5 TIPS TO HOOK YOUR READER

By Norah Wilson (the Wilson in Wilson Doherty)

Okay, since we call this corner of the Interwebs "Writers' Grimoire", Heather and I figured we'd better dish a little about writing. What follows isn't really special or arcane knowledge, but having judged a lot of contests, I can vouch for the fact that many new writers need to learn it.

1. Start where the story starts. The reader does not have to spend two chapters with your character, learning his whole back story before you plunge him into action/conflict. In the example below, we don't tell you much about poor Janna before we thrust her into her daily nightmare in this opening hook from our Gatekeepers series:

From her seat at the back of the classroom, with her nails digging into the sides of the desk and her feet braced beneath it, Janna Pelky stared straight ahead at her math teacher, Mr. Leblanc.

He was turned to the board, furiously drawing his right triangles as if he were conducting a symphony, looking every bit as engrossed and absorbed as any other senior math teacher at Central Chthonic High. But Janna knew the truth. She saw what no one else could see.

There was more to the man before this class. There was a certain terrifying depth.

Janna didn't have to see Mr. Leblanc's face to know what evil lurked beneath the benign mask. She'd seen it before. And God help her, she'd spoken of it before, many months ago, to the white-coated doctors and the glancing nurses as they fought to hold her down.

But she didn't say a word now. Not one word. Because if she did, if she told them what she really saw, they'd send her back there.

Sometimes your story might have its roots in an event well in the past, in which case a short prologue might be the way to hook the reader. That’s what we did in our zombie story, Dark Woods:

August, 1913

She had been his beloved girl. And now….

Smith held the burlap sack in his left hand and clenched the wood-handled knife from his butcher's shed in his right. And he watched Fiona – his youngest child and only girl – crouch down before him on the fetid ground of what had once been such deep, lovely woods.

“There, there, father,” Fiona said, but the words were not comforting to the sorrowful man. They weren't lyrical or soothing even in their repetition.

There, there.

2. Raise a compelling question. In the first example above, we hope we've got you thinking, "What's this Janna chick's problem? Is she actually crazy? If not, what the heck kind of monster is the math teacher? Why is she the only one who sees through his mask?" In the second example, we hope you’re dying to read on and find out why this loving father is standing over his daughter with a butcher knife and a burlap sack.

The question raised in your opening hook need not be the central story question right out of the blocks, but it must begin building toward it.

3. Keep your hook working. Reward the reader gradually. Don't answer the questions you've raised immediately. Spin it out, and give the reader a chance to collaborate with you by connecting the dots for themselves. They don't want to be spoon-fed the answers. They don't want to be hit over the head.

4. Deploy new hooks. While you're feeding the necessary information to the reader to help her answer that first question or questions, throw out another hook. Basically, you want to deploy a hook at the end of each chapter to continuously draw the reader forward. Not every hook needs to be earth-shattering, but it needs to be compelling.

5. Play fair. Say your story is already written and you realize you haven't opened on a great hook. Whatever you do, don't just graft on an exciting action or conflict scene for the sole purpose of starting with a bang. If it's not organic to the story, it will stick out like ... well, something you grafted on. Spend the time to figure out what your problem is. You may find you started your story before the story starts.

Okay, got any tips of your own to share for hooking a reader? A favorite first line or opening paragraph? We'd love to hear from you!