Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing, as defined by Dictionary.com, means “to show or indicate beforehand; prefigure.”

Foreshadowing allows for the writer to turn rather innocuous or unimportant details into something that carries significance at the end of the work because of the way they move the story along and/or affect the characters. Two things are key: Atmosphere and symbolism. Atmosphere allows the reader to get a feel of the mood, what emotions they should feel for the character and what sort of importance this place or overall mood has on the character itself.

Foreshadowing often works hand-in-hand with the symbolic meanings of things, people or events according to that characters universe; or with the characters own desires and fears, as a way for the writer to “tell the future” of that event or character without spoiling the journey.

But in order to foreshadow future events, you must first have a plan. A set up. Like building a house, you must have a foundation before you can begin on anything else. With foreshadowing, your foundation is what you want to foreshadow. Do you want to foreshadow a death? A character having to face a fear? A character having to do something in order to reach his goal? Or maybe you want to foreshadow a big revelation that throws everything off track?

A good film that shows a form of simple foreshadowing and a character overcoming his obstacle to continue his journey, is Disney’s The Haunted Mansion. In it, the main character’s son is afraid of spiders and won’t squish one on his bedroom window with a rolled up magazine. Later on in the film, the main character and his daughter are trapped in the mausoleum where they had to search for a key to solve the mystery of the mansion. When the door closes, trapping them inside with zombies that have come alive, wanting the key back, the son must open the door. Only problem is, big spiders crawl out of the door and he doesn’t want to get near them. In order to save his father and sister from the zombies, he has to face his fear of spiders and open the door.

Whatever it is, you must scatter clues early in the manuscript in order for any future events concerning those clues to have any sort of impact. In her blog post about foreshadowing, blogger Debz Hobbs-Wyatt says: “…Don’t draw the reader’s attention to something, some aspect of a character’s personality, like a phobia of spiders, if you don’t draw on it later.”

It might take a few drafts, but, if done subtly, foreshadowing also allows you to reveal things about a character, using bits and pieces of backstory to foreshadow reactions and fears that may lead to certain decisions and actions later in the novel.

Foreshadowing can incite many emotions but there are three chief emotion “types” of foreshadowing:

1. Doubt/ Dread: The foreshadowing that incites doubt or dread, like any scene in the novel, should fit with the character and situation. This type should be foreboding, incite worry for the character.

An example of that type of foreshadowing is shown in Suzanne Collins’s YA dystopian fantasy, The Hunger Games, when Katniss tells her little sister, Primrose, that she won’t be picked for the Reaping and sent to die in the Hunger Games, where children are forced to kill each other for the entertainment of the public. The reader feels Katniss’s dread about Prim being chosen for the Games—but this foreshadows Prim’s name being chosen and Katniss’s choice to go in her place.

2. Excitement/Anticipation: This type is the kind of foreshadowing that makes people curious as to how things connect, how this symbol, event, or character, associates with the rest of the story. Most often, this foreshadowing is used to indirectly suggest an outcome for a character or event.

An example of this type of foreshadowing occurs early in Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy, The Wheel of Time, in book one The Eye of the World. In it, Moiraine, an Aes Sedai—a magician who can wield the One Power—tells Egwene, an innkeeper's daughter from the village of Emond`s Field who can wield the One Power, that she “…may go far. Perhaps even the Amyrlin Seat one day, if you study hard and work hard.” The Amyrlin Seat, while also being a chair where the head of the Aes Sedai sits, is also the title given to them, likened to a king or queen. Much later in the series, just as Moiraine said, Egwene does become leader of the Aes Sedai order.

3. Surprise/Shock: This type of foreshadowing often comes with a huge revelation or an event that the character didn’t expect. With a reader, the foreshadowing specifically for that moment will often come during the second time reading the novel as they see what led up to the climax, what clues they were given by the writer to try and piece together the character’s journey.

An example of this is in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third novel in the Harry Potter series. For this example, I’ll only be using the events from the film adaptation as it’s been a while since I’ve read the novel and do not currently have it on hand. In both the novel and the film, Hermione seems to be taking two classes at the same time and managing to be present for each. Ron and Harry can’t figure out how she can be in two places at one time. It’s revealed near the end of the film, that Hermione has been using a Time Turner—a device that allows the user to go back in time—in order to take two classes in the same time slot. Using the Time Turner, Harry and Hermione travel back to save a supposedly “dangerous” Hippogriff, named Buckbeak, from being slaughtered. Using Buckbeak’s ability to fly, the pair are also able to retrieve Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather, from Azkaban.

Earlier in the film, the event that foreshadows the use of the Time Turner itself, is when Harry, Hermione and Ron visit Hagrid and, somehow, end up being hit with thrown snail shells. When the Time Turner is used, Harry uses these shells (in much the same manner as before) to get the attention of his “alternate timeline” self, thus changing the outcome of many events.

Have you noticed examples of foreshadowing in the books you’ve been reading? If so, what are some of the types you've seen?

- HC

Making Scenery Come Alive

Scenery is perhaps the hardest thing to make interesting on the page. Your characters need to travel, see the world—be it as simple as a room in their house or an exotic place across the globe or maybe another dimension entirely. FTLOW blogger, Raven Clark, did a post on weather openings and how to make them work. I thought I’d follow that up with another, similar topic that authors often use for openings: Scenery.

