Hooking Your Reader
Posted in Blog,Writing TipsJune 7, 2019Comments Off on Hooking Your Reader
People lead such frenetic lives in 2019 that writers are especially challenged to hook their readers, often in minutes or even seconds.
That can happen in a bookstore, or more commonly, on Amazon with a “Look Inside” the book offer.
I reflected on one opening sentence that I keep coming back to as a “best-practices” example. Here it is, from James Jones From Here to Eternity:
“When he finished packing, he walked out onto the third-floor porch of the barracks brushing the dust from his hands, a very neat and deceptively slim young man in the summer khakis that were still early morning fresh.”
And here’s how Ed McBain breaks it down in Killer’s Payoff:
“Jones packs a hell of a lot into that first line. He tells you it’s summer, he tells you it’s morning, he tells you you’re on an Army post with a soldier who’s obviously leaving for someplace, and he gives you a thumbnail description of his hero. That’s a good opening line.”
Keep writing…and go find that killer-good opening sentence….