How can I construct a story 'handle'?

[Robert]

I've just read Jae-Jones' advice on constructing a book's handle. Her advice makes it sound easy, and her book handle for Wintersong is so neat and perfect.,, but when I try it with my developing Spy Thriller, I end up with half a page!!!! When really I obviously only need one sentence.
If I can quote her,

, it's finding a way to be able to succinctly relate the premise of your book in an engaging way that hints at a story to come. Easier said than done, I know, but there ....

Now that's the hard bit.

My Premise, probably too long too, is here. I'm also working on cutting it back. Maybe.

Harry McGovern. (A series)
"Harry is a field agent, now desk bound. Which makes him unique in the clandestine world of the British secret service. At least in the field service part of it. He's been on a desk for the last year, recovering from a badly run operation that had nearly ended his career and his life. But he wasn't a desk man, never would be. It was during this period that he had discovered what he considered to be a phantom network. A long time contact who had lived in the City, not far from the theatre district had up and died in his sleep. Cleaning out the man's apartment had led Harry to the discovery of a book on the library shelf, and a slip of paper beneath the cheap carpet. A note in code. A code that Harry recognised immediately as a Book Code. Simple but effective.
Page 52, 4th line, 8th word. Result. 52 4 8. Cumbersome. Simple. Effective, because unless you knew which book, you could never break the code. But Harry had found the book. On a shelf of musty history tomes one slim volume had stood out. Newer, well thumbed, out of place. Sherlock Holmes, Collected Works.

Harry is still fit, but feeling his age, and his natural inclination to keep to himself tends to isolate him from the bright young things moving through the service. His only close contact and friend is his immediate superior, a woman just a little older who has come up through the ranks along with Harry. They know each other well. They know the organisation well. They trust each other, and few others besides.
Harry had been married when much younger, but the death of his wife early on had shocked him into a solitude that he had never completely shaken off. He had spent years scouring the world for those responsible, and quietly exacted his vengeance, all the time going about his normal - if being a spy could be considered normal - business. It was now a long time in the past though, and he rarely thought of that time in his life.

Now, after a year and a little on the London desk, a simple clean out of an old assets apartment had presented him with an intriguing possibility.
The old asset, Fred Larkin, a lowly clerk in a German merchant bank in the city, who for years had fed them financially interesting data on shipping, of little value really, had died an ordinary death as people so inconveniently do sometimes, and left nothing behind. Except for a book, and a coded list of names. A list he should not have had.

Harry had kept the list quiet up until now, while he checked out all the names on the list. And one location with a time. Fred Larkin had not only sold information, but had been claiming expenses to run his own closely guarded network that he claimed was within the modern day German equivalent of the very organisation that Harry worked for. The Bundesnachrichtendienst, or simply the BND

Harry's research had found no such network. All the names were real enough of course, but belonged to people either in care homes, or already long dead. Except for one. Who turned out to be a young woman called Annabel Müller, who lived in London and worked in the German embassy. Conclusion. A phantom network. Old Fred had been claiming expenses to run a network that didn't exist.

But then there was the girl. Like the book on the shelf, she was the odd one out! "

I may be using that, "The odd one out" as the title. Maybe not? Undecided.

So, if anyone can help me condense that to one interesting sentence, I'd really appreciate it.
I really need it.
Thanks.
Robert

[Roughseasinthemed]

We certainly don't need all this back story and repetition about Larkin dying! It's all just padding.

So, we need something like:

British secret service agent Harry McGovern is currently desk bound (and hating it?). A chance discovery of a coded book leads him to discover a phantom spy network and …

And what? This is what we need to know. There is no clue in your lengthy piece about what might come next. That might be a good idea.

Sounds interesting by the way. But I'm a sucker for Len Deighton, Le Carré et al.

[Robert]

Thanks roughseasonthemed... that's a mouthful :-) ... I agree. I started writing the premise, and the story ran away with me. So you can see the trouble I'm having with a 1 sentence handle.

I really appreciate that you have taken the time to reply, and help. Thank you.

My latest try at a sentence. Well, maybe two.

Harry McGovern is a spy working for British Intelligence, and stumbles upon a Phantom Network that only has one problem; there is a list of names, with an odd one out! Is it in fact a Phantom Network?

Thanks
Robert

[Roughseasinthemed]

Well that's better at least! But, what happens? This is what we need to know to engage us.