Now, don’t get me wrong—scenic openings can work, and many famous writers often use them—but there’s a difference to someone who’s been published before and someone who’s just started out. Novice writers often think setting the scene is the very first thing that the reader needs to know before they even meet your hero. They need to know where your character is, yes, but not every excruciating detail about the world.

Ask yourself this: How do we care about the setting and the predicament, if we don’t know who we’re supposed to be rooting for? With openings written by novice writers, I’ve noticed, they seem to separate character and scenery so much when they begin, that when the story begins, the opening lacks tension or is slow.

So, when thinking about scenery and scenic openings, don’t just write about the warm summer day, write about how the summer weather makes the character feel. Set a mood with the character as the mouthpiece. What makes this day, or this moment, different then any other day?  Whatever makes this day different then any other, then, is a sense of things changing. This change is often a good source of conflict or tension.    

In total, there are about four techniques—similar to weather openings—you need to make a scenic opening, and scenery itself, come alive.

1)      Make the scenery active.

2)      Create tension within the prose.

3)      Make the scenery as much a part of the plot as possible.

4)      Use the senses to make the scene real for readers.  

What do I mean when I say you have make scenic openings and scenery active? I mean, does the scenery appear to be doing anything? Does it appear to have a personality, almost as if it were alive? To give an example, I’ll use a part of the prologue from the first novel, The Eye of the World, of Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series Wheel of Time.  

The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory,
groaned as if it would deny what had happened. Bars of sunlight cast
through rents in the walls made motes of dust glitter where they yet
hung in the air. Scorch-marks marred the walls, the floors, the
ceilings. Broad black smears crossed the blistered paints and gilt of
once-bright murals, soot overlaying crumbling friezes of men and
animals which seemed to have attempted to walk before the madness grew
quiet. The dead lay everywhere, men and women and children, struck
down in attempted flight by the lightnings that had flashed down every
corridor, or seized by the fires that had stalked them, or sunken into
stone of the palace, the stones that had flowed and sought, almost
alive, before stillness came again. In odd counterpoint, colourful
tapestries and paintings, masterworks all, hung undisturbed, except
where bulging walls had pushed them awry. Finely carved furnishings,
inlaid with ivory and gold, stood untouched except where rippling
floors had toppled them. The mind-twisting had struck at the core,
ignoring peripheral things.

Did you notice how Jordan gave the destroyed castle almost a personality? How “The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened…” Or how the fires “seized” and “stalked” the palace occupants, or how the stones of the palace itself “…had flowed and sought, almost alive, before stillness came again.” It’s a building, yet, using similes and metaphors, he is able to give the reader a clear picture of how the scenery ‘reacted’ to the disaster.

Now, this opening is told in omniscient point of view (an all-seeing POV. Almost like a god.) and we are not introduced to a character until the next paragraph. Today, that isn’t a good idea as it seems like you’re head-hopping—jumping between POVs. The opening above could only work for an established author nowadays, as opposed to when this novel was published, back in 1990. The rules have changed regarding pace and tension and openings, so if you try to do this type of slightly slower opening today, you’d have a hard time selling your novel. So it’s better to tell the story through a character’s reactions and have your hero describe the scenery in his/her voice rather then using omniscient POV.

On the second point, creating tension within the prose, is based on a few factors:

A)    Word choice: Do the words you choose evoke an image? Do they evoke a mood? Does it incorporate the senses? (I’ll explain about that later in this post).

B)    Situation: What is happening to your character? Where is he or she? What is he/she doing? What is her goal for the scene?

C)    Stakes: What happens if your character fails? What or who does the character lose if she loses? What about if she succeeds? The higher and riskier the stakes, the more tense and powerful the scene will be.

For an example of tension within the prose, I’ll use a scene from my WIP novel, The Last Wyvern. In this scene (in the 3^rd chapter, so it’s not the opening of the novel), my heroine, Calias, has been captured by the main villain, King Sacriel, who is part of a race of bird-like creatures called the Queye. She must escape and is successful, with the help of the novel’s hero, Owen. In their attempt to escape, however, they must leave behind other prisoners of Calias’s order.

A rumble of thunder drowned out his next words as he gripped her wrist. He pulled her towards the door, and slowly eased it open, the cries of the Guild members like the shrill noise of gulls overhead, nearly drowned out by the thrashing waves and rain. Guilt forced its way into her chest, lodged like a stone within. We must make this sacrifice. It’s us he wants. Slipping through the shadows, Owen guided her to the lifeboats she’d seen earlier. As he set one up to be lowered, the possibility of being caught burned in her veins, the awareness of so many Queyen eyes watching the ship’s deck, patrolling it, setting her nerves dangling on a jagged edge. No time. She kept watch as the ship cut through the waves, her heartbeat louder than the storm.

“Climb in.” He hissed.

“Owen, I—” A clap of thunder overwhelmed her words. No time. Escape. She stumbled forward as he hoisted her up into his arms and set her in the lifeboat. “Owen!”

