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Grabbing readers right from the start
I participated in a panel of reviewers at the Left Coast Crime mystery conference earlier this year, and one of the topics that inevitably came up was, “How do reviewers chose which books they review?”
That is something I have talked about on this blog before and will surely do so again. One of the points the panelists agreed upon, though, was that the book has to grab the reader right away. No goofing around, no meandering, no slow openings. You’ve got a couple pages at most to do your job and if you don’t, you just lost the chance of getting a review (or a sale).
That is a piece of advice that I can’t emphasize strongly enough. It is crucial that the writer immediately draw the reader in to the story and grab their interest. If you don’t, then the reader will likely put the book down and move on to something else. That’s certainly what I do.
Now, that doesn’t mean the book has to start with a bang (literally or figuratively), or a car chase, or a guy carrying around a head in a duffel bag, but the book has to do something that makes the reader want to find out what happens next.
How you choose to do that will be a reflection of your talent and your story. But you must put your very best right at the beginning. Start with chapter 3 if you have to, then go back and fill in the beginning. Take your best scene and rewrite it so that it goes first. Whatever, just don’t be dull.
Ross Thomas was probably the best in the business at writing wonderful opening scenes that made it nearly impossible for you to stop reading once you’d started.
Here is the first paragraph of Chinaman’s Chance:
“The pretender to the Emperor’s throne was a fat thirty-seven year-old Chinaman called Artie Wu who always jogged along Malibu Beach right after dawn even in summer, when dawn came round as early as 4:42. It was while jogging along the beach just east of the Paradise Cove pier that he tripped over a dead pelican, fell, and met the man with six greyhounds. It was the sixteenth of June, a Thursday.”
After an opening like that, how can you not read more?
Most of us can’t write as well as Thomas did. But that doesn’t mean you have to settle for ordinary. Ordinary is boring and makes the reader put the book back on the shelf. You’ve got to do whatever you can to stand out from the pack.
One of the best ways to seize the reader’s attention is with a killer opening line. Here are a few that are favorites of mine:
“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.” (The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley)
“The last camel collapsed at noon.” (The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett)
“I turned the Chrysler onto the Florida Turnpike with Rollo Kramer’s headless body in the trunk, and all the time I’m thinking I should’ve put some plastic down.” (Gun Monkeys by Victor Gischler)
Reading those lines immediately makes you want to know, “What happens next?” If you can make the reader ask that, you’ve done your job.
May 04, 2005 in Writing | Permalink
Comments
I know this is accurate and (in this day and age) sound advice. But it makes me sad.
The publishing world has gone the way of movies - it's all about immediate gratification. Hook us now or we'll take our A.D.D. and move on.
God, imagine if James Lee Burke, John Le Carre or Tony Hillerman were trying to get published today. It would never happen. And that is sad.
I love being drawn in to a sprawling story, slowly, bit by bit. And I love reading wonderful writing. The better the writing, the longer I want the book to be.
I know what you're saying is true - if someone wants a chance to be published today, but it still makes me sad.
Posted by: Guyot | May 4, 2005 07:02 PM
I do think there is still an audience (and a market) for the kinds of books you're describing. One of the ways the writer can draw the reader in is with beautiful writing or an evocative setting. But that's a lot harder to do, and beyond the reach of most.
Posted by: David J. Montgomery | May 4, 2005 07:55 PM
I just worry that we are about to enter one of the weakest generations of writers in recent memory.
Everywhere you look, it is all about the hook, the sale, the deal. Nobody talks about the craft anymore. Nobody talks about the language.
There are so many great writers working right now - ones that have ten or twenty or more books already out - who would find it very difficult to get their first deal in this day and age.
There is SO MUCH emphasis on the Hollywood mentality of hooking instead of telling a great story, that I fear in the next ten or twenty years what passes for *great* will be a shadow of what once was considered great.
Yes, I know - "There's always a market for great writing." But I believe *that* particular market, if it isn't shrinking, is lowering its standards.
Posted by: Guyot | May 4, 2005 08:21 PM
Why do you feel we have to sacrifice quality if we hook a reader from the beginning? Reading David's examples, I'm struck by the obvious talent and skill of these writers who are able to bring the reader in with a polished hook. Of course the writer must make good on the promise made in the first sentence, the first paragraph and even the first chapter. But even in our ADD society, good writing doesn't have to be sacrificed for a good hook, and there are plenty of great writers out there today who can pull it off.
Posted by: Karen Olson | May 5, 2005 10:42 AM
Double ditto to Karen's comment.
Posted by: Cornelia Read | May 5, 2005 11:33 AM
I don't think this is a new phenomenon. Great openings have always been advised to new writers. I'm just a reader but 20-25 years ago when I was a young very naive wanna-be-a-writer I read all the books about "how to write", that was always a part of the words of wisdom passed along. I think what IS new is the mentality that a writer has to have a blockbuster in him/her on the first try or they are dropped. There is no cultivation of a stable of solid writers. As a reader, I've now been trained to be on the lookout for what or who is new because they don't last that long to really find an author that clicks and is around in five years. It does happen, I guess, but not that often anymore.
Posted by: PK the Bookeemonster | May 5, 2005 12:48 PM
I'd put the book back on the shelf if I read the openings by Thomas or Crumley. I'm sure they're great books, but I feel like those first lines are tap-dancing way too hard.
