Book Hooks Day 4

How else to create a hook for your book?

Start with action. "Action" does not necessarily mean a gunfight, a fistfight, or an explosion. Action means starting your book or story at a compelling place, in a scene, with something at stake for your characters.

Look closely and you may find that you have pages of material that should not be in the beginning. They fill in some important blanks for readers, but that backstory can safely be moved to somewhere after your opening.

“Uh – hem.” Yup, that was me. The first time I took my pages to a NHRWA critique session, I found out that the action of my story actually started on page four, so I moved it up to page one.


The key is to start your story with a riveting moment that grabs the reader by the shirtfront and does not let him or her turn away.


Example: “Twelve hundred pounds of charging horseflesh hit the wooden railings chest high and somersaulted into the north stands. Faces frozen with horror moved in desperate slow motion to get out of the path of the crazed beast.”

The first lines of Cut Throat by Lyndon Stacey a horse has crashed through the gate protecting the crowd and someone is going to get hurt.


Now that's some action!


A general rule is to never put dialogue or straight description in your opening lines. Dialogue is fine in the first scene. Many experts agree that first scenes without dialogue do not achieve their potential.

"Why is that?"

The most compelling reading material involves tension between people, and people usually talk to each other. However, if your very first lines are dialogue, it is impossible for the reader to understand who is speaking right off the bat. It would be like walking in on the middle of a conversation between two people at a party and trying to decipher what they are discussing.

“I think she is a very attractive girl.” “Yes, but can she sing.” You do not have a clue about who they are or who they are talking about.

Similarly, the use of description right up front will not pull your reader into the story. Not because it confuses or disorients the reader like dialogue, but because description can be dull and it does not tell the reader anything about the story itself.

If (and this is a big IF) the setting is somehow crucial to your first scene and you feel you must start there, limit it to one or two sentences and then get right into the meat of the scene. There will be time for description later.


Example: Death was not taking a holiday. New york may have been decked out in its glitter and glamour, madly festooned in December of 2059, but Santa Claus was dead. And a couple of his elves weren’t looking so good. ~from "Creation in Death" by JD Robb

Your homework, should you choose to accept it is. . .

Exercise: Write two different opening hooks. They can be just a paragraph or a page. But remember, you are to hook that reader and make them want more.

At least one of the opening hooks has to have action in the opening paragraph.

Have fun!