She glimpsed a smile as a flash of lightning cracked the sky. “Don’t worry, I’m coming too.”

“No—” She glanced down, feeling sick. Below, the black waves swelled, like quicksand, threatening to swallow her whole—looming closer and closer—as Owen began to lower the boat. One thought slammed into her, and she gripped the sides of the boat with white-knuckled hands. I can’t swim…

Glancing back up at Owen, the rain soaking through her clothing, blinding her, Calias cried out as guards swarmed upon Owen. Oh, no… Weaving out of the reach of gleaming swords, Owen pulled his own blade from its sheath and combat ensued. Battle cries and shouts of pain echoed through the night as Owen delivered blow after blow, a few lifeless bodies tumbling into the sea. A sword swing caught one of the ropes and Calias gripped the boat as it lurched to one side, hanging a few feet from the waves. Don’t cut the ropes…please don’t cut the ropes! She had a brief image of the boat capsizing, tossing her into the water and a sudden bout of panic threatened to choke her. Lower the boat. Don’t cut the ropes—this storm’s bad enough! As the boat jerked again, she watched—the breath frozen in her lungs—as one rope began to unravel.

Sacriel’s voice rose above the storm, a thunderous roar. “Find her, bring her aboard!” She could imagine the Queye king, his eyes blazing, one hand unconsciously rubbing his throat, as he marched across the deck, ordering his men. “I want that witch skinned alive!”

Owen spun, swinging to cut the second rope, and Calias felt her heart plummet to her stomach as the boat fell. Caught in the violent swell of the sea, its clutch determined to overturn the tiny lifeboat, Calias grabbed the oars and forced the boat through the water, determined to get away. And leave them? The weight of the Guild prisoners’ feeble cries for help echoed in her mind. She grit her teeth and forced herself to focus.

Looking up, watching the distance slowly grow, she saw Owen—his form briefly set aglow by a flash of lightning—as he dove off the ship and disappeared into the dark water. Sacriel’s guards set crossbows and fired, arrows hitting the water, just out of her reach and that strangling terror set in again. Scanning the waves, she couldn’t hear nor see Owen. Where is he? For a few moments, she stared at the water, imaging the pain of arrows stabbing into his back one by one, the dread threatening to make her sick.

The oars felt heavy in her hands, dragging like lead weights across the water, the water itself black as liquid night, viscous like honey. Where is he? Pools of crimson splashed across her vision, staining the ocean red. The white caps of waves became fins that cut through the storm like the curve of a sword. She blinked and they were gone. Muttering prayers under her breath, gripping the oars with sore hands, she stared as Sacriel’s boat drifted, the glow of lanterns growing smaller. She hunched her shoulders as the wind cut through her clothing, cold and ruthless as the sea. “I can’t do this alone…” Calias pried numb fingers from the oars, letting them fall limply to her sides. “I can’t.”

This is rough, and definitely needs improvement, but the tension is there. I’ve tried to use particular words or descriptions, like: “…the cries of the Guild members like the shrill noise of gulls overhead, nearly drowned out by the thrashing waves and rain” Or: “…the black waves swelled, like quicksand, threatening to swallow her whole…” Even using objects to describe the scene: “The oars felt heavy in her hands, dragging like lead weights across the water, the water itself black as liquid night, viscous like honey.”

So the word choice factor is done but the important thing is, I’ve let the character have to make necessary sacrifices in order to escape the villain and the fact she can’t swim only adds to the brutality of the storm and her situation—stakes are up and the situation is dire, which—if done well—should compel readers to continue.     

But how do you do that for your writing—especially if your novel isn’t all thrilling action? That’s OK, as long as you have what I like to call “subtle tension”.

Subtle tension in openings and in scenery itself is often used during the rising action moments—when the character thinks everything is fine for now, when both the reader and the character get a chance to breathe.

Subtle tension derives from the word choice, this time using mood and active scenery, rather then dire situations or high stakes (though they aren’t totally left out), to create the tension and bridge conflict to the next huge event. An example of subtle tension with scenery and openings, is the first chapter of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World:

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that
become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten
when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the
Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long passed, a wind rose
in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are
neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.
But it was a beginning.

Borne below the ever cloud-capped peaks that gave the mountains their
name, the wind blew east, out across the Sand Hills, once the shore of
a great ocean, before the Breaking of the World. Down it flailed into
the Two Rivers, into the tangled forest called the Westwood, and beat
at two men walking with a cart and horse down the rock-strewn track
called the Quarry Road. For all the spring should have come a good
month since, the wind carried an icy chill as if it would rather bear
snow.

Not much happens in this paragraph, and this, again, suffers from the use of an omniscient POV, but as an example of subtle tension, it works. The subtle tension is there if you look for it. It’s in the description of the weather itself, how it “…flailed and beat at two men…” And, as if the wind had a mind of its own, “carried an icy chill as if it would rather bear snow.” The weather is made into a personality, one that carries foreboding, as if the wind and chilly weather is an extension of the main villain of this series, a metaphysical being called the Dark One.

