Quick! You’ve got less than a minute to convince me your story is worth my time. What do you tell me? You’ve got to pique my curiosity with mystery and potential, while still conveying the bulk of the plot, theme, and general tone. No problem! you say. But when you sit down to actually figure out how to pitch your novel in such a stellar way, you realize these two ingredients aren’t necessarily going to be compatible within the confines of such a short description.

Your story’s hook and your story’s heart aren’t the same thing. What your story is really about–its heart, its core–may not be its hook at all. Fortunately, when you realize this, it suddenly makes the whole job of cramming both into your pitch or back-cover summary about a mega-billion times easier. This revelation goes beyond just learning how to pitch your novel in the most effective way. The differences between your story’s hook and your story’s heart will affect every page you write. The sooner you figure out which is which–and how to best optimize them both–the better your book will be.

What Is Your Story’s Heart?

Your story’s heart is what it’s all about, way down at its center. This is the soul of your story. If it’s a love story, a thriller, a coming-of-age story–that’s going to be a fundamental aspect of your story’s heart. But we’re talking more than just genre here.

The heart of your story is its essence. It’s the point. The easiest way to figure out your story’s heart is to ask yourself two questions:

1. Why are you writing this story?

If the answer is, “I love romance” or “I want to make a difference in young people’s lives” or “I had an idea for a political drama set on Mars”–then that’s a great starting place for identifying your story’s heart.

2. What’s the story about?

When your BFF asks what you’re writing, what do you tell her? “It’s a story about a kid who ends up in the prison on Rikers Island, where he is inspired to turn his life around, thanks to the school there.”

Maybe that was the exact answer Paul Volponi gave regarding his YA novel Rikers High. It’s a snappy summary of his story’s main thrust. Other stuff happens in his book, but this is the point. This is the heart.

Examples of Story Hearts

Consider the beating heart of a few more stories:

A man with the ability to jump through space to anywhere in the world is captured by people trying to harness his abilities. (Reflex by Steven Gould)

A weakling prince is sold into slavery, where he searches for faith and grows into a warrior while fighting as a gladiator. (Light of Eidon by Karen Hancock)

Edward Rochester’s first wife struggles to maintain her sanity in the face of his casual cruelty and their loveless marriage. (Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys)

You’ll notice these are all very streamlined descriptions of these stories. They don’t incorporate subplots or plot twists, because those things are ultimately extraneous trappings to the true of heart of their stories. When you’re pitching your story, don’t worry about the extras. Just focus on the true essentials.

What Is Your Story’s Hook?

Now what’s this about your story’s hook not being the same thing as your story’s heart? Granted, sometimes the heart and the hook are the same thing. Or, rather, sometimes the story’s heart is unique enough to act as a good hook in and of itself. Indeed, the heart should always be specific enough to stand on its own. “A story of star-crossed lovers” will never be as effective (in any capacity) as “two star-crossed teenagers fall in love and, when their families object, end up committing double suicide.”

But even in the midst of a fabulously specific and unique heart, your hook will almost always be something even more specific and unique. In the Writer’s Digest feature “Meet the Agent” (March/April 2014), literary agent Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein encourages authors:

Really think about your novel’s hook. What makes it stand out? How is it different from all the other novels in my inbox?

The hook is what grabs people’s attention. We’ve all read coming-of-age stories. We’ve all read ill-fated love stories. We may even have read stories about kids in juvenile detention or teenagers killing themselves for love. These ideas may be at the heart of some really stupendous stories, but without a hook to grab curiosity, readers will never take a deeper look.

To identify your hook, ask yourself these questions:

1. Why should the reader care about this story?

This is the whole reason the hook even exists in the first place. If readers were automatically going to be interested in any ol’ thing you wrote, you wouldn’t need to bother with the hook. You could tell your tale and trust that readers would share your interest just because. Sadly, it doesn’t work that way.

So why will readers think this story is interesting? What will make it stand out from the rest of the coming-of-age stories and tragic love stories?

2. What is the single most interesting and unique element in this story?

You may be stumped after that first question. Lots of us are. We don’t always start writing a story because it’s unique or has a built-in hook. We’re writing it because we love its heart. And we do love it. But you have to take a look past the surface reasons.

Why did you need to write this story? Why couldn’t you just go read Romeo & Juliet and call it good? Start looking for the single most interesting element your story has on tap. To narrow that down yet some more, consider what’s unique about your story. More often than not, that’s where you’ll find your hook.

Examples of Story Hooks

So what are our original example stories’ hooks?

Reflex: A man can jump through space. That’s relatively unique, even amongst our glut of superhero stories these days (especially in comparison to, say, super-strength). Even better? This potentially super-powered story doesn’t follow any of the obvious plot tropes from the comics. It’s not about a superhero using his powers to save the world. It’s about a freak being hunted, tortured, and having to figure out how to save himself.

Light of Eidon: Consider the elements this story offers: a prince, a weakling, a gladiator, a warrior, a faith crisis. In themselves, none of these are too unique. But combined, they offer some pretty interesting mashups. A weakling prince as the hero? Don’t see that one very often. A captured prince fighting as a gladiator? Nope. (Although, of course, it’s a different story when it comes to captured generals fighting as gladiators.) Throw in that crisis of faith (which is really the heart of the story), and suddenly some extremely interesting possibilities begin to surface.

Wide Sargasso Sea: This one has an instant built-in “unique factor”: it’s a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, told from the perspective of the mad wife in the attic. This one’s almost cheating, since the hook is built right into the premise. But, of course, it’s really not cheating at all. We just feel that way, ’cause it makes the rest of us look bad.

Once you’ve got your story’s hook figured out, you may be able to work it right into the description of your story’s heart (as in the descriptions of Rikers High and Romeo & Juliet above). If you can, so much the better, since that practically answers our next question for us.

How to Pitch Your Novel: Hook First or Heart First?

Now that you’ve differentiated your story’s heart and its hook–and narrowed them both down into short and specific tags, which should come first in your sales pitch to an agent or reader?

The hook always comes first.

Remember: nobody’s going to care about the heart of your story until you convince them to. And the only way you’re going to convince them is by first hooking their curiosity. For that, you’re always going to want to give them your best shot right away. Present that most interesting and unique thing about your novel right up front. Don’t save it. Give it to them straight. If you can’t grab them right away, you’re sunk. So bring out the big guns!

Depending on the medium you’re working in (query letter, synopsis, back cover copy), you may be limited in how much space you’ll then have to share the heart of your story. In some instances, it might not be necessary to include it all. All you really care about is reeling people in. They can discover your story’s heart when they read the book!

But if you are required or have the opportunity to share your story’s heart, do it as pithily as possible–and always try to phrase it as a hook of its own. Never tell people what a story is about (“It’s a tragic love story.”). Always show them (“Two teenagers fall in love at first sight and turn suicidal when their parents object to their getting married a few days later.”)

Once you have your story’s heart and your story’s hook well in hand, you’ll be ready to meet any potential agent or reader with confidence. But don’t wait until then! Figure this stuff out before you ever start writing your first draft. Doing so will help you focus on what your story is really about and empower you to build a heart and a hook that will live up to any sales pitch.

 Tell me your opinion: Have you ever been confused about how to pitch your novel in a way that includes both your story’s hook and its heart?

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in Apple Podcast or Amazon Music).

___

Love Helping Writers Become Authors? You can now become a patron. (Huge thanks to those of you who are already part of my Patreon family!)