We are told all the time that we need to “hook” the reader in the first chapter or even the first page. This week, we talk about how to make that happen.
To those who don’t yet know me, I’m E. Prybylski, and this is AUTHORiTEA, where I spill the tea on the publishing industry. I’ve been an editor for seventeen years, am on the board of directors of the Editorial Freelancers Association and handle their New England chapter. I am also the Northeastern regional head for Author Nation.
Something I’ve seen over and over again as an editor is people who come to me with stories that don’t grab a reader in the first pages or the first line. They start in the wrong place or think they need to begin with a bunch of setting information to give context to the action. Sadly, this drives readers off. What do these people need? Well, they need a hook.
What Is A Hook?
Before we get too far into this, let’s talk about what a “hook” is. It’s much like it sounds, honestly—it’s a fishhook that grabs the attention of the person consuming the thing. Hooks are a common marketing term, and it’s the thing that generates curiosity. When you see it in marketing in the wild, it’ll be things like, “Why isn’t YOUR book selling?” and so on. Things designed to grab the attention of the target audience and get them to interact further with the product/video, etc.
These principles can also be translated into books. Your hook is the thing that makes a reader want to continue reading. For an example of a nearly perfect hook, I point to Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, #6, Jim Butcher): “The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.” Even without knowing Dresden’s habit of setting everything on fire, there’s an immediate series of questions that come into mind: “why would I assume it’s your fault?” “Why was the building on fire, then?” This is the kind of thing we are looking to build into our writing.
Now, what I mean by “hook” doesn’t need to be action. It needs to be something that makes the reader curious. That’s all it is. Another example of an excellent hook is The Hobbit by JRR. Tolkien: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” There’s no action there, but you have questions about what is in a hobbit hole if not those things. It creates a cozy sense of interest in the story.
Another example is from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” It evokes questions about who the Rosenbergs were, why they were executed, and who this person was in New York. Why don’t they know why they’re there?
There are many types of hooks to use, and their goal is singular: create curiosity.
Aren’t Hooks Marketing Stuff?
So yes and no. In this case, you aren’t trying to sell anything specific (though you could probably argue that you’re trying to “sell” a page turn). While they are traditionally a marketing technique, the application here is to encourage people to continue being interested. You’re playing with their heartstrings (which is a large percentage of what stories do).
As authors, one of the things we strive for is to hit people in the emotions. This is just a more specific method of that, that keeps people invested in the story—or gets them invested in the first place. You aren’t trying to sell them the book. If they’re reading it at this point, they probably already have it, but there’s a non-zero chance that they are using the “look inside” feature on their book marketplace of choice, and you will need to find a way to catch them there. However, your hook is not exclusively located at the beginning of the story. This brings me to my next thought here.
Where To Use Hooks
This is just my opinion, so please don’t take it as gospel, but I believe there are a number of places you want to consider using a hook. The first is obviously the opening line or in the opening paragraph somewhere (though preferably the opening line and other places on the opening page). You want it to grab the reader and hold their attention. The next place is at the end of each chapter. Each chapter should end with something that makes the reader go, “Okay, but what’s next?” They need to have an urge to keep turning pages.
There are obviously places where you’ll be having people keep reading because they’re invested, but I am talking specifically about the technique of raising curiosity to get them to keep moving forward. Using the hook at the end of the chapter technique is one of the reasons why my books are frequently described as “un-put-down-able.” I do that on purpose.
Remember, though: hooks aren’t necessarily action. They can be anything that acts on a person’s emotions. It could be a couple kissing for the first time and then cutting immediately off with how they react to the kiss being the start of the next chapter. It could be someone spotting someone they knew across the bar and wondering why they’re wearing that hat. It might be action, too. A character gets shot at (or shot) and the chapter breaks immediately. Things like that will keep readers barreling forward.
Obviously you don’t need to do a chapter break every time you have a moment of tension. That would result in a lot of tremendously short chapters. However, wherever your chapter breaks do happen, add that little punch. It doesn’t have to be massive every time, either. Just enough to get them to turn the page.
