The Hook

[Rumple Foreskin]

Yours is far better, of course.

Oh, stuff and nonsense.

Selena, FWIW, I really liked these openings:

"It started in the shower."

"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."

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Shwenn]

You got your towel?

I most certainly am a frood who knows where her towel is.

 

[Shwenn]

I was thinking about this last night.

The best hook for me is when the author tells you, in the first sentence, how the story is going to end. This is after years of experience. I have learned that, when an author does this, you're in for a hell of a ride.

It is basically the same principle behind Penn and Teller showing you how their tricks work. If you are good enough, it doesn't matter if everybody knows how the trick is done.

Some authors rely on your curiosity about the ending to get you through the book. I've finished books I hated just to find out how it ends.

When an author reveals the end of his story in the first sentence, it's as though he's saying to me, "You're going to finish this book because of how well I've written it. I'll even tell you the end. It won't matter. I am that good."

I truly do get flurries of excitement in my belly when I read such a first sentence.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

SWEET WITCH

I have maybe 1000 articles from the 1800s that I use in my writing. All of them are true, and all of them are bizarre. Like the one about the married guy who meets his teenage sweetie down by the lake after dark, where a large gator drags her into the water and devours her. I can do a lot with an opening scene such as this one.

Or a monster in an insane asylum. The old state insane asylums had crematories to burn their dead. Sometimes the 'deceased' werent dead when they went in the oven. Lets say the victim was burned pretty bad, had some brain damage from oxygen depravation, but survived.

I also have a library of books from the 1800s, plus a large collection of 19th Century magazines.

My style is to embed bizarre, but true scenes in my stories. I think it keeps the reader interested, because its like an Easter Egg hunt.

 

[Belegon]

I was thinking about this last night.

The best hook for me is when the author tells you, in the first sentence, how the story is going to end. This is after years of experience. I have learned that, when an author does this, you're in for a hell of a ride.

It is basically the same principle behind Penn and Teller showing you how their tricks work. If you are good enough, it doesn't matter if everybody knows how the trick is done.

Some authors rely on your curiosity about the ending to get you through the book. I've finished books I hated just to find out how it ends.

When an author reveals the end of his story in the first sentence, it's as though he's saying to me, "You're going to finish this book because of how well I've written it. I'll even tell you the end. It won't matter. I am that good."

I truly do get flurries of excitement in my belly when I read such a first sentence.

I could never start a book that way because I am what some of the other writers I know cal a "pantser." I don't make detailed outlines, i just go from the seat of my pants. I write what I'm inspired to write.

Now, could I finish a book and then rewrite the beginning in such a way? Perhaps...

 

[_Lynn_]

I could never start a book that way because I am what some of the other writers I know cal a "pantser." I don't make detailed outlines, i just go from the seat of my pants. I write what I'm inspired to write.

Now, could I finish a book and then rewrite the beginning in such a way? Perhaps...

That's how I write, too. An outline seems like a waste of time somehow, I guess. The only time I used one was for NaNo. Even then I didn't follow it much.

 

[SweetWitch]

I could never start a book that way because I am what some of the other writers I know cal a "pantser." I don't make detailed outlines, i just go from the seat of my pants. I write what I'm inspired to write.

Now, could I finish a book and then rewrite the beginning in such a way? Perhaps...

That's my method, too. Something will ignite a spark in my imagination and a story unfolds as I type. Sometimes I have to take a step back and ask the characters where the hell they're going, but in the end, I have a story. It's part of the fun of writing, seeing how it will all end.

 

[Shwenn]

I could never start a book that way because I am what some of the other writers I know cal a "pantser." I don't make detailed outlines, i just go from the seat of my pants. I write what I'm inspired to write.

Now, could I finish a book and then rewrite the beginning in such a way? Perhaps...

That is so weird. I do not think I could write a chapter without, at the very least, a clear idea of what is going to happen in the subsequent chapter.

I think I can tell if a book has been outlined by the end of the second chapter.

I'm talking about books like A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.

Like, the last book, you have two stories, one is present day and the other is set in WW2. You read both concurrently. You know that they will climax together. You also understand that the former is the dénouement of the latter, but you won't see how until you've finished the book.

That is the sort of magic you can only get with a well outlined novel. Telling the end in the first sentence won't make it into a book like that. The possibility that it is such a book is what excites me.

It is very difficult to do. I wouldn't expect an author to even consider spending that kind of time and effort on something until they have an established audience and a hefty advance. Unless that author had OCD. Then he might do it for a hobby site like this.

I wouldn't even try it unless I knew I was going to get paid, not just published but truly paid, I'll tell you that much.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

That is so weird. I do not think I could write a chapter without, at the very least, a clear idea of what is going to happen in the subsequent chapter.

Feh! I never know what's going to happen. *shrug* And most of the time, it magically comes around to the most perfect conclusion, one I couldn't have imagined to begin with. Intuitives write differently than thinkers. There isn't just one right way to do... well, anything!

