Jumpstart The Story: Hook Openings

 

By Mary Rosenblum

 

            What is the most important part of your story?  It’s the start.  A reader picks up a magazine and leafs to the story.  That reader begins to read.  Buy?  Put it back on the rack?  That decision gets made in the first paragraph or two of your story.  Most editors use the same process to buy or reject submissions.  They begin to read.  As soon as their attention wanders, they are done.  If they make it to the end of your story, you have a sale.  If their attention wanders on page one, you are out of luck. 

            The most common novice mistake is the ‘backstory start’.  The author very carefully introduces the main character and his or her universe.  Once upon a time, a young girl lived on the edge of a deep wood.  Her mother, who loved her very much, had made her a bright red cape with a hood and thus she became known as Little Red Riding Hood.  This is a backstory start, where we find out where Red lived and how she got her name and we’ll find out that she loved to visit her grandmother, all before the story opens.  Yes, this ‘once upon a time’ start worked for the Brothers Grimm, but it’s not as appropriate for most contemporary short stories (although anything can work, remember).  Most ‘backstory starts’ are a carryover from novels.  In a novel, where you are facing 300 pages or so of story, you have that entire first chapter to hook the reader and most novels, indeed, open by creating the setting and placing the main characters firmly into that setting.  But a short story, with its limited word count, is a different medium and readers have different expectations.  In a way, a short story provides instant gratification and we expect that…grab my attention and keep me riveted!   Ideally, your start will do just that. 

 

Snag that Curiosity-Fish

            Human curiosity is a powerful thing. It leads us to explore, to face danger, to get ourselves into trouble.  And it can lead the reader well into the universe of your story, to the point where that reader cares too much about your characters and their troubles to even think of putting the story aside.   That is why the strong start is often known as a ‘hook’.  It hooks our curiosity and reels us into the story.   An opening line that arouses questions, a conversation in progress, an action scene – all of these will entice the reader to read on, to find out what that enigmatic line means, how that conversation ends, what happens as the action unfolds.  

            A long description of the character’s appearance or backstory is not likely to entice readers to keep reading.  So this person is a blue eyed blonde with a stocky figure.  How nice.  Yawn.  So she grew up poor in a small town and had to wear hand me down dresses sent by her wealthy cousins and helped her mother clean houses on the weekends.  After a hard day at work, I need to read about this?

            See if you can’t compel that tired reader to keep reading.  Let’s take a look at our fable of Red Riding Hood.  What if we cast it as a contemporary story of a quick-witted young girl?  Red froze as the eerie howl split the woodland twilight.  Ah, we have aroused some questions in readers. Who is this person, Red?  Where is she?  What is going on here?  Is the wolf attacking?  Is she in danger? 

 

Answer Questions Gradually

          Who, what, where, when?  These are the questions readers will ask as they begin any story.  The temptation is to answer them all at once.  Red Riding Hood was a bright young girl who had insisted on visiting her sick  grandmother who lived in the woods even though a wolf had recently attacked and killed a young boy in those same woods.  But she had left the village late and it was starting to get dark.   Here, our answers bring the forward momentum of the story to a screeching halt.  Yes, our opening line is enticing, but we have instantly halted to listen to backstory. 

            Readers are patient.  As long as you hand them details quickly, they will accept them and put them together like jigsaw puzzle pieces to paint that same picture as the scene progresses.  Here we’ll hand those detail-pieces to the readers as the action continues:    A wolf?  Red  shivered, seeing the torn, bloody remains of the Hansen boy in her mind’s eye.  Clutching her cape close, she turned, eyes straining to pierce the thick twilight between the trees.  Mother  was right, she thought with a pang of fear.  She should have waited until morning, even though the woodcutter had said her grandmother was very ill.  It would be near dark by the time she reached the cottage.  Red took a single step back along the faint path, but the howl came again, halting her.  The wolf  stalked behind her.  Between her and the safety of the village!  Holding her basket of healing herbs tight, Red ran, feeling wolf-teeth with every branch that snagged her cloak.  

            Now we have who: Red, whose mother lives in the village and who has risked danger to visit sick Grandmother in this woodland.  We have what: She is being chased by a wolf who has killed a boy already.   Where:  in the woods beyond the village on the path to Grandma’s house.  When:  probably in the past or a fantasy world…not many people wear cloaks or walk to Granny’s house in the woods with a basket of healing herbs. 

            Because we learn these details as Red hears the wolf, panics and runs, we piece the picture together as the story  moves forward.  We never stop to listen to the author tell us what is going on.   We’re too busy running with Red, seeing the branches snatch at her cloak, perhaps hearing her panting gasps as she imagines the wolf behind her.   We’re not about to abandon this story until we find out if she makes it to Grandmother’s house in one piece. 

 

Don’t Let Your Reader Get Off the Ride

            Essentially, your story is a rollercoaster ride.  From the moment you  invite your reader aboard, don’t give that reader time to get off.  You may keep those readers engaged with brilliant language, vivid visuals, or compelling characters…or ideally all three…but always keep that story-ride moving forward.  That does not mean you need breakneck action or a threat-a-minute.  But it does mean that you need to avoid the temptation to halt that story-ride and tell the readers what you think they should know.  From the first sentence, slip in those necessary details as the story moves forward.

            We’re patient. And we love puzzles.  We’ll happily put yours together.