“Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” – The Stranger, by Albert Camus
Have you even been hooked by a great opening line? The best writers know how to catch their readers’ attention with a hook. A hook can be a word or phrase or even just an idea. The goal is to make the reader interested enough in the book/play/movie/show to keep them reading or watching. Hooks can take many forms. In a book, it’s usually the first few lines or the first chapter or two. In television, the pilot is meant first and foremost to catch the interest of the studio executives, who decide whether the show gets funding or not.
Either way, a writer can have the best story ever written, but if they’re missing the hook very few people will read or watch it. One way to make a great hook is to start in medias res, or “in the middle”. Starting in the middle of the action is a way to wake up the audience and get their attention, maybe with a big fight scene, or with the protagonist’s capture. You could also start at the end. Perhaps everyone is attending the main character’s funeral, or put your protagonist in a bizarre situation. Then, it’s up to the readers/audience to keep watching to find out what happened or how they got there. By revealing the ending in the beginning of the work, however, you risk losing tension in the work, since the readers/audience think they already know how it’s going to end. Most works that begin this way include a twist at the end (Surprise! The main character wasn’t dead after all) so that the readers/audience feel like they have an actual ending.
Great hooks are the first step to making great stories, so keep them in mind.
Happy writing!
Wordsmiths 