Another point with scenery and scenic openings is to make the scenery as much a part of the plot as possible. I’m not talking about how much detail you put in the world but how the scene reflects the tension. It’s perhaps the hardest to do without the scene coming off contrived. With this point, you have to mix active tone and tension, while increasing conflict within the story with the scenery itself. I’ll try and use another rough example from The Last Wyvern:

Owen allowed the question to hang in the air for a few moments and the silence stretched between them—shattered by the snapping of twigs and underbrush, like breaking bones. An impossible darkness shrouded the wood, the tangled branches above them closing them in, eclipsing the sun. Her heartbeat sounded, loud as a war drum in her ears, and she put a hand on her mount’s neck seeking comfort, holding the stone aloft. Owen still hadn't answered her questions, his expression once again hard. Unyielding. He walked ahead, maneuvering his mount around a fallen tree. She followed him and froze. What is that?

Something dangled from the branches above them, like thick silver umbilical cords. Fear latched onto her heart like the claws of a bear trap and Calias glanced around, peering into the darkness, but saw nothing but the never-ending paths—broken by fallen trees, some spreading into forked labyrinths.

“Owen...?” Her throat clenched around her words and she struggled to breathe, drowning in panic. “Owen!”

Owen spun, holding the torch high, anxiety tensing every muscle. “What is it?” His voice was barely a whisper. Then, he paled. “Calias...”

She looked at the Crystal Iris as it pulsed in her hand, a seizing heartbeat of violet light. Oh, gods. We’re close...

The noises of the forest seemed louder, every step and inhale of breath like the crash of thunder, the hiss of a twister. The trees closed in on them—dark, frail assassins moving in for the kill, to cage them within bark and moss. We can’t back down now. It’s just your imagination playing tricks! Remember what Kydren said: Focus on the mission! She took a deep breath and the trees stilled, the branches no longer looking like reaching hands.

“Easy, easy.” Owen yanked at the reins as his horse began to panic, its neck shining with perspiration, the whites of its eyes showing.

   

Her stomach twisted as a distant rumbling reached her ears. Too soft and consistent to be thunder, she looked at the shining, sticky film that coated the trunks of trees, dripping from the branches and cold sweat dampened her brow. Her ears strained to hear the sound, trying to judge where it came from, the rumbling echoing around them, coming from every direction. The shadows swam before her, lost amid Choketree Wood, and Calias suddenly felt very small. Insignificant.

 

Another point to make scenery and scenic openings, come alive is to use the senses. The basic senses: Sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch should paint a picture in the readers mind of what your scene looks like, what sort of mood the readers should feel. But there are four other senses that are often ignored: Temperature, kinetic sense (position of the body), pain, and the body’s sense of balance and gravity.

However you write your scenes and open your novels, the techniques above still apply regardless of genre, point of view, or setting. If you can make scenery engaging as an opening, try it but if not, it might be best to introduce the hero first and have him interact with the world, and create tension, compelling readers to continue.

- HC

Don’t Talk About the Weather

Over the last few years, writers have been hearing a lot of fuss about certain types of openings in books, and one of the most hated openings for agents and publishers - and veteran writers - is the dreaded weather opening.

You’ve seen them. Those books that start with something like, “The sun rose high over the crystalline water…” Or “Thunder rumbled over the little hamlet…” But why are these sorts of starts considered no-no’s?

Starts like these are often used by beginning writers who see this as an easy way to bring the reader into the world of the story. But where novices seem to think they’re interesting, more often than not they’re boring and slow. These starts are rarely half as interesting as the writers would think.

But, we have all read more than a few openings based on weather in many a bestselling novel, and writers have found success with such beginnings. Is there a trick to constructing an effective opening to a novel based on the weather going on outside your house right now? What if you just have to start with this kind of opening? How do you get the attention of an agent or a publisher instead of landing in the slush pile?

Based on several novels I’ve read on writing by bestselling novelists, including The Breakout Novelist by literary agent Donald Maass, there are three tricks to creating an effective weather opening.

1)      Make the weather active.

2)      Incorporate tension into the prose

3)      Tie the weather into the conflict of the plot if possible.

Now keep in mind I’m not an expert, and the examples are off the top of my head, so they won’t be stellar or publish-ready. But they should be good enough to illustrate my point. So let’s take a look at these aspects one at a time.

Make the weather active.

What do I mean by active? By this I mean, write the description of the weather so that it appears to be doing something. Active as appose to passive.

I’m told this is very hard to do, and I think for most, it is. But for me, this is the easiest of the three. Look at the example below to see what I mean.

I sat on my bed, watching the rain pour down from the sky, leaving watery trails on my windowpane. The sky looked down, a gun-metal gray that did nothing for my already sour mood. The memory hit me so suddenly I blinked in horror. I left it outside! My heart sank as I imagined the water washing away such an important piece of evidence, evidence of his crimes.

Now if you really pay attention to that paragraph, it isn’t entirely bad. In fact, after the first two lines, it could work for a compelling opening. It raises lots of questions and produces tension. What crimes? What evidence? What piece of critical evidence will the rain wash away? The wording suggests something ominous and perhaps even horrible happened before the character came across the page. Questions abound. Which is what you want in the opening of a novel. It’s the first two lines that are the problem. Why? Because nothing is happening. The words just lie on the page, evoking no emotion, no curiosity, no desire to read on. And we all know, first impressions are everything. You only have ten seconds to hook a reader. It’s within that first ten seconds of opening a novel that readers often decide whether to pick up a book by a new author or move onto something else. So how do we change the first two lines to make them stronger? First, make them more active. Use more compelling word choices. Let’s see that again.

