Bleeding Beauties

Hooks

Hi everyone! *waves madly*

I'm Noa, and I'm going to start this out like Emmett's speech in The Lego Movie. Except I won't write it 'cause it sounds better in my head.

So, today I'm going to talk about hooks. We all know how important a hook is. It can draw you into the story or scream "Run away, run away!"

Some examples of what I consider "good" hooks (first sentence hooks, anyways).

From George Orwell's "1984":

"It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief"

"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood."

Now, I'm going to it you in on a little secret. Ready?

Sure?

Okay, here goes.

There is no such thing as a "bad" hook.

Seriously! Different people like different types of hooks. It's really your opinion about what stands out to you the most when you read something. You could love one thing, then despise the next.

But what about writing something? Sometimes the hardest thing to write is the first line, paragraph, or page. Even summaries can be a pain!

Think of your favorite movie trailer (and on that clunky note, I swear, I have a point). Got it in your head? What pulled you into it?

The trailer I can think of first is one from Age of Ultron.

(Link in comments on this line)

It's the official trailer for those who can't get the link to open.

At the first gong/ chime/ thing, I'm in. I've forgotten what I'm going to say, lost my train of thought, thrown school into the flames, and immersed myself into this one trailer. The world could be burning around me and I would still be watching the trailer.

Not really. If the world started burning around me, I'd probably freak.

Second trailer that's an example:

(Link in comments on this line) 

(Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer.)

Honestly, I could choose trailers out the ears to show, but I won't.

(Deadpool. Look it up)

But you get what I mean. The main reason for a theatrical trailer is to hook people in to seeing the movie. It could be a movie about pain drying that shows real-time paint drying, but if the trailer is good, then for the love of cheese, you will check it out.

That's how I like to think of hooks when I'm writing. The first piece of a trailer is what gets me interested, so that means the first piece of a chapter should do the same.

Granted, as writers, we don't have cool music or explosions that go along with each word we write. We have to work with our imagination and other's imagination. We have go decide what would get people interested the most, and with judging that, we have to go with what gets us interested most.

I'm going back to the trailers now.

What's your favorite type of trailer? Do you like it with no speaking and just music? A lot of speaking? The ones where an E-flat or E-minor is played throughout the whole thing to add to suspense and doom and gloom?

My favorite types of trailers are the ones that start out with someone talking. Whether it be character 1 speaking to audience or characters 2 and 3 talking to each other. I love the dialogue.

There was something I read once that said to never start your book in the middle of a conversation. That it throws the audience into something and they are totally lost.

I really, really disagree with that.

My preference is to start out a chapter with dialogue if it's in third person, or speaking if it's in first person. I like the bong-bong trailers. (That is such a horrible sounding name.) The trailers that start out black, have someone say a line, then go bong and show an image. Those.

Here's and example in first-person.

"When I was eleven, the sky fell.

Towers collapsed, cities burned.

People died.

After the Fall, they came. The Trilis. Those who survived the Fall were forced into 'camps.'

Only the chosen lived.

A tattoo was the only thing that marked those destined to live and those marked to die. To the Trilis, the tattoo meant 'life.' No mark meant the end of your life.

My whole family was killed in the Fall, leaving me to survive in a sea of marked and an ocean of Trilis.

I know I can't be the only one. I can't. Humanity is too strong for that.

It has to be."

Welcome to "Noa makes stuff up off the top of her head." That wasn't the best I could do but it works. Now, here's what I was thinking as I was writing.

The first part was black. Black screen. Then...

"When I was eleven, the sky fell."

That was the dialogue there! Okay, so next is the "bong." So, person gets done talking, then

BONG.

"Towers fell, cities burned."

"People died."

CUT TO: PEOPLE RUNNING, SCREAMING. EXPLOSIONS. PANIC, PANIC, AHHH!

Anyway, that's my image that I see after the "sky fell."

Then, there's more dialogue. IMAGE IS STILL UP, CAMERA PROBABLY PANNING OUT.

"After the Fall, they came. The Trilis. Those who survived the Fall were forced into "camps."

That's about where I get away from the "bong" part of the trailer and start showing imagery and having the person speaking at the same time. It's about all the same from there, but I've hooked myself into it and made it easier to write.

Hopefully, it hooked everyone else in too, but I can only judge for myself.

Here's third person:

BLANK SCREEN:

"The sky fell when Alen was eleven."

BONG.

"Towers collapsed in smoke, cities were destroyed."

"People died."

CUT TO: MORE RUNNING AND SCREAMING. FLEE, FLEE!

IMAGE STILL UP, CAMERA PANNING OUT.

"After the Fall, they came. The Trilis. Those who survived the Fall were forced into "camps."

Not the best example, but you get what I mean.

Now, I'm not a professional. I literally run on my own dumb luck. I really don't know if this is a "proper" way, or if there is a "proper" way at all! All I can do is share what I try to do when writing and hope it makes sense for anyone but me.

Hope it helps! 

-Noa Calleigh ( no_kidding )