The first 13 lines of A River Runs Through It has a great voice and it would probably get torn up here since nothing happens. But for me that "Voice" is what makes me want to turn the page. The 13 lines are:

quote:

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In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own lures and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first class fisherman on the Sea of Galilee were fly fisherman and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.
It is true that one whole day of the week was given wholly over to religion. On Sunday mornings my brother, Paul, and I went to Sunday school and then to "morning services" to hear our father preach and then in the evenings to Christian Endeavor and afterwards to "evening services" to hear our father preach again

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Why do I love this begining? Why do I feel compelled to turn the page when the first one ends at "Christian?"

Because the Voice. Because of the intimacy and the feeling of sitting with the POV around a kitchen table or a camp fire. While nothing has "happened," I've been drawn into the unnamed MC's world.

Another example of great Voice, IMHO, is Janet Evanovich and Hard Eight or any of her Stephanie Plum books but this is from Hard Eight :

quote:

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Lately, I've been spending a lot of time rollling around on the ground with men who think getting a stiffy represents personal growth. The rolling around has nothing to do with my sex life. The rolling around is what happens when a bust goes to crapola and there is a last ditch effort to hog-tie a big, dumb bad guy possessing a congentially defective frontal lobe.
My name is Stephanie Plum, and I'm in the fugitive apprehension business . . . bond enforcement, to be exact, working for my cousin Vincent Plum. It wouldn't be such a bad day job except the direct result of bond enforcement is usually incarceration - and fugitives tend not to like this. Go figure. To encourage fugitive cooperation on the way back to the pokey I usually persuade the guys I capture to wear handcuffs and leg shackles.

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The first page ends at "to the pokey I . . "

So, I'm not sitting at the campfire with her, more like at the bar. But still, no action, no dialog and I want to read on. Voice.

Ignoring that my first two thoughts on voice were first person for a moment, what else do they share? A sense of person, a sense of humor, they pull me in, I can hear the POV speaking to me and wonderful writing - in effect - Voice.

So, the questions are:

1) Is Voice enough to draw you in?
2) What do you think are effective elements of Voice?

Its a prologue thats not prologue.

So now, for your questions...

1) Voice will draw me in from time to time. The Historian drew me in on the voice of the main character about as much as the atmosphere evoked in the opening paragraphs.

2) Voice is effective if it conjures images in your mind, in my estimation, that go beyond what the actual words being spoken are. You said that you had the image in your head of a close knit group of people sharing tales over a fire, evoking a great intimacy between the author and the reader. Again using The Historian as a reference, the opening indicated a lot of tension, almost as if you are hearing this story late at night in whispered tones, or you have received this letter in the mail from a close friend you haven't heard from in ages, and from the opening lines you sense that they are in danger.

Good things to meditate on early in the morning!

Completely unrelated to that is the need of a story to have conflict of some kind to keep interest up. Some vignettes, shorts and flashes may get away with that due to their nature, but in general conflict is an important element.

The hook in the above is more than the clear voice, to me. The writing is clear. The idea of Religion and Fly Fishing being almost the same thing, so that they have no boundaries before them, is interesting. I've known some Pastors and Ministers with other hobbies where that could be true. After reading that, I may not be hooked enough to commit to an entire story yet, but I trust the author enough to turn the page and see where their going.

And--importantly--novels rarely introduce a conflict within the first 13 lines, unless their an action-packed thriller or some kind. I think the hook in a novel is more likely to be like this and less likely to be a conflict.

To your questions...

1. The voice is often what draws me in above and beyond the hook. If a book starts off with an explosion, I'll usually be looking more for signs of a good voice behind the action than the resolution of the action itself. I like books that don't rely on big 'wowza' opener hooks to get me to read more. It comes across like a gimmick without a good voice to back it up. So, to answer your question: The voice is more than enough to draw me in; it's usually what does, or doesn't.

2. The two main elements of effective voice that spring to mind, for me:
A. It's suitable. It matches - rather, creates - the feel of the novel. Whether through a first-person character voice or a third-person omniscient author voice (the more difficult to match well, I think), it has to draw the reader in by creating and sustaining a certain mood, even when the pace and action of the plotline itself changes. In cinematic terms, I guess this would be a movie's signature lighting, camera angles, etc. If it's off, you may not know why you dislike something, but it prevents you from thoroughly enjoying the experience. A well-matched voice bolsters the world and the story being described, and suggests a unified creative vision that makes me more likely to suspend disbelief and trust the author. That ultimately leads to more appreciation of the book.

B. It evokes some kind of emotional response. In the example of Hard Eight, that response is amusement, and a fledgling affinity for this frank-talking protagonist who tells it like it is. We get emotionally evolved. In other works, that emotion might be a sense of grand scale and awe, a sense of suspenseful unease, a sense of curiosity, and on and on. Excellent voice hooks us with emotional interest or involvement, and entices us to read on to satisfy that emotion (in the case of suspense) or get more of it (in the case of amusement) even more than the action described.

The better start is with CONFLICT -- not ACTION. These two are not mutually exclusive, but they're not the same thing, either.

Of the two openings you posted, the first doesn't really have any conflict. I would say that it's the clearer voice hook. If you don't start with conflict, you have to find something else to interest the reader -- a character, a joke, a weird situation....

The first opening's real hook is the first line. "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing." That's amusing and unexpected. The rest of the paragraph, IMHO, isn't nearly as interesting but I would turn the page anyway, all because of the quirky first line. How many more pages I turn after that depends upon what's on those pages.

The second opening does begin with conflict..and also a sassy character and an unexpected statement. "Lately, I've been spending a lot of time rollling around on the ground with men who think getting a stiffy represents personal growth." To be honest, I'm not as drawn into this story. You'll find that there is a lot of personal choice and you'll never reach all readers with any one opening...so stop trying. The trouble with this opening is that it reminds me of a great many sassy/tough female cops in the crime/mystery section and I'm not drawn to those types of books. If I were, this would be a good opening.