The rain slashed at my windowpane, relentless as the thoughts that threatened to drown me in my own fear. Photos of him lay sprawled across my bed. I pushed them off and they scattered, as if whipped by the wind tearing through the maple trees outside.  The sky glared, a cold, steely grey slab. The memory hit me so suddenly I blinked in horror. I left it outside! My heart sank as I imagined the water washing away such an important piece of evidence, evidence of his crimes.

See the difference? The weather in the second example not only does something, but it seems to take on a personality, and one that fits to set a tone for a story. Do you want to read more? Good. That’s the point.

But we’re not done yet. The start of the paragraph is better, but it could be better still. So let’s add the second layer, the tension. The changes to the start of the paragraph already created some tension, but it’s too low key. And it’s a bit derivative. We need more. Try this.

The rain slashed at my windowpane, relentless as my own whirling thoughts. The memories of what he’d done held my mind in a stranglehold of panic, icy as the coming winter. Photos of him lay sprawled across my bed. I pushed them off and they scattered, as if whipped by the wind tearing through the maple trees outside. The sky glared, a cold, steely grey slab. The memory hit me so suddenly I blinked in horror. I left it outside! My heart sank as I imagined the water washing away such an important piece of evidence, evidence of his crimes.

That’s better, isn’t it? See how the weather takes on a menacing tone that seems to match the unnamed character our heroine is worried about? The suggestion of an unpleasant character rests in the wording, and rather than merely laying on the page in static repose, the weather only serves to amplify the sense of alarm. But can we make it better still by adding the third layer?

This, tying weather description into the plot of your story, is perhaps the hardest part. For this to work, not only do you need the active tone and tension, but the weather has to somehow either produce or increase the conflict in the story. This, without feeling like it’s contrived. Let’s see what we can do to fill our paragraph with weather induced conflict.

The rain slashed at my windowpane, its deluge cutting off my only escape. Photos of him lay sprawled across my bed, the images holding my mind in a stranglehold of panic icy as the coming winter. I pushed them off the bed, and they scattered as if whipped by the wind tearing through the maple trees outside.  By now the banks would be flooded. I wouldn’t get far. The sky glared, a cold, steely gray slab. Power lines stretched across the horizon, near the too small house, lightning strikes causing flashes of electricity to play across them in deadly arcs. If I fled, a single strike would stop my heart. The realization struck like a blow to the chest. I left it outside! My heart sank as I imagined the water washing away the only evidence of his crimes.

Whoa. Now it’s getting interesting. That paragraph breathes conflict. I’m not saying agents would jump at the chance to read a book that started with this, but I trust you see my point. In general, readers don’t care about weather. They want something to happen, something exciting, intriguing, interesting. And publishers and agents get so many manuscripts a day, so you need to really wow them to get them to read past the first line. The standard rule is that weather is none of those things. It doesn’t wow. But there are ways to use even weather as an effective hook. If you can make your weather riveting, do it. If not, best pass up the sunny opening in your head for something more gripping.

Raven

Employing Effective Hooks

Hooks.

What do you think of when you hear that word?

Me? I think of fish and how, if you hook a fish by the lip, you're giving him an easy escape. But if you hook the sucker through the cheek—nice and deep— he's yours. The same concept applies to readers—if you have an ineffective hook, the reader isn’t going to stay with your hero/heroine through the journey.

Now, novel hooks are quite subjective things.  What can grab a reader’s attention, may not grab another. Believe me, I’ve gone through novels and—though they sounded really good—the beginning didn’t pull me in and make me want to read more. So, I’d put the book down and try again later.

That “try again later” view isn’t what you want from a reader. You want them to read your work ASAP—you want them to think about it even in the wee hours of the morning when they can’t be bothered to get up out of bed, yet cannot wait to see where you’ll take them next. You want to hook them through the cheek and never let go!

I can think of a few novelists who have made me feel this excited. You know, I can’t do a blog on hooks without mentioning the author who has kept me on my toes throughout every novel I’ve read. Mystery/thriller novelist, Harlan Coben, has really made me judge—for that particular genre— how a hook is effective, what makes a moment just…stop your breath, just as things couldn’t get any worse, and make me—the reader—hunger for more.

Now, thriller and mystery aren’t the only genres that can have heart-stopping hooks. Any novel can, really. 

What’s their big, beautiful, alluring secret?

Hooks—the first line in a novel that kicks it off, in particular, and the last line that finishes a chapter. For this blog, I’ll be focussing on the hook that starts your novel because it’s the hardest to get just right. For this type of hook, it’s all in the technique, how the writer employs the hook and if it’s at the right moment that the story begins—if a character’s life is about to change…or be threatened, if a revelation is about to be revealed…lots of things can become hooks if done right.

Before you start panicking (believe me, I’d be panicking right about now—hooks are hard things!) I’ll give you a few examples.

