Writing 101: The Hook

You can't fall into a Goodreads group without finding a thread that discusses books and their opening lines. The first line if the hook, and that's why so many people consider it to be so important. That first line is truly the most important of the book. So...do you know how to sharpen your hook? 

Reeling Them In

I don't always read blurbs, and I'm not always interested in covers. When an author or an agent sends me a review request, I only really need one thing from them: the Amazon link. With this, I go straight to the book's sample...and I read the first line. If I don't like it, that's it. 

This is how a lot of readers make their decision about books. That's unfortunate for authors, because books have tens of thousands of words in them...and most of the time, you're getting judged on the first 7 you write. This creates an enormous amount of pressure to start the book off really strong. You want to be funny, touching, compelling, exciting and titillating -- simultaneously, and without creating a run-on sentence that's hard to read. That's pretty darned hard to do if you've got 7 words to work with.

That's why you have to forget about doing all of that. Don't worry about being funny or thought-provoking or anything in particular. Worry about hooking the reader. Write anything that might make them want to keep reading. One word, a single phrase, even a foreign language may be enough of a hook, if it's compelling enough. If I open a book and I see the word Fire! I might keep on reading to see what's on fire. That is how a hook works. 

And yes, it's perfectly okay to resort to any cheap trick you can think of in order to write a great hook. What else is a hook but a clever trick? Ever read the beginning of Gone With the Wind? Here's how it starts: "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were." This is good stuff, people. Why's she so charming? How not beautiful is she? Who are these Tarleton twins? If the first line of your novel inspires questions, you're looking at a great hook. Curiosity is the strongest motivator, and it will keep your readers engaged in your story for as long as you can maintain it. The hook makes them curious, and that's it's magic. 

Writing 101: Make 'Em Cry

I wrote a post about the importance of humor in books, making your audience laugh, but tears can be just as moving as amusement. In fact, the books that make us cry can be as powerful as the books that make us laugh. Do you know how to make your readers cry? 

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Tragedy happens in life, and books that contain tragedy will feel authentic if it's written well. Tragic events are the best way to make your readers cry, but you have to walk a very fine line. 

Death is a common tragic event in books, and it can inspire tears...but it can also fall flat. It's all about the character who dies. You have to be part writer and part scientist to create the perfect destined-to-die character. 

First, don't make them too obviously good. I read a book, once, where I was absolutely certain the sister was going to die because she was being painted as some sort of perfect saint. Then she died, and I didn't care because I knew all along she wasn't going to live. Don't do this. All people have good and bad in them. You want to create a character that readers really like (the better to pull the tears from them), but it has to be a believable character. Give them flaws and allow them to make mistakes.

Second, give the reader enough time to know the character. Put the character in several pivotal scenes and allow them to play a key role before you brutally kill them in a cruel attempt to make people cry (it's okay, you sadist; everything is allowed in fiction).

Heartbreak is one of the most common tragedies in books as well, but this is even trickier to write than death. First, you must make the main character and the audience fall for the love interest. You must make everyone trust this character implicitly. An heroic act can be a big help. If the love interest saves the main character from something terrible, for example, this can create a sense of trust. Maybe the love interest confesses to something wrong they did, and makes amends for it. Perhaps they stop someone else from doing something wrong. There are lots of ways to do it, but make the reader trust first. 

That will make the subsequent betrayal hurt that much worse. Make the betrayal truly awful and write a wallowing scene where the main character is deep in it, and that should pull some tears out of your audience. 

Find your own way to bring tragedy into your books, and make 'em cry. People like a good cry, every now and then, and crying over fictional characters is perfectly harmless.

Writing 101: Gaps in the Story?

Editing is an essential part of writing, and any author will tell you the same. But don't get bogged down in the details of grammar and punctuation and forget to look at the bigger picture. When you're editing, you always have to check for gaps in the story. 

Plot Holes and Other Errors

You're the author, so you know how the story ends. You know who the characters are and what's going to happen. And when you're writing, it's common to be focused on getting to the end. It's only natural for gaps to appear in any first draft.

But you've got to fill in those gaps when you go back and do the editing. Remember that the reader doesn't understand the characters the way you do, and they don't know how the story is supposed to end. You have to fill in the blanks for them. If your heroine is supposed to be brave and confident, write a scene that shows her acting this way. If the reader is supposed to care about a friendship between two people, write a scene that illustrates their closeness. 

When you're editing, always be looking for the gaps. There's a good way to find them: ask questions. As you're reading, pay attention to any questions that appear in your head (such as, why are the characters in the desert? or do I know this guy Chris who's talking right now?). If you have questions, the readers will definitely have questions. Ask yourself questions as you read along. Do you understand why the character is doing this? Do you know why the character said no to Tom and yes to Jimmy? Are the motives and explanations part of the story...or are they just in your mind? 

