My Novel - Writing Course

 "My Novel"  - Module 1 

 The Book-Buying Process

If you hope to be a published author, you no doubt also hope that browsing readers will take one look at your novel on the bookstore shelf and snap it up.  That's the plan, right?

What is the process that gets the prospective buyer to choose your book instead of the latest big-name blockbuster, the new offering by an  author they have come to love, or the myriad other new books just waiting to be read?  

This is how it happens. First, the cover must grab their attention; next, the title must make them curious.  Ah, here's a book browser now, staring at your book. She's picking it up!  She turns it over to read the blurb on the back. It's looking good!  Now she opens the book to read the first page, to see if it grabs her.  Chapter One, page 1. 

This is your only chance, really, to turn that browser into a buyer.  Why would anyone waste precious book-buying dollars on a book that has absolutely no appeal from Page 1?  Don't you wish you could look over her shoulder and say: "It gets better.  You should see what happens on page 50... and ... and the ending is terrific."

Show the Reader How Good You Are

There is a way, actually, that you can almost do that.  If Page 1 is intriguing, exciting, and engrossing, that reader will automatically presume that page 50 is going to be a knock-out, and the ending alone will be worth buying the book to read. You need to strut your stuff in Chapter One and especially in that all-important first paragraph. 

If you're a regular million seller with a huge reputation and following, perhaps your faithful readers will hang about for a page or two while you describe the ants crawling up the wall and the moss on the headstones, because they do know from experience that it gets a whole lot better on page 50.  You, as a first-time author,  do not have that luxury. Don't take any chances.  Don't waste your first paragraph 'setting the scene', or filling in back story about how the Lionarians first came to the planet Zeta 750,000 years ago. 

The Writing Hook or Narrative Hook

You must use that first paragraph to hook your reader.  And to hook your reader, you need  ... a nice sharp shiny  hook. To extend the fishing analogy, ganged hooks are best.  Ganged hooks?  In fishing, that term means  several hooks in a row, each threaded through the eye of the one above. 

It's quite possible for you to build your opening paragraph so deviously that it bristles with hooks.  If one misses the mark, another is sure to make the catch.  (And you thought authors were a noble and  principled lot, didn't you?)

Types of  Reader Hooks

Many things qualify as a hook, sometimes even the quality of the prose.  For kids, the very word 'wizard' or 'horse' might be sufficient.  Adult readers are usually a little more demanding. They need to feel  an  instant interest in the main character, or be intrigued by a situation being played out in front of their eyes.  They might also be drawn to read on, if there is an obvious promise of something looming.

Of the many types of hooks, we will concentrate on just a few key ones.  We will avoid the outrageous, the shocking, the totally unexpected, and evocative settings. These have their place, but need to be handled with care, preferably by an experienced writer.

Let's concentrate on these few hooks - the sharpest in your writing tackle box:

• Introduce a unique character or unique voice
• Start with a journey
• Use Foreshadowing
• Use Compelling dialogue
• Introduce Danger
• Promise a change from ordinary everyday life
• Get inside the main character's head' and show his/her feelings

Baiting the  Reader Hook

These next few items are also writing hooks, but I need to isolate them because they are so crucial. They make all your other hooks super-effective; indeed, they encase the hooks, just as bait does ... and just like fishing bait, they attract the reader to the waiting hook.  Your first paragraph needs a bait of real reader-food: a tasty morsel must send out a tantalising  scent trail and promise a huge, satisfying meal.

You dangle in front of the prospective reader the two things they most want: action  and  suspense. These are the two chief reasons that people read fiction.  Let me clarify the terms. 

In this context, action doesn't mean buildings must explode in flames OR cars roll over cliffs.  It simply  means some forward movement in the story line - story-telling rather than static display.  

By suspense I don't mean the proverbial 'cliff-hanger' or the race to the hospital to save the victim's life.  No, this time the suspense is any form of not knowing.  When readers have their curiosity piqued and start asking questions, they want answers and can't have them until they turn the page.  That's suspense.

The two most significant reader-grabbing techniques you can employ in your opening paragraph are these:

• Drop your reader into the middle of the action, have it swirling around them, and let them feel the story in motion.  Once on the move, they won't want to stop the ride.
• Make your reader damned curious. Make the entire paragraph a 'what will happen next' question, and preferable have them asking themselves a few other minor questions along the way.  Curiosity works! It will bug the reader until they find out the answer to the question they have been asking themselves; it may bug them sufficiently to buy the book.

