Being a Better Writer: The Narrative Hook, the Story Hook, and Others · 9:14pm Feb 3rd, 2014
I'll be honest, I get a lot of the ideas for where to go with these blogs by bumming around various sites and forums and looking at what people are having difficulty with. People seem conflicted over what a prologue is? Wonder how to leave good feedback? You get the idea.
Today's topic is, naturally, something that comes by an extension of that same process. One term that gets tossed about from time to time, especially among groups or forums dedicated to offering reviews, promotion or feedback of some kind, is the idea of the "hook." It's an apt name. The idea of a hook is that it's something to pull your reader in, something that grabs their attention and makes them want to keep reading. So, for example if we look at the a review omnibus for one of the groups that does reviews and features, we find their definition of a hook as thus:
The hook is both the most-loved and most-hated element of a story. A good one can make a story just as much as a bad one can break it. Readers want to be drawn into a story; beyond the premise on the back cover, we want a reason to turn the page, to find what comes next. A good hook can do just that—catch our eye, pull our heartstrings, pique our interest—but a poor one can bore us or drive us away. There’s no easy formula to writing a good hook, but remember these two simple bits of advice: “Start a story as close to the end as possible,” and “Always make sure you give the reader something to chew on.”
Now, as far as definitions go, this isn't bad. They've certainly defined the term hook. There's a bit of a weak area however, in that it doesn't do anything else (and I mean no offense guys, I'm actually quite fond of your group and what it has set out to do, you just happened to be a perfect example today). It's a blank definition with very little mechanics other than "start the story." Likewise, I can tell you that a story is defined as "an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment." But that doesn't tell you much about actually writing a story. It just gives you the general concept of what a story is.
Which is why today's topic is going to delve a little into the mechanics of various types of hook. Because make no mistake, there is more than just "the hook." We're going to look at the most common interpretation of what most think of when they use the term "hook," as well as some other varieties, and even delve into some classic literature for some examples.
So, we're going to start with the most common type of hook first, or perhaps I should say the most commonly known. This is the narrative hook, and is almost always what people refer to when they use the phrase "hook" in a generic setting.
The narrative hook could also be called an "opening hook," as it is the first thing (or one of the first things) that a reader is going to read upon opening your cover and starting at line one. It's called a narrative hook because what's going to grab the reader is usually the narration, not the events. Most of the time, the narrative hook is the first line of your story. If it isn't, then it's somewhere in the first paragraph. It's a line that speaks to your reader, catches their eye, and says to them "you want to read the rest of this."
For example, author Brandon Sanderson has stated on numerous occasions that his personal favorite opening line from his works is "Ash fell from the sky." That's it. End paragraph. "Ash fell from the sky." But as far as narrative hooks go, it definitely catches my interest. Ash is falling from the sky? Why? So I keep reading, only to find that no one considers this unusual. Ash falling is an an everyday occurrence. And now I'm intrigued.
Let's look at another opening hook from the same author (last one from him, I promise). This time, we're looking at the opening paragraph of a later book of his, The Alloy of Law.
Wax crept along the ragged fence in a crouch, his boots scraping the dry ground. He held his Sterrion 36 up by his head, the long, silvery barrel dusted with red clay. The revolver was nothing fancy to look at, though the six-shot cylinder was machined with such care in the steel-alloy frame that there was no play in its movement. There was no gleam to the metal or exotic material on the grip. But it fit his hand like it was meant to be there.
A different kind of narrative hook here. Rather than an interesting first line, we're given a scenario. Someone is creeping along a fence, and they're armed with a familiar weapon. The narrative of the scene is what's drawing you in.
Lets look at another example, this time the narrative hook from Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World:
The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened. Bars of sunlight cast though rents in the walls made motes of dust glitter where they yet hung in the air. Scorch-marks marred the walls, the floors, the ceilings. Broad black smears crossed the blistered paints and gilt the once-bright murals, soot overlaying crumbling friezes of men and animals which seemed to have attempted to walk before the madness grew quiet. The dead lay everywhere, men and women and children, struck down in attempted flight by the lightnings that had flashed down every corridor, or seized by the fires that had stalked them, or sunken into stone of the palace, the stones that had flowed and sought, almost alive, before stillness came again. In odd counterpoint, colorful tapestries and paintings, masterworks all, hing undisturbed except where bulging walls had pushed them away. Finely carved furnishings, inlaid with ivory and gold, stood untouched except where rippling floors had toppled them. The mind-twisting had struck at the core, ignoring peripheral things.