I'm not sure who I agree and disagree with on this one. A hook isn't incompatible with a great story, obviously, but I don't know if anyone can really say what a "hook" is. Start with a bang... beautiful writing... evocative setting... The ones I like simply start the story. The feeling I want as a reader is "And now we're underway." Not "Wow, that was lots of really kooky juxtapositions. Wacky!"
I agree with Paul insofar as I think the emphasis on the hooky first line, or first paragraph, or first page, has undergone a transformation from "one sensible approach" to "oversimplified, must-have formula" in our how-to-write-the-novel, gimme-the-easy-answer writers' industry. My take on that is that any time you ask for an easy answer, somebody's going to be happy to charge you for one.
Posted by: Keith | May 6, 2005 02:10 AM
This lede, from Billie Holiday's 1956 autobiography, was the best I've ever read:
"Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three."
It must have been a real shocker in '56; it still packed a punch when I read it in '71. Nowadays it probably wouldn't even raise an eyebrow, but I still think of it as the best opening I've read.
Posted by: kitty | May 6, 2005 10:03 AM
Karen and Cornelia,
You have made my point.
Nobdy talks about good writing, nobody talks about making good on the promise. Look at the how-to books published in the past few years.
With the exception of ones written by really good writers (E. George, for example) they all talk about grabbing and hooking and formula and rules.
No one talks about language anymore, no one talks about craft or art.
There are very few books out now that talk about HOW TO WRITE WELL. They all talk about HOW TO GET PUBLISHED.
Posted by: Guyot | May 6, 2005 10:41 AM
By the way, I never said you have to sacrifice quality to hook a reader... did I?
Posted by: Guyot | May 6, 2005 10:43 AM
What's wrong with hooking the reader? It's a writer's job to interest his audience and draw them in. That doesn't mean you have to have a gimmick or spectacular first page. But you've better have something, or else why would people read it?
For the record, I was assuming that people were already trying to write well. Tell you the truth, I have no advice to give them on that regard. (Other than, "Avoid adverbs." Okay...I stole that from Elmore Leonard.)
Posted by: David J. Montgomery | May 6, 2005 11:23 AM
Paul, you said: "There is SO MUCH emphasis on the Hollywood mentality of hooking instead of telling a great story, that I fear in the next ten or twenty years what passes for *great* will be a shadow of what once was considered great."
I took that to mean that you feel quality is being sacrificed. Was I wrong?
I think people who spend time reading books about how to write and how to get published should spend more time writing and learning by actually doing.
I also wouldn't want to presume to tell anyone how to write. An example is that my daughter's in second grade and she came home with a note from the teacher about how she has to start her stories with a sound (BANG! The door slammed shut...). I called the teacher and told her that teaching children a formula will give them bad habits they may never break. Granted, some people will never be good writers and need the formula. But if everyone's writing that way, who knows who has any talent at all. So I suppose in that sense, Paul, you're right.
(BTW, the teacher agreed with me. But my daughter's still writing with those stupid sounds at the beginning.)
Posted by: Karen Olson | May 6, 2005 01:12 PM
"What's wrong with hooking the reader?"
Nothing. I haven't heard anyone say anything's wrong with it.
"But you've better have something, or else why would people read it?"
If you're going to expand the definition of "hook" to mean "something," it's meaningless.
"Hook," in current parlance, implies bang-pow. I agree that a beautiful, evocative piece of writing is enough to keep (some) readers reading, but calling it a hook requires a bit of expansion from what's generally meant by the term.
Posted by: Keith | May 6, 2005 03:29 PM
KAREN WROTE: Paul, you said: "There is SO MUCH emphasis on the Hollywood mentality of hooking instead of telling a great story, that I fear in the next ten or twenty years what passes for *great* will be a shadow of what once was considered great."
I took that to mean that you feel quality is being sacrificed. Was I wrong?
--
No, you were not. But you claimed I said "You have to sacrifice quality to hook a reader." That's different. You can certainly hook a reader and still have quality. Most of the best do. I personally am "hooked" by great writing. Even if it's two pages describing the weather, if it's great I'm hooked.
But the "hooking" being discussed and promoted today is the hooking that Lee Child does. And Lee is a great writer. I love his work. There's quality and hooking together.
What I'm saying is that there is more emphasis now on how to get published; how to write to get an agent or a book deal, than there is on how to write well. Eventually that has to catch up with us, right?
Posted by: | May 6, 2005 10:26 PM
That comment above - that's from me.
Posted by: Guyot | May 6, 2005 10:28 PM
I can definitely see Guyot's concerns, but I don't know that it's something that we need to be overly concerned about. There is a lot of truly wonderful writing being done in the crime fiction genre these days; probably more than has ever been the case before.
There has always been lots of bad writing, more bad than good, and there always will be. But I don't have any particular reason to fear that good writing is in jeopardy of going away or being squeezed out.
Hopefully I'm not wrong about that.
I think that, perhaps, the reason there are books written about "How To Get Published" or "How To Get An Agent" is because those are pratical matters that can be taught and concrete advice given. (And that was my point in writing the original post.)
I don't know, though, how you'd go about writing a book or teaching people how to "write well." That is a far greater, more personal challenge. I certainly welcome the efforts, though, of people to try.
Posted by: David J. Montgomery | May 6, 2005 10:41 PM
Good post, DJM. I hope your second place novel is as good.
I think Elizabeth George, David Morrell and Stephen King have written two books that are terrific about how to write, as opposed to how to sell.
Posted by: Guyot | May 7, 2005 08:25 AM