CHAPTER 2
Why you should be a hooker
Okay, let’s get started on that first chapter of yours. It will actually be your workbook, and from this point on you’ll refer to it often. You’ll rework it, lesson by lesson, Step-by-Step, to make it virtually editor-proof.
At the end of most chapters and Steps in this book, I’ll ask you to re-edit your first chapter, armed with the knowledge you’ve just gained. When you finish this book, assuming you’ve done the things asked of you, you’ll have a sparkling first chapter that will entice even the most hardhearted editor. In order to measure progress—and to assure you’re not afraid to experiment—you’ll need to copy your first chapter into its own file. If you haven’t done that yet, I’ll wait here for you to do so.
Waiting, waiting, waiting…
Ready? Here we go.
Your first hook
Why did that publisher or agent reject your last manuscript? The problem could be that you simply didn’t use a good “hook” to engage her. The title of this very chapter is a hook. Didn’t it make you want to read further?
Remember the publishing house’s first reader who didn’t even take the manuscript from its envelope? She slipped it out halfway, glanced at the first paragraph, and tossed it into the reject pile. As cruel as that sounds, wasn’t she doing the same thing you do when you visit a bookstore?
If you’re a typical book buyer, you select a book in your preferred genre that has an appealing front cover. You read the back-cover blurb and, if it interests you, you open to the first page and read the first few sentences. If they don’t “hook” you—that is, make you want to read more—you replace that book on the shelf and move to the next one.
That’s exactly what that publishing house’s first reader did. We can’t really blame her, can we? She knows what book buyers are looking for—a book that grabs and holds their interest.
Knowledgeable writers make it virtually impossible for readers to put their book down by starting their story with a hook: a sentence that asks a story question the reader wants answered. Following are examples from published novels of several genres.
Morgan Turner squinted up at Captain Montgomery’s counting room, which was, as promised, the last office in a long, tall brick building—last office, last hope.
Wicked Woman, by Denise Eagan
What does she mean, “last hope?” Why is Ms. Turner visiting this Captain Montgomery, whoever he is? How can he help her? Notice the author has posed questions readers want answered. To find those answers, they have to keep reading.
Here’s another example of a good opening hook:
It will all be over soon.
Magic Hour, by Kristin Hannah
Good lord! What will be over soon? And who is it this—this unknown thing—is happening to? Even the most jaded editor will read on to find out.
Another example:
She flew in at night, in a small private plane that she’d chartered using the last of her cash.
The Sicilian’s Virgin Bride, by Sarah Morgan
Wow! It looks like this girl’s in trouble. Night…chartered airplane…last of her cash…can you put this book down without reading ahead to find out what’s going on? I bet not. The reason is, of course, the hook.
Another:
Brad Ballivan opened the driver’s side door of the waiting pick-up truck, tossed his guitar inside and turned to wave farewell to the pilot and crew of the private jet he hoped never to ride in again.
The McKettrick Way, by Linda Lael Miller
The character is apparently a cowboy returning home. But from where? Why was he riding a private jet? And why, pray tell, did he not want to do that again?
The above hooks were from romance novels, but similar hooks are used in every fiction genre. Here are examples from mystery novels:
Death wasn’t normally on my mind in the grocery store parking lot.
Murder in the Milk Case, by Candice Speare Printice
Who of us could stop reading after that first sentence? We know the character’s in a parking lot, and someone’s died, but who? What are the circumstances?
Why was an L hanging in the window?
Worth Its Weight in Old, by K. D. Hays
That’s a great hook. The author poses the question, then answers it in the next paragraph. But there’s yet another hook waiting for us there, and so we’re off on a wild read, chasing even more hooks.
Something about the Out of Time antique store didn’t feel quite right that Tuesday afternoon.
Murder on the Ol’ Bunions, by S. Dionne Moore
We know something’s wrong, but what? Well, it has to do with an antique shop, but—and we read on, to find out what’s happening.
Why would someone run down a young woman and not stop?
Murder by Proxy, by Suzanne Young
An excellent question, is it not? Don’t you want to read on to find out? Here are examples from science fiction novels:
As far as Dee Daniels was concerned, too many idiots with death wishes filled the world.
I’ll Be Slaying You, by Cynthia Eden
Something major has happened to make the point-of-view character think this. What was it? How will it affect the character’s day?
Water. Valkerie Jansen forced one foot in front of the other, a weary survivor on a death march across a dry and barren planet.
The Fifth Man: A Science Fiction Romantic Suspense Mars Adventure,
by John B. Olson and Randy Ingermanson
Those two sentences set up the story well. Why’s there just one man? Why is it a death march? Why is he on a dry and barren planet?
