By Hook or Crook

I'm still in the early stages of figuring out the focus of this blog, so I hope you'll forgive me for flailing around a little as I consider different subjects. I imagine that as I attract a few readers, I'll start to tailor my posts to my blog followers.

I have no followers yet, so here I am shouting into the void. :)

Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary has a series of blog posts about openings to avoid, which is naturally a subject that I have a lot of thoughts about. I won't get into the reasons (yet) that it's a bad idea to start with a character waking up, a character running for her life, or the weather. I've also got what I call the "three legged stool" approach to story openings, but that's a subject for another day.

For now, I want you to focus on one goal for your openings, and that's to compel the reader to move forward. The only purpose of that first sentence is to move the reader to the second sentence, and the only purpose of that second sentence is to get them to the bottom of the paragraph or page.

That's why they call it a hook. Carry the metaphor forward. Your opening is the bait, and once your fish bites, he can buck and thrash, but he's going to be reeled in so long as the fisherman (you), never lets any slack into the line.

To take an example, why does the weather typically not work as a hook? First of all, I can look out the window and see something equally thrilling. More importantly, there is no character, no plot, no intriguing mystery being raised. Not usually, anyway. Change one of those elements and suddenly the weather can be a good hook.

For example:

"Late in the evening on July 4th, after the guests had left the party and I'd finished washing dishes and cleaning the grill, a funnel cloud dropped onto the farm and destroyed my great-grandfather's hundred year old barn."

Or maybe:

"The skies opened up at noon, raining frogs, and sending the women of the village out with baskets to collect them all."