Hooks Readers Can't Resist

I conducted an informal study at my editing site to discover what elements in the
opening of a novel grabbed readers' attention and why.

            From a small sampling of published novels, those who wished to participate voted for the opening that most hooked them into the story. Here are the top two, separated by only one vote.

First place:

I never believed in ghosts. Until I saw one, face to face, when I was twelve.

It was the middle of the summer, one of those nights when the wind scratched tree branches against my window and the Pacific roared so loud I thought it was going to sweep me away. Something startled me awake, some shifting of our house, beam against beam, old wood crying out in the damp sea breeze. (Fathom by Merrie Destefano)

Second place:

Tarnished snow sifted through the air, clinging to Ela Roch's skin the instant she stepped outside. Warm snow.

Impossible.

She rubbed at the flakes on her bare forearm and watched them smear across her brown flesh like menacing shadows. Ashes. What was burning?

Unnerved, Ela scanned the plain mud-plastered stone houses honeycombed around the wide public square. Houses built one atop another within a vast, irregular, protective curtain wall, sheltering the city of Parne. (Prophet by R. J. Larson)

            From this informal survey, I draw several conclusions about openings that engage readers and hook them into the story.

            The ones that attracted the most readers contained surprise or the unexpected — e.g. warm snow, seeing a ghost.

            They also created tension. From Fathom, for example, the tension is palpable when in the middle of a summer night, wind scratching tree branches against the window, the protagonist starts awake. Perhaps less so in The Prophet but still present is the tension created by the smeared ash "like menacing shadows."

            The openings that captured the attention of most readers also generated a question, whether spoken or unspoken. Why would a ghost visit a twelve-year-old? What was burning?

            Another element that these openings share is evocative language. In Fathom: "... the Pacific roared so loud I thought it was going to sweep my away." And "some shifting of our house, beam against beam, old wood crying out in the damp sea breeze." In Prophet: "Tarnished snow," "smear across her brown flesh," and "mud-plastered stone houses honeycombed around the wide public square."

            The final element I notice in the top attention-getting entries is that they connect the reader with a character. Fathom does this in part because of the first person point of view. The reader is right with the character from the beginning, feeling what she feels, experiencing the same startling event she experienced.

            Prophet creates a connection with the character through description and her actions. She's observant, curious, unnerved, concerned. Her questioning draws the reader in to question with her.

            In truth, there is no sure-fire formula for an intriguing opening that will hook readers, but writers won't go wrong by surprising their audience, creating tension and questions, using evocative language, and connecting them with an interesting character.

Writing Exercise

            Read the opening one hundred to two hundred words of your manuscript. Have you presented anything surprising or unexpected? Did you create tension? Did you use any evocative language? Have you connected readers to an interesting character?

            Now give your manuscript to a reader (preferably someone to whom you are not related) and ask them these same questions.

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Excerpted from Power Elements Of Story Structure, available as an ebook on Amazon.

Five New Young Adult Stand-Outs

I'm a picky reader. I'll only read a book all the way through if I love it. But if I'm not thrilled, I rarely make it past page fifty. Who has time to read something just to finish it (okay, yes, I did make one exception below)? In that vein, I've compiled a list of YA books that I'm either thrilled with or desperately looking forward to. I'd love to hear your recent Top 5 in the comments below.

These Broken Stars is a book I've just finished listening to on audio format. What a wonderful adventure! This is the start of a new series (also soon to be a TV show) that takes you into a world that is both familiar and alien. While many of the themes and plot elements are timeless, they mingle the genres so well that you get lost in it all and can't help but forget the hundred other "shipwreck" stories that you've read.

I highly recommend this as a great new stand-out sic-fi!

Purchase: On Amazon

World After is the sequel to ANGELFALL by Susan Ee. I have been looking forward to this book for about two years now, at least, and it was well worth the wait. Ms. Ee adds to the lore and grows the story and you can still follow the character and love her, as easily as in book one. You have to read ANGELFALL first but I don't think it'll take you long.

This is an awesome post-apocolyptic YA with an angelic twist.

Purchase: On Amazon

More Than This is the new Patrick Ness novel about a boy who dies and then comes back—but his world is a little different. Now, I am a HUGE Patrick Ness fan. It's actually a little embarrassing. You know how girls get about Edward and Bella? Well, I had a similar spaz attack about Todd and Viola in The Chaos Walking Series. I geek out at those books. If a movie was ever made I may become a tad embarrassing to be around. I haven't read Ness' recent piece, but how could it NOT be amazing? Monster Calls, anyone? Hellooo?

Purchase: On Amazon

City Of Heavenly Fire is book bazillion-and-one in the Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clair. I have to admit that it took me until a year ago to get through book one. City of Bones was torment. But I did the unthinkable and read the whole thing anyway, because my friend kept telling me it would be worth it. Well, she was right! OMG, this series rocks #AllTheThings. So, break the rule and force it. You won't regret it. In only two more weeks this book shall be mine. Oh, yes, it shall be mine.

A crazy huge world of awesome and adventure. Read these books!

Purchase: On Amazon

FATHOM is amazing! Because this is being re-released, I'm adding it to my list for the new year. I really love this book. Merrie is an amazing writer and the heart-felt romance and mysterious world she creates in this novel will last in your mind for days. You know those books that linger on the pallet? This is one of those stories. If you love celtic legends told in a new way, grab it!

A haunting tale of lingering death and new awakening.