There are many ways to begin a novel—depending on your genre, audience and on your novel’s point of view. I’ll go through and explain, and give you an example of each. Keep in mind, readers, this is a subjective matter, so what would hook you in would not do the same for me.

Question

Now, this hook is one of the easiest ones to do: The novel opens with a question. The tricky part of this particular hook is that this question hook must then create more questions, a reason for the reader to wonder and thus—throughout the novel—find out the answer to the question.

Example:

Must it feel so surreal to fall?

Journal/Diary

This hook uses what we call an ‘epistolary element’—using a journal or a letter to tell the story. But with a hook, you don’t have the luxury of waiting for your narrator to mention that the weather was bad today or how his/her day was—you need to cut to the chase.

Example:

Saturday February 12^th/2011

Today it happened. It finally happened!

Someone kissed me.

Well, granted, they were preforming CPR, but it was a kiss. That ought to count for something right?

Fact

Pretty self-explanatory—the chapter begins with a fact that relates to the novel’s subject matter or to a scene.

Example:

A woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s at seventy-eight beats per minute. But how much can the female heart stand? How many cracks and holes can be patched up and endured before those seventy-eight strong beats become muffled by a jaded shell, before she herself becomes like stone?

If you ask me, it doesn’t take much.

Looking into the Past

These novels generally begin with a prologue, or a short introduction, presenting the protagonist at a later age, looking back over their life and recounting it for the reader.

Example:

When I was eighteen, confused and jaded, I met the girl of my dreams. She stood across the road from me, her eyes shining, and her smile small and tentative. Curious and desperate, I stepped off the sidewalk corner to meet her.

And that was the moment I regret most.

Description

The most common method of opening a novel, and the most difficult to grab a reader with, description sets the scene—the setting, the time period, character description. However, if the description isn’t compelling, doesn’t stand out in some way then there’s not going to be much of a hook to grab the reader.

Example:

I stared around at my son’s room, feeling the walls close in on me. He was here—in his pictures, in his posters and even in his dirty laundry. I picked up a shirt off the floor and breathed in the scent. Tears choked me as I imagined bars on the window. How could you? He was my son…

Dialogue

Another self-explanatory hook: Dialogue hooks your reader—be it be a single line or part of a conversation. For this hook, a short, cut-to-the-chase line is best to hook your reader and keep them guessing as to what the hell your character’s saying and why.

Example:

“Don’t you get it, Dad? You can’t fix this!”

“Just give me a second chance—”

“It’s too late for that.”

That phone call haunted me. Became like a specter in the house, a specter with my child’s voice—screaming at me, strangled with tears.

Those were the last words we exchanged.

Action

The hook that most often grabs a reader, but if done poorly, can often be taken as a ‘cheap hook’—a hook simply used to grab a reader and has no other purpose, doesn’t add to the story or to a character. Action hooks however can be effective tools to bring us right into the action, if it’s possible to deliver both character development and to keep from confusing the reader—while, at the same time, keeping the momentum.

Example:

Wasting no time, I sunk my fangs into the woman’s jugular. My hold on her throat tightened as she fought and I felt lightheaded as hot blood poured down my throat. It had a spicy flavor, the flavor of fire and of ice—burning in my veins. Like a vintage wine, I drank it in, thirsty for the rare taste of vampire blood. She was a young vampire, only a couple centuries old. Young and gullible. I took it all in, watching the light leave her eyes.

Which hooks do you guys like using? Which ones out of the examples above caught your eye? Why do you think that was?

- M

Make Your Dialogue Come...Alive!

Oh, yeah. Dialogue. For most of us, it's the deal-breaker in a novel. You can have a great plot, lots of action, great locations, well thought out worlds and lots of twists, but if your dialogue is flat or unrealistic, it's like too much baking powder in your favorite homemade cookies. It ruins the whole experience. I've done a lot of research on making dialogue more real, as well as more memorable, and I found some interesting tips.

Let’s start with the simpler part, the realism. In the old days, dialogue was often longer and more drawn out. If you read books like Lord of the Rings, you noticed lots of long speeches. In older books, sometimes a single character’s dialogue could go one for a paragraph or more without a break. These days it's more back and forth; quick, snappy exchanges where one character speaks, then the second, then back to the first.

Think of it as a game of catch. In the game, when someone throws you the ball, do you stand there for several minutes, or even 30 seconds, holding the ball before you throw it back? No. Most of us would throw it back immediately, and our partner does the same. Dialogue works the same way. If you ask someone a question, and they go on for several minutes, you'd probably want to cut them off. Likewise in a story. If you have long speeches without interruption from another character, readers will grow impatient and lose interest. Keeping dialogue short, snappy, and back and forth will keep readers from getting bored.

When it comes to realistic dialogue, there are a lot of aspects to consider in order to maintain the reader’s interest. Adding tension, holding things back, avoiding dialogue tags, and using memorable lines, what writer and literary agent Donald Maass calls "zingers." But first, we'll focus only on the back and forth aspect.

Here's an example. First, we have dialogue with longer exchanges. Our characters for this exchange are Lance and Drake.

"What did you do, yesterday, Lance?"

"Well, I went to the store for mom, washed the car, and then went to my girl friends for a movie."

