I got a Bite! The secrets to writing a HOOK

Hey all! I’m so excited to be Writer Interrupted’s Friday Post – thanks for having me! I’m hopping over from http://www.mybooktherapy.com(where we’re talking about Dialogue), to talk to you for a few weeks about…

HOOKS!

Now, it’s fishing season opener pretty soon up here in MN, and we take our fishin’ very seriously…we have store in town called….The Beaver House. It’s primary function is to sell fish stuff (which makes me wonder, exactly what it’s the Beaver house and not, say, the Walleye house…but I didn’t name it). Anyway, aside from the tanks of leaches and slimy words, there are racks and racks and racks of….HOOKS. Every color, every size, double hooks, triple hooks, snag hooks. But they perform the same function – to catch the fish.

Our readers are our fish. (but they smell and look better). In today’s competitive book market, a writer needs to capture their reader in the first paragraph, if not the first line. A good hook sets the tone for a book, it gives voice to the character and immediately draws the reader into the story. Over the next 5 weeks, I’m going to teach you how to craft a GREAT HOOK, regardless of your genre or voice.

I have a quote by Gabriel Garcia Marquez over my computer (He won the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature for 100 years of solitude. (BTW, it sold over 10million copies.) One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph.. in the first paragraph, you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone. At least in my case, the paragraph is a kind of sample of what the rest of the book is going to be.

Why is a hook important?

What do you do when you pick up a book? Probably read the back cover blurb, and then open to the first page. Then, you have approximately 10 seconds, one-two sentences to capture your reader. A reader is looking for creative writing, a question that piques their interest, someone they can relate to, a setting that interests them, and a story that can match the value of their time. That’s a lot to put into the first sentence, or even the first paragraph!

But it can be done.

Let’s take a look at some examples of good hooks from modern literature:

Call me Ishmael. — Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. — George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. — C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)

What do these hooks have in common with each other that makes them compelling?

They’re all: SHARP:

What do I mean by that? They all contain the 5 elements that will hook your reader into continuing the story:

Stakes

Hero/Heroine identification

Anchoring –

on the Run

Problem (Story Question)

There you have it – the five elements.

Today, we’re just going to talk about the first:

STAKES:

No, I’m not talking about a T-bone, or Sirloin. Stakes are those things that make us see what we could lose. It helps us stand at the precipice and say, is it worth it to step over into the unknown? (Reminds me a lot of that scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy has to step out in FAITH. What a great scene!)

Stakes are those things that drive the story, that make the reader say, hey, I care about this story, I want to know what happens. They might not even be as big as we know starting out, but by the end of the book, they should be worth all the effort the hero (and the reader) have put in to get there.

There are two kinds of Stakes: Public stakes and Private Stakes. Public Stakes are those stakes that we embrace as a corporate body. As Americans, or as human beings. Stopping nuclear war, for example. Or protecting our country from a terrorist attack. Even, protecting a people from genocide. These are big issues that the public can get behind, root for. They are also bound in time. For example, a story set in WW2 would have issues of patriotism and fighting the great war, while cold war era stories would be about loyalty, and fighting the Russians. Stories set during
Vietnam might be about freedoms. Public stakes can be found by asking: What is important to our community, and what would I stand up for? What would I go to the mats for?

Private stakes, on the other hand, are the things close to our hearts. They are the stakes that attack our values, and challenge us in our roles as mothers, fathers, sisters, daughters…as people at large. They’re issues of integrity, or honest, issues of protecting our children, or standing up for what is right. Even a movie as cute as How to Lose a Guy in 10 days has private stakes…her career versus her heart. Private stakes are found by asking what matters most to me in my personal life? What would I bleed to make sure did or didn’t happen? What would I put my life on the line for?

It’s like saying: People go to war for their country. (Public Stakes) They die for the people they care about. (Or the guy next to them). (Private Stakes).

And the great stories have both. Saving Private Ryan is one I often refer to when talking about Stakes. Public Stakes are fighting the battle against
Germany, and even, to some extent, finding Private Ryan. Private Stakes are the values Tom Hanks is willing to sacrifice for someone he doesn’t know, and more, for the soldiers under his command.

So, how does this affect our HOOK. When a reader opens your book, they’re going to ask: Why should I read this story?

And your stakes are the answer. Now, of course, you’re not going to put into the first line; “This book is about sacrifices one makes for their country, and a discussion about when those are too high.” (SPR)

No.

But, it might start with, (And I’m making this up since I don’t want to plagerize)..

“The greatest wars weren’t waged on the battlefield, among mortar fire, and dying screams, but in the private places, the quiet moments just before dawn, when a man looked ahead and saw only what lay behind, and knew he couldn’t face it.”

Obviuosly, that’s not the beginning..but it tells us what the stakes of the book are, and if I were novelizing it, I might start with something like that. BUT, the idea is, that anyone who picked up the story would know that it is about a personal battle.

However, getting a glimpse of what is at stake in a book is only ONE element of a great hook!

So, as you build your hook, look at your story and determine what is at stake.

Next week we’ll continue our Hook conversation with: Hero/Heroine Identification!

In the meantime, hop on over to www.mybooktherapy.com …and discover the writer in you!

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