She was squinting at the thermometer in the white light coming in through the window. Beyond her, in the drizzle, the other high-rises in Co-Op City rose like the gray turrets of a penitentiary. Below, in the airshaft, closelines flapped with ragged wash. Rats and plump alley cats circulated through the garbage.

quote:

---

She was squinting at the thermometer in the white light coming in through the window. Beyond her, in the drizzle, the other high-rises in Co-Op City rose like the gray turrets of a penitentiary. Below, in the airshaft, closelines flapped with ragged wash. Rats and plump alley cats circulated through the garbage.

---

I would change "circulated" to something else that didn't imply that the rats and plump alley cats weren't doing this of their own volition. The first thought I had was of a clothes dryer, or a hydraulic system. Is that how garbage is processed in this story? Do the rats and cats form a part of a symbiotic process that breaks down the garbage for easier disposal or recycling?

"She" who? What's wrong with giving us a name? Is there a reason to hide this information?

I imagine "was squinting" could be changed to "squinted" without loss of meaning.

The "airshaft" doesn't mean anything to me. Is it a metaphor, or an actual construction? There's not much context here, so it's possible this is described in the next paragraph.

I wish I had more time - I'd ask to take a look at it. Is the story in a critiquable state?

I asked a question and gave an example. I did not ask for a condesending jerk to drop in his or her worthless drivel.

quote:

---

I did not ask for a condesending jerk to drop in his or her worthless drivel

---

And WE did not ask for a condesending jerk to start frothing at the mouth and calling folks names.

It's easy to lose track of which forum you are in... I've posted in F&F before, forgetting I wasn't in Open Writing. And yes, sometimes people skim posts and miss pertinent information, like the fact that you are posting someone else's work and not your own.

Regardless of all that, you might ratchet down your poor attitude a notch or two, Mr. Monkey. It's not productive, nor does it contribute in a favorable way to the overall dialog of the board.

quote:

---

And WE did not ask for a condesending jerk to start frothing at the mouth and calling folks names

---

I actually like the hook. Yes, it belongs on the "Published Hooks and Books" section, and yes, I was kind of alluding to that, while at the same time taking a couple of good-natured (I thought) pot-shots at the membership here (myself included) for our nit-picky ways in the "Fragments and Feedback" forum.

I'm just kidding, it's more like minus three. No automatic disqualification just yet.

But I'm not kidding about hooks. For me, all you have to do is keep my confidence. I assume, if you've written something, that you know how to write credibly. But I'm ready to be proven wrong (and boy, do I get proven wrong a lot). Stil, it isn't possible to begin reading unless you initially believe that there is some point in doing so. So I grant a writer the assumption of coherence. Say ten points for a novice posting, twenty for someone I know has been writing seriously for a long time, and thirty for a published novel. But those extra ten or twenty points...if the first half page used up more than ten points, the next page almost always dispenses with the rest. It doesn't make that big a difference.

quote:

---

Thursday, 3:32 p.m.

The dentures I lost on reconnaissance last week have come back to haunt me. Cavanaugh made a big show of it, waving them beneath my nose in the cafeteria line. Smug bastard. If I were ten years younger or if he were forty years older, I’d have shown him completely new uses for tapioca pudding. Regardless, I have my teeth back and that made lunch slightly more tolerable.

---

As hooks go, that is one I would not keep reading. But, its a novel. The hook is not the same trick with a novel as it is a short story. Still, starting with a pronoun as a character would make me put the book down rather than buy it.

On the subject:

The Running Man's hook is a in the next paragraph:
"She looked at her husband. He was seated at the table, staring up at the Free-Vee with steady, vacant concentration. He had been watching it for weeks now. It wasn't like him. He hated it, always had. --- Ordinarily they never watched it. But ever since Cathy had gotten sick, he had been watching the big money giveaways. It filled her sick with fear."

That first paragraph is just garnish. Quick description of an apartment tenement. The second paragraph hooks you. Guy acting out of character. Daughter is sick. Big money giveaways. We have all the players for a nice little conflict.
The Bachman books are generally slow starters, look at Roadwork, but Running Man is a nice even paced story. King's short stories are much better for obvious hooks. Giant gaff hooks that yank you into a story.

HSO,
I liked Scholes' hook as well. You can tell right away what kind of character you're dealing with, as well as how the author does not plan to take the story too seriously. I loved it! Thanks for pointing it out! =)

Pantros,
Why does starting with a pronoun turn you off? I’m the opposite, I don’t care for the: “Jack Gorman sipped on the cup of hot Java,” or “It occurred to Tracie Hurtado that the memo was three days old…” To me, giving a name (especially both the first and last name) right from the start tells me the author does not have enough confidence in their ability to show a person’s character without giving you the standard: “Jack Fisher was a stocky man of 5’7” with a large gut and an unkempt brown beard.” I want the author to paint me a picture, not tell me a person’s stats. Why do you dislike King’s opening in this manner?

Grimslade,
I aim to please, and I’m nothing if brutally sincere and honest. =)
However, I got burnt quickly, because my past experiences on this board seemed to be a series of people attacking me for my views. Granted, I entered OSC’s forums with the wrong attitude when I first signed up, but OSC and I worked that out, and after that, I still found way too much ego and arrogance in here for my tastes. As a result, I left. When I returned the other day, I got pretty pissed to find the same BS, and lost my top. I make no apologies for this; the other poster was playing forum police and insulter at the same time, whatever the intentions were. I had a right to speak up about it. I’ll repeat what I said last year in here: Inflections in the voice cannot be heard in typed text. In addition, what you type on a board is conversation, not a novel. So no, no one understands your exact sentiments when you type something. USE SMILIES!