Drake shrugged. "Cool."

Oi. Can anyone see what's wrong here? Let's start with, BORING. People don't talk like that in real life, at least not if they want any friends. And in a book, we want to see something more interesting than average in our characters anyway. Which means we'll have to do a lot better than that to impress readers.

There are other problems here, no tension, nothing to grab us, nothing to make us want to find out what's going on, but dialogue is a many layered thing, so let's go a step at a time here, and fix the back and forth issue first. 

To most of you, it likely looks like Lance is the problem. He's the one with the longer boring line that has nothing interesting in it. People do those things every day, and they certainly are realistic, but again, readers want something above average, a character who does things that make us want to be in their shoes. Also, there's nothing to make us ask questions, keep us guessing. Also, notice another problem. Lance's bland reply doesn't leave much for Drake to say. This is where writers sometimes get stuck, unsure how to continue, what to have a person say next. There’s no energy here, no life to keep the story going, so it dies. So, let’s kick it up a notch. 

"What did you do, yesterday, Lance?"

"Hung out with my girl."

Drake shrugged. "That's it? Just, "hung out?"

"Yup."

See what happens here? Already it's a little better. This is a classic case of less is more. We left out the more boring parts, plus Lance told very little about what went on, which does two things. It makes us wonder what he did that he's being so dismissive, and it also makes us curious about the character. It gives him a personality. We wonder if he's just one of those mono- syllabic guys who just doesn't like to open up, or if there's more going on here. Such as, he's being deliberately coy. Plus, Lance’s reply is more engaging, which gives us more to work with in Drake’s reply. Furthermore, Drake presses him, and he doesn't give him anything, which not only adds to Lance's mystery, but makes readers want to know more. In writing, we call that "hold backs." Making it difficult for characters to get the information they want adds mystery and evokes questions in the reader’s mind.

You’ll have to forgive me for using the same example throughout this exercise. I’m working on a layering principle, adding elements in stages, and that’s easier to do that using the same one.

So here, we have two elements of at work. The use of withholding information to keep the reader guessing, and the use of short, back and forth beats that give the story a fast pace. But even so, this could be a lot better. Even Drake's lines are a little dry. Why? Because they don't paint a picture of his character. So let’s jack his up a bit.

"Sooo, what did you do, yesterday, Lance?"

"Hung out with my girl."

Drake smiled. "That's it, eh? You just hung out?"

"Yup."

This is a lot more interesting, yes? Where Lance's simple, one word answers might suggest something deeper, Drake's responses add to that. Now we have a sense of his character as an observant, and perhaps nosy friend, who insists something went on last night, maybe even when it didn't. By simply putting the emphasis on "you" we get that he's almost taunting Lance. And by making his actions more intriguing, a smile instead of a shrug, our interest is also piqued. Drake's imagination is running wild, and as such, so are ours. Which makes us want to know. Is Drake just the kind of guy who reads something into everything, is he just razzing Lance, or is he right? And if he is right, what did happen with Lance and his girl? We could even dig deeper as readers and wonder if the girl has a reputation, or if Drake knows Lance and her relationship is such that when they get together, highjinks ensue. Depending on the type of book, it doesn't always have to be the obvious either. But can we still make it better? Oh yes. Always. But before we amp up the dialogue again, lets move onto our next point. Dialogue tags.

Effective dialogue relies on a lot of things, but a big element is timing. Timing is what allows us to maintain a fast pace, hold the tension throughout the prose, and to a large extent, give the exchange a feeling of realism. One of the keys to good timing in dialogue is to avoid dialogue tags where possible, instead exchanging them with action beats. Dialogue tags "tell" rather than "show," telling the reader what to take from the exchange, rather than letting them see it in the prose. They also force us to use more words, and passive ly and ing words, which weaken the writing if used without need. They also kill the pace and drain tension, thus losing the reader's interest. Timing is perhaps the hardest part of employing realistic dialogue. One too many words or one weaker word disrupts the flow, which throws the whole exchange out of balance. Here, let me show you.

"Sooo, what did you do, yesterday, Lance?" Drake taunted.

"Hung out with my girl."

"That's it, eh?" Drake said doubtfully. "You just hung out?" 

"Yup."

You can see the issue here. When dialogue is effective, the tags are unneeded, because it's often clear who is speaking without it, and the reader can infer the character’s tone by how his dialogue is worded. Tags have their place, but action ones add more to the story. They let us see what's happening rather than telling us what to see, and they allow for fewer words. They also allow more active tenses instead of passive, which makes the writing stronger and increases pace, as well as maintains tension. The trick with action tags is not to overuse them. So, let’s spice it up with action tags instead. Ready?

"Sooo, what did you do, yesterday, Lance?" Drake wiggled his brows.

Lance doodled on his paper and didn’t look up. "Hung out with my girl."

"That's it, eh? You just hung out?"

Lance resisted a grin. "Yup."

See how much more character that gives to Drake and Lance? Where the dialogue tags killed pace without even giving them much personality, those action tags allow us to character build and paint an image of the boys without slowing the story down. The dialogue tags wasted valuable characharization time, whereas the action beats enhanced the reading experience. And remember the first time I used that example at the start of this? See how much deeper the story and characters are, compared to that bland, flat exchange at the start?

