Hook
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kelly,” the man said. “But you’ve had a wasted journey. In fact, not only that. You’ve wasted my time, too. And my time is, to be blunt, extremely valuable.”
“But–”
“No ‘buts.’ Let me make it clear.” The man lifted Kelly’s manuscript off the desk. “This…” He moved his hands up and down very slightly as if weighing the value of the novel. “This is rubbish. It’s unreadable. It’s unpublishable. I’m sorry.”
“You have editors.”
“I’m afraid there aren’t enough editors in the world for–”
“If you really wanted to. I mean, if you really wanted to, you could make it work.”
The man sighed.
“Mr. Kelly. I appreciate… I admire your determination–”
“If you really wanted to–”
“Yes. Yes. Yes, if I really wanted to then I could throw enough resources at it, put a team of editors on it. We could re-plot it. The marketing guys… they can sell anything. Sure, if I really wanted to I could make it work.”
“Then– ”
“But it would no longer bear any resemblance to your work, Mr. Kelly.”
“I don’t care.”
“And on top of everything there’s this: we could throw all those resources at books that are, and I’m being frank again, far better than yours to start with.”
“What’s so bad about it?”
The man closed his eyes. He ran his hands down his face. He sighed again.
“For a start, it doesn’t even have a hook. I mean, that’s the very first thing that you need to include.”
“A hook?”
“Yes, a hook. Something to make the reader–to make me–keep reading.”
“But you admit that you could make it work?”
“Mr. Kelly…” Another sigh.
Then Kelly leant forward and placed a Polaroid photograph on top of the manuscript.
“Is this what you mean?” Kelly asked. “A hook?”
The man lifted the photograph.
“Your wife’s very pretty,” Kelly said. “Your daughter, too. There’s enough air in that tank for two hours. Are you a fast reader? I’ll sit outside and wait for your decision.”