Fill in all the gaps in the story to create a much smoother read. If you don't catch the gaps while you edit...when will you?

Writing 101: Getting Ahead of Yourself

Which comes first: the cover or the final draft? When I write, sometimes I'll start thinking pretty far ahead -- not just about this story, but maybe even about the next story I'm going to write. I've learned that lots of other authors do the same thing. And like me, they have to stop it from happening. Getting ahead of yourself can be harmful to your writing.

 Fast Track

Don't get too far ahead of yourself when you're writing a book, because it gets overwhelming. If you start thinking about the cover and the marketing and the blurb while you're still writing the first draft, you're doing too much. Focus on the story itself, and get that perfected first.

Take it one chapter, one page, one paragraph at a time -- don't start thinking about the cover and all of that until the first draft is finished. Because if you start getting too far ahead of yourself, you may start to feel pressured. You may start to rush the story, because you're already so far ahead of it already. You can't live in the future, you can only live in the now...so focus on where you are now. 

Get the story perfected and then start filling in the details, because you don't have to get it published right away. Take your time with every aspect of the story and plan it out carefully. Don't be in a rush to go fast, because that results in lower-quality work.

Indie News: Slow Sales? You Aren't the Only One

If your book sales took a dive over the summer months, not to worry: this is often the case with indie authors. Now that the weather is edging ever-so-slowly toward fall, you should see a rise in your profits. 

Summer Reading

People read less in the summer, particularly children (this makes things difficult for YA and children's book authors). Everyone's getting outside and going on vacation, enjoying the interesting summer TV programming and working on their tan lines. It leaves little time for reading. 

Books have natural peak times and slow times, and it's common for sales to become a little lethargic during the summer months. But the holiday season will soon be upon us, and that's the best time to sell books. So use this slow period to work on your marketing strategy, and make up for it.

Books on Film: Sphere

We're entering the month of fear and fright, chills and thrills. What better way to celebrate it than with a scary book? But be careful if you choose to explore the world of Sphere -- the movie adaptation is scary in all the worst ways.

The Book

Michael Crichton published Sphere in 1987, but it's still terrifying today. The book begins with psychologist Norman Johnson, who is just beginning to get a little grumpy as he edges into the outskirts of old age. He's being flown to a classified location by the Navy, and so far they aren't telling him anything. When he reaches a full-scale military operation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and he's told they've discovered an alien spacecraft...well, Norman pretty much wishes they had decided not to tell him anything at all.

The spacecraft has been there for a while. Judging by the coral, it's been in place for over 300 years. Norman is only one part of an elite task force that has been assembled to investigate. The rest of the team includes mathematician Harry Adams, biologist Beth Halpern and astrophysicist Ted Fielding. Norman soon realizes that this is the exact team that he put together in a report he was asked to write years and years ago by the government. Norman was tasked with creating a plan if and when alien life was discovered on Earth.

When he wrote the report, Norman thought it was a joke. Now, on a Navy vessel with his team and a crew of soldiers he realizes that this is no joke. It's definitely not a joke when they're all put on a submarine and taken to the bottom of the Pacific in order to study and explore the spacecraft.

 During the mission, they learn that the spaceship isn't alien after all...it was built by Americans. It's not a spaceship, not really, but a timeship that was (one assumes) accidentally sent back to the wrong time. But on board the ship, there is definitely something of alien origin. 

It's a sphere.

By the way, there's a storm topside (that means above the water) and the submarine has lost all communication with their support up above. The team of scientists has decided to focus on the sphere. They attempt communication with it, and Harry eventually uses his math skills to find a way inside. 

Very strange things begin to happen, and the sphere begins to exhibit a very distinct personality. It puts all of Norman's skills to the test to manage the truculent sphere and the increasingly stressed-out team of experts.

Things get really scary and really interesting, and the book is definitely worth your time. The movie...is a bit of a different story.

The Film

The book became a film in 1998, with Dustin Hoffman starring as Norman Johnson (Goodman on film), Samuel L. Jackson as Harry and Sharon Stone as Beth. It was an utter flop, and the critics hated it, too.  It earned around $37 million at the box office, far below the $80 million budget.

Yeah, the studio poured a ton of money into the film. They hired the best actors they could get. And they chose an excellent source of material to create a story. So why is this film so very bad? 

The special effects are good, but somehow the roles never quite fit the actors. Hoffman isn't methodical enough to be Norman, Jackson is too angry to be Harry, and Sharon Stone is sort of just...there. Too much quick dialogue pull and push the viewer through the plot, instead of allowing the story to unfold naturally.

