I'm not what you would call a fisherwoman but I have been before and there are times, when floating about on this pirate ship looking for anything to do to avoid writing, that I've dropped a line or two. Unfortunately, I've never caught a thing. (Remind me to pick a fishing guide hottie one of these weeks.) In analyzing why I fail to get any bites, I realize it might have something to do with my hook. Maybe the lack of a hook or I'm putting the hook in the wrong place. Fishing is a precise science, believe it or not, and just throwing any old line into the water won't get you very far.Writing is the exact same way. You not only have to have a hook, you have to have the hook in the right place. You bury that hook in chapter three and you might as well forget it. Needless to say, I've learned this the hard way and I'm still learning it. In desperately searching for a topic for this blog, I found a series of articles called Romance writing: Tips for crafting that crucial first chapter and learned a great deal by reading Hook Them In and Keep Them There by Wendy Mackrell. What I learned is that putting the hook on page twenty or even on page five is not a good idea.
For the benefit of my point (which I somehow never seem to make in these blogs) I'm going to use my WIP as a guinea pig to show you how starting with the hook can make a difference in so many ways. Here's my opening right now…
"The universe is conspiring against me. It's trying to drive me crazy. Lucky for the universe, it's a short trip."
"I thought I was the drama queen."
"I'm not being dramatic, Miranda, it’s the truth. I’m resigned to my fate." Celi Cooper switched the cell phone to her right ear, gave a quick glance over her left shoulder and changed lanes. "Everything went wrong today. I'm sure a giant boulder will fall out of the sky at any minute. Right on my car."
"Tempting fate with that one, aren't you?" Miranda joked. Celi didn’t mind Miranda finding humor in her bad day. If it were anyone else’s life, she’d be laughing too.
"You want to know how my morning started?" Celi didn't wait for Miranda to answer. "Fatal Error. Those are the words that greeted me on my monitor this morning."
"Nice. Makes me feel better my scissors can’t talk to me." Miranda said, "Put your head down, hon" to the customer in her chair.
"I shouldn’t be bothering you while you’re working." Celi glanced to the rearview mirror and saw shades of pink, red and blue in the sunset behind her. She hoped to catch that same sunset on film over the weekend. "How much longer until you’re off?"
"Another hour."
Miranda spoke to her client again. "I need to find that gel of mine and I'll be right back." In a muffled voice she said to Celi, "If these heifers do not stop taking my shit, I'm going off."
Celi made the turn into her apartment complex. The management office looked squat between the taller apartment buildings but welcoming with its manicured shrubs and bright flower beds of fuchsia, yellow and violet. "I'm home so I’ll let you
go."
"I want to hear the rest of this bad day story. I’ll drop my stuff in my apartment and head upstairs when I get home. I don’t suppose you’ve eaten?" Celi figured Miranda wasn't talking to her anymore when she said, "I find my stuff on your station again and you're going to find that damn brush where the hair dryer don't blow. You hear me?"
Celi smiled for the first time in hours. Maybe the entire day. "No, I haven’t had time
to eat, but I’ll find something. You get back to work and remember someday you’ll have your own salon and those heifers will be long gone."
"Why is it you can be positive for me and not yourself?"
Celi parked across from her building, turned off the engine and laid her head back on the seat. With eyes closed she said, "Positivity is not what I need. A hot bath is what I need."
"Laid is what you need." Miranda believed sex to be the ultimate cure. "You pick one of the guys on the softball team tomorrow. We'll cut him from the herd at the bar afterward and get you in a better mood."
The only thing I've managed to do here is introduce a whiny heroine who has a funny and upbeat best friend who wants to get her laid and in this bit steels the scene completely. I also imply to the reader that the hero might be the guy they cut from the herd. I assure you, he's not. So, here's the changes I've made to move the hook forward…
"The universe is conspiring against me. It's trying to drive me crazy. It's working."
"I thought I was the drama queen."
"I'm not being dramatic, Miranda, it’s the truth." Celi Cooper switched the cell phone to her right ear, ventured a quick glance into her rearview mirror, and changed lanes. "You want to know how my morning started? FATAL ERROR. Those are the words that greeted me on my monitor this morning."