 

[Corylea]

I could never start a book that way because I am what some of the other writers I know cal a "pantser." I don't make detailed outlines, i just go from the seat of my pants. I write what I'm inspired to write.

I have a friend who's a professional writer -- she's published sixteen science fiction novels -- and she writes like this. It's always interesting to listen to her as she gets close to the end of whatever she's currently writing: "I don't know what happens! I need to resolve all this somehow, and I don't know how! I won't make my deadline! The characters are asking me to pull a rabbit out of my hat, and I was depending on them to figure out how it would all work out. Oh, wait...I have an idea. I'll call you back later; I have to go write now."

I think the panicking may be a necessary part of the process.

 

[Shwenn]

Feh! I never know what's going to happen. *shrug* And most of the time, it magically comes around to the most perfect conclusion, one I couldn't have imagined to begin with. Intuitives write differently than thinkers. There isn't just one right way to do... well, anything!

Oh, there is a right way to do everything. And that right way is the way I do it. Everything else is the wrong way.

Why am I the only person who sees these eternal truths?

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Oh, there is a right way to do everything. And that right way is the way I do it. Everything else is the wrong way.

Why am I the only person who sees these eternal truths?

*snerk*

 

[Equinoxe]

Oh, there is a right way to do everything. And that right way is the way I do it. Everything else is the wrong way.

Why am I the only person who sees these eternal truths?

I think deixis makes those eternal truths apparent to a lot of people.

 

[rgraham666]

The only Eternal Truth is that there are no eternal truths.

Except, maybe, for death.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

I have a friend who's a professional writer -- she's published sixteen science fiction novels -- and she writes like this. It's always interesting to listen to her as she gets close to the end of whatever she's currently writing: "I don't know what happens! I need to resolve all this somehow, and I don't know how! I won't make my deadline! The characters are asking me to pull a rabbit out of my hat, and I was depending on them to figure out how it would all work out. Oh, wait...I have an idea. I'll call you back later; I have to go write now."

I think the panicking may be a necessary part of the process.

That does have a familiar ring.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Shwenn]

The only Eternal Truth is that there are no eternal truths.

I was thinking last night in the bath about how to change this statement from a paradox to something that could conceivably be true.

This is what I came up with:

This is the only eternal truth.

 

[SweetWitch]

I was thinking last night in the bath about how to change this statement from a paradox to something that could conceivably be true.

This is what I came up with:

This is the only eternal truth.

Hmmm...

There is no eternal truth.

Life goes on, that is the only eternal truth.

Or how about:

When the wind blows, his dick will get hard. That's the only eternal truth.

(couldn't resist.)

 

[Shwenn]

Hmmm...

There is no eternal truth.

Life goes on, that is the only eternal truth.

Or how about:

When the wind blows, his dick will get hard. That's the only eternal truth.

(couldn't resist.)

All of those statements are paradoxes.

 

[SweetWitch]

All of those statements are paradoxes.

Of course they are. It's the eternal truth.

 

[SweetWitch]

Of course they are. It's the eternal truth.

Bump, because I like the discussion on this thread.

 

[DG Hear]

Hmmm...

There is no eternal truth.

Life goes on, that is the only eternal truth.

Or how about:

When the wind blows, his dick will get hard. That's the only eternal truth.

(couldn't resist.)

How about, "When he goes in the water, his dick will get smaller." Proven on an episode of Seifeld.

 

[Saucy_Sage]

I started my Halloween story:

I lost control of my body at 5:46 p.m. Central Standard Time.

Now all I have to do is complete it by the weekend. O - kay . . .

 

[SweetWitch]

How about, "When he goes in the water, his dick will get smaller." Proven on an episode of Seifeld.

Plot bunny alert!

I started my Halloween story:



Now all I have to do is complete it by the weekend. O - kay . . .

A start is half the battle!

 

[BlackShanglan]

"Dr Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and evry thing that happins to me from now on."

I still feel a pang every time I see those words.

What a story.

 

[sr71plt]

I was thinking about this last night.

The best hook for me is when the author tells you, in the first sentence, how the story is going to end. This is after years of experience. I have learned that, when an author does this, you're in for a hell of a ride.

It is basically the same principle behind Penn and Teller showing you how their tricks work. If you are good enough, it doesn't matter if everybody knows how the trick is done.

Some authors rely on your curiosity about the ending to get you through the book. I've finished books I hated just to find out how it ends.

When an author reveals the end of his story in the first sentence, it's as though he's saying to me, "You're going to finish this book because of how well I've written it. I'll even tell you the end. It won't matter. I am that good."

I truly do get flurries of excitement in my belly when I read such a first sentence.

I sometimes use this technique. It works well, I think, because TV script formulas have conditioned us to assume that the first couple of "he did it" set-ups are false leads. I think readers stay engaged with this way of arcing a story because their brains keep spinning on how it's going to fall into the formula of "he didn't really do it."