Hows that for a narrative hook? The Eye of the World is an epic, so it's no surprise that the opening is verbose, but it paints a very clear picture of a recent and horrifying ruin, doesn't it?
One last one, this one from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.
This is the perfect narrative hook for the opening of Sorcerer's Stone as a whole, because it sets the stage for the rest of the introduction by flaunting in the readers face that these people are so perfectly normal that they seem unreal, which of course the Dursleys are.
From these examples, hopefully by now you've gathered what a narrative hook is. It's the opening, always. No matter if it's a prologue or the first chapter, a short story or an epic, the opening lines of your story are always where a narrative hook is placed. It cannot be anywhere else. As for how and why a narrative hook grabs the reader, that's up to you to discover and decide. You may go for the mysterious route, such as Mistborn, giving a single line that is at odds with what your reader expects. You can go the humorous route, which Harry Potter did. The choice is yours. Just make sure that there's something there that will draw the reader you're looking for in.
Now is as good a time as any to mention, by the way, that what works for some will NOT work for others. There are as many turned away by the opening of The Alloy of Law as there are that are pulled in by it. There is no perfect narrative hook. It is up to you to decide how and what you will open your work with. Just beware: you want it to be interesting, but it needs to fit in with the rest of your work. Starting with an attention grabbing line that segues into a completely unrelated story is a cheap trick that will lose almost any reader. Make your narrative hook interesting, but remember that it must be in theme with the rest of your work.
Now, moving on, we have the other kind of hook, the one which commonly gets lumped with a narrative hook. Which shouldn't be, as the two are very different. This is the story hook, or at least, this is what I've heard it referred to as by most of the authors I know. You may call is something different.
Regardless, a story hook is the moment that something happens story-wise to hook the reader. This is what leads up to the inciting incident. For example, while we could all have a rousing discussion about what the inciting incident of the first Harry Potter book is (personally, I'd say it's the moment the letters start to arrive for Harry), I think that most of us would agree that an event like going to the zoo (which happens in the opening) and the release of the snake are not inciting incidents. They are, however, story hooks. Harry waking up and discussing his dream about flying motorcycles, along with the subsequent rebuke by his uncle, is a story hook. It's something that the story uses to keep the main character and the reader moving towards the eventual reveal (usually the inciting incident) of "Yer a wizard, Harry."
I'll use one of my own works next, "Rise." Rise opens in chapter one by introducing a pony who's just finishing up his morning run. As soon as that introduction has expired (and taught the reader a bit about the main character) a story hook arrives in the form of the mailpony, who informs him that there is an unexpected package waiting for him at the local post office. This is a small story hook. The story hook "hooks" again when the character discovers that the package is from Princess Luna, of all ponies, and then at long last delivers a final hook when he examines its contents. Along the way, we see what a fairly normal day is like for the character Steel, giving the reader a sense of what his life is like before the inciting incident occurs and turns it on it's head.
A story hook is something that not only pulls your reader along, but keeps your main character tied in to what will eventually be the main plot. The story hook in The Eye of the World, for example, also happens in the first chapter with the arrival of a "mysterious Aes Sedai" in the village of the main three characters. While business continues somewhat as normal, setting up the day-to-day life of the characters and allowing us to see what things are like for them, the story hook (for both the reader and the characters) is this mysterious woman. She "hooks" the main three characters into the plot after the inciting incident, and she serves as a hook to the reader to keep their interest while we go about a regular day.
While a narrative hook is a for certain feature of any work, no matter how short or long (after all, a narrative hook will always be the opening line/paragraph), the story hook isn't. Most fanfics on this site, for instance, operate under the assumption that we know everything about the world and characters already, and therefore jump right to the inciting incident. Short stories, and novella's also tend to avoid needing a story hook. After all, they're on a word limit, so they need to jump right to the heart of the issue. The longer your work becomes and the more world you're striving to fill however, the more a "story hook" will begin to show up, again usually in the first chapter. The story hook of The Hobbit, for example, is contained in the birthday party. It's a little less than "the ordinary day,' but more than enough to help us understand the characters and keep the reader interested.
Now, I can already see the question marks forming over a few of the heads out there. Each is asking a variant on "but wait, aren't you supposed to start as close to the action as possible? Shouldn't my inciting incident happen ASAP?"
No. No, no, no, no, no. Let me show you why you shouldn't, and why you may need a story hook. Consider this story:
"Bob died, his last regret that he'd never even told her what he truly thought."
