Hook Your Book

High concept story lines are based on an intriguing premise or hook. A hook is the same thing as a logline, best described as a 1-2 line TV guide listing. A short pitch line takes a complex book plot and summarizes it down to an enticing teaser. Generally this teaser is the first step to conveying your novel idea to an editor or agent, whether in a query letter, proposal, or during a pitch session at a conference.

Elements of your hook line should include:
Main Characters
Conflict
Unique Qualities
Setting/Time Period
Main Action
Emotional Element

Important questions to ask in order to define your hook:


Characters – Who is the main character? What does he or she want? What is their goal?


Conflict – What is the obstacle in the way? Who will play the part of the villain? Does the main character have a flaw that adds to the drama of why he can’t get what he/she wants?

Setting/Time Period – What is unique about your setting or time period? Does it contribute to the conflict for the character?


Main Action – What is the most compelling action in the story?

Emotional Element – What is the most gripping emotional element to your story?

Even if your story has been told before, you can add a fresh take or twist on it. An effective hook can make it seem new. High concept hooks can also be based on “what if” questions like:

· “What if man could clone dinosaurs?” (Jurassic Park)

· “What if there was a place that stayed dark and vampires never had to interrupt their feeding to sleep?” (30 Days of Night)

· “What if a defense attorney couldn’t lie?” (Liar, Liar)

Sometimes a high concept idea can be only in the title. So even if a movie or a book doesn’t get top reviews, people still buy it because they “have to” experience it.

· Snakes on a Plane

· Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

I’d like to share the hook on two books that I enjoyed reading. These represent daring authors who didn’t take the easy road in determining their plots. Imagine the craft it would take to write these two novels. Better yet, read them and enjoy.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – The story of a 14-year old girl living during the time of the Holocaust, narrated by Death. The hook is the author’s narrator choice. The time period is very compelling and the fact that the girl steals books to teach herself to read during a time when books are being destroyed is a gripping period piece, but to have Death be the narrator puts this book over the top. The New York Times is quoted as saying this book is “life changing.” All I can say is that it changed me.

Thirteen Reason Why by Jay Asher – This is the story of a girl who commits suicide but sends 13 audio tapes to the people who contributed to her making that fatal decision. The audio tapes are an effective hook, but the writer chose to tell the story through one boy who got a recording. He was the one person who had a secret crush on this girl, but did nothing about it. The story is told one night as he listens to the intimacy of her voice in his ear as he follows the map to all the locations she sends him to. Recorded flashbacks mix with the present, but the reader never loses track of what is taking place.

Here is the hook for my latest series with Harlequin Teen – The Hunted series. In this series, kids who can’t speak out, without drawing attention to who and what they are, make the perfect victims on the streets of LA. A covert faction of a church hunts them under the guise of doing God’s work—to stop the abominations from “becoming.” The tag line on the cover will be: They are our future, if they survive.

A fanatical church secretly hunts “Indigo” teens feared to be the next evolution of mankind. These gifted teens are our future…if they survive.

For those of you writing a project now, please share your hook. Take up to 3 lines. Even if you don't have a current project, make something up that you'd like to write and have fun using the questions above. You never know what might pop up.

The Seduction of Mystery

No matter what genre, a book can always seduce a reader with the titillation of mystery. A suspense or thriller plot can race towards the end with its escalating stakes, but the lure of an underline mystery teases the reader and holds them tight as the storyline unfolds to reveal its fleshy curves and tantalizing secrets. The seduction is made more complete and satisfying.



Alfred Hitchcock knew this.

Hitchcock believed suspense didn’t have much to do with fear, but was more the anticipation of something about to happen. When I read this, it was a huge epiphany for me. The idea changed how I thought about scenes and chapter endings, but I was recently reminded of the importance of anticipation in other ways when someone in my local writers’ group asked me when and how to use back story. In a seduction, back story is the equivalent of smoking a cigarette after. At some point, you want it to happen, but it’s anticipation that drives you to turn those pages all night long. There’s no faking that.







If you’re a writer, anticipation doesn’t have to ONLY be about big plot movements. Don’t forget the voyeur in all of us, readers and writers alike. Relationships need a story arc too. Conflict and tension make them more delectable. Our main characters are tested, tortured, pushed to the limits to justify their starring role in our books. And when a man and woman are involved in a personal relationship, a writer makes them pay for wanting to be together. That’s how a writer knows when they have the right balance of emotion to suspense. If the emotional human story can be stripped out and the book no longer makes sense, then the right balance is achieved. One is integral to the other.

