Skip to main content

Loglines and Hooks With Core Wounds

HOOK OR LOG WITH CORE WOUND AND CONFLICT

Your hook line (also known as logline) is your first chance to get a New York or Hollywood professional interested in your novel. It can be utilized in your query to hook the agent into requesting the project. It is especially useful for those pitch sessions at conferences, lunches, in the elevator, or anywhere else. When a prospective agent or editor asks you what your book is about, your high-concept hook line is your answer. Writing one also encourages a realization of those primary elements that will make your novel into a work of powerful fiction. 

The great novel, more often than not, comprises two stories: the exterior story or plot line, and an interior story focused primarily on the protagonist, one that defines and catalyzes her or his evolutionary arc throughout the novel. For example, a protagonist with a flaw or core wound that prevents her from achieving a worthwhile goal is forced to respond to a lifechanging event instigated by an antagonist, and in the process of responding to that lifechanging event (usually with the help of an ally) she is forced to overcome her flaw. In doing so, she becomes far more capable of achieving her goal in defiance of the antagonist.

The key elements of conflict, complication, and dramatic rising action are all pretty much related and serve to keep the reader's eyes fixated on your story. These days, serving up a big manuscript of quiet is a sure path to post-slush damnation. You need tension on the page, and the best way to accomplish this is to create conflict and complication in the plot, and narrative as well.

Elements of a Hook or Logline (examples below)

    Character(s) – Who is the protagonist? What is his/her main goal? What is their CORE WOUND (see below)?

    Conflict – Who is the antagonist? Is she/he implied or clear in the hook line? What obstacle do they create to frustrate the protagonist?

    Distinction – What is the primary unique element of your story that makes it stand out?

    Setting – for a novel, adding a little about the setting, time period, and possibly genre (if it’s not obvious) is a VERY good idea.

    Action – Your hook line should radiate verve and energy. Which hook as follows catches your interest more? A woman has an affair and runs off with her new beau, OR, a neglected wife begins a torrid affair with an ex-con, soon kidnapping her children to flee the state and join him in Vegas. 
As for "core wounds," consider conscious motivation stimulated by both memory and subconscious pain. The "core wound" drives the character in certain unique ways, perhaps leads them on a journey to prove themselves. Resolution, if it ever comes, will make them happier, healthier, or more in tune with the world around them.  
Every core wound is based on a basic knowledge that we are unacceptable as we are, so we have to adjust and change to be perceived as good.
Fundamental and popular core wounds include loss of a parent, a broken heart, an ultimate mistake (the character could spend a lifetime trying to make amends), a big secret (the revelation of which could ruin or harm the character), or perhaps a perceived terrible failure in the character's past (a primary desire forever denied by a moment's hesitation or a small mistake).

From Psychology Today:

"Core wounds tend to be things like a sense of not being enough, of being unlovable to a parent, of feeling stupid, dirty, unwanted, or ugly. No matter what your core wound may be, you can guarantee that your wound influences who you are and how you behave..."

"Every core wound is based on a basic knowledge that we are unacceptable as we are, so we have to adjust and change to be perceived as good. It influences our self-esteem and the very fabric of our thoughts."

And one core wound is usually enough. As famous screenplay writer Peter Russell points out:



Note that the sample hooks or loglines below are divided into two basic parts: the CORE WOUND and the resulting dramatic complication that drives conflict.

    "The Hand of Fatima" by Ildefonso Falcones
    A young Moor torn between Islam and Christianity, scorned and tormented by both, struggles to bridge the two faiths by seeking common ground in the very nature of God.

    * The protagonist is scorned and tormented, thus the core wound, and as a result he seeks to fulfill an almost impossible task.


    "Summer Sisters" by Judy Blume
    After sharing a magical summer with a friend, a young woman must confront her friend's betrayal of her with the man she loved.

    * The protagonist is betrayed by her friend and thus her core wound, and as a result she must take steps to reach a closure wherein conflict will surely result.


    "The Bartimaeus Trilogy" by Jonathan Stroud
    As an apprentice mage seeks revenge on an elder magician who humiliated him, he unleashes a powerful Djinni who joins the mage to confront a danger that threatens their entire world.

    * Humiliated into a core wound by an elder magician, the story line erupts into a conflict with the entire world at stake.
Note it is a simple matter to ascertain the stakes in each case above: a young woman's love and friendship, the entire world, and harmony between opposed religionsIf you cannot make the stakes clear, the odds are you don't have any. Take note!

