vg_ford | And this is why it's good to have other people look at your hooks...

raleva31 critted my hook for Belladonna Dreams today...

1. URBAN FANTASY/Belladonna Dreams: Sapph Pendragon was one of the top ghostwalkers in the business. Then business killed four of her closest friends. When another member of her former team calls for help, though, Sapph comes out of retirement to once again wrestle with the demons of her past. What she discovers at Crosley Farms is two ghosts hell-bent on coming back from death, bringing the secrets of immortality and damnation with them. If the ghosts succeed in breaking through the World Walls, Crosley Farms will be cut off from both the Ghostlands and the mortal world, trapping Sapph and everyone with her inside. To keep the farm and her friends safe, Sapph must risk everything, including her own sanity, to meld with Rose Howard, a long-dead witch. Only the combination of her psychic talents and Rose’s magic can keep Crosley Farms from becoming her permanent home. But can she trust Rose? Or will the witch turn on her as well?
Val Griswold-Ford

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MY COMMENTS: Not many urban fantasies out there with ghosts, so that's cool, but I'm not sure what a ghostwalker is. Clarification on what this job entails would help. Why not simply evacuate the farm? I'm assuming if the ghosts get the farm, their next step is to come back into the world and create huge havok? I want to know that the stakes are higher--sure, they bring secrets of immortality (that doesn't sound so bad) and damnation (okay that sounds scary) with them... but what does that mean that they bring damnation with them? They'll be sucking souls out of people? Clarify there. After clarifications, I want to know that this whole story isn't just taking place here at this farm with her battling ghosts. This doesn't have a mystery element to it that I can see--it may be suspenseful, but I want to see evidence of more plot complexity, higher stakes. So far it looks like: "Evil ghosts plan to turn a farm into a portal back into the world of the living, and Sapph has to stop them." There's not really the complexity of Why do the ghosts want this? So it's a fairly straightforward plot.

So I need to work in more about what a ghostwalker is, and try and get more of the twists in the plot in. *sigh* And keep it under a page in length. Not as easy as it looks.

But she's right. If you don't know that a ghostwalker can transform themselves into a ghost, and that Sapph discovers she's a Daywalker (which I realize didn't make it into the hook - bad writer!), or that Ellen is taking over and killing girls, the hook sounds...

Bland.

Bah. Back to the drawing board....

And this is why it's good to have other people look at your hooks...

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