Purchase: On Amazon

Now, I'd love to hear your Top 5 new picks...

Is the Hybrid Author the New Black?

By Merrie Destefano

Publishing is a wonderful industry. Nothing can give you the same adrenaline rush as when you see your name in print or when you stumble across your book in a nearby Barnes and Noble. Unfortunately, publishing is also terrifying and fickle. It can make you feel validated (think bylines) and overwhelmed (think deadlines). There may even be times when you wonder why you chose writing as a career (think unanswered e-mails sent to agents/editors, bad reviews and poor sales).

Believe it or not, you can experience all of these things within a single day—sometimes, even within a single hour. And then, right about when you’re ready to give it up and get a job with a steady monthly income, someone will come along and tell you that your story/book/article made them weep or laugh or think about life in a new and amazing way.

As a published novelist, my first experience with the roller coaster ride of book publishing came when Borders closed in 2011. Several of my author friends and I had books releasing at the same time, and most of us worried whether we'd be able to earn back our advances. You can imagine our distress when the chain of Borders bookstores began to close, almost one by one across the country and, as a result, our newly released books came tumbling back as returns. It was frightening.

One minute, I was a starry-eyed novelist, excited about the release of my second novel (Feast, with HarperVoyager). The next, I was consumed by bookstore returns and plummeting sales figures and the fear that my contract wouldn’t be renewed.

A cycle began then, one that would last for years and still continues today. My author friends and I began to write more books, we began to write faster, we began to write in different genres, we began to write spin-off novellas and prequels and sequels, we began to write for print and digital imprints and anyone who seemed interested in our work.

You could almost see the sign on our collective back that said, We Will Write For Food.

Then, probably not surprisingly, one by one we began to self-publish. Not all of us and not all at once. Just a book or a novella at a time, as if we were all looking over our shoulders at The Publishing Powers That Be to see if we had angered some great and mighty god. (We hadn’t.)

We didn’t know it at the time, but it was the beginning of a new trend, or perhaps a new era. It was the birth of the hybrid author.

Today, almost everyone I know is a hybrid author. We all have our own little stack of traditionally published books, and we seek to publish more of those, but we also have our own shiny little stack of self-published books.

Some of us have done better than others with this new business model. One author I know now makes approximately $10,000 to $12,000 per month on her self-published books alone. Another very well-known fantasy author, who spoke on the same panel I did a few years ago, confided that she had procured the rights to her backlist and then self-published them. She is now earning about $10,000 per month on those books.

The reasons for becoming a hybrid author are varied and I probably couldn't even list them all, but I'll try.

THEY INCLUDE:

1. You have a traditionally published series, but for some reason the last book in the series, or the last two books in the series—which you may have already written–don’t get picked up by your publisher.

2. It's been a long time between contracts and you're concerned that your readers might forget about you. Meanwhile, you've written one or two books that your readers might enjoy.

3. You're between agents, you have one or two really good books languishing on your computer hard drive, and you'd like to see if you can make some money off them.

4. You write romance, but you have also written a really cool science fiction YA novel. Except no one seems to want to publish it, even under a pen name.

5. You have a great career as a novelist, you speak at events, you win awards, but somehow you still can't pay the bills with the amount you earn from traditional publishing. So you decide to augment your salary with a line of self-published books and novellas.

6. You want more creative freedom. You want to edit your books as much or as little as you want, publishing as often as desired (some traditionally published authors have to wait 3 years for their books to be published, while others are expected to turn in a new book every 6 months). You want to choose your own covers and tailor your own book tours and promotional strategies.

A few successful hybrid authors who began in self-publishing and then ventured into the traditional arena include Hugh Howey, Amanda Hocking and Joanna Penn, while two authors who successfully began in traditional publishing and then ventured into self-publishing include James Scott Bell and Natalie Whipple.

The door swings both ways.

I decided to self publish my young adult paranormal romance, Fathom, when I was between contracts and between agents. The manuscript had garnered a few admirers along the way, and at least one editor had liked it enough to take it to pub board, but it was a book about Celtic legends and selkies, not mermaids. So, in the end, the marketing team didn’t get behind it and the editor had to pass.

Still, I loved that book. It had a gothic, almost haunting quality to it, and I wanted other people to read it. I couldn’t bear to let it gather cobwebs on my hard drive while I continued my agent search.

So, I created my own imprint, Ruby Slippers Press, then I formatted my book for both digital and print, and designed my cover (I studied fine art in college and worked for years as a graphic designer and illustrator before becoming the editor and publisher at The Word For Today). Then I put my book up for sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Did I get rich, like my successful hybrid author friends? No. But I did feel validated and the book has gotten good reviews.

If I learned anything, it’s that the publishing door is only closed if I think it’s closed.

I still haven’t given up on my dreams of being traditionally published again. But I do believe one thing. The hybrid author is here to stay, it’s a way of life and it’s a good way of life.

In my opinion, the hybrid author is the new black.

But I want to hear from you. What do you think about self-publishing and traditional publishing? Do you think they can work hand-in-hand?

Award-winning writer, graphic designer and illustrator, Merrie Destefano’s published work includes Afterlife and Feast (both with HarperVoyager), Fathom, The Plague Carrier and Waiting For Midnight (with Ruby Slippers Press), and How To Draw Zombies (Walter Foster). She’s also the editor of Victorian Homes magazine and founding editor of Cottages and Bungalows magazine. She is the founder and owner of Ruby Slippers Media and Ruby Slippers Press, and her website is here.