OPENING HOOKS

by Evie Eastwood-Van Veen

This month we’re going to talk about the most important part of your story. Something that’s even more significant than the plot or the characters, in a manner of speaking. It’s the Hook. The reason I say that the opening hook is the most important part is because, let’s face it, if you don’t grab the reader’s attention right away, chances are they won’t finish reading. And that’s a bad thing, a really bad thing. Because regardless of how good your story may get on page seven or page thirty-seven, if no one reads that far, it doesn’t matter to anyone but you. Well, and maybe your mom.

At the risk of being repetitive, this is something you should not worry about until you’re completely finished writing the entire book and have put it away for a while to get a fresh perspective. We talked about this last month, but trying to rewrite your opening hook before you’ve even finished writing the book is a bit like taking a shower before you take your clothes off. You can do it; it’s just a lot harder. Okay, actually it would cut down on your laundry but that’s a topic for another time.

My personal rule of thumb is to write the entire book first, without stopping to rewrite. (Actually in all honesty, anyone who knows me knows that’s not always how I do it, but it’s how I always want to do it, how I mean to do it and how I plan to do it when I grow up.) Then, with the help of your critique group, rewrite chapter by chapter until you have a polished manuscript. Then, put it away for a few weeks and read it again with a fresh eye. After you’ve polished it again, then you can start obsessing about your opening hook. Maybe by then, you’ll have the attention-grabbing hook and you can just send it away and wait, and wait, and wait, but that’s another month’s article.

I took an informal poll of some of my writing friends, and what they had to say was not a surprise to me. It probably won’t really surprise you either. I dug out some of my favorite books and did another survey. Almost all the books I found had the same thing in common. They started out right smack dab in the middle of the action. Some were funny, some were odd and some were almost frightening, but all sucked me right into the story. I had to keep reading to see what I’d missed and how we’d gotten to that point in the story. My personal favorite is a zingy one liner, but I’m partial to comedy stories and if you can make me laugh right away, I’m going to keep reading.

A good opening hook starts out with a question. Draw the readers into the story by making them start asking themselves questions. Never, never, never answer a question without asking a new question. Nothing will make a reader keep reading like curiosity. If you hook them right away, they’ll read long enough to see your dazzling prose, your three-dimensional characters and your brilliant plot lines. You just have to hook them.

Make them ask questions, but don’t supply the answers too easily. I don’t want a<<Selection in Document>> book that’s going to tell me who the character is or why they’re acting like this or what’s going on in the story. I want to slowly discover this for myself. That’s the fun of reading. I don’t want to be bogged down with back-story because I’ll probably just stop reading as soon as my interests lag. In today’s world, we’re all busier than we should be and reading is a pleasure I squeeze in between a long list of "have-to’s".  If the book doesn’t catch my attention immediately, I’ll move on to one that does.

Sometimes I feel like writing the opening hook is harder than writing the rest of the book. I’ve probably rewritten that section more than any other section in my books. However, I think that once you have the perfect start, it just flows from there. That’s another reason to have a support system, either a critique partner or a group. If your jokes fall flat, or your suspense isn’t suspenseful, you’d better find out before you send it out.

So, whatever way you choose to start your story, the important part is that you start it! Sit yourself down in front of that computer and just begin, something brilliant will happen, no matter how many times you have to fix it. Good luck and happy writing!

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