"Makes me feel better my scissors can’t talk to me." Miranda said, "Put your head down, hon" to the customer in her chair.
"I shouldn’t be bothering you while you’re working. How much longer until you’re off?"
"Another hour."
Celi made the turn into her apartment complex. "I'll stop whining and let you go then."
"You're not whining, you're venting. Totally different." Miranda DiCarlo had been Celi's best friend for nearly five years and her loyalty unshakable. "I want to hear the rest of this bad day story. I’ll drop my stuff in my apartment and head upstairs when I get home."
"Alright, I’ll see you then."
Celi flipped the cell shut and dropped it into the top of her purse. The complex mailboxes set directly across from her unit and a quick check of her box revealed several bills, three credit card offers she'd never open and her latest copy of Photography Today. Tucking the envelopes beneath her arm, Celi slid her key ring on her pinky then flipped through the magazine as she crossed the lot.
Head down, Celi failed to see the black Eclipse coming up fast on her right until it was almost too late. Diving for her life she hit the ground with a thud, landing hardest on her left side and coming to a stop flat on her back.
Afraid to move, Celi remained as still as possible while attempting to catch her breath. Eyes closed, hip throbbing and knee burning, she heard a car door then foot
steps rapidly approaching. With any luck, they were coming to put her out of her misery.
What do you think? I've managed to move the hook from page seven to page two. And all of that conversation (there's even more before we get to the good stuff) can easily slide right back in later. So what have we learned? When determining where to start your story, you need to do two things - A) find your hook and B) get it in as soon as possible.
How about you? Are you pulling out your hair trying to figure out where in the hell your story starts? Do you have ten pages of back story before any of your character's speak? Are you ready to throw something at me for rambling on with no point whatsoever? And if you're a reader, are you willing to stick around for five or ten pages to get to why you should care to read a book in the first place or do you give up much earlier than that?
PS: I'm going to be away from the computer most of the day but I'll check back in as soon as I can!
18 comments:
Good example from the WIP babe!
It's no secret around here that my beginning suck rotten tomatoes. I've been working on twirking it a little bit at a time. And like you, I had to wade through the backstory dump at the beginning and move some dialogue up.
And like you Ter, I'm going to be away from the computer until late Monday night when I get checked into the KC airport hotel. Have a great sea adventure today wenches!
In the fairness of full disclosure, I've already cut nearly 30 pages off the front of this story. And I put up a fight that I REALLY needed all those pages. Amazing that it takes so long to figure out this stuff that is right under our noses. LOL!
Have a safe flight, Sin!
Oh my f-in word. Beginnings are driving me absolutely batty. I wrote at least five maybe six beginnings for my first ms. I'm already on my second beginning for my second one. I figure it's just part of my chaotic process.
Great blog Terrio!
I am having such a difficult time with the beginning of my WIP, I've decided to start two at once so I can work on one while my muse stalls on the other one.
You might say this is a disaster in the making, but it's how I write. I have to be writing all the time or I'm cranky. If my muse decides to vacation, I try to lure her to my other story line and hopefully still manage to stay productive.
I love the difference between the two examples of your WIP. It's very apparent the the second example is more tightly written. Good work:)
I'll be away most of the day too, hold down the ship Cap'n.
As a reader I'm a patient person. I probably bought the book because the writer is a favorite, and I'll read anything anyway she gets me into the story. As a writer trying to get published, I try to wow in the first paragraph or so. Hard to do. In the thing I'm revising now, not only does it meander but it's all in a secondary character's POV, which was great fun but probably not what I should have done. Off to go fix! Great post, terri---and both versions would make me keep reading!
My beginnings always suck. Actually my beginnings still suck; and I've started with: my hero being shot; marriage counseling; a runaway stagecoach; walking in on your fiance making love to your sister; an execution; and finding out you're pregnant.
And they were all boring.
So I obviously didn't do them right.
Although with what you described with the car hitting Celie--that feels more like the "Inciting Incident" than the "Hook" (even though II's happen near the beginning.) What does your book say about that?
Terri, great blog. I get what you mean about the hook coming right away. I've made that mistake every single time, and then had to go back and rearrange like you did in your example. (And I have told you how much I really need to read this, right?)