So far, is there a phantom network or not? Who cares? We need to know that Harry is going to run into problems: why, from where, from who. Eg, Harry investigates the network only to …

We don't need the detail about the names. We need to know what dangers/risks Harry is facing (in general terms).

[Robert]

hmmm. I see what you mean. So I'm paring it down slowly to show

1. The protagonist
2. The setting
3. The stakes
4. The antagonist.

1. The story is about a British spy, Harry McGovern - 2. who discovers, in a London flat, a list of contact names that contains only one genuine name - 3. and he needs to discover if she can be really recruited, or is actually an MI6 contact already or is a double working for someone less friendly - 4. like the Russian SVR.

Can I condense that even further? Let's see.

1. The story is about a British spy in - 2. London who investigates a list of names, discovering only one genuine one, a young woman. - 3. Can he recruit her, against the suspicion that - 4. she could be a double for the SVR, bringing him face to face with some old adversaries.

As one paragraph.
The story is about a British spy in London who investigates a list of names, discovering only one genuine one, a young woman. Can he recruit her, against the suspicion that she could be a double for the SVR, bringing him face to face with some old adversaries.


I can see how a handle works. Like how many times has someone said to me, "What's the book about?" and I proceed to ramble on, detailing story parts practically giving a review of the whole book.

So the "handle" is the idea. From that I can build (rebuild) the premise to hang it all together, then get on with the story. I feel like I'm working backwards, having two fiction books on Amazon already. I need to revisit them. I really do need to work on their handles. and I'm sure there is a more technical name for this 'what's it all about' sentence.
Edit: I discovered what it's called. The elevator pitch.
....the “Elevator Pitch”: the twenty seconds that your publisher’s sales guy will have to pitch your book.

thanks for your comments.

[Paul]

An out-of-action spy stumbles upon a coded list of names that draws him back into action and leads him to a woman he suspects may be a double agent.

Also, sorry to nitpick, but the concept of the book-code may be a bit problematic. I'm not sure that the name Annabel appears anywhere in the Sherlock Holmes stories (in a search I discovered that "Muller" does, though!). A book-code as described may be good for common words, but may not be good for a list of names unless they all appear in the key text.

[Robert]

Thanks Paul. That looks good. I really need to work on this I'm sure. Your sentence is exactly what I am trying to achieve. So I'll keep at it.
I agree about the book, but the book-code does work, if you add a letter position.
Page 52, 4th line, 8th word, 6th letter. Result. 52 4 8 6.
I'm not happy with the book either. But at this point, it's more of a place marker than the final one.

[Paul]

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. The concept of a book code is an interesting one, I guess it's just how it's implemented.

[Sheila]

Bryan Cohen has a lot to say about the log line, tag line, book handle or whatever it's called. It's a provocative one liner that sells books. It goes to theme, flavored by genre. Bryan says to brainstorm. Write 25 one liners about your story. Emphasize the verbs. When I brainstorm, my creativity loosens up and "plays" with the story theme and one or two ideas emerge. Study movie ads. Looks at book ads. Look at Bryan's website. Go for it!

[Eric]

Sheila wrote: "Bryan Cohen has a lot to say about the log line, tag line, book handle or whatever it's called. It's a provocative one liner that sells books. It goes to theme, flavored by genre. Bryan says to bra..."

Just out of curiosity, where on Bryan Cohen's Web site does he say anything at all about tag lines, book handles, whatever? All I found was promotion for himself, and wanting to charge me $197 to write a blurb.

What did I miss?

Eric-the-ever-curious

[Robert]

Sheila wrote: "Bryan Cohen has a lot to say about the log line, tag line, book handle or whatever it's called. It's a provocative one liner that sells books. It goes to theme, flavored by genre. Bryan says to bra..."

Thanks Sheila. A good idea. I think I've been doing this most of the day now :-)

[Sheila]

Eric and others--try this:
https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2015/... "Bryan Cohen is the author of How to Write a Sizzling Synopsis: ... "The importance of using a tag line that is appropriate for your book's genre." I think it's a podcast.

[Robert]

That link is interesting. I'll probably listen to the mp3 and read the page as well.
I haven't managed to get any writing done today yet!