And that's only part of the problem.

What Got Adapted?

Sphere as a movie didn't follow the book too well. Where the book exposes many of Norman's inner thoughts, the movie jumps from perspective to perspective to confuse the narrative. Many events are changed or eliminated, and some characters are removed before their time should come. Many, many writers have called this movie one of the worst adaptations ever...so think about that before you take the plunge and watch it.

Writing 101: Twist Ending

Nothing affects you quite like a truly great twist ending. Famous examples include Shutter Island, Fight Club and Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. But nothing is quite as infuriating as a twist ending done badly. You're the author, so the ending isn't supposed to surprise you...so how do you know when your ending is a surprise to someone else? 

Surprise!

Twist endings, by definition, completely change the plot of the story. They come as a surprise. Something unexpected happens, and everything is different. This can be done for dramatic or comedic effect...and it can be done poorly either way, too. 

Bad twist endings can appear pretty much anywhere, and you can blame all sorts of culprits. It's much easier to learn how to recognize the elements that make a twist ending good, because lots of stuff can make it bad. 

• Logic. Good twist endings don't ignore logic. If I read your book for 300 pages and I'm trying to figure out whether the girl and the guy will end up together or if the mean ex-girlfriend and stepmother will be successful in their plot to unhinge the romance and all of a sudden a serial killer with a chainsaw comes along and kills everyone and there's been no previous reference to a chainsaw killer in the book...well, I'm not going to write you a very nice review. Crazy serial killer is a twist ending, but when it's totally random it is not a good one.
• Reveal. A really juicy twist ending often reveals some new piece of information about a character that was kept secret for the whole of the book (until now). Revealing that the main character is actually a woman disguised as a man and she's the one who was having the affair with Steve -- not Carol, who was killed for the aforementioned affair in Chapter 2 -- is an example of this technique. 
• New development. The new development is a classic type of twist ending. A letter arrives in the mail, a rich relative dies, someone gets killed -- some brand-new plot happens that completely changes someone's circumstances. This is a tricky method, because you have to maintain the logic. The relative must be mentioned in the book, the victim must be introduced early...it has to make sense. 
• Really? It's hard to do this, but shock and awe can also be used as a twist ending. Unexpectedly killing the main character (or several characters) will leave readers with their mouths hanging open. A catastrophic event is certainly a memorable ending, but make sure it brings some resolution. You have to provide satisfaction when you dole out chaos. 

After you write your twist ending, run it through a couple of beta readers to see how they feel about it. Read it yourself, and check for the elements that make endings good. A well-done twist ending will leave readers feeling something about your book, and that's a good way to leave them.

Writing 101: Writing the Title

In some cases, writing the title can be the hardest part of writing the whole book. I know this to be true, because I worked on a book for about 10 months before giving it any sort of title at all (and I later rejected it). This is why I wait to announce my titles. So what should you do if you find yourself in a similar place...and can't seem to get around to writing the title? 

What's in a Name? 

The importance of the book title cannot be overestimated. It's the first (and sometimes only) thing readers notice. The title has to grab them and interest them, or they won't take a look at the blurb. If they don't read the blurb, you don't make the sale...and that all starts with the title.

It's okay to take a long time to figure out what the title of your book should be, though I've read some author tips where experts tell you to title your project right away. Don't do this unless you get struck by inspiration and you're certain this is the title for you. Some book titles don't reveal themselves until the very end of the book (which was the case with my current project) and that's fine because you can't publish before you're finished anyway.

But sometimes, inspiration doesn't strike. When a title just isn't coming to you, it might be necessary to jog your creativity a little.

• Word list. Make a list of words that you might use to describe your book. Anything that comes to mind is okay -- nothing is off-limits when you brainstorm. Keep going until you run out of words, then sit back and look at your list. As you explore your words, something might leap out at you. 
• Expand. If you have a handful of good words that fit, but none that are really shouting at you, it's time to expand. Take the best words from your list and look them up in your favorite thesaurus (or two or three). Write down any new words that strike your fancy. 
• Name game. Using the words you've got, just start throwing dummy titles together. Come up with 5 or so and start playing with them. With some tweaking, you may write something perfect.

When all else fails, turn the title into a promotional event. Release a well-polished excerpt and your book blurb and stage a contest that allows fans to choose the title for your book. This is risky, but it can give you a decent marking boost and help you solve your titling problem, to boot. Include a note of thanks to the fans who named the book in the dedication or the Author's Note, and make it part of the book's history.

Writing the title can be one of the hardest parts of being an author. Keep working at it until you come up with something that you love, and don't rush the process. If you take your time, you'll craft the perfect title.