The Hook is the Thing?

[Jo Zebedee]

Yes, I felt it was trying just a little too hard.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Point taken, Perpetual Man. I don't even know where that hook would have led. With the first hook I wrote, I was thinking futuristic biotech ( or zootech, perhaps?), with a Pandora's box or Trojan horse flavour.

I'll try something very different.

Would they ever have known, Julia wondered later, if the server had not crashed? When she was unable to access the on-line case summary, Julia walked down to Records and looked at the notes.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Rereading my own latest hook, I can see that I need a transition sentence between the first and second sentence.

Would they ever have known, Julia wondered later, if the server had not crashed? At the time, the system failure seemed just another disruption to her busy day. When she was unable to access the on-line case summary, Julia walked down to records and pulled the notes.

 

[martin321]

Rereading my own latest hook, I can see that I need a transition sentence between the first and second sentence.

Would they ever have known, Julia wondered later, if the server had not crashed? At the time, the system failure seemed just another disruption to her busy day. When she was unable to access the on-line case summary, Julia walked down to records and pulled the notes.

I think that's fairly hooky. I'd like to know what Julia finds in the records office. Not a bad opening for some sort of detective or legal novel.

 

[tinkerdan]

They always got him first, he's the easy one to find and they knew he couldn't run for ****. They knew where to tag Tim Shannon and they always picked him up because even if he didn't do one thing he did another and they always got a confession. Tim wanted to be good, he had a talent, no one ever showed him what to do with it. He was sure he could do great things, instead he'd become the poster child for perps. He should fix it, find a way to control it and make it useful, but the way things worked for him that would look like organized crime. No, he needed to clean up his life. Some day. Not today; not from jail. Plenty of time later to get organized.

Tim's hands shook, he needed a drink. He knew a place, not far. All he needed to do is play it cagey and confess to something minor sign the papers and he'd be outta there on his own recognizances. Make sure no one followed and slip in and out with a quart in a baggy. Yeah that would do it. Just one problem, the baggy officer Delgado had thrown down on the table; the one with the icepick and all that blood.

 

[SciFrac]

Great idea, Perp. We all know the first 5 lines will make or break our publication chances with agents and editors. It's the prime real-estate of every story.

I've always heard that people identify with a character before a situation. This is why starting with a situation or some nameless action often fails to hook. You can feel the difference between:

1) "A woman died in a foreign country."

2) "Mom hung herself yesterday, just to piss me off."

IMO, great hooks introduce a voice and reveal an emotional conflict within the character. The very best hooks also use humor. Although, #2 sounds melodramatic to me; it's an exaggeration to illustrate my point.