When it comes to actions, the hard part is knowing when and how often. A good rule of thumb is, if action beats do nothing for the story, leave them out. It's also key to avoid using long action tags, as well as too many. Actions should be a separate sentence from the dialogue. This allows for tighter wording and shorter sentences, which gives the whole thing more impact. Longer or attached actions break up the flow and make the dialogue feel choppy, less like a real conversation. If I had used anymore than I did, or if I connected them to the dialogue itself, it would have taken away from the snappy, back and forth feel and ruined the timing, killing the tension and pace.

Which brings us to the next point. Tension. My readers know how big I am on this. It's what keeps readers glued to the page. Part of tension is hold backs, but part of it is adding elements to the exchange that engage us and make us, not just want to know more, but need to know more. The last exchange had tension, but we can make this really pop by adding more. One level of tension is using words that carry more impact. Stronger verbs, shorter sentences, avoiding unnecessary descriptions, and showing, not telling. But tension can be intensified by adding layers to the prose. We do this using two elements, emotion and character or plot arcs. Don’t roll your eyes at seeing the same example yet. It gets better. Watch.

"Sooo, what did you do, yesterday, Lance?" Drake wiggled his brows.

Lance doodled on his paper and didn’t look up. "Hung out with my girl."

Drake snorted. This again  "That's it? With the most popular girl in school, you just hung out."

Lance resisted a grin. "Yup."

Notice that I didn't actually mention an emotion. Drake's doubt is there, his curiosity, his irritation, but I didn't tell you it was there, I didn't say it. It's all in the dialogue and action, and in this case, in Drake's thought, "this again." It's the subtlety that makes the conversation feel as if we are a fly on the wall watching it all happen. From Drake's snort and his thought, we get that Lance does this all the time, and it drives Drake nuts. We can sense his irritation without being told he's irritated, and slowing the story down. Also, our imaginations are really going now. Is Drake the kind of guy who causes trouble when you tell him too much? There's all sorts of ways this can go wrong, and there in lies the tension. Tension is the anticipation of something about to happen. Telling the emotions or having longer tags would take the focus away from the important things, what's being said, and so lose the tension. If you embed the movement of the story and the tension in the dialogue and actions, it keeps the dialogue real and fast-paced.

Now, just for comparison sake, here’s the first use of the exchange, before we made it matter.

"What did you do, yesterday, Lance?"

"Well, I went to the store for mom, washed the car, and then went to my girl friends for a movie."

Drake shrugged. "Cool."

Wow. Look at that, and now look at the last one.

"Sooo, what did you do, yesterday, Lance?" Drake wiggled his brows.

Lance doodled on his paper and didn't look up. "Hung out with my girl."

Drake snorted. This again. "That's it? With the most popular girl in school. You just hung out."

Lance resisted a grin. "Yup."

Huge difference, yes? But, would you believe we can still make this better? How? By employing “zingers.” In Writing the Breakout Novel, Maass describes these as unexpected one-liners that make a character stand out and make the dialogue leap off the page.

Zingers are a little more complex, but think of them as a punch line to a joke. There's build to them, a certain setup and delivery, and timing is extra important here.  Wait too long or not long enough, use one too many words or the wrong ones, and you lose the whole effect. But like a well delivered punch line, zingers rely on an added element. Surprise, or more definitively, a twist.

Now, to employ a really effective zinger, the conversation needs to be a little longer, so as to allow for the proper set up and build.  Watch this.

"Sooo, what did you do, yesterday, Lance?" Drake wiggled his brows.

Lance doodled on his paper and didn't look up. "Hung out with my girl."

Drake snorted. "That's it? You just hung out."

"Yup."

Drake shook his head. "Ugh uh. There had to be more. Tell."

Lance said nothing.

Drake squeezed one eye shut. "So let me get this straight. You went out with the most popular, hottest girl in school, and you, what? Watched paint dry?"

Lance looked at him and a smile twisted his lips. "Oh there was paint. And balls. And a gun."

Zing! That really makes the dialogue and characters come alive. Lance's playful line does several things at once. It shows he has spontinaity and wit, thus adding to his personality and endearing him to us. It adds to the tension of the passage, thus driving us on. And it further hooks us, making us want to know more. Now we can guess what he and his girl were doing. It was probably paint ball, not at all what Drake thought. That’s your twist. The careful wording and the flow of it makes for the effective delivery. But we also want to keep reading to see Drake's reaction. That revs the tension up several notches. Also, what they were doing is as unexpected as the line itself, which acts as its own force, because it elevates Lance's and his girl's relationship to something deeper than what Drake, and thus, we, expect. The layers we added to the dialogue in the previous runs turns what started out as bland, uninteresting dialogue into something engaging and exciting. But Lance's well timed, well worded zinger takes it to another level, enhancing the reading experience even further.

These days, dialogue can’t just be realistic. It has to take us away from the norm, introduce us to interesting people, and keep us riveted in the story. So, first, make your dialogue real. Then, give it something more. Make it stick out in our minds. Make it leap off the page. 

Until next time everyone, write on!