[David]

A "handle" is an artificial means to ask what the story is "about"—it is "about itself" as we learned from Eudora Welty and William Carlos Williams: what I seek in my novels is a unity of author, reader and character—see Walker Percy's "The Movie Goer"—and apply to myth, love found and love lost, and the reconciliations available to men and women troubled by their own shadows in my new novel, "A Wife From Scotland." —David Taylor Johannesen, author, "Falcons and Seagulls, a Utah Tale,

[David]

I am re-reading Saul Bellow—who most of you know through "The Adventures of Augie March", "Hertzog" and "Mr Sammler's Planet"—yet despite his Nobel Laureate for mere celebrity and loyalty to U of Chicago's Miltion Friedman— I cherish his wise and keen uplifting storytelling in later works such as "The Deans December" and story collections such as "It all Adds Up" and "Him With His Foot in His Mouth" which only gather awe and affection to his pen. Now reading "Ravelstein" (2000) the devotion can never fade! David Taylor Johannesen, author "Vespers East & West"—poems from Oxford—and "Last One Close The Gate"—stories from years ago.

[Paul]

David wrote: "A "handle" is an artificial means to ask what the story is "about"—it is "about itself" as we learned from Eudora Welty and William Carlos Williams..."

Well, yes, tag-lines/handles are anathema to artists, just like genre, synopsis, query-letter, target-audience, cover-art, and sale. They are anti-art concepts, but they are apparently valued by marketers of various sorts, and they may be the lipstick and rouge to our whorish selves.

Then, the tag-line, like any predatory theory or concept, can absorb everything. Even un-tagline-like concepts can be communicated in a tagline, like Seinfeld's "show about nothing," or presumably, "XYZ is a book about itself." One could probably try to get away with "LMNOP is a book without a tagline," but marketers, agents, and publishers would be prompted to say "geddouttaheah" and give one a knee in the groin. Then we'd all have to self-publish. Oh, wait...

[David]

"Where is the life we have lost in living?" Was this TS Eliot? "At the end we find the beginning, and shall know it for the first time." I am searching for fragments I have heard since, "let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table" and wondered if there is a more poetic reference in our language. Yes, we'll learn later of a moderation of these words in Prufrock, yet, as Antoine de Saint Exupery said: "L'essential est invisitble pour les yeux, or, how can we tell an image from an act of will?

[David]

Writers and readers should sharpen their gaze: POV is elusive and cannot be transposed by a mere change of character: you must search and clarify the boundaries an author has set before you, rather than look for idle, over-reharesed explanation of what you have been willing—or allowed to express—in the mere, sad, and chastened boundaries of your art! Break away and fly away, as if your writers were Virginia Woolfe trying to capture the moments in Mrs. Dalloway before your arrived upon the scene!

[David]

Even these thoughts, torn from the more brutal appearances of social media, where, as Andy Warhol admonished, "Everyone is famous for 15 minutes" and we discover everyone is famous for 15 seconds, why would we want of submit to such an invasion of privacy as Facebook presents, with its Zuccerkberg media monopoly, and the proliferation of a numb, abject surrender of or our ability to see, and foresee what lies ahead in a a world dominated by short-hand admonishments via Trumpeter Tweets overwhelming us
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[David]

I am obliged to Thomas Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd", a romantic thriller of an independent young woman and three suitors who make claims upon her. I celebrate Henry James in "Portrait of a Lady, where Isabel Archer survives deceit and a feckless husband to find love's reward; To bring to appreciation of our own century you must read Iris Murdoch, Louise Erdrich and Nadine Gordimer to discover the passages and realizations woman characters have achieved to realize, fulfill and demand their futures as women!

[David]

"No one writes like Tolstoy," Vladimir Nabokov declared somewhere in his insinuations while teaching at Cornell University. He wanted to assure us that the minimum and maximum—alpha and omega—might be reached without any embarrassment or apology for the classics. He filled our longing with his writing, and we fled the campus contours to the sweet safety of our dormitories where closed windows and co-ed sheets would protect us. I cried out when he entered me, assured of my sanctuary, lost to all else!

[David]

In the morning, so long ago, when Vera was in Switzerland and Vlad was in my arms, he brought me the manuscript of "ADA" to read. I said, "it cannot be about me—the past is lost in the present–and I have been with you for two years." He gave me the gift of quiet, so that I would not have to admit to, yet still enjoy our passion, and said, "just pretend you are my sister and not my lover." I fled my senses and the great house, tearing down the groves of Oleander and wisteria which clung and pulled at the house above me.

[Pamela]

Great advice on loglines.

[Sheila]

Robert, glad you found site helpful.