We’ve seen romance, mystery, and science fiction hooks, but I emphasize that hooks are important in any fiction genre. To see good hooks, simply go to Amazon.com and find books on your genre. Click on a book’s image (it says “Click to Look Inside” above it), and read the first lines of the sample chapter shown.
If you’re still confused about what a hook is, think about the little old lady who goes to bed promptly at ten thirty. A little old man in the apartment above her goes to bed at ten thirty-five. She lays there listening as he drops his first shoe, then the second. With a smile, she rolls over and falls asleep.
But what would happen if that little old man dropped the first shoe, then quietly placed the second one on his nightstand? Our little old lady would still be lying there wide awake, wouldn’t she? She’d be staring into the darkness at the ceiling, perhaps as her heart races a bit, waiting for that second shoe to drop.
It’s your job, as an author of fiction, to drop that first shoe, and wait before your drop the second.
We saw examples of good hooks (first shoes) above. Let’s now look at an example of a manuscript’s opening paragraph that does not start with a hook, but certainly needs one:
It was a late spring afternoon in Nebraska. The grove next to the Platte River was alive with chirping birds. The cottonwood trees stood proudly, exhibiting their limbs laden with green, unopened seeds. Armed with her sketchbook, charcoal, and a wooden water bucket, Anne approached the river where oft a herd of deer came to drink. Easily concealed in her drab gingham dress, she walked to the river’s edge. Hearing the unexpected sound of splashing water, she frowned. Peering from behind a tree, she gaped at the site.
There, in the middle of the river surrounded by hip-high crystalline water, stood a Greek statue come to life, just like the ones she had seen in the books in her father’s trunk on the wagon. And what a magnificent view it was. There was no comparison between them, though. This was finely sculpted flesh and…
If you were a publisher’s first reader, would you get past this deadly opening? As a casual book buyer in a store, would you take this book home? Probably not.
But note, however, that the second paragraph contains the seed of an excellent first-line hook, which could read this way:
Good heavens. A naked man was standing in the river!
I’m a male. But I have to tell you… when I see that naked man standing in that river, I get excited.
I get excited because I wonder what he’s doing there. I get excited because I’m anxious to find out what happens next. (By the way, that writing sample has other problems we’ll discuss in another chapter.)
Sometimes, of course, the hook won’t handily fit into one sentence. That’s okay, if it starts in that first sentence, as the one below does. It’s from my novel Mystery on Firefly Knob (see the Appendix for details on those of my novels which I use as examples in this book):
Erica Phillips blinked, moved the registered letter closer to the desk lamp, and re-read it:
Dear Miss Phillips:
This is to inform you that your recently deceased father, Eric Lee Emerson, has willed you property overlooking the Sequatchie Valley southeast of Crossville, Tennessee…
She dropped the letter to her lap. Now that made no sense at all. Her father was Paul Phillips, and he died in an auto accident four years ago!
Ah! We have a puzzle. The situation is impossible, of course. Unless—unless—unless what? The reader reads on to answer that question.
The mid-scene hook
A hook may get those elusive readers past the first paragraph, but what keeps them reading the whole scene? Why, more hooks, of course.
Remember that story about our little old lady? If the little old man upstairs immediately drops that second shoe, she’s off the hook (pun intended) and can turn over and go to sleep. You don’t want that to happen in your story. You want to constantly keep your reader on the edge, to continue anticipating what’s coming next.
You want to drop that first shoe, then wait a while before dropping the second. But before you drop that second shoe, you want to drop the first shoe of another pair. You want to keep those readers staring at the proverbial ceiling by continually dropping first shoes until they finish your book, perhaps at three o’clock in the morning. Always keep them anxious to find out what happens next.
Let’s look at some examples.
At the opening of my first novel, The Long Hunter, a young, orphaned boy living in the 1770s on the Virginia frontier is cleaning tables at a pioneer inn. The reader quickly realizes something major has occurred that put the boy into this situation, but what? Answering that question would be dropping the second shoe. But before I drop it, I say this:
Sweat dropped onto his chin, more prominent now than when he’d arrived two weeks ago, before he’d lost the weight.
Before he’d lost the weight? What’s that all about? Why did he lose it? And why did he come here two weeks ago? Something major has happened to this poor boy, but what?
So, the reader keeps reading.
I put those five words (before he’d lost the weight) into the story to keep our readers on edge, to create uncertainty in their lives. They’ll continue reading until they find out why he lost that weight and what happened two weeks ago, and then they’ll put the book down, and…
No, they won’t!
They won’t because before we drop the second shoe by telling them what happened to our hero, we’ll drop a first shoe from another pair. And we’ll continue playing this shoe-dropping game throughout the book.
Let’s take another example of a mid-scene hook, this one from my young adult novel, Attack of the Killer Prom Dresses. In the opening paragraph, our heroine and her boyfriend are picking up a “TV-sized box” from a store. That’s the first shoe. What on earth could be in that box?
