The hardest part of revising my query was writing my log line. Trying to distill this big thing that I’m very attached to into a couple of sentences that hook in an agent that I’ve researched and hope will want to read more.

In order to actually get to a decent log line, I spent a few days looking up templates, and even using a log line generator as a starting point. Then I wrote version after version after version. Then I did something smart, finally, and complained to my friend about how hard it was.

Thirty minutes later, she sent me the questions that led to the first good log line I wrote. I eventually changed it, after waking up at 3:30 in the morning with the phrase “Ella has a death wish” stuck in my head. That phrase turned into what I hope will be a good hook.