The Hook

[Stella_Omega]

I don't agonize over my first sentences. I usually just sit down and start writing, my mind having already composed an opening. And in review, I almost never decide to change the first sentence. I write both literary and "pop," and I find that my literary pieces usually have fuller, more lush openings, with longer sentences, and the "pop" ones are shorter, punchier, and "eh what?" (which agents/publishers say is what they want).

After a whole lot of work with mainstream editors, I also now automatically start off in the middle of some action. For years I watched my first several paragraphs being sliced off--so now I just do that myself in my mind and start where the work is probably going to start anyway.

Excellent advice!

 

[SweetWitch]

This was the closest I found in my stuff:

The frame, made of heavy silver, was tarnished almost black. No matter how much she polished it, the true color of the silver didn’t shine through anymore. It wasn’t always like that. The frame was once as bright and shining as the face in the photograph had been.

 

[SweetWitch]

I guess my last opening was a real thread-killer.

 

[impressive]

I guess my last opening was a real thread-killer.

Naw.

May I edit? I've taken liberties, since I don't know the story.

This was the closest I found in my stuff:

The frame, made of heavy silver, was tarnished almost black. No matter how much she polished it, the true color of the silver didn’t shine through anymore. It wasn’t always like that. The frame was once as bright and shining as the face in the photograph had been.

Once as bright and shining as the face in the photograph, the frame resisted her many attempts to polish it. The heavy silver held its tarnish like her heart held its pain.

Sorry if I got a little melodramatic.

 

[Belegon]

I guess my last opening was a real thread-killer.

I got distracted by drama, online and off.

I still want the thread to continue.

 

[SweetWitch]

Naw.

May I edit? I've taken liberties, since I don't know the story.



Once as bright and shining as the face in the photograph, the frame resisted her many attempts to polish it. The heavy silver held its tarnish like her heart held its pain.

Sorry if I got a little melodramatic.

Hmm... I like it, but it is just a tad dramatic for the start of this story. My heroine has just moved into own new little house and is unpacking her mementos. Gran's pic is just one of them.

 

[MarshAlien]

This is probably my best hook, from the recently concluded five-part "What Feats He Did That Day":

This dream stunk. It literally stunk. I couldn't recall ever smelling anything in a dream before, and I hoped to God this wasn't a permanent change. Or if it was, that my future dreams would be a lot more fragrant than this one.

I honestly don't think it's my best opening paragraph, but as far as hooks go, that's probably the, um, hookiest.

 

[SweetWitch]

This is probably my best hook, from the recently concluded five-part "What Feats He Did That Day":



I honestly don't think it's my best opening paragraph, but as far as hooks go, that's probably the, um, hookiest.

I remember that one. It hooked me, but then, all your stories hook me.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

I've already run my mouth about the sentence vs paragraph aspects of the great hook debate, but the first-rate openings by Stella and SweetWitch bring up the sub-topic of sentence length. IMHO, the following four-sentence paragraph opening to my Lit story, A Special Photo, could easily be change into a single sentence.

FOUR SENTENCES: Sensual and seductive, she lay amid the rumpled sheets of the bed where we'd just made love, relaxed and at ease within the golden skin of her petite, perfect body. Not posing, not looking at the camera so much as through it, into the photographer, into me. Waiting with an expression of amused tolerance for me to finish and rejoin her. It was a special photo of a very special model.

ONE SENTENCE: Sensual and seductive, she lay amid the rumpled sheets of the bed where we'd just made love, relaxed and at ease within the golden skin of her petite, perfect body--not posing, not looking at the camera so much as through it, into the photographer, into me--waiting with an expression of amused tolerance for me to finish and rejoin her; it was a special photo of a very special model.

There are other, no doubt better, ways to handle the punctuation. I yield to the editors among us concerning my attempt.

Any thoughts on which would work best plus where and why?

Rumple Foreskin

 

[SweetWitch]

I've already run my mouth about the sentence vs paragraph aspects of the great hook debate, but the first-rate openings by Stella and SweetWitch bring up the sub-topic of sentence length. IMHO, the following four-sentence paragraph opening to my Lit story, A Special Photo, could easily be change into a single sentence.