As they put it into the car, we see this:
“Careful there,” she said. “You break this thing, my whole life’s down the tubes.”
Wow! What could be in that box that’s so important? (Well, she’s a teenage girl, so it could be anything at all, but that’s not the right answer.) So the readers’ curiosities are piqued, and they read on to answer that question. Notice we haven’t dropped the second shoe yet. We’ve simply picked up the first one and waved it once more in the readers’ faces.
The end-of-scene hook
Readers tend to lay a book down when they’ve finished a scene or chapter. Everything’s been neatly tied up, and, in a way, the next scene or chapter starts another adventure. Your job as a writer is to keep your reader from pausing when they reach this point. How? By using a hook that forces them to leap over the gap into the next scene or chapter.
Although you may not have been aware of it, you see this little trick pulled every day on TV. Consider, for example, the once-popular TV program “Deal or No Deal.” The contestant has selected a briefcase with a hidden amount of money inside, and we’re anxious to find out how much it is. As we sit there in anticipation, Howie Mandell turns to the camera and says, “We’ll find out how much is in the briefcase…after this word from our sponsors.” So, we hang around through the commercial—just like we read on into the next scene or chapter in a skilled writer’s book—to make sure we don’t miss that vital information.
Another example is found in “The Biggest Loser,” where members of two or more teams are weighed to see which team must vote a member out. The competition is close, the last fat person is standing on the scales, and various numbers flash on its display. Ah, we’ll soon find out what team is going to—no, not yet!
As those numbers flash, the camera pans and shows surprised looks on the other contestants’ faces. The music builds to a crescendo and we go to commercial. It’s very effective, don’t you agree? Won’t you be right back after you’ve gotten that drink?
That’s what you must do at the end of every chapter. You must put a hook in, snag the readers’ attention, and build their anticipation so high that they literally have to read into the next scene or chapter to find out what happens.
Let’s again consider some examples from my book, The Long Hunter.
In Chapter 1, our young hero, Matt McClaren, is at an inn run by the mean innkeeper. An old, inebriated farmer named Dandridge comes in and sees Matt’s unfortunate situation and announces he’s taking Matt home. The innkeeper flashes a pistol and says if the old man tries to take Matt, he’ll kill them. Here’s the scene’s ending:
Dandridge’s hand guided Matt to the door. He stumbled, and Matt felt his weight as they stepped outside. The cold wind hit him, and he shivered as he fought his chilling sickness. He walked rigidly, braced for a bullet. He heard a click, then a pop behind him. The stars swirled, and he hit the ground.
My goodness. That mean innkeeper killed Matt! No, he couldn’t have; isn’t the young boy the book’s hero? But still…
And the reader reads on, into the next chapter.
Flipping through the pages, we see hooks at the end of every chapter. Here’s a sampling:
He looked at the door where an angry Struthers had disappeared, and felt a chill. He had a feeling they’d not heard the last of that man.
Reader: When will that Struthers person return? What will happen to poor Matt?
He took one long look east toward Fincastle, wondered if the sheriff had found Struthers’ body yet, then shuddered and turned back west.
Reader: Ah, there’s something else I must worry about. When the sheriff finds the body, will he come after poor Matt?
“Well… well, maybe. But I tell you what. I ain’t goin’ to hold your hand. You don’t pull your load, you just hike on down the trail. Now, you get out of those wet clothes ’fore you catch your death.”
Reader: Goodness! Will poor Matt pull his load? Or will this new character abandon him in the wilderness?
Matt looked north once more, then forced himself to turn away, toward Virginia. There was danger in both places. There might even be danger where he was standing.
Reader: Danger where he’s standing? Why, yes—he’s surrounded by Indians. Winter’s coming, and he’s alone in the wilderness with only a handful of powder and bullets. Oh, my goodness, what’s going to happen?
YOUR ASSIGNMENT
Okay, you’re ready to improve your first chapter (and ultimately your whole manuscript).
Remember: Your assignments in this book aren’t make-work exercises. They’re designed to help you, step-by-step, upgrade your work to where an editor will be eager to offer you a contract. But for that to happen you have to put in the effort.
You did make a copy of your first chapter, right? And, you’ve formatted it to follow publishing industry standards? Good! Then let’s get going:
First, rearrange your chapter’s opening page to get a major hook into the first paragraph, preferably the first sentence. On a separate piece of paper, write down the specific story questions your hook presents. (If you can’t do this, you don’t actually have a hook.)
Put at least two hooks into your chapter’s middle, more if you can. Keep dropping those first shoes! Again, write down the story questions asked by the hooks.
Rework each scene’s last paragraph to include a hook that forces the reader to read into the next scene. Once again, identify the questions which will keep that reader reading.