First paragraph example - UN inspiring

Let's start with a couple of short paragraphs as examples of how NOT to do it.  They are by no means awful paragraphs, but they don't contain much to hook the reader. (I've constructed them, by the way - they are not borrowed from books or students' work)

When Bill went to get the paper, the main street was even quieter than usual.  He said hello to Freda Gore, the fruiterer, who was carrying cases of apples out to display them  in the doorway. It was an old family business. Bill remembered Freda's grandfather doing much the same thing back in 1950. As a kid, he had liked the old man who occasionally handed him an apple off the stand.  The grandfather - he couldn't remember his name - died in 1961.  It was a big funeral, he recalled.  Then it was Mr Gore Jnr who took over.   His name was Bob.  The shop remained much the same, maybe in deference to the old man who had started the business.  It was only when Freda took over in 1990 that things started to happen. Freda had a few good business ideas. He'd become one of her best customers.  Bill rested on his Zimmer frame for a while and exchanged pleasantries, then he shuffled off for his treat of the morning -  the Clamville Clucker, the weekly free rag that contained all the town gossip.

Evaluate this by the two 'baits' above. 

• Is the reader dropped into the action and carried along by it?  Well, yes, at the pace of Bill's Zimmer frame shuffle down Main Street.  In effect, nothing is happening. 
• Is the reader curious about outcomes? Is the reader asking questions?  Possibly they are asking: "Where is this going? What the heck is this book about?"  That's not the sort of question readers should be asking. Neither Bill nor Freda Gore is introduced in a way that makes them unique, interesting or pursuable.

First Paragraph Example re-write - with baited reader hooks

Here is a re-write of the same scene. It contains information that the original writer probably intended to introduce in chapter 2 or 3, once the scene had been set, back story dealt with, and characters delineated.  It's all there, implicit  in the original version but the reader doesn't know it.

Bill clattered down Main at a blistering pace, the rapid tap-tap of his Zmmer frame echoing in the empty street, tiger-striped by the early morning sun.  It was just eight, but Freda would be open, bless her. There she was, setting up the fruit display outside the shop door. He saw her turn to watch his progress, a box of apples clamped to her over-flowing bosom. As he crossed the road, she dumped the box , put her hands on her broad hips, and laughed  at him

"What?" he said.  "What's so funny?"

"Well, we know what you're after, don't we?"  Her face creased into an amused leer.

"Is it in, then?"  You said it would take about a week."   He'd picked the title straight from Freda's wholesale catalogue.  Her little side-line might have saved the family business from going under, but her Methodist grandfather would  be spinning  in his grave.

Freda nodded.  "It's out the back." 

He felt a frisson of pleasure.  It was always a special moment  to step into that curtained-off area at the back, behind the mountain of cabbages, and see the array of juicy x-rated video covers. He swung into the doorway.

"Hold on a minute," Freda said. "There's something I think you should see."  She took a copy of the free local news sheet from the stand at the door.  Bill had always enjoyed the Clamville Clucker - it was full of salacious town gossip.  Freda pushed the paper at him. "Page three."

He opened the paper and stared.  His hands started to shake. "This isn't funny, Freda. It's cruel and malicious. Someone's going to pay dear for this! I'll get 'em, you see if I don't."

First Paragraph Analysis - Hooks and all

Perhaps this no longer qualifies as one paragraph, although the inclusion of dialogue and white space does make it appear longer than it is.  Nevertheless, it simply expands  the material offered in the original example.  Let's see how the re-write differs from the original. 

First, look at how it stacks up against the two 'baits' - action and suspense.

• ACTION:  The reader is dropped into the action at a key point - in this case, that critical event which jump-starts the drama and ensures that the characters' lives will never be the same again. We have a sense that something has to happen - the story is on the move. As well, the wacky characters and silly name for the local free paper suggest this can only be a light-hearted tale.
• SUSPENSE: Some minor questions act as hooks along the way.  Even when they are answered quickly, they keep the reader engaged.  The reader wonders why Bill is in such a hurry at that hour.  For a moment, we wonder what it is he could want at a fruit shop that warrants a sly leer. We wonder what it is that Freda considers so important he should see it immediately.  Then, of course, the big hook, the huge unanswered question: "What is in that paper so terrible that Bill swears vengeance on the writer?"  Does it concern his movie viewing choices; does it refer to an associated area of his character; how does a man in a Zimmer frame exact revenge?

Now let's look to see if there are other hooks we can tick off the list.  There are.

• Introduce a Unique Character:  Whether Bill amuses or disgusts you, the small town porn-junkie on the Zimmer frame captures the imagination. 
• Use foreshadowing:  The reader knows Bill plans to do something to the perpetrator.
• Use compelling dialogue: Not exactly compelling, but the dialogue does introduce intrigue.

Do you see how it is possible to use this list of criteria to evaluate an opening paragraph?  It follows that you can also use it to design a paragraph that works in several ways to hook the reader.  That will be one of your assessment tasks.