FOUR SENTENCES: Sensual and seductive, she lay amid the rumpled sheets of the bed where we'd just made love, relaxed and at ease within the golden skin of her petite, perfect body. Not posing, not looking at the camera so much as through it, into the photographer, into me. Waiting with an expression of amused tolerance for me to finish and rejoin her. It was a special photo of a very special model.

ONE SENTENCE: Sensual and seductive, she lay amid the rumpled sheets of the bed where we'd just made love, relaxed and at ease within the golden skin of her petite, perfect body--not posing, not looking at the camera so much as through it, into the photographer, into me--waiting with an expression of amused tolerance for me to finish and rejoin her; it was a special photo of a very special model.

There are other, no doubt better, ways to handle the punctuation. I yield to the editors among us concerning my attempt.

Any thoughts on which would work best plus where and why?

Rumple Foreskin

I was once told that I was the queen of the run-on sentence. I have since tried to bring that under control, but your single sentence is something that I would have written. I like it.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I was once told that I was the queen of the run-on sentence. I have since tried to bring that under control, but your single sentence is something that I would have written. I like it.

What she said, and you even used a semicolon!

 

[SweetWitch]

What she said, and you even used a semicolon!

I'm so proud of him.

 

[Belegon]

Sentence length, to me, is a variable that is dependent upon other factors. These include, but are by no means limited to, such things as:

Genre: by which I mean that certain subject matter is better served by different approaches. Is your writing is meant to evoke comparisons to Wuthering Heights or to Wizards of Waverly Place?

Pace: A longer sentence is fine when male and female leads walk into his apartment and she is trying to determine what kind of man he is by having a leisurely and deceptively casual look at the furnishings and the books in the bookcase.

Car chase through Manhattan traffic? I'd stick with short and snappy to invoke the bang-bang speed.

Setting: Two Harvard professors discussing the economies of the agrarian southern colonies in the decades prior to the Revolutionary period are going to be more likely to think in complex sentences than three drunk southies discussing the Celtics.

Characterization: If you are writing in the POV of the aforementioned Harvard professor you might want to write differently than when describing a murder witnessed by a three year old.

 

[SweetWitch]

Very true. Action calls for swift, short, somewhat powerful statements, while a "thinking" piece requires a more multifaceted narrative.

I wrote a story for the LW a couple of years back. It was hated by so many, I suspect because it hit too close to home, but one of the things the readers chose to criticize directly was the opening:

Maryanne Sutton Myers, former Miss Pittsfield of 1989, former Prom Queen of the 1990 Pittsfield High School graduating class, junior class president in 1989, captain of the cheerleading squad 2 years running and girl voted Most Likely to Succeed sat in an old chair staring at her sleeping husband.

It was an extremely long and boring sentence. It was done purposefully to illustrate the miserable tedium of Maryanne's life and the emptiness that had once been great potential. The rest of the paragraph was intended to drive the concept home:

Her fingers toyed with the frayed upholstery as she listened to his resonant snoring. He had been on that faded couch all afternoon, sawing logs. It was where he could be found most days since being laid off at the plastics plant where he had worked as a tool and dye maker.

Then there is a novel of mine, Shelter from the Storm, that starts out in the midst of a highly-stressful scene. The opening is a bit more snappy:

The frigid air lashed her face.

This sentence was designed to evoke a moment of helplessness. She was at the mercy of the icy wind. The rest of the paragraph gives an explanation of what she was doing out in the wind without telling the reader why, while giving a hint as to Carissa's frame of mind:

Carissa James glared at the useless cellular phone clutched in her hand. If the damned thing had not cost her so much, she would have smashed it on the asphalt at her feet. There had to be a way to get a signal in this god-forsaken wilderness, she decided as she walked a little farther u p the road. The steep incline and the thin air of the lofty altitude had her wheezing in short order as she climbed higher, searching for a spot that would allow the device to find a signal. She reached the top of the crest only to discover that she had wasted her time.

 

[SweetWitch]

bump

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

"Pearl White, a Negro, was hanged at the county jail Friday morning.

White killed Clara Simmons, a Negro woman, August 26th. He was convicted of first degree murder at the fall term of the circuit court and was sentenced to hang by Judge Willis. White split Simmons' skull with an axe.

The first crowd congealed at daybreak, arriving by buggy, horseback, or walking. The Jacksonville train unloaded another crowd at 9 o'clock, and the 11 o’clock Pensacola train yet another. By noon the large yard between the court house and jail was congested with sight-seers."

