Best Home Based Businesses - How To Hook Your Reader

We put the book back on the shelf, if they don't capture our interest. Then open to the first page and read a paragraph or two, most of us look first at the title and jacket copy. How do you decide which novel to buy, in a bookstore?

They may not read the rest, but if the opening doesn't hook them, most request one to three chapters with the query as a sample rather than a paragraph. They use the same method to decide whether or not to ask you to send the rest of your manuscript. They are your potential buyers, when you finish a novel and query agents or editors.

And pose a question the reader wants answered, begin building dramatic tension, set the mood, it should plant a seed of suspense. The opening of your novel must entice the editor or agent to read the entire story.

You need to choose the right time and place to open your story, to do this.

All stories don't start at the beginning.

Characters' backgrounds and how they reached that point then emerge as the story unfolds. It's usually the point in a suspense novel where story goals of the protagonist and villain cross and put them in conflict. The main reason for this is that's where the real suspense begins. One of the basic rules for writing a novel is to begin as close to the end as possible.

Where do I begin?

However, the two are not interchangeable. Begin with chapter one or with a prologue. You have two choices.

The scene must fit in smoothly as part of the story or an introduction to it in some way. Opening with an interesting character doing something dramatic is an excellent way to hook the reader.

Deciding if it's chapter one or a prologue.

It should be chapter one, if your opening scene leads directly into the story without a break in time.

It should be a prologue , and the interval of time between them isn't shown, if the opening scene helps set up the story but happens before the actual story takes place.

Examples:

Widowed mother who discovers an intruder in her California hillside house when she brings her sick child home from nursery school during a terrible rain storm, example #1: Your story is about a young.

Beginning with the intruder before he gets into the house offers strong possibilities, since you want to start with a scene that hooks the reader.

You can also show the ferocity of the storm as he drives up the canyon road and runs out of gas. Has trouble remembering things and is menacing, you can create the impression he has a mental problem of some kind, through his viewpoint.

She leaves home to pick up her sick child and passes the dark car pulled off the side of the road, when the story switches to the woman in the next chapter.

The suspense is set up and the reader is eager to know what will happen next. And the heroine has just crossed his path, the reader already knows the man in the car is a threat of some kind.

She is terrified he will come after her because her testimony was the crucial evidence against him at the trial. Example #2: Your story is about a young mother who learns the man convicted of murdering her husband five years ago has just been released from prison on a technicality.

It also creates dramatic suspense that will build throughout the story. It helps the reader understand why the protagonist is so worried about the man finding her. It sets up a vital part of the background the current story needs. The scene about the murder would be a valid prologue. The murder would create a more dramatic opening than introducing the woman in chapter one, since the murder took place five years before the jeopardy story begins.

Plan ahead

Getting it read is the first step toward getting it published. It can make the difference between getting your manuscript read or rejected. Choose where to begin your novel carefully.