When someone wants to know what your book is about, what do you tell them?
A good way to hook your potential readers, publishers and agents is to come up with a short logline or book hook. This is also called an elevator pitch, because it can be delivered in the short time it takes to ride the elevator beyween one floor and another.
A good book hook helps your audience understand the basic concept of your book while intriguing them enough to want to find out more.
What’s your elevator pitch? The elevator pitch is your plot. It should be less than 20-30 words and contain something about the characters, what they want, the problem they need to overcome and what they want to achieve. The pitch needs to be short, sharp and enticing.
Examples:
‘Someone breeds dinosaurs. They get loose. Mayhem ensues.’
‘A grandfather invites scientists and his grandchildren to experience living dinosaurs. The dinosaurs escape and the visitors need to outwit them to survive and escape the island.‘
Here’s a simple sentence structure you can use to get you started – but only use it as a starting point. Substitute your own story elements maked in italics: ‘A type of story where the protagonist does something to make something happen when trigger event.’
Intriguing ‘What if’ questions can also make good hooks. You can find a list of great example at 60 Examples of Hooks for Books | Elevator Pitches – Writer’s Digest
The questions below will help you develop your pitch and explain your plot to potential readers, publishers, agents and bookshops.
Is it a thriller with a twisty plot? A generational drama? A genre defying moral tale? Make it as exciting as you hope the reader experience will be. Beware: it’s wise to make sure delivers!
What makes your characters stand out? Are they unusual in some way? Or are they very ordinary but have to deal with extraordinary events?
This happens at the beginning of your story that upsets the everyday running of your protagonist’s life and thrusts them into the story. Does it lead to resistance, change or regret?
This should be the simplest or most basic idea your story is built around. It usually manifests at the story’s inciting incident or trigger event or somewhere in the first act. It’s what makes your story happen. For example, what’s the what-if question that fascinates you that you want to explore it in all its potential tangents and ramifications? Example: A theme park filled with living dinosaurs
Remember, without the inciting incident, the rest of the plot won’t happen.
This is the message you want your story to send. Example: It’s not wise to mess with Mother Nature
This can help set the tone, atmosphere and/or even the type of characters they will find in your story. This is where comparing your story to others can help them find the kind of plots and characters they most want to read.
A story arc is the emotional journey your characters and your readers go through during your story.
Is it a rags to riches story? Where emotions start at the bottom then rise to the top at the end?
Or is it an emotional and twisty up and downer? Leaving the reader wondering what the final outcome will be?
Below are a few story arc examples, where the ups and downs pretty much represent the emotional journey of your main characters.
Some genres have expected story arcs – romance tends to follow the cinderella story arc, while tragedies follow the oedipus story arc (see the charts below).
Source: https://thewritepractice.com/story-arcs/
The following questions don’t feature in your pitch, but they are worth considering to make sure your story delivers on the emotional impact you’re hooking your reader on.
Do your sub plots heighten the tension and intensify the conflict in your story?
Do they deliver fresh obstacles for the main character, resulting in a more dramatic climax?
Do they enrich your characters’ development?
First person POV (I wrote this, it’s all about me) is more immediate and the reader experiences whatever the main character feels. As it can only access the main character’s thoughts and feelings, it’s a very narrow view and prone to personal bias. But this can also be a useful way to misdirect readers or keep them guessing what else is happening and how it will affect the main character.
Third Person Limited (this character wrote this and we’re right on his shoulder) is slightly less immediate with the opportunity to throw in some narrative commentary, but is still skewed and biased by the main character we are following.
Third Person Omniscient (the narrator is writing this and can tell you everything you need to know about this story) is more remote but gives far more insight into the nuances of different characters and story subplots.
Second Person POV (you wrote this and it’s all about your experince of the story) tends to be used for scarier and intense stories. Emotionally immersive.
Further reading and examples of POV at Types of Point of View: The Ultimate Guide to First Person and Third Person POV
