Contest! Hooks for Books
By Writer Unboxed | April 23, 2011 |
One of the perks of running this community is occasionally a post will yield unexpected benefits, and that is exactly what happened when valued contributor Sophie Masson posted about her love of Mary Stewart.
Well, the Internet is a wonderful thing. Word of our collective support for Mary Stewart reached UK publisher Hodder & Stoughton. They had just reissued Mary’s classic suspense novels in brand new jackets–beautifully vintage and very contemporary–and were hoping to find a new audience for her brilliant works. They offered books in exchange for a shout-out, and this contest was born.
What sort of contest?
Since Mary Stewart was the queen of the hook, we thought it would be fun if our brilliant WU community members took a stab at writing their best Mary Stewart-esque hook–meaning you hook us in one sentence.
Stewart excelled at posing the why question in the first sentence of her novels, and from this one sentence, a whole story would unfold, chased by an eager reader to discover the answer.
To get you started here are a few examples from some of her most popular novels:
This Rough Magic:
“And if it’s a boy,” said Phyllida cheerfully, “we’ll call him Prospero.”
The Gabriel Hounds:
I met him in the street call Straight.
Nine Coaches Waiting:
I was thankful that nobody was there to meet me at the airport.
What will I win if my hook is the best?
The ENTIRE SET OF MARY STEWART’S REISSUED TITLES–14 books in all–including:
Madam, Will You Talk?
Wildfire at Midnight
Thunder on the Right
Nine Coaches Waiting
My Brother Michael
The Ivy Tree
The Moonspinners
This Rough Magic
Airs Above the Ground
The Gabriel Hounds
Touch Not the Cat
Thornyhold
Stormy Petrel
Rose Cottage
Is there any fine print?
Yes. The contest is restricted to those living in the United States, Canada and Europe.
Hooks longer than one sentence will be disqualified.
When will the contest end?
One week from today, on April 30th at midnight EST.
How do I enter?
Post your one-sentence hook in the comment section below. Enter as often as you’d like. And please take the time to “like” hooks of others that you enjoy. Good luck!
Writer Unboxed began as a collaboration between Kathleen Bolton and Therese Walsh in 2006. Since then, the site has grown to include ~50 regular contributors and a variety of guests on rotation throughout a given year.
In 2016, the Writer Unboxed team published a book with Writer’s Digest / Random House. AUTHOR IN PROGRESS: A No-Holds-Barred Guide to What It Really Takes to Get Published is a comprehensive guide focused on helping writers over/around/through hurdles faced at every stage of the novel-writing process. It’s received some ***** reviews; we hope you’ll check it out.
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Write on!
It was on the first anniversary of my father’s unexpected death in the June of 1888 that my elderly great-aunt Georgiana decided to contact him in a séance.
Contest is closed, everyone. Kudos for the great submissions, you’ve made the task of selection very difficult!
[…] Writer Unboxed had a post last week about one of my absolute favorite authors – Mary Stewart. I was so happy to see the post that I think I did a chair dance It was so nice to see an older author get recognized and to see all the Mary Stewart love out there. […]
[…] = true;Judging WU contests has become more difficult! This time around, there were 200 entries in our hooks-for-books contest, with the winner set to receive 14 of Mary Stewart’s beautiful reissued titles. Kath and I […]