Opening Hooks

[margo_x_x]

Post a Hook!

Nothing long winded now, brevity is the soul of wit. If you can’t ‘Hook” your readers, it’s hard to reel them into your story.

Got a couple of opening lines you’re proud of? Post them. Seen one that impressed you? Quote it with a link to the story and credit to the writer.

I wish I could give brilliant reviews, like Whispersecret does in her ‘500 words’ thred, but if we’re lucky, she’ll visit us here.

Everyone is welcome to add their two cents on each entry (nickels, dimes, and five pound notes in the case of the heavy hitters, but don’t let the fact that they’re lurking around keep you off the field)

 

[SpaceToast]

Just because it had been on my mind, I'll post this one. Totally unrelated to Literotica, this is the first line from C.S. Lewis's "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (which is, by the way, the third book, not the fifth):

"There was a boy named Eustice Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

Lewis amazes me with all but his religion. Please return to your cybersex-

-M@

 

[margo_x_x]

Good example. Ten words and a name, yet a character has been introduced and we know he’s a bastard. Questions pop up too. How did he become so rotten? What kind of rotten is this ‘boy?’

One I’ll have to paraphrase comes from Steven King’s The Library Policeman.

“It was all the juggler’s fault.”

Six words that tell us a.) something is wrong, b.) the narrator is irrationally blaming a nameless juggler, and c.) we have to keep reading.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Hooked

I've got to reply here, because I've been doing a semi-conscientious survey of the openings of great stories in lit and pop fiction for the last year, and I've decided that it's not really the opening line that hooks you.

If the reader has opened a book to your story or called up it up on the web, he's almost certain to give you his attention for at least 3 or 4 lines, maybe even the first paragraph, So I've read great stories that had dull first lines but that almost always engaged me by the end of the first paragraph.

Also consider the first line is not really the first line. Your title is actually the firts line and sets the tone for what the reader's expecting. Titles are something I'm working more and more on now. Really, it's the only thing a reader sees of your story when he'd browsing, & I tend to give my stories dull titles. No more (I hope)

And beware of gimmicky opening lines. I define a 'gimmick' as a literary device which the reader just might recognize as such, and which, if recognized, will make him somewhat contemptuous of you. The "weird opening line" gimmick (like "It was all the juggler's fauilt."), in my opinion, calls attention to itself as being a blatant use of the "weird opening line" gimmick. You see this gimmick a lot in classic Sci-Fi of the 50's thru 70's.

Max Schulmann, a great short story and Hollywood writer, made fun of this gimmick with his "best opening line ever" that went:
"Blam, blam, blam, blam!! Four slugs tore into my gut and I was off on the adventure of my life!"

The only thing I learned from my survey is that good story tends to ease you into it gracefully in the first couple of paragraphs. The narrator tells you something you can identify with, or a description is very arresting, or your attention is gently engaged by something in the story. In other words, there's no formular, no secret. Just good writing.

But I know, I know. We keep on looking.

---dr.M.

 

[SpaceToast]

I'd like to ammend that thought, and agree with most of it: It's not always the first sentence that hooks you. Some stories begin just fine without a dramatic opening. Of course, the "hook" isn't always a single sentence, either. Getting a reader interested in the story is really just a question of giving them something to want to know more about by the end; sometimes this comes in the first sentence, other times it's a gradual process.

I think that the "hook" is a tool in the writer's arsenal; nothing more or less. It can be used well, and it can be abused. I agree that the Steven King line quoted is kind of a poor hook -- it's just trying too hard. That said, my three stories all deal with the hook differently.

The first ("SFS Prima: Cali") tries too hard. I was intentionally using a lot of fragments and clipped sentences in that story, so I don't mind it if the opening's a little unsanded.

The second, "A Winter's Tale," has almost no hook. It's mis-en-sein that builds interest (if there is indeed any to be gained in the story, as much as I like it).

My latest, the dialogue experiment, uses the most shameless hook of all. Read at full speed, though, I'm not sure many people could get into the story.

Let's refer back to Lewis. To continue my example above:

"There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and his schoolmasters called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none. He didn't call his father and mother "Father" and "Mother," but Herald and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, nonsmokers and teetotallers and wore a special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on the beds and the windows were always open."

Notice that this is basically a classic opening paragraph infodump, of the sort that modern science fiction frequently abuses. What Lewis does to make it work is:

A) Jokes. Undergarments, "Scrubb," and the first sentence, especially.
B) Paint a portrait we can relate to (my friend Lyrica wasn't brought up to call her mother and father mom and dad, but she does anyway).
C) Use of rhythm. Notice how the dependant clauses on the ends of the sentences seem to dip down, as you read them (especially aloud). Five of the seven sentences end like this. One that doesn't is the shortest sentence, and the other is the final. Thus, the last sentence of the paragraph doesn't have a hard stop, like almost all of the others, flowing all too easily into the next paragraph.

It's a tool, among many, and think we can all appreciate it as such. So how about it -- who's got other good "hooks?"

I'll get you, Peter Pan-

-M@

 

[margo_x_x]

I didn’t mean to imply that hooks should be one sentence long, I just wanted to avoid the 500 word format Whispersecret has in her thread.

The revision I’m working on for Girl in a Box has a 285-word opening hook.

The opening should introduce the main characters and give the reader a reason to keep reading. That’s what a hook is to me.

I was trying to get ideas for starting a story one time, and snagged a box of yard-sale paperbacks. I started going through them, just reading the first one or two paragraphs, and caught myself on page two or three in several. One was that Steven King novel, and the other was a perfectly awful romance novel. Although one let me down, they both ‘hooked’ me.

I’ve heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and suspect that the opening is the most important part of the story.

You may scoff at Mr. King’s hooky opening hooks, but I’ll bet if he ever decides to use a pseudonym and post something here, his stuff will wind up all over our top lists.

 

[M.A.Thompson]

I am a sucker for the opening line. A poor one and you are going to have to work overtime to sustain my page turning; a great one and I will forgive you mediocrity until at least chapter three.

I like to think I am improving in this department with my stories. So for this thread I submit the opening line to my latest story which is still in need of much editing before it is submitted. So without further ado I give you…

“In the late summer of 1848, one hundred and twenty years before I was even born, a briny old fisherman named Owen Addams did me a remarkable favor.”
-from the yet to be submitted and tentatively titled Thank You, Owen Addams

Looking at it on it’s own now, without the support of the paragraph that accompanies it, I think it still holds it own ground, however, I am up for criticism.

For the record, I think this is a very interesting thread and I am surprised more people have not replied. Perhaps if it were moved to the Authors Hangout.