Hook your Readers from the Beginning

"Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, send your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tagline." -- Paul O'Neil

l.   Begin with dialogue and action. "Gaby, what’s going on down there?” Gaby set aside his sandwich, put on his glasses and looked for his wife. He followed as she ran down the cliff to the rocks.  This sentence puts the main characters into the setting.

2. Intrigue the Reader. Seduce the reader with curiosity.  Set up intrigue and mystery.  Refer to a secret. Curiosity will make the readers want to know: Who is this person? Why is s/he in this situation? Will s/he get out of it?  If you capture the readers’ attention at first they will stick with you.  Make them want to find out what’s going to happen.

3.  Start with a question. “What do George Washington, Madonna and Martha Stewart share in common?  The reader will want to read on.

4. Lead with action and sound.  A.A. Milne’s first line, “Here is Edward Bear coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.”  We can hear and see a boy dragging his teddy bear behind him.

4.  Evoke empathy. Start with a story about real people, or about fictional character readers can identify with. Present an emotional experience to grab attention with shock value. Refer to #3.

6.  Write something strange.  Franz Kafka wrote a good one, “One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.” Make readers want to stick around to see what strange thing you do next.

7.  Provide information quickly. Herman Melville began, “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.”  Here we have the character, the setting and insight into story in only two sentences.

8.   Set up your conflict in the first sentence.  Rosalind Bentley writes, “Cruising at a good clip, he figures the bus has to be doing 70. No brake lights. Still no brake lights. There’s a wall at the top of the exit, not a through lane.  Is the bus going to stop?”  Begin your building process of tension and suspense.

9.  Begin in the middle of something. Tell the meat of the story first. Or begin with the turning point in your drama. Examples of starting sentences:  Now, the robbery fits no serial cases. He fights to become a walking miracle. Regulations specify that only charcoal, clean wood and paper products…. Also try gaps in conversation.  Readers will want to know how it began.

10. Tickle the funny bones of your reader. Don’t open with a joke. It might fall flat. Try a story or quote that has momentary entertainment value. The professor lectured his writing class:  “In the English language a double negative forms a positive.  In some languages such as Russian, a double negative is still negative.  In no language do you find a double positive that forms a negative.”  From the back of the class he hears, “Yeah, right.”