Cliffhangers Are Hooks, But…
People are going to all say “oh, if hooks are good, then you have to love cliffhangers!” No. I hate them. Loathe them, in fact. They have a purpose, but it’s rarely where anyone thinks it is. This results in problems.
Before I get on my soapbox about how much I hate them, I want to point out where they’re useful and appropriate. That list is so much shorter. Ready?
The only time I think cliffhangers work are in TV episodes where the next one comes out in a week. You can keep people on tenterhooks for a very short time, but you should NEVER do it if you are going to ask them to wait a year (or years). You can get away with a cliffhanger in a book that is part of a rapid-release where the others are already written and are published together or will be published in short order. That’s about it.
“But E! I see successful authors do it all the time!” Yes. Yes you do. And you know why they can get away with it? Readers know they can trust the author to come out with the next book in a reasonable amount of time. If they don’t believe the author will provide satisfaction to it, then it’ll drive people off. Also, in today’s world of Netflix cancellations and network TV throwing away shows after a season end cliffhanger, people are very accustomed to things they grow invested in being cancelled without warning. It doesn’t feel great. Trust is a premium out there, and until you’ve earned trust, readers will balk at that kind of thing.
How to Write A Hook
So we’ve identified what they are. The next thing to tackle is how to create one. Your first task in that end is to identify what you want the reader to feel. What is it you’re trying to invoke in them? That can be partially a function of your genre as well as a function of the tone of your opening scene. Comparing the Dresden Files quote to The Hobbit, you can see two very different emotional tones. Dresden is has quite a deal of pressure on that. If a building is on fire, there’s urgency there. It’s a bad thing that’s happening. It also implies that the building being on fire was someone’s fault.
At that point in the series, the Dresden Files was more a collection of investigative stories and gumshoe plus magic (that’s since changed dramatically). They are urban fantasy thrillers, which is the same genre I write in. They’re quick paced and high tension stories.
Contrasting that, we have The Hobbit. It opens with coziness. It feels like settling into an armchair with a cup of tea to be swept away to a world of magic. Both of them get the job done highly effectively, and both of them set the tone for the rest of the book. The Hobbit invites you to ask questions about the world the story takes place in. What a hobbit is. What kind of comforts they live in. It’s gentle and sweet. The story has challenging parts to it, of course, but Tolkien wrote it as a bedtime story for his children, and this feels very much like that.
Seeing that, consider what the emotional tone you are trying to create in that scene. Your hook may also not be just your first line. While your first line has the job of requiring you to make a reader want to continue, the hook could be later on in the paragraph or further down the page. Whatever it is, you want to set it early and fast.
This is particularly important in books being pitched to traditional publishers since they will want to see if you can pull off that ability to generate interest.
Once you know what emotional tone you want to set, consider what the question you want the reader to ask is. What is it you want them to desire to know more about? Offer them space to pose that question. I point back to the questions the Dresden Files quote inspires about who did set the building on fire and what is happening with this situation.
That’s pretty much the whole process: identify the emotional tone, figure out what question you want them to ask, and set them up to ask that question. It sounds generic, but it isn’t. It’s also far more specific than, “I want them to read more!”
Identifying the questions you want your reader to ask will help you shape your words so that you are making them ask the exact question you invite them to.
How This Translates
Now that you understand the concept of a hook, you can apply it to your first lines, your chapter endings and many more things. Understanding a hook and how to create one gives you insight into how to craft book blurbs, marketing materials and so much more. This clear, simple concept is harder than you think to implement, but if you dedicate time to mastering it, you will have opened up an entire sphere of applications beyond your drafting. It is, in fact, a significant “secret” to success. I put secret in quotes because, of course, it isn’t one.
Spend some time chewing on this idea and maybe practice writing a few hooks for existing stories. Take a look at the hooks other authors use at the start of their works (or hooks in movies and TV shows) and practice creating your own. Once you have this skill, it’s going to transform your ability to command reader attention. At least in that way. If you can’t follow the hook with content (video, blog, novel, etc.) that lives up to the hook, you’re not going to be better off. That, however, is another day’s discussion.
Thanks so much for spending the time with me, friends. If you need an editor or coaching services, you can find my contact information on my website, selfpub.me. You don’t need to do this alone.
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