I like to begin my books with significant violent events. This example begins with a detailed and graphic hanging. You can feel the scaffold sway when the sheriff springs the trap and White falls.

In another book a swimmer is captured by a serial killer and drowned after she dives into a spring. The killer was waiting for her below. Later he picks up 2 gay boys, drugs them, and drowns them in a jacuzzi. He tosses their bodies into the bay behind his house.

And in my latest effort a man sits in his livingroom, bound and gagged, as a Cadillac is pushed thru the front window by a hurricane storm surge.

My personal bent is to start the beginning, middle, and end with hooks.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

IMHO, that's a good, solid hook, JB. It reminds me a bit of the opening to, The Pillars of the Earth, "The small boys came early to the hanging."

(minor quibble: You might leave out the second "was" in the second sentence of the second paragraph. JAS from the world's worst overuser of "was.")

SweetWitch, I liked the opening to your LW story, but IMHO it could have been a bit tighter.

ORG: Maryanne Sutton Myers, former Miss Pittsfield of 1989, former Prom Queen of the 1990 Pittsfield High School graduating class, junior class president in 1989, captain of the cheerleading squad 2 years running and girl voted Most Likely to Succeed sat in an old chair staring at her sleeping husband.

REV: Maryanne Sutton Myers, Miss Pittsfield of 1989, Pittsfield High Prom Queen in 1990, junior class president, twice named captain of the cheerleading squad, and voted "Girl Most Likely to Succeed" sat in an old chair staring at her sleeping husband.

Now about that semi-colon, he made me do it, honest.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Now you've got me looking at all my first lines... here's a few...

"I was fifteen when I started babysitting for the Baumgartners."

"It started in the shower."

"I’d seen a few Playboys and Hustlers and stuff like that—but I’d never seen anything like what Erica showed me in a box under her father’s bed."

"My stomach lurched when I saw the red and blue flashing lights appear out of nowhere behind me."

"Heidi would do anything. That's what they all said."

"I have to tell you—none of us are named "Tink" or "Sugerplum," and we're nothing like you see in the movies or on TV."

"Thanks to someone’s brilliant design idea in re-vamping the old house as a rental, Sebastian’s apartment was next to the laundry room."

"I could be a little obsessive, but when I found myself searching his Internet history for any remnants of porn, even I knew I was crossing a line."

"If my mum and dad found out about my collection of porn in the shed, I knew they'd both kick-off and I'd be sleeping under a bench in the Underground, buying papers to keep me warm—instead of buying them like I was now, looking for a job."


I think the last is the worst...

 

[Shwenn]

My favorite, though it reveals my unadulterated geekery:

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small uregarded yellow sun."

 

[gauchecritic]

My favorite, though it reveals my unadulterated geekery:

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small uregarded yellow sun."

Grrr, it's driving me mad. Where is that from?

 

[Shwenn]

Grrr, it's driving me mad. Where is that from?

You'll figure it out if you follow this simple rule:

DON'T PANIC

 

[gauchecritic]

You'll figure it out if you follow this simple rule:

DON'T PANIC

I knew I knew it.

 

[jomar]

I knew I knew it.

Ditto!

 

[Stella_Omega]

You'll figure it out if you follow this simple rule:

DON'T PANIC

You got your towel?

 

[SweetWitch]

IMHO, that's a good, solid hook, JB. It reminds me a bit of the opening to, The Pillars of the Earth, "The small boys came early to the hanging."

(minor quibble: You might leave out the second "was" in the second sentence of the second paragraph. JAS from the world's worst overuser of "was.")

SweetWitch, I liked the opening to your LW story, but IMHO it could have been a bit tighter.

ORG: Maryanne Sutton Myers, former Miss Pittsfield of 1989, former Prom Queen of the 1990 Pittsfield High School graduating class, junior class president in 1989, captain of the cheerleading squad 2 years running and girl voted Most Likely to Succeed sat in an old chair staring at her sleeping husband.

REV: Maryanne Sutton Myers, Miss Pittsfield of 1989, Pittsfield High Prom Queen in 1990, junior class president, twice named captain of the cheerleading squad, and voted "Girl Most Likely to Succeed" sat in an old chair staring at her sleeping husband.

Now about that semi-colon, he made me do it, honest.

Rumple Foreskin

Yours is far better, of course.