HOOK THE WRITER FIRST

Writers learn almost from the first stroke of the pen that you must hook your reader in order to be read. Some experts say you must do it in the first sentence, others the first paragraph, and still more say you need to grab them within the first page. Some real hard-nosed instructors will tell you that you have thirty seconds or the entire cause is lost.

Whatever the time or words allowed, all agree a writer must offer a challenging beginning in order for a reader to want to stay with the author to the end.

How do writers hook the reader? What magic potion do you mix to entrance someone who picks up your work? A hint of mystery, a challenging question to be answered, a promise of new answers to an old dilemma? It could be any of these. It just has to be gripping and, though it sounds difficult, it can be done.

"Tell me something I don't know or something exciting--starting now!" That is what most readers are thinking when they begin reading your work. Their expectations make for a demanding process. You need to give them something intriguing, exciting, even painful to encourage them to read on. The writer also must give the reader a sense of what to expect in the pages to come. They need to meet at least one protagonist and begin to encounter the central conflict in the novel if it is fiction. If nonfiction, you need to pose a question or make a statement so strong that your reader wants to find the answers or all the information possible on your theme.

The prologue for Robert Hicks' novel, "The Widow of the South," does an excellent job of hooking me--Down the rows of the dead they came. Neat, orderly rows of dead rebel boys who thirty years before had either dropped at the foot of earthen works a mile or so away or died on the floors of the big house overlooking the cemetery.... Are they ghosts? Do they only live in the memories of the two women we find in the cemetery? I definitely want to read the story to follow.

In the latest issue of Rosebud Magazine, Jon Methven offers a short story titled, "Nicknamer." The beginning definitely made me want to find out what is going on in this story: We keep the old man in a motel near the highway. He complains we hold him hostage, but that's not entirely true. The phone in his room only rings to a second phone I carry with me and I chain him to the wall when he's drunk enough to hurt himself. . . Don't you want to know who the old man is? What the narrator is holding him for? What happens to them both?

An article in Arizonia Highways begins: Imagine warming hike-weary feet in front of a crackling woodstove, waking to birdsong and a pine-scented breeze, savoring a picnic lunch along a creek or lake. If you've ever fantasized of having a cabin in the woods, then hold onto your hiking hat--your dreams are about to come true.... I love to hike, drool over living in a cabin in some remote forest, and with a lead like this to hook me, I want to read on, find out how (or if) my dreams can come true.

All of these examples give the reader an urge to follow the writer right down the path he/she has painted with words until they get all of the information, solve the crime, see the hero get the girl, or gain information on a meaningful subject. In order to have this impact on your readers, you must write that interesting hook up front.

In order to write like this, the first thing you, as a writer, has to do is hook yourself. You should be so intrigued, so interested in your theme, subject, essay, book, or characters that your excitement and enthusiasm shines through those first few words.

If you aren't interested, no one else will be either. Write, edit, rewrite those first few words, sentences, paragraphs. Make them shine with promise of what prize awaits those who read your work through.