Laer Carroll
April 30th, 2009, 10:41 AM
The most important sentence in your story is the very first. And the most important paragraph, page, and scene in your story is also the first paragraph, page, and scene.
These are the tip, barb, crook, and shank of the hook, the part of your story that catches readers' interest. Poul Anderson once said that each of our stories is competing for the beer money of readers. This understates the case. They are also competing with every other story in the magazine our story appears in, and in all other magazines. Other books, and TV and the internet and games - indeed all parts of the entire universe of entertainment - are also our competition. So the hook had better be very hypnotic.
What are the characteristics of an attention-getting first sentence? A sensory element helps. "A shot rang out." "The glittering diamond necklace was gone." "A seductive aroma of chocolate, sugar and - ginger? - wafted through the window." "Her hair was smooth under his hand." "The lemonade was pucker sharp." "She was falling!"
And you can combine them, as in this three-for-one: "Stomach cramps struck him and the next instant nausea and a sudden weakness in his legs sent him to his knees." (I thought of adding diarrhea sensations and a full bladder but figured those would be a little too much of a good thing.)
Emotions also capture our attention. They might be cerebral or sensual. "She knew she had seen him somewhere before." "No one could have gotten into the building - but someone had." "God she hated hated hated him!" "The warmth of love filled her."
Actions get our attention too. "The gun leaped into his hand." "She leaped off the cliff." "His heart leaped in his chest." "John leaped to the conclusion that the phone call was for him." (The action may be intellectual as well as physical.)
Sensations, emotions, and actions are all parts of scenes: textual virtual reality where we seem to experience events in the same time and place as our characters. But one could start a story with a bit of history, geography, culture, exposition, philosophical musings, and so on. These, however, requires you to be a supremely interesting writer with a strong poetic gift.
Conventional wisdom says we should start our stories, not only with a scene but in the middle of important action within the scene, and preferably with a crucial event. "A shot rang out. Officer Dano of the NYPD felt a hammer blow against the body armor she was wearing. She threw up her arms as if killed and dropped behind her patrol vehicle. Prone she pulled her pistol and hugged the concrete. Where had the shot come from?"
Survival for most of us, especially our own, is the most important motive we have, so this is a pretty strong beginning. And the paragraph ends in a question, leading us almost irresistibly into the rest of the page, where your character has to find the answer to the question. In this first scene she must then avoid her attacker while getting help on its way to her, or close with her attacker to neutralize him, or both.
Curiosity is another strong motive. "She knew the blue cat-like centaur on the other side of the roulette table, but could not remember from where. Heyalna green gene-line Wilet-34 cross orange Aluet-237 had lived several centuries and traveled thousands of light-years. She had known many Blues." Here the curiosity is two-fold: the identity of the Blue, and the nature of the universe where the story happens.
Of course once you have hooked your readers you must keep them. That's where the line attached to the hook comes in!
Laer Carroll
These are the tip, barb, crook, and shank of the hook, the part of your story that catches readers' interest. Poul Anderson once said that each of our stories is competing for the beer money of readers. This understates the case. They are also competing with every other story in the magazine our story appears in, and in all other magazines. Other books, and TV and the internet and games - indeed all parts of the entire universe of entertainment - are also our competition. So the hook had better be very hypnotic.
What are the characteristics of an attention-getting first sentence? A sensory element helps. "A shot rang out." "The glittering diamond necklace was gone." "A seductive aroma of chocolate, sugar and - ginger? - wafted through the window." "Her hair was smooth under his hand." "The lemonade was pucker sharp." "She was falling!"
And you can combine them, as in this three-for-one: "Stomach cramps struck him and the next instant nausea and a sudden weakness in his legs sent him to his knees." (I thought of adding diarrhea sensations and a full bladder but figured those would be a little too much of a good thing.)
Emotions also capture our attention. They might be cerebral or sensual. "She knew she had seen him somewhere before." "No one could have gotten into the building - but someone had." "God she hated hated hated him!" "The warmth of love filled her."
Actions get our attention too. "The gun leaped into his hand." "She leaped off the cliff." "His heart leaped in his chest." "John leaped to the conclusion that the phone call was for him." (The action may be intellectual as well as physical.)
Sensations, emotions, and actions are all parts of scenes: textual virtual reality where we seem to experience events in the same time and place as our characters. But one could start a story with a bit of history, geography, culture, exposition, philosophical musings, and so on. These, however, requires you to be a supremely interesting writer with a strong poetic gift.
Conventional wisdom says we should start our stories, not only with a scene but in the middle of important action within the scene, and preferably with a crucial event. "A shot rang out. Officer Dano of the NYPD felt a hammer blow against the body armor she was wearing. She threw up her arms as if killed and dropped behind her patrol vehicle. Prone she pulled her pistol and hugged the concrete. Where had the shot come from?"
Survival for most of us, especially our own, is the most important motive we have, so this is a pretty strong beginning. And the paragraph ends in a question, leading us almost irresistibly into the rest of the page, where your character has to find the answer to the question. In this first scene she must then avoid her attacker while getting help on its way to her, or close with her attacker to neutralize him, or both.
Curiosity is another strong motive. "She knew the blue cat-like centaur on the other side of the roulette table, but could not remember from where. Heyalna green gene-line Wilet-34 cross orange Aluet-237 had lived several centuries and traveled thousands of light-years. She had known many Blues." Here the curiosity is two-fold: the identity of the Blue, and the nature of the universe where the story happens.
Of course once you have hooked your readers you must keep them. That's where the line attached to the hook comes in!
Laer Carroll