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Keep that in mind, @everybody, because it’s true, I’m telling’ ya. Beginnings do make readers, endings do make fans.
But since we can’t have one without the other, I wanna devote this topic first off to discussing beginnings. The very first page. The very first sentence. Readers aren’t willing to stick around ‘until it gets good’. They want good now.So… what are your thoughts? What best serves as an immediate hook, in your opinion?
I think one thing to remember about beginnings is that the very first sentence of the very first chapter (or prologue, if you’re using one) should set the mood for the entire story. There are many good ways to do this, of course, and not one of them is ‘always right’. If you’re doing comedy, you want something funny and unusual. ‘First off, I just wanna tell you I’m not normally in the habit of spilling soda up my nose. It was entirely an accident.’
If you’re doing action/adventure, you want something exciting. I could be wrong, but bombs are not the first thing most people want to see when they open their briefcase on the morning of an important job interview.’Now I write drama— it’s a pretty broad genre (I don’t even know if ‘genre’ is the proper word) and so it could be funny, exciting, or any number of other things. I’ve got a lot to choose from. But one of my favorite ways is to make a quick, pithy statement that strikes an emotional chord and also sets up for the storyline. For instance, my fantasy novel Black Falcon (as yet unwritten) begins as of right now with this: ‘Three things there are in the world of all things most pitiful— a godless soul, an unmarked grave, and a hunted child.’
Another good key for any genre and any mood is a distinctive narrator voice— one that grabs you and holds your imagination from the start. ‘Well, first of all I want to clear something up. It wasn’t my fault. I know they said it was, but well, the fact of the matter is, they lied. They do that. Don’t ask me why, but they do.’
Your thoughts? And… is it absolutely crazy of me to be interested in analysis of something this… minute? 😛
I think you’re absolutely right (and no, you’re not crazy). And wow…the beginning of Black Falcon is amazing. That would definitely get me reading past the first sentence. 🙂
Something that I think works well as a hook is starting right in the middle of the action. Here’s an example:
“Go! Go! Go!”
Lindy pumped her legs, hardly feeling the ground beneath her feet. Her breath came in short pants and blood burned in her chest. She was almost there.Now, until you read further, you don’t realize that Lindy is only participating in a foot race, not running for her life. 🙂 Still, the reader doesn’t learn that until about 4 more lines.
Another hook I’ve used is here:
It happened. Their worst nightmare, their deepest fear, was now a shocking reality.That one is the beginning of the preface of my Civil War novel. I love it because it sets the tone for the rest of the book.
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NO NOT CRAZY
YES
AWESOME
I LOVE THIS
AMAZING
no you’re not crazy this is like super cool.
i totally agree that it depends on the genre. i’ve never heard of the ‘setting the tone for the entire story’ thing though. that’s pretty cool, i like it.
a good hook is exactly what a good story needs. i think this is awesome.
also where did you get the spill soda up my nose line? it’s hilarious XDYES! Love opening hooks! 😀
This is one of my favorite ones I’ve done:
“My wormhole experiment took a little bit to actually start working. Which was great that it worked at all, but the thing was that it started right in the middle of class.”
*sigh* I need to write more on that… someday.
Also, there’s a kids’ book one that I love:
*plain, white room* “This is my room before I made it fancy.”
*turn page* *totally decked out room* “I love being fancy.”
I’ll find some more of my faves… *goes off to find some*
Great topic, @kate-flournoy! 😀This is a great topic! You’re the complete opposite of crazy, Kate!
I love books where the first sentence is a quote that a character says. To me, it just gives immediate curiosity (Also because I am better at writing dialogues than descriptions/scenes. 😛 I know; not good). It feels like you’re immediately put in the action, and if it’s something like “Help!” or “This is why you should never take walks at midnight…” (Don’t ask where that came from. I honestly don’t know 😛 ) then your curiosity intensifies and you hurry on to see why someone just said that line. Why shouldn’t you take walks at midnight? Who’s yelling for help? Which, I know, those are very poor examples, but I think you catch my drift.
I agree with having a distinct narrative voice. It gives your story unique quality and style. It’s especially fun if you’re writing in first person, or if the setting is in a particular time period or place. 😀As a little note, Structuring Your Novel has some good stuff on opening hooks.
Hooks these days tend to be ones that catch your attention with the first line but then transition into a different scene/style. They remind me of an ad in some ways. As I recall some of the classics though, I see that many of them used hooks too, but they were more subtle. If we read a Dickens novel for instance, we probably won’t read anything that will send a sudden thrill of excitement through us. We will however very shortly get the idea that something highly unusual or dramatic has happened or is about to happen. We don’t know what it is and this drives us forward.
