3. Hook: Sixteen-year-old Penelopie Baker has died 67 times, and it’s about to happen again.
Setup: She can feel death approaching like you can feel rain falling on your skin. Penny thinks the 68th death will get her one step closer to being able to reclaim her lost life, but she’s dead (lol) wrong.
Because the death she feels is not her own, but that of a friend.
Conflict: Everyone thinks the drowning was an accident until another classmate croaks under mysterious conditions. (oooh, double murder. Nice—or not.) In order to get her years of service counted for this 68th life, Penelopie, along with her Servant partner, Blake, (this is a little bit of world-building) set out to find the true cause for two suspicious teenage deaths so close to home. (So Servant detectives….)
In this story, the conflict is solving the murders. That’s probably a lot of conflict, but you don’t need to expound on it tons. The novel has more than just a murder mystery—the protag has died 67 times, and she’s “Serving” a sentence so she can hopefully reclaim her own lost life. All of this drives the conflict in 51 words.
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From the Query to The Call
Non-FictionFROM THE QUERY TO THE CALL outlines what a query letter -- or cover copy -- is, why every author needs to master the art of describing their book in just a few words, and how to successfully navigate the querying process. Authors looking to query pu...