Example 2:  First Paragraph

Joel Plesser  was riding the  Greyhound - not for the first time in his life, but the first time to a one-horse town called Lightning Ridge in New South Wales.  He'd left Brisbane at  7:30 that morning, it was now 7:30 at night, and Lightning Ridge was still a half hour away.  The flat dry plains slid by.  The occasional startled mob of kangaroos bounded away from the road. It was a long way to go to meet a man he hadn't seen in twenty five years - his father.  He'd been just ten when the police came and dragged his father away for the murder of his mother.   Now, after serving twenty-five years of his life sentence,  his father was out on parole and  anxious  to see his son.  Joel  felt nothing for his father except revulsion , yet, somehow, he was doing what his father wanted , meeting at Lightning Ridge, of all places.  His father said he was hiring a car and driving up from Sydney. He had no idea what his father would look like after twenty-five years.

Analysis of Example 2.

On the surface, it's not so terrible.  However, it reads like the back cover blurb, not the first paragraph. Let's analyse it.

•  It does start in the middle of some action.  A man is travelling to meet his killer father. The story is rolling.
• There is a mystery or two, so the reader will ask a few questions, and may even be tempted to read on.

Nevertheless, that's about all this paragraph has going for it.  Do you notice we don't feel much empathy for Joel?  That's because we don't really get to know him - even briefly.  We get to know about him.  This passage suffers from a problem that's hard to spot in one's own work and, it seems, is frustratingly hard for many people to grasp. It's very "telly".  That's not a very technical term, I know.  If one of my students had written this paragraph, I'd be saying, "Show, don't tell." 

"Show, don't tell" is a favourite catch phrase of writing teachers and editors, and one you'll be hearing throughout this course.  Indeed, there is a module devoted to it. For the moment, let's just say that the problem is insidious and hard to eradicate.  Rather than go into a detailed explanation this early in the course, I'll offer an alternative paragraph that exemplifies "show, don't tell."  Compare the two and see if  the problem and solution leap out at you.  If they don't, don't worry.  We're yet to cover that topic.

Example 2 Re- write: Writing Hooks and "Show -Don't Tell"

Why am I suffering twelve hours on a bus to meet a man I don't want to meet - a father I haven't seen in twenty-five years?  Beats me. I feel nothing for him but revulsion, after what he did to my mother. Yet here I am.  I rest my forehead on the smoked glass of the  bus window and stare out at the flat dry plains, blink at the odd tree or listless kangaroo. Stinking hot out there.  I pretend to sleep - I don't want to answer questions from the bony man beside me who claims to be an opal miner. I have enough questions of my own. I can't even guess what my father will look like, how he will have changed.  I do remember that middle finger missing from his left hand: twenty-five years in the can won't change that.  When I was five, I asked him how it happened.

"Caught a young cub in the fox trap," he said.  "Stuck my hand in to tease him and the little mongrel  latched on. He chewed that finger so bad, the doc had to amputate it."

I learned years later that he'd spread his hand on a tree stump, severed the finger with a chisel, and walked away from the mill with a sizeable Worker's Compensation cheque. He always did have a practical approach to problems. But why did he phone me just two days after his release, to say we have to meet at Lightning Ridge. Why Lightning Ridge? Who knows? Neither of us has ever been here before. He is driving a hire car from Sydney, and me, I'm on the Greyhound  from Brisbane.  He commanded, and I obeyed as if I were still a kid of ten. That's how old I was when it all happened. He'll be waiting at the bus stop, he says. In half an hour, this Greyhound will sigh to a stop, drop on one knee and roll me out in front of him.  Maybe then I'll work out why I am compelled to do this. It's not out of love, or fond memories, that's for sure. I only associate this man  with one thing - blood, and lots of it.

Writing Analysis

OK, so maybe I'm not playing entirely fair here.  I've constructed  a very long opening paragraph, but I wanted to show what can be done, and needs to be done, with the original passage.  With this opening paragraph, I certainly want to know what happens next.  In fact, I just might have to go on and write the whole book to find out. 

I am leaving the detailed analysis of the passage to you. 

EXERCISE 1 FOR MODULE 1 (Part B):

1. Analyse this re-write opening paragraph and show how it meets the 2 'bait' requirements -  ACTION and SUSPENSE.
2. Check the list of possible 'hooks' and identify those you can tick off the list from this paragraph.

CONCLUSION

You've just completed the course material for Module 1. I hope you've enjoyed it and found it valuable.  Now click on ASSIGNMENT 1 below and consolidate what you've learned by attempting the exercises.  When you've finished, click SUBMIT and the assignment will automatically go to our email box.  Shortly after, you'll receive your marked assignment back in your email. Check your junk mail in case your email provider doesn't realise you want this document.  It's as simple as that!

GO TO ASSIGNMENT  ONE