If these boards are consistent at all, then I expect five or six people to come in here and tell me how I’m wrong for saying what I just did, and to give me a moral lecture on why that is so. I’ll skip over any such posts.

quote:

---

Pantros,
Why does starting with a pronoun turn you off? I’m the opposite, I don’t care for the: “Jack Gorman sipped on the cup of hot Java,” or “It occurred to Tracie Hurtado that the memo was three days old…” To me, giving a name (especially both the first and last name) right from the start tells me the author does not have enough confidence in their ability to show a person’s character without giving you the standard: “Jack Fisher was a stocky man of 5’7” with a large gut and an unkempt brown beard.” I want the author to paint me a picture, not tell me a person’s stats.

---

Ooh, ooh, can I answer?

First, you've presented a false dilemma. A first name will suffice: no stats or last name are necessary. What we're really looking for is a single tag - whatever it is the character is usually referred to by.

The problem with a pronoun is that you have no unique tag to hang the rest of the ideas off of. When ideas about the character are presented, the reader has to stash them away in a mental bucket labeled "Anonymous Female." Then, when the character's unique tag is finally revealed, the bucket's name has to be changed (including reverse references from the ideas, which isn't easy), or its contents have to be merged with the bucket labeled with the unique tag. All this mental merging and renaming and purging the "Anonymous Female" bucket take at least a few sentences, during which the writer has lost the reader's attention.

The writer can both save the reader from the extra work and ensure he keeps the reader's attention by just giving the character's unique tag to begin with.

If the writer needs to keep a character anonymous, descriptions like "dark figure" (cheesy - hopefully the writer comes up with something better) will do.

quote:

---

I’ll repeat what I said last year in here: Inflections in the voice cannot be heard in typed text. In addition, what you type on a board is conversation, not a novel. So no, no one understands your exact sentiments when you type something. USE SMILIES!

---

However, while I don't care about grammar per se, I am big on syntax and semantics. When you begin with a pronoun, you aren't just failing to give information, you are implying information that probably doesn't match your intent. The rule is illustrated by the exception, "I".

When you use the first person pronoun, "I", no reference is required by grammar or syntax. Indeed, if Survivor were to refer to me by name rather than by personal pronoun, I would appear to be using the third person, even though none of the other words were changed. That would constitute a grave syntax error, creating the implication that I wasn't the one being referenced. It isn't the matter of whether you use the pronoun or not, but what you imply by the usage.

Opening with an unreferenced pronoun implies that there is some reason it wouldn't be possible to give the reference. Most immediately, it seems that the POV cannot determine anything beyond the gender of the subject. I'm used to seeing openings which initially introduce the POV character only as "he" or "she", and yet it still seems like the writer is implying that the POV character (the "he/she" in question) doesn't know anything other than the gender of the subject of the first line. Just as we would expect a first person narrator to use "I" for self reference, we expect a POV character to have at least have a name. Not using one makes us wonder who is the POV.

Frequently, the author is POV cheating. The initial scene is written from a third person objective viewpoint. There is nothing wrong with third person objective viewpoint, some very fine stories are written in it. But once you start in the objective viewpoint, you can't access the characters' thoughts and feelings except by describing their actions. So most writers don't use it for more than a few lines, after which they suddenly drop into some other POV (usually third person limited omniscient) without any warning.

But the fact that I know why authors make this mistake doesn't change the fact that it is a mistake. Yes, many readers prefer to visualize the scene from the perspective of a spectator. But even those readers still suffer from the ambiguity of badly structured POV. And readers who immerse themselves in POV (who make up the bulk of those who actually prefer reading to other entertainment) will be thwarted from the first line. Of course it isn't bad to write stories that will appeal to people that would rather watch a movie, but you can do it without alienating those who would rather be reading.

quote:

---

Maskelle has been asking the Ancestors to stop the rain three days running now and, as usual, they weren't listening.

---

Largely because it made me grin and suggested that this book wasn't, in spite of outward appearances, going to be typical fantasy. Typical fantasy takes its gods very seriously for some reason.

http://www.litline.org/ABR/100bestfirstlines.html

quote:

---

If these boards are consistent at all, then I expect five or six people to come in here and tell me how I’m wrong for saying what I just did, and to give me a moral lecture on why that is so. I’ll skip over any such posts.

---

LMAO at all of that. Ditto, brother, D.I.T.T.O.

I had the same thought the moment I started reading Trouser's post.

Or course, in my head, I said Dumbass, not Jackass.

Perhaps it's a regional thing.

Still, my favorite hook of all time goes,

quote:

---

He was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad.

---

Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini, late Forties.

'Nuff said.

quote:

---

Or course, in my head, I said Dumbass, not Jackass.

---

I submit Thomas Perry as an author who is excellent at hooking this reader. I recently read NIGHTLIFE, and he managed to hook me over and over again--his first few chapters each started with a different character, and he was able to make me interested in each character very quickly.

Survivor,
You lost me. Although I could understand what you said, it was so technical it made my brain hurt.

Katfeete,
That line seems disjointed to me somehow. The comma placement makes me feel the way a cat must when stroked backwards.

HSO,
It never occurred to me to do such a thing. It’s such a simple suggestion that all I can say is “duh” for not thinking of it first.

Inkwell,
The Bible never hooked me, so god must need to workshop more.

KDW,
I’ll look at Perry. That in fact was the whole reason I started this thread. I want to study effective beginnings. Thanks!

I like the first lines of Grapes of Wrath and as Splode has not asked for comments on each other's nominated hooks I guess we better keep our opinions to ourselves, unless you happen to be Splode and can lecture, comment and generally pontificate at to your hearts delight... ( the smileys are to help you read between the lines)

PS: heh heh here comes a lecture