Okay, inciting incident is the hook; I'm confusing my Ordinary World with Hook. I think it's important to establish OW along with your HOOK. It obviously doesn't have to be in a War & Peace excessive manner, but if they keep moving up where the HOOK is supposed to happen, authors are going to be starting their novels AFTER the hook and the readers will have to spend all their time figuring out what the hook even was.
Hilarious title, Terri - and a great revision-in-action blog!
I try to follow the Jenny Crusie maxim of "start with the trouble", but it's not always easy to figure out where the real trouble starts - sometimes I feel like there's not enough trouble until the black moment, lol.
As a reader, I try very hard to hang in there for the long run. Very rarely does a book become a wall-banger for me, but there have been a few. I can remember when I first really started reading as a hobby. I was fourteen, and my older cousin told me that she always read the first 50 pages of a book before she made her decision to keep reading or give it up. I try to keep her advice in mind when I become bored after page 3.
Great blog, Terri.
Terri, I would keep reading with either version because I love the opening line and the voice. I do think the revised version is stronger, tighter prose, but character and voice are my litmus tests. Both your version make it.
The opening sentences of my WIP are the first words I wrote, and although I experimented with other opening lines, I always go back to them. But the rest of the opening has changed radically. At first I delayed my H/H meeting to chapter
3. Now it happens on page 1. I took to heart the repeated advice to have the H/H meet quickly.:)
Sorry all, I've been out all day. :)
Ter, great blog and way to use your stuff for examples.
Cap'n - is the hook the inciting incident? I'm getting all these writing terms turned around in my head....
I think it is important to get the conflict going as quickly as possible. Page one, paragraph one. Whether I do that or not, who knows? I think that what really hooks me in is the author's first sentence. First sentences are key.
I like both of these versions though, babe.
Your Hook *can be* your inciting incident, but it's not an absolute. The inciting incident is whatever happens that thrusts your character into his current problem. It's considered where "the action starts" but not all stories start (which is what I consider the "hook"--the hook is the start of your story) with this scene. Sometimes it starts with an ordinary world first, then the incident.
But as Terri says, it's best everything happens as soon as possible.
Hello everyone! Thanks for entertaining yourselves for the day and thanks to the Captain for questioning my topic altogether. LOL!
If you click on the title of the article, the first line you read is this:
The hook is the thing in the first couple of paragraphs that makes the reader want to keep reading.
I don't have a traditional hook for my story but at the moment of near collision is where these two lives first intersect and it sets the tone for how everything starts. To say neither leaves a good first impression is an understatement.
In the more traditional meaning of HOOK some say it's that thing that makes your story unique. That city girl afraid of horses falling in love with the cowboy or the cop falling in love with the jewel thief or the French spy falling in love with the English spy. These are generalized examples but you see what I mean.
Thanks everyone who said they would keep reading with either version. That makes me feel better and at least now I feel a bit more confident in my understanding of how to hook them very early on.
Now, Cap'n, how in the world could all those beginnings be boring? An execution?! Surely that one is exciting. LOL!
Well, it wasn't HER execution. It was her father's.
The second paragraph IS tighter. Great job!
I just finished the exact same thing on my prologue, after a very wise crit said "Um--very strong beginning hook, and then there is six pages of 'visiting' before you get on with it."
Oh. Well, the visiting was Necessary, of course, in order to set up the entire story and paint a really clear picture, because readers really aren't all that brilliant and need the huge amount of backstory in order to understand things.....yeah, something like that.
Chop, chop, chop. :)
I would keep reading with either also, Ter. I see how the second draft is tighter, though.
I wonder if there are different rules for different genres. For instance, if it's Women's Fiction (with a romance) as opposed to straight Romance I'm assuming the H/H don't HAVE to meet within in the first chapter. And I suppose the hook would be a little different too.
BTW - I love the title!
Gillian - You are so right. All of that stuff does feel *necessary*. At least cutting this stuff doesn't have to be permanent as they fit right back in after the hook takes place.
Irish - I do think it's different for different genres. But if you're writing women's fiction with a romance then your hook would be what it is about the heroine or her life that would make readers want to keep reading. It might be something horrible that happens to her that has nothing to do with the hero. Just something important enough or life changing enough to grab the reader's attention.
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