Not very interesting, is it? That's because we have no context. The point of a story hook is to keep things moving while allowing the reader to understand and learn about a character. Lets consider this story hook: Father takes his son to school, lectures the son and the teacher on safety. Not very inspiring, is it? But that's the opening of Finding Nemo. Would any of that movie had nearly as much of an impact had the story begun with the inciting incident itself (Nemo's capture)? No. The character-audience relationship wouldn't exist. In a short story, you can dodge this. It's a short story. We aren't expecting more from it. But in a longer work? Key to the element of an inciting incident is that it upsets the main characters life in some way. Without an understanding of the character beforehand, an inciting incident loses much of its impact.
So, in order for that impact to have it's full effect, you need to keep the reader involved with smaller story hooks while they move towards the inciting incident. Take this diagram of a someone's plot arcs, for example. Notice where the inciting incident occurs? Halfway through the first act. Everything up until then? Hints, teases, learning about the characters and setting, and story hooks to keep the reader/viewer going.
Note: I understand that this is something you can play with. The Alloy of Law, one could easily argue, starts after an inciting incident (the death of the main characters uncle, which is what causes him to be arriving at the capital city at the start of the first chapter). Then again, one could also argue that the inciting incident is Wax's first contact with the bandits of the story. Everything up until then is a form of introduction and story hook, including his uncle's death. In literature, lines often blur.
Now, I did mention "varieties" of hooks, earlier, and to be fair, we've just covered the third. It's the inciting incident. This is the moment that all of your other hooks lead up to, the moment where both the reader and the characters are carried away by a pivotal even that changes things for the story. Up until now, save for the narrative hook, the reader has been strung along by story hooks. Now, the story takes a sharp turn and yanks the reader along with it. This is the point where it grabs the reader and declares "things are about to change." Alright, "grabs" is a poor choice of words, but you get the idea. This is the final "introductory" hook. At this point, most readers who have followed through all the prior hooks are either going to keep reading or walk away (mostly based on premise, nothing else). The inciting incident is, for all intents and purposes, your final hook. It's the moment when everything changes, and you kick your reader and your characters down the path labeled "this way to adventure." "Yer a wizard, Harry." Frodo gets "the Ring." R2-D2 runs off and Luke gives chase. Trollocs attack Rand's village.
Now, can you have other "hooks?" Well, yes. Any time that something occurs in order to keep interest high, even after the inciting incident, you've created a "hook" to keep the reader turning the pages, what I'd call an "interest hook," to be technical. Ended on a cliffhanger? That's something to hook the reader: interest hook. Start a new chapter with a character who suffers a terrible fate that will soon intersect with the main character? Interest hook. Basically, you already have the plot flowing, and events are happening. An interest hook is what I would call the insertion of something that doesn't necessarily keep the plot moving, but serves to give the reader something to focus on, another reason to keep reading. It can be a foreshadowing, a mysterious character, anything that decreases the reader's desire to stop reading your work.
So in summary, the term "hook" is actually a conglomerate of several technical aspects of writing. First, the Narrative Hook, the opening line/paragraph written to catch the readers attention. Second, the Story Hook which keeps the reader interested while setting up events and introducing the characters. Third, the Inciting Incident, where the plot truly begins and the characters and the readers are pulled along. Then, finally, the Interest Hook, used to create suspense, promises, or any other form of interest after the inciting incident has occurred. These four hooks are what will pull your reader along as you move through your story. Identifying what they are, and how to use them (or where they are used, if giving a critical reading), is key to your work with literature.
As much as I love to bitch about The Eye of the World's deep and fatal flaws, I have to admit that the hook in the prologue is solid. It gives the ultimately false impression that the work in question is going to be exciting and dramatic.
Also, everyone who wants to write with the three-act structure as a guide should read this before they commit to the idea: http://badassdigest.com/2013/12/11/hulks-screenwriting-101-excerpt-the-myth-of-3-act-structure/
Loved this detailed discussion of the various ways to keep a reader's interest! Would you mind doing a blog post about how to finish a story off on a strong note? I usually have an idea, the story ends when it ends, but I never get enough practice, because I'm always starting more stories than I finish.
1792539
Very, very interesting and enlightening. Kind of wish the author of that account didn't hold to the Hulk thing, since all caps is hard to read, but it's definitely useful. Then again, I've been working with somewhat amorphous story structures for years, so it's nice to be unexpectedly vindicated by this?
1793642
Yes, this is indeed the biggest barrier to entry when I try to recommend this guy to everyone else. Also I saw another source online that says he doesn't have the best grasp of Shakespeare, but I like the idea of the five-act structure as he explains it anyway.
