 164 words:

Amy Haskel made it into elite Eli University. then she made it into the ultraselective Order of Rose & Grave. Now a senior, Amy is looking her future squarely in the eye — until someone starts selling society secrets. When a series of bizarre messages suggest conspiracy within the ranks and a female Knight mysteriously disappears, no member of Rose & Grave is safe… or above suspicion.

On her side, Amy has a few loyal Diggirls — her fellow female Rose & Grave Knights. Against her? Certainly it’s a group of Rose & Grave’s uberpowerful patriarchs who want their old boys’ club back. As new developments in her love life threaten to implode and the case of the vanished Diggirl gets weirder by the moment, Amy will need to use every society trick she’s ever learned in order to set things right. Even if it means turning to old adversaries for help — or discovering that the real foes are closer than she’d thought…

If I were not, as mentioned, up to my eyebrows in copyedits, perhaps I’d be interested in having a discussion about the challenges inherent in writing a hook to a sequel for a cold audience. You’re trying to capture the attention of people who haven’t read the first one as well as those who have.
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**Sidenote** I just went to the Harry Potter books pages at Amazon to check out the blurb for Chamber of Secrets. Has anyone read the low-star reviews there? OMG. The ones about “witchcraft is evil, these books are satanism” are to be expected, but I was shocked by how many said things like, “I can’t understand why anyone (or, sometimes, the writer’s little brother) wants to waste their lives READING. Seriously, just watch the movie. Who has time to WASTE READING some STUPID BOOK?” That crack you heard was my bookworm’s heart breaking into little bits (SB would like to point out how weird it is that the kids actually came on Amazon to express their ire at anyone who chooses to read.) Also, there are a lot of people who seem to be very angered by what they call the blatant “snake prejudice” in this book. I’m so not kidding. PSA of the day.
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The other thing I’d do, if I had the time, would be to play around with hooks for my friend’s books. This is actually a favorite pastime of mine, though usually I practice verbal pitches, and upon occasion, fake Publisher’s Lunch announcements. (The latter are usually more like loglines, and yes, I’m a big believer in the power of positive visualization.) Last year, I ran a workshop on pitches for the Romance Divas. I think pitches/hooks/whatever are a lot of fun. (Plus, I’m on the Marley Gibson Pay it Forward Plan, which means that it’s my duty to pitch buddys’ books from here to eternity.) I can see where agents find excitement in taking a great story and figuring out just how to sell it to the audience of editors.

I read a proposal recently that blew me away. I’m already constructing pitches for it in my head, copyedits be damned. Of course, it would help if it was done, so I could talk about the plot. (Hint, hint.)

Right, where was I? Oh, yes, being embarrassed about how quickly my copyediting knowledge has degraded since April. This was easier last year because I was spending five days a week studying this stuff. I wonder what knowledge took its place in my brain. I’m hoping its writing stuff, but I’m a little scared it might be various technical jargon about wedding dress shapes, necklines, and train styles… or perhaps favorite Veronica Mars quotes.