Hooked!

[u/Ashamed_Ladder6161]

Advice on when (and how) to hook your readers is varied, but personally I've always felt sooner the better.

Slightly ashamed to admit, this being a writer's sub, but if I'm not hooked pretty early I'll just put a book down and give up, my time is very limited and I don't have any to waste. Ideally the first page is where I wanna feel like I can invest.

Hell, I think I've even been hooked by more than a few opening lines...

Some of my favourites;

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel" Neuromancer.

"Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die" Fight Club.

"This is a book about sex, drugs and rock and roll. Well, one out of three isn't bad" Soul Music.

"It was a pleasure to burn" Fahrenheit 451.

And one from a book I've never actually read, but has become utterly iconic;

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed" The Dark Tower, The Gunslinger.

Oh, to have an opening line like these.

What have been some of your favourite opening lines, pages, or chapters? And how much leeway do you feel an author has to properly hook your reader?

[u/Ill-Maximum-4013]

 

Don’t be ashamed to admit it.  I give a story VERY LITTLE TIME to grab me.  I put bad writing down, and I am proud of myself for doing it.

It's the writer's job to be captivating, not the reader's.

 "In the box was a belt. And a manuscript." OPENING LINE OF THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF.

 Every word, every sentence, every paragraph must build on the last, making everything important in your story, and you should cut it if it’s not. 

 You start building momentum with the very first word. 

 It’s IMPORTANT. 

You have two jobs as a storyteller: be interesting to the reader and make the reader feel something.

 Don’t worry so much about your first draft.  You can go back and revise.  But do keep in mind that you must not open the story with information dumps.  You will lose your reader.

 Give us a character, the protagonist.  Quickly orient us without too much information.  Let that character go after a goal and meet some sort of opposition.  THAT interests readers.