Personally, I tend to prefer these older type hooks because they draw me in more surely, not just for the moment. They tend to stretch on and join seamlessly into the rest of the story. There is only one problem here. That is that these days, readers are likely to ignore a book if the first line doesn’t catch their attention. I would say then that the best hooks are those which contain subtlety and a quiet air of suspense (or whatever feeling you want to have), that flow seamlessly, and that also has a very engaging opening line.
One thing that should be avoided in a hook is deception. One classic example is having this really scary scene only to find out that the character was only dreaming. There may even be a good reason for the character having that dream, but it breaks the feeling of trust between the reader and the author.
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@Ivy-Rose @zoe-wingfeather @writefury @faithdk @Daeus good thoughts, everyone!
I think, Ivy, that action hooks can certainly work, but I tend to be careful using them because if you slam your reader with immediate action they don’t really care, because they don’t care about the character, because they don’t KNOW the character. Get me?
Also, I have to watch myself for dramatic statements entailing the end of the world, because if I get too dramatic it just becomes laughable. If I’m going to use a sentence like that as an opener, I have to remind myself to say something about what happened, not just tell you it happened. Be vague— say something that doesn’t make complete sense unless the person keeps reading, but has a note of ominous warning in it nonetheless. For instance The world is ending. *falls fainting to the floor in terror, wrist drooping limply across pale brow* ‘Oh, how perfectly horrid!’ *smothers snorts of contemptuous laughter.* ‘Aw, who cares if the world ends? No fun in that!’
Now try this: The world has changed. I feel it in the water… I feel it in the earth… Much that once was is lost. *sits petrified, hyperventilating with curiosity, heart beating thickly in throat* *squeaks* ‘W-wh-what did you just say? Oh man, I gotta keep going!’
Kudos to you if you recognize that last one… 😉And Chloe I honestly don’t know where that line about soda up my nose came from… it just sort of spilled out of my fingertips on the spur of the moment. 😛
Hey Daeus, I’ll tell you something. *whispers secretively* I noticed the classical authors’ hooks too! 😉 I do enjoy the subtle classic hooks, personally, but then, I can read pages and pages of description and never get tired. Most readers today are hooked or lost within the first paragraph. 🙁
The difficulty with writing immediate hooks is that you have to keep the tension going— you have to make the rest of the paragraph, the rest of the page, the rest of the chapter, the rest of the book, as gripping as the first sentence, otherwise you set high expectations that just sort of… flop further in. This is why it’s important to make sure your immediate hook, if you decide to use one, is fresh and new and impressive. For example, ‘It is universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife’ (Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice). You don’t necessarily have to state the stakes, or emphasize the drama, or make the reader faint from sheer terror. Just catch their attention and draw them on. Give them an unusual thought to chew on, or an unusual angle to a common thought, and ten to one they’ll keep going.Oh and yes, I don’t like deceptive hooks either. In fact, I don’t even like whole stories deceptive in that way. *ahem* Looking at YOU, Lewis Carrol! I totally agree they badly disappoint, and disappointment is NOT an emotion you wanna wake up in you reader. 😛
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@kate-flournoy oh lol. well i like it 😛
@writefury did you just quote fancy nancy because
i find that very funny XD ten points to your house. XDA note about character voice: It’s great to have a clear character voice, especially in the hook. It helps the reader connect with the character. Sometimes though, I get annoyed by a too strong character voice. There are two reasons for this. First, with these character voices, there is often a strong sense of inconclusiveness. The character voice is filled with double takes, “might”, “Not as ifs”, explaining why something they just thought might not really be the case, and so forth. It’s really mental wimpiness. The second is that an overly strong character voice can just be another way of “telling” instead of showing. Too often the thoughts of a character are so blatantly expressed that the reader might as well take a nap. This is all to say that subtlety is the key to a strong character.
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Wow. Did I ever need this forum to happen. I just read through my stories’ beginnings, and most of them have almost no hook at all. Peter Pan might like that, but my readers will possibly find them a little dull!
Anyways, this beginning was one of my favorites. It’s from a Marvel fanfic that I’m not really working on right now, but just wanted to get the idea down.
“Two months. I’ve been in this rotting hole of a ‘safe house’ for two months.” There’s more, but it’s not very good, and I don’t want to give it all away. 😛
So yeah, @kate-flournoy, this is a great topic and one that I really needed!
Well glad the topic was timely, @belegteleri! (Still can’t write that tag without smiling 😉 )
This is all to say that subtlety is the key to a strong character.
@Daeus— can I just frame that, and put it on my wall? 😀@kate-flournoy I don’t know. It might cost you an arm and a leg.
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*goes slowly green in face* Uh… on second thought… I’ll admire it from a distance @Daeus! 😛
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