Monday, February 8, 2010

An Incredible Beginning by Lynn Crain


Every day I sit down and write but it isn’t every day that I start a book. A book’s beginning is something that can make or break a writer. It is very important to the book as a whole. Even when my mother read me fairy tales growing up, I realized books had to have an incredible beginning or people just wouldn’t read the rest.

Since I started to learn about writing, I understood the power of a great hook. And I went to every hook class I could find whether it be at a local or national convention, I went to workshops discussing a book’s very first line for many years. Apparently, something must have sunk in because I’ve been told more than once I have good hooks.

Here are some great hooks from other people’s books. Now the thought isn’t to try and recognize the book...if you do...great, I’m sure the authors would be ecstatic. What I want you to see if just how compelling each of the listed hooks are. Here’s my top ten list of best hooks in the world. The answers are listed below. They are in no particular order:

1. Hunting vampires was a bitch.

2. He was running for his life.

3. It was a dark and stormy night.

4. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

5. Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

6. Marley was dead: to begin with.

7. When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

8. It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance.

9. Somewhere in the world, time no doubt whistled by on taut and widespread wings, but here in the English countryside it plodded slowly, painfully, as if it trod the rutted road that stretched across the moors on blistered feet.

10. The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane.

Each one of those have special meaning for me as I read each of those books at a different time in my life. Realize that this list ebbs and flows like a river, changing with time and never standing still. Notice there is a mix of classic and contemporary pieces. Some are romance and some are not. But each of them have something so compelling which makes me want to read more. And read them I did, some more than once and a few of them I still read yearly if I can remember just where I left my latest copy. LOL!

So what comprises a good hook? Notice that with the ones I listed, there is not one standard theme. Some come from a character’s point of view and some don’t, some involve something personal and some don’t. So just what is it?

There are some constant elements each and every hook must have. They are:

·It must be compelling

·Should be a beginning – The reason I say should here is because some books have started with the ending and been quite successful.

·It can start with dialogue.

·It can start with action.

·It could be a contrast or something totally unexpected.

·It could be a character description or a description of a setting.

·It could be a humorous question or exclamation or even a regular question or exclamation.

Let’s look at some of mine now and see just what I do. The first is from a WIP called “Where’s My Underwear Anyway?” and it is a fun romp. It’s direct, to the point and immediately brings you into the action.

“So…you really don’t know where your underwear might be?”

There are groups out that who say never start your novel with a question. But this question just begged for an answer. It puts the reader immediately on a quest for the missing underwear. It also brings to mind other questions: who has the underwear? how was the underwear lost? was the underwear misplaced? I could go on forever.

Suddenly, a reader wants to know the answer to those questions.
Here’s another of my first lines. This is from a completed book which is part of the Blue Moon Magic world.

He had always been in this cage in one way or another. It was only recently they had decided to make it his permanent room.

Again, this one takes you immediately into a dilemma. You know someone is in a cage. You don’t know the how’s or the why’s but it just begs those questions.
Here’s another from my Santa’s Elves series. This is from one of my Christmas books, The Thing About Elves.

That human woman drove him crazy.

From just this first line, you know the person thinking is a man and that he isn’t human. Still, you wonder just what the human woman is doing to drive him crazy. It must be something good or he wouldn’t be thinking about it.

This last one is from another WIP called “Avenging Aingeal” and is a story of elemental magic with just a twinge of science.

No one knows where we came from really. We just…are. And there are so very few of us, roaming the earth, protecting the inhabitants these days.

This is from an omniscient POV but is still interesting in its own way. We want to know just who ‘they’ are and why we need protecting. Then one might want to know just how long have ‘they’ been protecting us because the way the sentence is constructed, it is implied that ‘they’ have been here for a long, long time. But one must read the story to know the all answers.

And this one has always been one of my personal favorites as it won quite a few contests with the most notable being at the Hawaii RWA conference. Leslie Wanger picked it as one of five from the whole room full of people.

“Damn, I’m going to lose another one.”

This from my complete book, Midnight Run about a woman off-road racer. It was my first book ever, all 72K of it. It has a great hook but a saggy middle with a kick-ass end. But that’s left for another blog. LOL!

Here’s the books those fabulous first lines came from and if you haven’t read these, you should if you want to learn about great fiction. Each of them starts with a wonderful hook and keeps you entertained until the last line.

1.Hunting vampires was a bitch. – Minion – L.A. Banks

2.He was running for his life. – Hot Ice – Nora Roberts

3.It was a dark and stormy night. – Paul Clifford – Edward Bulwer-Lytton

4.It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. - Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

5.Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. - Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

6.Marley was dead: to begin with. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

7.When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkein

8.It wasn’t a very likely place for disappearances, at least at first glance - Outlander – Diana Galbadon

9.Somewhere in the world, time no doubt whistled by on taut and widespread wings, but here in the English countryside it plodded slowly, painfully, as if it trod the rutted road that stretched across the moors on blistered feet. - The Flame and the Flower – Kathleen Woodiweiss

10.The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane. - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J.K. Rowling

After all, isn’t that what a hook is meant to do? Make you as the reader want to read the book?

You betcha!

Lynn

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1 comment:

DawnsReadingNook said...

What a cool blog article, Lynn. I love LA Banks and JK Rawling's work and I agree- a good hook is needed to keep me interested int he story.

Dawn