Award-Winning Author Ellen Jackson

GETTING THEM HOOKED

As soon as possible, a skillful writer draws the reader into the story. How does she do this? By immediately introducing action, drama, intrigue.

Readers want to get to know the characters and find out what the story is about. Your goal, right from the beginning, is to get your readers on the edge of their seats, impatient and eager to find out more.

An active character is an interesting character. Your main character needs to run, jump, hide, explore, climb, yell, dance, catch, bounce, and swim. He needs to search for his father, hide from the monster, or discover the treasure. Don't begin your story with a blow-by-blow description of a sunset, a bored child with nothing to do, or a character doing housework or other routine tasks.

New writers sometimes think they need to begin a story with the main character waking up in the morning. It's best to avoid this. If your character is beginning his day, chances are he'll need to brush his teeth, get dressed, and have breakfast. By the time he's ready to find the lost puppy or confront the villain, you've lost your reader who's moved on to a more exciting book.

Drawing Your Reader into the Story

You want to draw your reader in by carefully constructing the first two pages of your story. The first two pages will usually accomplish all of the following tasks:

Show your characters engaged in action
Create and sustain the interest of your readers
Introduce the main or point of view character
Show what type of story you're writing
Describe the setting
Indicate the story problem
Let's take these topics one at a time:

Show your characters engaged in action

If you began your story with action, it's best to continue with that action for a page or two. Maybe Brian is walking home from school and finds an injured owl. What will happen if he brings it home? Rachel dreams of being a Hollywood star. What will happen if she uses the money she's been saving to buy a bus ticket to California? Keep the momentum of your story going by focusing on action, rather than explanation.

Create and sustain the interest of your readers

It's not enough to capture the interest of your readers. You want to sustain that interest for the duration of your story. In the first one or two pages, (depending on the length of your story) you want even more questions to be raised about your characters. Brian has no friends. How will caring for an injured owl change his life? Maybe Rachel's purse is stolen on the bus. How will she make it alone in a strange town? The questions raised in the first paragraph can lead to other questions that keep your reader turning the pages.

Introduce the main or point of view character

If you haven't yet introduced your main character in the first paragraph, you need to do so fairly soon. Give your readers some information about her. Who is she? What does she want? What's keeping her from fulfilling her goals?

How will Little Goblin's fear of boys and girls affect him? Perhaps he wants to have fun on Halloween with the other goblins. Why is Darren keeping a baby alligator in his bedroom? Perhaps he wants a pet but his parents won't let him have one. You don't need to answer all these questions immediately, but you want your reader to begin to understand your main character's situation.

Show what type of story you're writing

On the first page, show your reader what kind of a story you've written. Are you writing a science fiction novel? A fantasy? A mystery? An adventure story? Is your story for a very young child or for teenagers? Your language and your subject matter should indicate the genre and the age group for which you are writing:

Example 1: The following is the opening of a middle-grade fantasy:

Darby O'Grady and Mickey Muldoon thought alike in many ways--but about one thing they argued. Darby believed in magic. He wore a sprig of foxglove in his cap for good luck. And he always set a bit of bread and milk on the hearth for the wee folk.

Notice the use of words such as foxglove and hearth. The vocabulary and sentence length indicate that this is a story for older children. The author has also suggested that this will be a fantasy about magic and the "wee folk."

Example 2: The following is the opening of a story about bullying for preschool children:

Buster was BIG. Muffin wasn't.
Chew, went Muffin.
"Grrr!" said Buster. "My bone."
Muffin stopped chewing the bone.

The author uses short sentences, simple words, and animal characters to begin to tell a story of interest to younger children.

Describe the setting

Within the first two or three paragraphs, the writer needs to give some sense of where and when the story is taking place. In Example 1, the details, the names of the characters and the phrase wee folk suggest that the story takes place in Ireland. In a story for young children, not as much information is needed. In Example 2, the writer has shown that the two dogs share the same space and have access to the same toys.

Note that in both stories, the setting is indicated but not directly described. By the end of the first page, though, both writers have described the setting in more detail.

Example 3:

The moon was round and bright as a copper kettle.

"I'll take a short cut through the woods on me way home," thought Mickey. "For it's as fine an evening as ever shone from the sky."

Example 4:

One afternoon, Aunt Ida and Big Bruno came visit.

Big Bruno stayed in the backyard with Buster and Muffin.

Note that the author of Example 3 uses the setting to create a mood. The author of Example 4 gives a few more details but doesn't overwhelm the young readers with unnecessary description.

Suggesting your story problem

If you haven't indicated the story problem in the first paragraph, give some hint of it as soon as you can. What challenges or trouble will your main character be facing? Will Sadie run away from home? Is Robbie a bully at school? Did Santa fall asleep on Christmas Eve? Make sure the problem you've chosen is appropriate for the age group you're writing for. A young child may enjoy a story about losing a tooth, but that topic wouldn't be appropriate for an older child. A story that begins with a murder may be too scary for a preschool child.

New authors often think they must use the first few pages of their story to fill in the entire background of their story. But there are other ways of accomplishing this. Sometimes background information can be woven into your story a little at a time. In other cases, It's best to use an author's note for explanation. This is particularly true if you are writing a historical novel. If your story takes place in England in 1348, for instance, you might want to use an author's note to give your readers information about the Bubonic Plague. Then they can understand why people in that era were so afraid of this devastating disease. It might be difficult to fit this particular information into the text itself in a way that doesn't seem contrived and cumbersome. Don't forget that it's important for your opening to focus on the story itself.