I'm trying to decide which one of these hooks is best for my query. Which one catches your attention?
1. She has no idea how powerful she is. But they do. And they’re coming.
2. Nature’s survival hinges on her actions. But all 16-year-old Rhea is worried about at the moment is avoiding the school bully.
Thanks for the feedback, and sorry about my confusion! Maybe I've figured out the terminology now. :)
Perhaps I didn't explain things as well as I could have. A hook is the opening sentence or two of your query that, well, hooks the reader's attention, so you were right about it originally. But you want it to be specific enough that the reader gets a grasp of what they're getting into. So you're new hook is just:
Planning to escape her small-minded town in Quad 4 feels pointless for Rhea, with her overbearing father and crippling insecurities. But after she controls a butterfly during an art project, nothing seems impossible anymore.
The rest is delving deeper into your query (which we're happy to critique here as well, but I would pop over to the query forum to do so). This is definitely going in the right direction, though. You've got a set-up of who the character is and what ignites the story. Something about the first sentence isn't sitting quite right with me, in that if you look at it one way it seems contradictory (she has reasons to want to escape, so escape is not pointless; I know you mean that her father and insecurities are hurdles too big to surmount, so there's no point in even trying, but queries are so much about precision). I'm also assuming that Quad 4 is something you've made up for the story, but the way it's presented makes me question whether it's a real thing that I'm just not familiar with. But, again, you're absolutely trending the right direction, and this new edit shows that you understand what sort of information should be included in a hook.
I was thinking the "hook" was the first sentence/paragraph of the query description, so thanks for the explanation! Here's the updated version:
Planning to escape her small-minded town in Quad 4 feels pointless for Rhea, with her overbearing father and crippling insecurities. But after she controls a butterfly during an art project, nothing seems impossible anymore.
Learning she is a Perennial and has power over nature and other living things, Rhea must now evade a group of men consumed with killing her kind. She travels to a compound for students like her across the former United States, which was ripped into quadrants following unexplained natural disasters a century ago. Along the way, she forms relationships with two boys: one who follows rules to a fault and the other who saves her life, in spite of harboring a dark secret. Before she can figure out her feelings or what her rescuer’s hiding, they arrive at the compound where a teacher says he’s a traitor and takes the boy away, warning Rhea not to go looking for answers.
But, as she uncovers the truth about her growing powers and the school’s power-crazed leader, Rhea questions who the real enemy is and what — or more like who — she’s willing to sacrifice. Search for the mysterious boy and get caught, and she faces exile or death. Pledge herself to the very ones who took him, and Rhea could become the most powerful one of her kind and save even more lives.
Thanks so much for the feedback!
1. She has no idea how powerful she is. But they do. And they’re coming.
This isn't really a hook, more of a logline. The difference isn't always clear cut, but you can usually think of a logline as the words that might appear on a movie poster. Hooks are going to be more specific. You want to introduce your MC and something about them. They can often be originally phrased as "When... then" statements (and then reworked into something more interesting). "When MC experiences inciting incident, then they must react accordingly." Either way, you want your hook more grounded in specifics than what you have here. I'm also always leery about saying the MC doesn't know something. Usually we as the reader are discovering things along with the MC. Unless you've got a second POV that lets the reader in on information that the MC doesn't have, I would strongly advise against the "MC is unaware of something" line of writing, and even then I still think there are generally better ways to go about it. Use the fact that the MC has no idea about something as part of the hook. Characters trying to figure out what the heck is going on is usually solid hook position.
2. Nature’s survival hinges on her actions. But all 16-year-old Rhea is worried about at the moment is avoiding the school bully.
This is better, because we have the MC introduced and something that she wants. I would label this as an adequate hook, as in it would probably get the job done, but it doesn't leap out at me, and we can probably go stronger. The first sentence is a little too wide open for my taste, and again it falls into that territory of the MC not knowing something. What is the inciting incident for your story? When does Rhea realize something wonky is going on in her life? Use that moment that her life starts going haywire as the moment that hooks the reader. After all, as someone who reads spec fic (which this appears to me), I'm not looking to read about a teenage girl avoiding bullies. I'm interested in that moment when some commandos in masks try to kidnap her from school or when a mysterious stranger hands her a book saying she must protect it at all costs or whatever is that inciting incident for your story. That's what's going to get my attention. So lead with that.
Good luck.