Re: Submitting to Baen

"Catja Pafort" <usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1h18f46.rbuq6kjek7xN%usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Patricia C. Wrede <pwrede6492@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> [Michelle]
>
>> > People going on about how you need a "hook" drive me nuts. Mostly
>> > because I tend to find the examples they give off-putting.
>>
>> That's because they often don't take into consideration that "It is a
>> truth
>> universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune
>> must
>> be in want of a wife." is just as much a "hook" as "The port side airlock
>> exploded."
>
>
> I think the hook serves to draw you into the story, and it does it by
> throwing up questions the reader wants to see answered.

OK, but I think people keep getting the definition backwards or something.
That is, they seem to spend all this time and energy and effort focusing on
"writing a good hook sentence" and entirely forget that the *point* is to
draw the reader into the story in some way.

> Action is one way of doing that - why does the explosion happen, what is
> at stake. One of mine starts 'they chased him right into the enemy camp'
> and I wanted to know who chased, who was chased, and what would happen
> next (something unpleasant, undoubtedly). "Some years ago, there was in
> the city of York a society of magicians" [1] is of equal proportions -
> the archaic style sets a tone, and sketches a world that I want to hear
> more about; especially as it is an alternate reality.

Whereas I, as a reader, don't find the first sentence particularly
interesting. I'd keep reading, but *not* because I'm "hooked"; because,
like Michelle, I don't give a book just one sentence and then stop.

> And in a way I agree with the idea of the hook, because it made me sit
> up and take note. It works well _because_ we then don't get a long
> mundane passage about a gentleman going about his daily business, but
> are drawn deeper into the story, and more questions are thrown up as the
> one in the first sentence (what is this society like?) is answered, and
> before you know it, you are in the middle of the story with some serious
> story questions that want to see answered.

But that's a matter of taste and preference. "A long mundane passage about
a gentleman going about his daily business" can be just as much a hook for
some readers, in the hands of some writers, as "The explosion rocked the
building" is for other readers. One of my favorite books opens with a long
description -- about three pages, in my edition; I just checked -- of a
young woman standing on a bridge looking at London, just at the end of WWII.
And it isn't until the middle of the second page that you begin to get the
first faint notion that perhaps there is something more going on here than a
young woman standing on a bridge.

> And _to a degree_ I think a book needs this... sense that something is
> moving, that things are happening, that there are mysteries about the
> world, the characters, or the events of the story that the reader has
> yet to discover.

*IT DEPENDS ON THE READER.* I once heard a writer explaining why he had cut
the first four pages of his novel -- they were, he said, dull and boring,
had no action, no characters, no mysteries, no hints of events; in fact,
they were a narrative description of the area in which the novel took place,
its weather, and the sorts of crops that grew there. And he read them, and
they were *wonderful*, as far as I was concerned (and rather a lot of other
people seemed to agree with me). But that particular writer was of the
group of writers who just don't like that kind of opening, so *he* thought
it was boring. And there were plenty of *other* other people who agreed
with *him*.

What hooks one set of people -- huge explosions, intriguing juxtapositions,
mysterious happenings -- will not hook another set, specifically, the set of
readers who *have to* know and be involved with the characters *first*.
There are rather a lot of readers who *like* quiet openings, for whom the
slow unfoldinig of mundane details, or a particularly lyrical description of
the hills at night, will carry them gently into the story in just exactly
the way they enjoy the most.

And yes, people who insist on the importance of a "hook" can point to things
and say, "But the reader wants to know why the girl is waiting on the
bridge" or "The description of the landscape makes you want to know what's
going to happen on it" and claim that those things are "hooks." And they
will be right...but those things *aren't* the sorts of hooks those people
usually started off talking about, and they *don't* prove that one "must"
begin a book in this or that fashion in order to get a reader interested.

Furthermore, there is an *enormous* amount of overlap in the sorts of
openings readers find interesting. That is, there are a few readers who
absolutely loathe and despise any story that starts with slam-bang
action/explosions/adventure/mystery, and who will put them down after one or
two sentences like "The explosion rocked the building" or "Mr. Mortimer
threw the pig into the bathtub and left for work." There are a few other
readers at the other end of the spectrum who absolutely loathe and despise
stories that start with "long mundane descriptions," however witty and
interesting. And in between, there are tons and tons of readers whose
tolerances vary; who don't give up after a few sentences; who may grimace at
the explosion or the description of apple trees in the fall sun, but who
will keep reading for a while to see where the writer is going and whether
they'll like the ride.

> If you follow the explosion with "well, that's the game
> decided, shall we have sex?" you don't have a hook, you only have an
> attention-grabbing device, but it doesn't draw me into the story because
> it has no relation to it.

Yes; that sums up the other part of the problem exactly. All this emphasis
on "hook sentences" results in a lot of would-be writers forgetting that
they have to write a *story*, not just a sentence. You don't see much of
the result in print, though; where one sees it is in slush piles and CW
classes. (One of the editorial legends is the story that opened with the
line "Blood spurted!" then jumped to a flashback, so that it was the middle
of the third page before you found out that the character had just cut
himself shaving.)

Patricia C. Wrede


.

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