Okay, so not every book is going to start with a line like “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.” This, of course, is from Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. Some book openers have softer messages. Others are loud, funny, curious, heartwarming, even sad. Many are provocative. It’s that critical beginning that initiates an emotional grab. There’s a reason it’s called the hook!
A hook is made up of the first few lines or even a paragraph or two of a book, fiction or nonfiction. To me, it’s a promise to the reader, an introduction that propels the story forward and entices me to keep going. Obviously, it’s got to be good. Here are a few quick examples that I pulled from my shelves and that resonate with me:
“A jellyfish, if you watch it long enough, begins to look like a heart beating.” The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin.
*Love the imagery and the allusion to a book that will stir my heart strings.
“A monster of a mango tree grew in the courtyard of Namwon Prison.” A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat.
*Oooo—a mango tree inside a prison. Where IS this? Immediate interest.
“Two minutes. That’s how long I had to get past this Nazi.” Resistance by Jennifer Nielsen.
*Yikes! Serious danger. What will happen next?
The examples above are from very different books, though all written for children. Yet, they all connect, persuading me, the reader, and securing my commitment to further reading. They have several things in common.
- Launch: These opening lines have enough momentum to propel the story forward. They are provocative enough to push me, the reader, into reading more.
- Emotional appeal: What is the emotional tug? Is it fear, curiosity, empathy? Something else? These appeal to my emotions and for that reason, I simply must keep reading.
- Mood and tone: These two elements, present in the hook, will carry over to the rest of the book. Is there a sense of urgency, nostalgia, or perhaps wishful thinking? What is the tone of the book? How does the hook set up a particular mood and overall tone?
- Character Authenticity: How does the hook relate to the protagonist? What are the parallels to who this character is? What clues do I learn about the main character(s) from these first brief words?
- Setting Clues: What does this opening tell me of the world I’m about to engage in?
Of course, there are others, too. When I sit down to “engage with the page,” these first lines are the ones I read over and over as I write and revise. They must be right. I must love them. Funny, too, you know immediately the ones that are priceless. These are the gems that I refer to as I fall in love with my story.
