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Come spend an afternoon learning how to harness your readers—and keep their attention through the end. This class surveys a variety of strategies for starting a story, as well as techniques for carrying the energy forward well beyond your opening lines.
Aug 9, 2016 · Conflict. Add an antagonist. Change emotion. Irony and surprise. Make People Wonder. Dread Factor. Keep narrative voice compelling. Now, here is the essay separated by each element so you can see how to incorporate into your own story: A Summer Place by Ann Garvin.
Stuck on how to start your novel? Try one of these classic approaches!This visualized excerpt is from "Right Brain Writing: Creative Shortcuts for Wordsmiths...
- 4 min
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- Right Brain Writing
Oct 26, 2016 · It’s total click bait, and you don’t want to do that in your writing. It’s bad form. You shouldn’t have to trick your reader into turning the page, but that doesn’t mean you can’t hook them. A hook isn’t about holding back information to get the reader to keep reading, because that can get annoying really fast.
- Surprise
- Emotion
- Protagonist Goal
- Need-To-Know Information
- Specific Details
- Conflict
- Logic
- Still Need Help Hooking Your Reader?
First and foremost, something needs to be different in your story if you want to hook your reader. What’s the twist?
Kathryn pointed out that the brain uses emotion to gauge what’s important to us. In fiction, this means your character’s reactions to adversity will showthe reader what’s important to them. Put your protagonist in a difficult situation and show his reaction. What are your character’s fears? Needs? What do you want your reader to feel?
We’ve all heard this before, but only because it’s important. Your protagonist needs a goal. An agenda. And we need to know what it is early in the story. What does she desperately want or need to achieve before the story concludes? What internal and/or external issues are preventing her from getting it?
Discern what information the reader needsto know at the beginning. The tricky thing is figuring exactly what that is. Kathryn pointed out that while we believe readers need to know everything, in reality they require very little. One way to avoid the temptation of an information dump is to start the manuscript with the character doing or reacting t...
Specific details enable the reader to visualize your story, which is necessary if you're going to hook your reader. Consider how can you make your scenes as real as possible by using precise descriptions.
As I mentioned in # 2, your characters must face their demons and react. And eventually they must resolve the problem. Figure out the central conflict in your story and make sure it’s clear at the beginning.
Tom Clancy and Mark Twain said it- fiction has to make sense. There needs to be a cause and effect in your story. Would your character do XYZ in light of who they are? Kathryn used the example of one of her students who had his main character, who was a “desk jockey” who did nothing but type all day, suddenly able to climb a treacherous mountain. I...
As with a lot of writing advice, most of these things are easier said than done—thankfully there are places you can turn for even more advice! Kathryn was heavily influenced by a book by Lisa Cron called Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the First Sentence. I read the opening chapters in Barnes & Noble,...
Sep 6, 2022 · So write your online content for your reader first. Then, go back and populate the content with words, phrases, and images that seamlessly fit in and improve your SEO ranking. 7. Be Authentic. The best thing you can learn about how to hook a reader is to be authentic and transparent with your content.
Discover how to support your child’s growth as a young reader and writer — with our Reading 101 for Families guide, bilingual parent tips, ideas for building your child’s knowledge of the world, Q&A with experts, and guidance on connecting with your child’s school. Visit the Literacy at Home Overview