Now I really want to complain about The Eye of the World, even though it doesn't really have anything to do with the topic at hand. Um, I guess I could say that it fails to give good interest hooks?
1794380
*shrugs* I enjoyed The Eye of the World. Part of it is audience. I like reading world-building details. I like little things that become brick jokes later. I have the patience to wait four books for a pay-off. Some don't, and if not, most of the interest hooks in The Wheel of Time aren't going to grab you. That's why some don't like epics.
Said brick joke is about halfway through the series. In the first book, Rand discovers a way to climb up a wall to get a better look at a parade, falls over the other side and finds himself on palace grounds. Later, someone else gets into the Palace in the same way. Six books in, Matthew Coultron, on a mission to speak with the Queen (and not wanting to waste the time going through the proper channels) spots the weakness, climbs over, sneaks through the palace, and just walks in on the Queen. When explaining how he got in unannounced, one of the palace guards looses it and asks the purpose of having the wall in the first place when everyone who "really wants in" just climbs in by the garden.
1796225
Okay, see, normally I would agree with you on the matter of epics. I love long stories with loads of characters and an interesting setting that plays around with them. I will stick up for Stephen King's Dark Tower novels even though everyone else thought they fucked up the ending. But The Eye of the World did relatively little to hold my interest and ensure that I would read the future books in the series.
The main problem I have with it is that Rand al'Thor is one of the most boring fantasy protagonists I ever read about, esecially when compared to Nynaeve. Nynaeve may come across as an ass at first, but I connected with her when I understood that the burden of being an authority figure in her village at such a young age would change her, and I also found it compelling that she held the Aes Sedai in such distrust and yet seems destined to become one herself. So naturally she barely gets any time as a viewpoint character and does nothing interesting when she is one. Meanwhile, all I remember about Rand is that he's in serious denial about not being related to his father, which is honestly grasping at straws for something to make him interesting.
I made the mistake of blogging a chapter a day for this book, which made an already slow and padded book seem even slower and less eventful than it already was. I don't need to see an account of every time that Rand and company are traveling on roads, especially since I doubt that the things that happen in them will come up again. The climax of the book came out of left field, as if Jordan realized that he needed to give the book an actual ending at the last minute, and was resolved with an unsatisfying deus ex machina. I also couldn't stop making comparisons to The Lord of the Rings, and found Matt fucking insufferable when he was in "my preciousssss" mode.
Maybe I'm being uncharacteristically unfair. Maybe I need to give The Great Hunt a shot. But on my reading list there is the rest of A Song of Ice and Fire, the Hunger Games trilogy, Titus Groan (along with its own sequels), and other huge-ass genre book series which I have only read the first books for (Malazan Book of the Fallen, Prince of Nothing, the Night's Dawn trilogy). What reason do I have to prioritize Jordan's generic fantasy mush over any of these?
1794380
Even if he's inaccurate about Shakespeare, the actual visual images point out how a five-part structure might be more useful than a three part structure. At the very least, how he described Romeo and Juliet made sense to me, and I agree that Iron Man is a really great movie and works on the breakdown that he went through. Whatever mistakes he makes, I think he more than makes up for this by pointing out that the 3 Act commentary isn't really informative in any way, and the Middle suffers from being considered really vaguely by many writers.
1800163
Sounds like I should add a blog post on "structure" to my list of things to do.
1800176
To be truthful, I feel that structure is more of an organic thing than most people take it for. Do you at least agree with that? I think this was the bigger thing to take away from that blog link.
But yes! Something on structure and endings would be good. In general, I've read a few books on writing and I don't think they stuck with me in any meaningful way regarding these items. I like to think I have a good concept of hooking the reader and keeping things going on a natural progression of decisions (I don't really like passive characters and I'm certain most readers don't either, unless they've been forced into doing something, but that needs to be done with care to keep it from being too forced.) However, I do have some issues with deciding what is superfluous and also pulling everything together at the end.
Like I said, I have always had a ton of WiP, many I've never finished, so the rare practice I do get with endings is probably enough to keep me decent, but I do have a few instances where I really don't feel as if I pulled off what I intended or I have to re-assess what the story is about, if that makes sense?
And of course, the middle section(s) can always use some pointers.
1800198
Story structure is very organic. I think we get into trouble because we educate youth on the three-act structure, which is a simple starting point, but not the end all. There are many other ways to "path" a story.
I'll try and do one on endings too. I've now got a full months worth of posts in mind, so it may be a while, but I'll get to it!
1800287
Excellent! I'll try to be patient.