For most queries, the description of your story premise—some call this the “hook”—does all of the work in convincing the agent or editor to request your manuscript. Here are a couple formulas that can help you get started.

Formula 1

  1. What does your character want?
  2. Why does he want it?
  3. What keeps him from getting it?

Formula 2

  1. Who is your main character (protagonist)?
  2. What conflict is she going through?
  3. What are the choices she must make?

Here’s an example of a brief hook for The DaVinci Code:

Robert Langdon is an American academic and an expert in the symbols of the ancient world. While on business in Paris, he’s summoned to the scene of a grisly murder in the Louvre where he’s the main suspect. He must race across Europe, one step ahead of the police chasing him, to solve the murder and prove his innocence. In the process, he uncovers arcane messages hidden in the world’s best-known artworks, solves ancient puzzles, and ultimately discovers secrets about Jesus that could bring down the Catholic Church.

Your description may need to establish the setting or time period right away; this is especially true for authors of historical fiction or science fiction and fantasy. For example: “My novel, SCI-FI EPIC, is set in the distant future where humans have abandoned earth and now live on the rings of Saturn.”

A good hook balances character and plot. By the end of the query, the reader should have an idea of why we care about the main character(s) but also the story problem or tension that keeps us turning pages.

While the hook formula looks simple—and it is—your story may sound rather boring when it’s boiled down to these elements.

When a hook is well written but boring, it offers the same old formula without distinction. The protagonist feels one-dimensional (or like every other protagonist), the story angle is something we’ve seen too many times.

The best hooks have some kind of twist or an element that helps your work stand out, that makes it uniquely yours. That is: the idea doesn’t feel derivative of existing bestsellers. For example: Every time an agent comes across a query featuring a YA protagonist with special powers acquired on his birthday, and he must figure out how to control these powers at an unfamiliar school, there’s a good chance the agent is going to pass unless there’s a dramatic twist.

How do you know if your idea is tired—by an agent’s standards? Well, this is why everyone tells writers to read and read and read. It builds your knowledge and experience of what’s been done before in your genre, as well as the conventions.

In Laurie Scheer’s The Writer’s Advantage, she well demonstrates the difference between a boring story hook and an exciting one:

I have heard an eternity of pitches featuring women as victims, survivors, single mothers, etc. If someone pitches me a story about a 43-year-old unmarried woman who has had a successful career in advertising or law or pharmaceuticals or whatever, and decides at the last minute that her biological clock’s ticking and she wants to have a child … I will wait for the writer to tell me the rest of the story.

And there is no rest of the story, because in their mind, that is their story.

To which I say, “Who cares?” Seriously, who will care about that storyline? No one. We have seen numerous stories about women wanting to have children later in life. I could produce a list at least two pages long consisting of books and movies with this plot line.

However, if one of the main characters is a 43-year-old single businesswoman having her first child and, at the same time, her 22-year-old niece is also having her first child—because the niece does not see the benefit of having a career and only wants to be supported by a rich husband—I suddenly see some conflict here.

Whenever I teach a class where we critique hooks, just about everyone can point out the hook’s problems and talk about how to improve them. Why? Because when you’re not the writer, you have distance from the work. When you do come across a great novel hook, it feels so natural and easy—like it was effortless to write.

How to handle multiple protagonists

Everything depends on how many protagonists we’re talking about. If it’s two or three, you may be able to fit them all into the query. If your book has an ensemble cast with four or more key characters, you’re probably better off limiting how many you mention in the query. Ideally, the query will mention or focus on characters who appear in the first pages or chapter one.

The key to making multiple protagonists work in a query is showing how they’re connected in the story line. Agent Kristin Nelson’s blog has an excellent example of a query letter that mentions three protagonists, with a discussion of how and why it works.

To become better at crafting a hook