Once upon a time, stories -- big novels, really -- were written with long, winding beginnings. We were given dozens of pages, chapters even, to slowly become drawn into the story set-up, the event that changed everything for the character. I used to read lots of these kinds of books, and I enjoyed them.

But nowadays, readers are less patient, or simply have less time to commit to a novel. Thus writers learned that we have to create an almost immediate story hook which will engage readers quickly. But that doesn' t simply mean writing a scene to put readers on the edge of their seats. It means we have to establish a story question in their minds, one that they will want to follow through to the end in order to discover the answer or outcome.

Establishing a story question begins with

• a crisis situation
• the main character's reaction to it
• that same character's statement of intent to try and "fix" the situation

The Crisis

This is the opening action or primary hook. The terrible dilemma. The unquenched desire. The sudden doom. In my upcoming release, an 1890s historical romance called The Red Fury, Elaina Kade finds herself being jilted -- again. This is the third man she's lost in two years. One of them, the one who died, truly had her heart. The two that followed couldn't handle her strong-willed nature. In a fiery, opening, break-up scene, Elaina comes to the conclusion that she has really become an unmarryable shrew since her first love's death, and that the future holds only spinsterhood and local gossip about her many faults.

The Reaction

This is the outcome of the crisis. If the character merely wanders off to wallow in pity, and things begin to happen to them, then you end up with a passive character. It's hard to draw readers into a committed relationship with a passive character. If possible, avoid things happening to the character. Instead, have the character act as the catalyst for what happens next. The character's response to the crisis should come in some physical as well as emotional way. In The Red Fury, Elaina would like to dash her fiancé, Jed's, heart against the wall. Since that's not quite possible, she throws whatever is available. In her case it's a hard piece of quartz (like Jed's heart) and a mirror which shatters into shards (like her heart) -- a little symbolism there. She wants to rant, run away, crawl into a hole, freak out all over him -- something! Readers relate to her pain by seeing it. Her reaction engages readers with her strong personality and establishes more of a connection with her character.

The Statement of Intent

This is the critical turning point in the opening of the story and where the story question becomes firmly established. Once readers have seen the crisis and the character's reaction, they begin to wonder where it is leading. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! As the character states his or her intent, whether in so many words or in their actions, the reader is able to latch onto the story question -- the question that will finally be answered at the end of the story. This is an almost "ah-ha" moment for the reader as they are now on track with the story and become ready to nestle into it. As to the story question itself, readers may, perhaps, have a good idea of the answer. For instance, in the case of a romance, boy meets girl and conflict ensues, but the reader is fairly certain that their issues will resolve, and boy and girl will finally be together at the end. BUT, in such a case, the story question will be less of What will happen, and more of How it will happen.

In The Red Fury, Elaina's statement of intent comes in the form of two personal decisions. The first is to get away. When she discovers her brother is going to be sent on business to Chicago, she determines to go with him, thinking she will temporarily escape from both her heartache and the local gossip. Her second decision is a mental and emotional one. Elaina decides that since she is meant to live life on her own, she will do it her own way. So she sets off on a plan to ignore social constraints and do whatever she pleases, going from one adventure to the next without concern for consequences. Her decisions set in motion the stage for future conflict, which multiplies ten-fold when she meets a pair of disillusioned civil war veterans, brothers whose love for one another is the only thing they still cling to after the horrors of war. When the personalities of these three major characters intersect, the combination of a love triangle and living life on the edge becomes nearly combustible.

So these three elements set up the story question. In The Red Fury, Elaina is about to step off into a great unknown where readers know something is bound to happen to her. And because of the previous crisis, it is implied that she may discover whether or not she is truly as unlovable as she believes she is.  Will she figure it out? How? With whom?

Does your story's opening clearly establish a story question?

Write on!

THE RED FURY - EMPIRE IN PINE - Book Two -- Coming October, 2011!

Ever watch a movie or read a book that had a pretty good premise, decent characters, the basis of a plot -- but something was missing? As writers we tend to learn the most, perhaps, by reading a lot of other work with a discerning eye, or even watching movies to better understand scene structure, dialogue, plot pacing, and many other nuances of good writing. In the same way, we can analyze our own stories in light of what didn't work out in someone else's. So, I'd like to hear examples you've found of a story that might have been good, if something had been differently.

I'll start out with a movie I watched last night. It was called Touched, starring Jenna Elfman and Randall Batinkoff .