A high octane Bruce Willis movie—with its special stunts and computer generated action sequences—may not stick in moviegoers heads if there weren’t the emotional elements, the drama of his estranged wife in danger. Only his love for her puts him in harm’s way from the beginning and keeps him taking risks for her. It’s not just about saving her life. It becomes—will they get back together? A suspense/thriller plot escalates the stakes and ramps up tension as the pages turn, but something as simple as unanswered questions or a mounting attraction between two characters that you care about—while they are on a perilous journey—adds palpable heat that can sustain the rush to a gratifying end.


On my current project, I had a choice to make. I could have unfolded the story by relying on the suspense plot to be the main driver—or I could present my characters by their actions, without explaining the reason for their behavior until I absolutely had to. I chose to make my character’s back stories a strong mystery component where the plot will eventually force them into revealing themselves to each other and the reader. I’m orchestrating a seduction, one garment at a time, like a voyeur. With some elements, for key secondary characters, I layer the mystery without even knowing the answers myself. What an incredible rush! I can’t wait to see what happens.


Please share a book that seduced you completely with the right heady balance of compelling characters to intriguing plot—that unforgettable read that has stayed with you—maybe a guilty pleasure that you’ve read more than once.

Reckoning for the Dead – A “Sweet Justice” Birthday Celebration

I know. This is a YA blog, but I can't help it. The birth of a new book is always exciting. It never gets old. Officially released TODAY September 27^th, Reckoning for the Dead (HarperCollins) is book #4 in my Sweet Justice series for adult readers. My novels have the feel of being ripped from today's headlines because real crime inspires me. With an international setting, my Sweet Justice thriller series focuses on a covert vigilante organization called The Sentinels that wields their brand of justice on a global scale, without the hindrance of jurisdictions or courts of law.

With a starring role, Jessica Beckett is a former bounty hunter from Chicago with mad skills in outsmarting fugitives on the run. She has a no frills, tenacious pit bull personality, with a Colt Python and a dark past that never stops punishing her. International operative, Alexa Marlowe, is the polar opposite. Living in New York City, she’s sophisticated and into high fashion. She’s well-traveled and loves the good life and pampering, yet she can be fearless when it comes to leading the men in her tactical unit through the fiercest of hostage rescue scenarios on foreign soil. Her strong sense of loyalty makes her willing to take risks with her own life on the line. These women give Lady Justice a whole new reason to wear blinders and their brand of justice is anything but sweet.

In Reckoning for the Dead, Jessie and Alexa’s worlds become embroiled in upheavals stirred from their shadowy pasts. For Alexa, her former lover and Sentinel’s chief, Garrett Wheeler, is reported dead, killed in a mysterious covert op that’s “off book.” When a new leader suddenly assumes control of the elite vigilante organization overnight—a man Alexa can't afford to trust—she isn’t buying anything he tells her. In search of Garrett and the truth, she goes rogue and off the grid, following a deadly trail that leads into Mexico, behind the fortress walls of a murderous drug cartel boss. Alone, Alexa has no one to watch her back, not even her new partner, Jessie.

Ex-bounty hunter, Jessie Beckett, has troubles of her own. When her DNA turns up as evidence in a gruesome murder committed when Jessie was only a child, before her life was shattered by an infamous killer, Jessie’s world is turned upside down. Solving a very cold case may hold the key to who she really is or kill the only memory she has of a woman she believes is her mother.

For Alexa and Jessie, the dead must have a reckoning.

To celebrate book #4 of Sweet justice, I wanted to share my thoughts on creating series characters with enough inspired juice to build or sustain a readership. The next time you read your favorite series book, think about the characters and why they keep you coming back for more. Below are points that helped me craft my Sweet Justice novels:

• Paint a large enough canvass. Create a world that’s big enough to allow a character to grow and surprise a reader with different plots scenarios.
• Give your main character(s) enough emotional baggage & personal conflicts that they can develop and grow from, to keep the series fresh.
• Make the plots in the series challenge your character’s weaknesses or flaws. Conflict is vital for any book.
• Tie each plot to the character’s emotional soft spots and allow the character to learn from what happens to them over the course of the series.
• Add a secondary cast of characters who add value. Make them fun, quirky, and definitely memorable, enough to bring a unique touch to your series. They are especially valuable if they add conflict or reflect on your main character’s strengths or weaknesses. If your secondary characters are effective enough, this can mean spin off potential. (A perfect example of this is Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole, LA PI series with the spin-off of Joe Pike. I can’t get enough of Elvis and Joe.)
• In any book, plant seeds for a spinoff story line whether you use them or not. If the novel takes off, you can capitalize on your germinating ideas.
• Tell the reader enough in each book about the character’s back story to entice them to read your other books, but don’t go overboard with a dump of information that will slow the pace.
• Avoid the formula. If something worked in book #1 in order to successfully launch your series, don’t repeatedly recreate it. Surprise the reader with something new, which will keep your creative juices flowing too. Don’t be so tied into your own success that you’re afraid to surprise your readers.
• On the flip side, don’t “jump the shark” that got you there. Surprising leaps in character motivation—just to add shock value without substance or believable motivation—may stray too far from center to sustain your readership. Recognize your strengths and find new ways to hone them.
• Keep in mind that your character may have to age if the series becomes popular. Have a plan for that. Three books may wind up as twenty+.
• Don’t be afraid to dig deep inside yourself to fuel the motives or experiences of your character(s). Making them real is vital in order for a reader to connect with them, especially over a series.

These are points I found useful in writing my Sweet Justice thriller series for HarperCollins. Now that I’ve stretched into the Young Adult genre with Harlequin Teen, I’m learning more about story and character arc development. For more author craft resources, check out my website at www.JordanDane.com, my For Writers page.

A Slice of Me

I suppose it says a lot about me that the battery to my fart machine is wearing down from use. When I first saw this little gem of a toy, I bought every one they had in the store, making sure my friends and family were equally armed. These machines made their first appearance at a family outing, honoring my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. (Nothing says I love you like a…well, you know what I mean.)

This machine has many uses. It makes a fun DOG TOY. And of course, anyone would bring this bad boy to a restaurant, but try sneaking it into a hospital for a real laugh riot. (You think I’m joking, don’t you? HA!)

I’m outing myself here because it occurred to me that in my fiction books, I often write about incidences that happen to my characters that may also have been inspired by a real life experience.

No, I haven’t found the right book yet to launch this little innovation on the literary world (like there IS a right book for techno-toots.) I’m waiting for the right op to spring my 50-ft range remote controlled tooter that can operate through walls and boasts 6 different kinds of “sounds.” Yes, SIX. (Some of you are saying, “Only six?”)

In my YA book – In the Arms of Stone Angels (Harlequin Teen, Apr 2011), I wrote about my character’s first kiss. This scene is below:

“Can I kiss you?” White Bird asked.
My eyes opened wide and my breath caught in my throat. I nearly choked.
“Ah, no.” My mouth said it before my brain knew what was happening.
“No?” He smiled and cocked his head in question.
I looked down at my watch. “In two minutes, okay?”
When he grinned and looked down at his watch to count down the time, I turned my head and spit out my gum. It shot out of my mouth like a pink cannonball.

A first kiss rarely happens smoothly. My first kiss was from a guy who wrote me poetry, the coolest boy in my elementary school. But the above scene had been inspired by my more laughable first French kiss. I was so shocked, I pushed the guy away and said, “What the hell are you doing?” A mood killer, but I still laugh about it today. If I had known what was coming—and that I’d need a drool rag after—I would have given him a two-minute warning and run the other way.



Brenna’s “screw you” toes are a family trait that manifested in my twin sisters. Their middle toes jut out and say, “Salute!” This was my way of saying, “I love you” to my sisters.

And a not so funny inspiration was the first argument my character Brenna has with her mom where she has an out of body experience with her rage, seeing the fear in her mother’s eyes as if she could look down on everything. That really happened to me. It made me see what I was doing to my mom yet I couldn’t stop. I wanted to capture that moment in my book…for me. Not every teen goes through something like this—thankfully—but for those of us who have, blinding rage is no fun and is definitely out of control.

Bottom line is that authors often write about things they filter through their life’s choices or experiences they’ve had or hear about. It helps to make the book more real. Some are funny. Some are heartbreaking and not easy to write about.

And some are purely fictional.