Happy Hooking or How to Grab the Reader with the
First Sentence
by
Jessica Andersen
This
article was first published in the March 2004 issue of Imagination in Flight,
the newsletter of the New England Chapter of RWA. Permission is granted to
sister chapters for reprinted and/or forwarding with appropriate credit.
"Oh my God,
you’ve killed him!"
That was the first line
of a writing exercise I was involved with recently, where twenty-some of us used
that line to begin a story. The point was to see how many different stories
could come from one line, and how each of our voices differed. And differ they
did! We had everything from a sweet historical to a police procedural, from a
chick lit Thanksgiving turkey story to one RITA nominee's semi-autobiographical
account of an unfortunate experience pet sitting a tropical fish. LOL. But we
can also look at this line in a different way: as a hook.
A first line can do
many things-- set a scene, create a mood, introduce a character, produce an
expectation. . .
Or turn a reader off.
So, let’s look at the
first line of your WIP. Does it ask a story question? Does it set a mood or a
tone? Does it give an indication of what type of story will be forthcoming? And
most importantly, does it make the reader want to know more?
Many writers begin with
dialog, as speech can immediately draw us into a character’s world. But be
careful that the dialog is integral to the story and does at least two of the
important three things: ask a story question, set the mood/genre, hook the
reader.
Similarly, non-dialog
can work as a first line—if it is interesting enough.
Here are a few examples
from books that I culled off my office floor
(authors and titles are listed at the
end of the article).
If she was still
enough, quiet enough, he would not find her.
When we read this
opening line, we immediately wondered who is he? Who is she? Where is she
hiding? Why? This opening line asks a number of story questions. In addition,
the tense mood is immediately set and we know we’re reading a thriller or
suspense novel. And finally, it makes us want to know more- we need to keep
reading in order to find out what happens to the POV character who is hiding
from a Bad Man.
I woke to the patter of
rain on canvas, with the feel of my first husband’s kiss on my lips.
This line sets a
lovely, wistful mood and the mention of canvas suggests an historical setting to
me. In addition, it asks a story question. As she mentions a first husband, we
can figure there’s a second husband. Therefore, why is she dreaming about the
first guy? Did he die? Leave her? Does she still love him? What about the second
hubby, poor fellow? To learn more, we’ll have to read the book—which is our
goal as writers, to draw the reader from page one to The End.
For the better part of
my childhood, my professional aspirations were
simple—I wanted to be an intergalactic
princess.
If you’re in the mood
for a comedy, wouldn’t you want to sit your butt down and read more of this? I
would. In fact, I moved this book over to my re-read pile based on that first
line. It sets the mood and makes me smile. If you’re writing a comedy, there’s
no better way to go about it than to make your reader grin starting on page one.
So let’s go back to
your WIP. Read the first line aloud. Does it sound
interesting? Does it ask a question?
Does it draw the reader into the story from the very beginning?
If not, think about
what you could do to make it better. . . .
["Oh my God,
you’ve killed him" was originally suggested in a workshop by Julie
Elizabeth Leto at RWA National in