Chapter One... Hooking the Reader
Our fearless leader of Blog Hop, Skye, challenged us to talk about how Chapter One hooks our readers- specifically, what we do to get that hook working.
Sounds simple but in my experience it varies from audience to audience and from book to book. Certainly the hook in Chapter One of an entry in a long series will be different from Chapter One in a standalone. You see, in long series, we expect readers to know the main characters, settings and the way the plots work.
The simplest way to approach this challenge, I think, is to look at the opening scenes of a handful of books to see how they work.
Book 1: Heather and Heath:
It had been late summer when the May Queen left the dock and now, a bare seventeen weeks later, it was summer again. A summer in December, while the loch-side at home would soon be mantled with snow. The herds would be keeping their sheep close, and the heather would be dim in the glens and up the brae.
Ness McCleod tamped homesickness as her father had tamped tobacco in his pipe. No more Scottish winters for her, and it was just as well. Loch Haven was no longer home; not with Phemie wed again to Lachie Douglas.
This one is a situational opening, introducing Ness, an eighteen-year-old orphan, who is arriving by ship from Scotland to the colony of NSW. We learn why she left, and some backstory, including her intended role as paid companion aboard the ship. The death of her employer has left Ness stranded in a new country with no job, no money and nothing but the few things she brought from home. The hook is for readers to see how the character will manage a new life with no plans and no help, and it sets Ness up to agree to something she would not otherwise have considered.
Book 2: Replay
This time round, I am a human girl and Harry is a dog. This is inconvenient, because my parents didn't really want a dog with a jutting eyebrow fringe and a shaggy, untrimmed beard. Nor did they want a dog that cost five hundred dollars.
A pedigreed Schnauzer! I said in despair when I recognised him that morning at the agricultural show. Why did you have to be a pedigreed Schnauzer, Harry? I mean - why did you have to be a dog?
Harry looked sheepish. His beady
little eyes peered out from underneath that peculiar fringe. Sorry, Aelfthryth...
Ellie, I corrected. I'm
called 'Ellie' now.
I was speaking to Harry
mind-to-mind, of course. Australian English is the language I use in this
Replay, but it isn't something a dog can ever learn.
This one is also situational; a first person introduction by a girl who is telling her story to someone else. Why? Later, we learn that she and her listener are trapped waiting for rescue, but for now, Alefthryth is just describing her current broad situation. With luck, readers would wonder what else she might have been if not a human girl...and what's the deal with the dog?
Book 3: Book Rescue
The old house was dark and full of smoke. Although
James had a torch, I couldn’t see much and I couldn’t follow my nose. I sniffed
at the floor and sneezed. I stopped and pawed at my snout.
James sneezed
too. He mopped at his eyes with a big handkerchief. ‘This is no good,’ he
wheezed. He lifted the handkerchief again, then yelled, ‘Ouch!’
‘Ace, what did
you do?’ I asked between sneezes.
‘Gahrr-ng-ng-ng,’
said Ace. That was what it sounded like, anyway.
‘Ace!’ I
growled. ‘Did you nip James?’
‘Gahrr-ng-ng-ng-
ulp!’ said Ace.
‘Give it back,’
said James. Through the smoke, I saw him bend and pull at something in Ace’s
jaws. ‘Drop it!’ he said. ‘Now!’
‘Ace, stop
that,’ I growled.
Ace opened her jaws and gave me a cranky look from under her fringe.
‘What?’ she said, then spat out a bit of fabric.
Now I
understood. Ace had grabbed James’ handkerchief and tried to swallow it.
This is not
something a well-bred dog would ever do, but Ace is not well-bred. My pedigree stretches back through ten
generations. Not even Ace knows who her parents were.
James blew his
nose. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘Someone else must have let the old dog out.’
Just then, we
heard a pawful choking sound coming from inside the smoke.
***
So, why were James, Ace and I in a dark
house full of smoke, looking for a dog that wasn’t there? It was because James
wanted to help Tina . . . but that’s not the beginning of the story.
This one is an action beginning, launching readers into the climax of the story. After the first scene, we pull back and the narrator, Stamp, a Border collie, explains how the adventure came about. Action beginnings draw readers in with fast-paced action and danger before easing them back into exposition.
Book Four: Pearl the Friendly Unicorn
Pearl the magical unicorn spent most of her time with her best friends, Olive and Tweet. They were never bored when they got together.
Olive the
ogre girl was big and strong. She laughed a lot and she ate a lot, and if there
was a problem, Olive always had lots of ideas about fixing it.
Tweet the
firebird was fun to be with. She was small, but she made up for that by talking
a lot and making sure no one ever forgot she was there. She liked to ride about
on Olive’s shoulder, or cling to Pearl’s mane with her claws. Nothing much
bothered Tweet, except for gobble’uns.
Gobble’uns
bothered everyone!
Olive often
said there was nothing the three of them couldn’t do when they put their minds
to it. Pearl thought this was very true.
Right now,
she was practising magic in the meadow while she waited for Olive and Tweet.
She was pleased with herself, because she had just invented a fantabulous piece
of magic that made cabbages taste like apples. She was longing to show it to
her friends.
Of course,
Olive liked cabbages just as they were, but Pearl knew apples were her
favourite food. They were Tweet’s and Pearl’s favourite, too.
‘Odd onions,
where are they?’ she said aloud. “Olive! Tweet!”
This is an introductory beginning. Because the Pearl series is for very young readers, each of the twelve books begins with an introduction to the characters and their attributes. The books were deliberately written so they could be read in any order, so the introductory chapters avoided the problem of readers not understanding the status quo.
Book Five: Performing Pippin Pearmain
Pippin Pearmain had a bucket list.
It
was a lovely list, recorded in green ink whenever she found a new bucket to
add.
The
list was her private treasure—something to occupy her mind during those
queueing-around-the-block moments or green room marathons that stretched beyond
infinity and back again. Not that there had been green room marathons lately—or
even snaking queues, now she came to think of it. Jellico Bay, where Pip lived
now, was deficient in both.
Still…she
remembered how it had been.
Other
people gossiped in the few short queues there were at the supermarket or at
Jelly-and-Juice, or scrolled through their phones, sighed, and glanced at the
clock, if there was one. Or they calculated the exact second when the parking
meter, still manual in Jellico Bay though terribly outmoded elsewhere, might
flick into an accusing triple zero with a decimal point to inform one it was an
emergency but not a phone-dialable one if there wasn’t…a clock in sight, that
was. Sometimes even Pip failed to untangle her inner syntax.
Who
cared? Little Nanna Laurel had always said Pippin was one out of the box, and
suggested they’d broken the mould when she was made. She didn’t mention whether
that was a good thing or not. Little Nanna loved fiercely, and thoroughly, as
she had done all things. The younger Pippin had wanted to be just like Little
Nanna Laurel, but she knew she never would be. No one was.
Maybe
that was why they got along so well.
This one is a character introduction. Pippin, the main character, is an eccentric in her sixties, an ex-child performer who has lived alone for ten years. This passage introduces her as she is now... before her narrow, placid life takes a turn into uncharted territory. Pip is an observer with an odd way of looking at the world, so this chapter is designed for readers who like knowing how characters tick.
So, there are five pretty disparate beginnings... If you enjoyed this, or even if you didn't, please visit my fellow bloghoppers to see their take on first chapters.
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com
Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-3FD
Diane Bator https://escapewithawriter.
Sally Odgers https://
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/
Anne Stenhouse https://annestenhousenovelist.
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/
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