Narrative hook examples1/19/2024 ![]() In How to Write Good Hook Sentences on Kibin Blog, the key points in choosing a hook or opening sentence were explored. Give us an interesting character in a pickle, and make sure the stakes are high so we’ll feel her pain. Get the reader to identify with the character and her predicament ASAP. Hint at the setting and/or the situation so we know what we’re dealing with. Whet our appetites by adding something intriguing, like incongruity, oddity, danger, tension. Paula Berinstein of Kobow Writing Life suggests that good hooks:Īdd a hint of spice. Thus the author follows up with, “You want the reader to bite? Give him something tasty to nibble on.” Choosing the right hook makes all the difference in defying the mundane expectations to give the reader more than they think they deserve. ![]() Readers expect these premises to hold true. Literary novels should introduce an intriguing character, someone readers will be eager to know. Romance should introduce hero and/or heroine in an appealing or amusing or lustful way. These books, even from the start, should make the reader uneasy or fearful or expectant. Suspense, thrillers and horror should set the reader on edge, get his emotions churning. In Writing Story Hooks – You Can’t Hook a Reader with a Yawn on The Editor’s Blog, the author explains the appeal of books, the expectation readers have when they open a book and read the first few words.Ī murder mystery should open with a murder. What tone to you hear from the view point character? The reader may ask what couldn’t Jason take any longer? Why is his cell phone ordinary and the mirror rare? What is the history of the family? It appears that the character has a strong antagonist perspective on his family’s history, setting up the story that is to come with tainted paint strokes. Jason Winston could take it no longer and hurled his cell phone into his grandmother’s Louis XVI mirror, shattering three generations of family bondage. Who is this person speaking? How are they watching and listening through this character? What could have that much power? Who is the one? Why is he the one? One for what? And why are we settling for this one? Have we run out of time? The questions just keep coming in the reader’s mind. Or at least as close as we’re going to get. I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one. A good hook, thus a good question, engages the reader, and they spend the rest of the book seeking answers to those initial questions.Ĭonsider the questions raised in the opening lines of the acclaimed and award-winning book, “Ender’s Game,” by Orson Scott Card. The body of your work (fiction, nonfiction, novel, essay, article, poem, book or music) answers the questions raised by the hooks. The question is what makes an opening a hook.
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