The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 27 February 2010

Let's see. Over here at the Mad Genius Club, writers division, there's some discussion about how to start a story.

http://madgeniusclub.blogspot.com/2010/02/cheat-post-beginnings.html

In medias res -- in the middle of the action, a problem, a question, a conflict? Maybe a name, setting, cognitive dissonance? Establish a goal, create an emotional connection? What about a concrete, immediate desire that is threatened? Go where it hurts?

And over here, http://www.fmwriters.com/Visionback/Issue27/writinghooks.htm we have a warning against crooks -- a hook that lies. When you use conflict, excitement, suspense... but you set up a false expectation of what the story is going to be, that's a crook. And when the reader notices that you're not delivering on that sparkling bait, they'll throw your story against the wall and you probably won't be able to get them to read another one. And there's a discussion of using your people, plot, setting, or style -- the thing that sets your story apart -- to help find a hook.

What about ARCS? This is a model of motivation, that I often find useful. Attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. Give people that, and they're motivated to try new things, to do something you want them to do, etc.

So a hook needs something to get their attention -- that cognitive dissonance, the dead fish on the coffee table, the bullet hole in the windshield, something that stands out and makes you curious. That certainly seems to be a piece of the hook.

Relevance. This is probably where the point of view character comes in, because we want to empathize with them. Make us feel like this is someone we can relate to, who has problems that we can relate to, abilities that maybe we don't have but we wish we had, and so forth. Or maybe sometimes the relevance comes from this is a setting that I know, or this is a problem that I know, or even this is something I wish I knew about? Anyway, in that little beginning, try to show the reader how this story, these characters, their problems are relevant to the reader.

Confidence. I suppose the key here is the genres. I feel pretty confident about reading mysteries, science fiction, and some others because I know how those stories go, I know how to read them and I enjoy them. But if the story starts out telling me that it is going to be a pastoral romance, for example, or a high-tension thriller with gangland killings everywhere... I am likely to set the story aside. There will be those who read it, but it's not my kind of story. Or if I can't tell what kind of a story it is, then I start to get itchy. So again, the hook needs to quickly establish what kind of a story it is. Setting expectations...

Which leads us to satisfaction. The beginning of the story makes a contract with the reader, it promises certain kinds of payoff. Admittedly, the beginning typically doesn't provide much of the satisfaction -- that's more for the climax. But the hook tells us what we might expect. Am I going to see a romantic pairing and a happily ever after, the bad guys punished and good triumphant, a mystery resolved? What do I think I'm going to find out when I read this book? That question or problem or situation needs to be something that will satisfy me, and then I look for the resolution to complete the satisfaction.

Hooks. How do you get the reader involved, right from the beginning? What are the pieces that you have to have there?

It's a puzzle! So how do you develop your hooks?