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Showing posts with label opening scenes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opening scenes. Show all posts

Monday, September 3, 2012

Hooking your reader from page one

I am currently reading the book HOOKED by Les Edgerton. Some of you may have read this. Some of you might not have. But I am going to quote from it anyway because even if you know this, it's worth repeating.

"Summary doesn't convince anyone of anything."

Now, go look at you current manuscript and read your first page again - not that you haven't already done so a hundred times before - and determine whether you are telling the read what's going on, or showing. This doesn't mean that you can't have any telling, imo, but I believe that in order for our writing to be effective, there needs to be more showing because "you goal is to evoke an emotional response that hooks the reader, and telling absolutely won't get it. The reader must live through that opening scene with the protagonist."

For example, if you start off your story telling the reader this is your character's first day at a new school and he's lonely and worried about fitting in, it won't mean half as much as if you show your mc walking into that new school. What does it smell like? Look like? Feel like? Is anyone staring? And where the heck is his homeroom? Showing draws the reader into the story, makes him feel like he's right there with your mc and experiencing that day, too. Because that's what keeps us reading, when we feel like we're in the story.

How does your first page stand up to this test? Need some help? Want an opinion or two? If so, send your first page to unicornbellsubmissions@gmail.com and I'll post the first five I receive and offer my ever so subjective opinion.