_________________

Comments

  1. Thanks for this great summation. I can now write a query hook line with reasonable confidence!

    ReplyDelete
  2. These examples are really helpful and made me see exactly how my hook line should appear. It is amazing how much information you have provided to us, thank you so much...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Worthy WE Wisdom

The Six Act Two-Goal Novel

What makes for good drama is a constant. To begin, we combine Siegal's "nine act structure - two goal" screenplay (very much like the Syd Field three act except that the "reversal" from Field's structure joins "Act 5" in Siegal's version) with the Field classic three act. The Two-Goal Structure, Siegal maintains, creates more dynamic plot tension due to the insertion of PLOT REVERSAL later in the story. We concur.  NOTE:  "Plot Point" is defined here as a major occurrence that emphatically changes the course of the story. In the genre novel as a whole, we see three to five major plot points depending on various factors: a first PP that begins the rising action, second PP defined by the first major reversal, a third PP defined by a possible second major reversal, a climax PP, and a theoretical PP residing in the denouement, i.e., we think the story is going to resolve a certain way after climax, but a surprise happens that resolves

"Top Ten Worst Pieces of Writing Advice" (and it gets worse)

OUTSIDE OF NARCISSISM, IMPATIENCE AND BAD ADVICE ARE A WRITER'S WORST ENEMIES . If you ever attend writer events, you will never cease to hear utterances of bad writing advice, the popular kind that circulate like  ruinous viral memes through the nervous systems of America's aborning novel writers. And each time you are exposed, you either chuckle or swear, depending on your mood and the circumstance. You might make a daring attempt to kill the meme in its tracks before it can infect someone else, or you might just stare at the writer with a dumbfounded look and ask, "Where the hell did you hear that?" Yes, the primal question: WHERE THE HELL DID YOU HEAR THAT? Inevitably, many will point to their writer's group . Ahhhh, of course , you think. Why just recently at an Algonkian event , one of my faculty (a former senior editor at Random House) and I were faced with an individual who adamantly asserted to us both that using only one point of view to write a n

What Makes a Good Memoir?

By Paula Margulies As a publicist, I'm sent books of all genres by authors interested in my services, but lately I seem to be on the receiving end of a lot of memoirs. I've also spoken to a higher-than-usual number of memoir writers, who either telephone or approach me with questions at writer's conferences. The bulk of these conversations have to do with why their memoirs aren’t selling and what the authors can do to make them better. My first suggestion for all memoir writers is to take a look at their market and identify the different types of people who would want to read their book. This is tricky, for while many memoir writers have done a good job of detailing certain aspects of their personal history, a number of them have not thought about who might be interested in reading what they've written. A lot of memoirs I've seen recently are nothing more than personal recountings of an individual’s experiences – some of which are, indeed, memorable. But I

Labors, Sins, and Six Acts - Official Novel Writing Guide - All Genres

An ideal first stop... You will discover below a series of scholarly, researchable, frank and indispensable guides to conceiving and writing the commercial genre novel, as well as the plot-driven literary novel. But the cutting edge of the developmental peels and prods as presented makes an initial big assumption, namely, that you are honestly desirous of true publication either by a classic publisher or traditional literary press , and therefore, willing to birth the most dynamic and can't-put-it-down novel you possibly can. Further, you are also naturally desirous of great sets, mind-altering theme, unforgettable characters, and cinematic scenes, among other things. Does that go without saying?   Perhaps, but you must know, it won't be easy. Labors and Sins First of all, the method-based assertions and information we've gathered and elevated before your eyes below will shiver many of you like a 6.5 on the literary Richter scale because it will contr

"High Concept"? Sufficiently Unique? - Write a Tale That Might Actually Sell

Aspire to be a great genre author? So what's your high concept?...  If you fail to grasp the vital importance of this second question, you will fail to conceive much less write a publishable genre novel - thriller, mystery, fantasy, horror, crime, SF, you name it. Just not going to happen. Don't let any writer group or self-appointed writer guru online or writer conference panel tell you otherwise. You're competing with tens of thousands of other aspiring authors in your genre. Consider. WHAT IS GOING TO MAKE YOUR NOVEL STAND OUT from the morass of throat-gulping hopefuls who don't know any better? Believe it or not, 99.5% of the writers in workshops all across the country *do not* arrive with a high-concept story. If anything, their aborning novel child is destined for still birth. They strut forward proudly waving their middle or low concept tale while noting how their hired editor from Stanford, or Iowa, or the Johns Hopkins MA program just "loves it!"