We writers talk all the time about setting a story hook. You see analogies that are reminiscent of fishing for good reason. Because it is like fishing. More specifically, like deep sea fishing where you hook that fish/reader and then play them in a long protracted battle. At the end you want to land that fish/reader but not until the end of the story. The difference is that you want the reader happy they got landed.
And yet, so often in my critique group, I see writers playing catch-and-release.
Recently, for instance, I looked at a first chapter. In the first couple of paragraphs, it came out that the MC's husband had been killed several years before but the murder had never been solved.
I'm immediately thinking, "Great hook" because I want to know what happened. And then the writer went into backstory and told me the details. Guess what? That's catch-and-release storytelling. Because there is no other hook to keep me reading. I had a question. The author answered the question. End of hook.
The author should have made me wait at least until she had me invested in her main character. That's how you play your fish. Er... I mean reader. You set the hook on the first page. Sometimes it's enough to carry the story until the end. Most of the time, it's not, so you have to set a second hook before you relieve the pressure on the first, then set a third before you let go of the second, and so on until the end of the story. Even better, set more than one. Never, ever give your reader a moment when there's no hook pulling them onto the next page.
Little by little, writers develop their own styles, each as unique as a fingerprint. Traces of the writers one reads in one’s formative years remain, but the rhythm of each writer’s thoughts – an expression of his or her very brain waves, I think – eventually becomes dominant. ~ Stephen King
by SSG David Bellavia (w/ John R. Bruning) is a way of doing that, a way of understanding what we're asking of them. If it's too much for us to watch from the sidelines, then we shouldn't be asking it.
Blurb:
Advancing plot and moving hearts are not the same thing. While it is of course essential for story to unfold, it’s just as important for readers’ emotions to be stirred. ~ Donald Maass
by Ayaan Kirsi Ali. I'm finding this both enlightening and disturbing, but already I know this is something everyone should read.
Blurb:
Anytime you are writing about sex, violence, war, torture, genocide, child molestation, nuclear annihilation, any subject that carries great weight and is loaded with emotion, stay away from lurid language. Plain language and dramatic restraint will allow the action to claim its own importance--not because the adjectives and adverbs are shouting for attention, but because what is going on in the piece is profound and moving. You are removing the narrative personality and the high-profile language that might obstruct the reader's view of the story. ~ Philip Gerard
by Ben Sherwood.
In order to get inside their skin, I have to identify with them. That includes even the ones who are complete bastards, nasty, twisted, deeply flawed human beings with serious psychological problems. Even them. When I get inside their skin and look out through their eyes, I have to feel a certain – if not sympathy, certainly empathy for them. I have to try to perceive the world as they do, and that creates a certain amount of affection. ~ George R R Martin
by Judy Melinek, M.D. and T.J. Mitchell at the library (in ebook format), I glommed onto it. If you like the scientific aspect of the TV show Bones, you may well enjoy this.
Blurb:
Expect, allow and accept that every first draft will represent your lowest standard. And have at it. ~ John Long