In this romance, a man falls into a two year coma following a car crash which takes the life of his 5-year-old son. No one thinks he will ever wake up. His dad even wants to pull the plug. His wife eventually has their marriage annulled, moves on, and remarries.

 

But his nurse stays by his side, talking to him, bathing him, and taking pictures denoting the passing of time. When he suddenly wakes up, he's faced with all the changes that happened to him in what feels like a mere blink of an eye, along with the guilt of losing his son. He even begins to see visions of his son, beckoning him.

 

Meanwhile, the nurse has a lot of issues of her own. Her parents died in a fire when she was a child. Her brother, while trying to rescue her, fell from the house on his head and is both mentally and physically challenged. He needs recurring surgeries and she is his only support.

 

Then she begins to fall in love with her patient and he with her, while struggling to overcome all the other difficulties handed to them.

 

This could have been a really good story. In fact, it wasn't bad, but for the pacing. There was a lot of staring into space. A lot of cigarette smoking. A lot of alone time, painting and thinking. A lot of flashbacks. The events that actually move the story forward are spread far apart. Even though it was well acted, it couldn't make up for the defect in pacing.

So, tell me. What have you read or watched lately that missed the mark? Why did it? Will it affect work on your current WIP?

Write on!

Deep POV writing is all the rage these days, and with good reason. We get drawn deeper into the psyche of characters when authors write them up close. They become personal acquaintances. We are bruised by their anguish, and leap with their joy. I love this. I love writing internal dialogue. I love walking in the shoes of my character by eliminating telling phrases. For instance, instead of "She thought he might be inside the house", we can get deeper into her point of view by saying something like, "Her heart thumped. What if he waited inside, in the dark?" Instead of telling us, "He felt as though her words stabbed him", we can stand there on his feet with, "Her words pushed a knife through his heart." "She heard glass breaking on the hard floor," is anemic compared to, "The crash of glass smattering into shards echoed across the floor."

Deep POV shows from inside the character's eyes instead of tells with words like "thought, heard, felt, seemed, and a hundred others.

But, there's another way deep POV is adversely affected. That's by using passive voice. It does the same thing. It uses a lot of extraneous "be verb" words like been, has, have, might, could, should. It also makes heavy use of gerunds,words used as nouns but ending in "ing" like swimming, sewing,skiing, and so on. That's because they're usually paired with passive words like had and has.

Hold it! See me waving at you? I'm like Arnold Horshack on the old '70s Welcome Back Kotter show. Oh! Oh! Pick me! I'm a big offender! Me! Right here! When the editor of my recent manuscript highlighted a word count of my offending, passive, be verbs I almost became sick! Of course, she didn't expect me to eliminate every one. Sometimes we have to use passive voice, for instance while introducing a smidgen of back story. Some scenes beg for it. But most don't, and passive voice not only slows down the action of a scene, it opens the door wide to step out of deep POV.

Here's anexample of a passage written passively, then revised to active voice. Compare, then go on the prowl for passive voice in your own manuscript.

Original:  

   Elaina gazed at the shards of her looking glass lying strewn across the bureau and the floor. She tried to regret smashing the precious mirror, a birthday gift that her pa had given her several years ago. But she was still so angry and hurt that (get rid of "that" like the plague) all she really wanted to do was break something else. She wished she could have taken Jed's heart and dashed it against the wall instead of the pretty piece of crystal quartz he'd given her as a gift.

     Instead, Lainey threw her body across the bed and felt the grief and rage swirl like a river inside her. She plucked at the threads of the hand-pieced quilt her grandma had made and pummeled her fist into her tick as angry sobs broke free.

     She didn't bother to answer the soft tapping on the door, and she said nothing to her mother as Colette let herself into the room. In a moment Lainey could feel Colette sitting down beside her and the gentle caress of her mother's long, graceful hands gliding over her back.

Revised:

     Elaina gazed at the shards of her looking glass lying strewn across the bureau and the floor. She tried to regret smashing the precious mirror, a birthday gift from her pa several years ago, but anger and hurt burned through her, and she really just wanted to break something else. She wished she could take Jed's heart and dash itagainst the wall instead of the pretty piece of crystal quartz he'd once given her. (I left this one, but changed the wording somewhat to not belabor it.)

     Instead, Lainey threw her body across the bed and let the grief and rage swirl like a river inside her. She plucked at the threads of the hand-pieced quilt her grandma made and pummeled her fist into her tick as angry sobs broke free.

     She didn't bother to answer the soft tapping on the door, and she said nothing to her mother when she slipped into the room. A moment later, the bed dipped as Mama sat down beside her. Her long, graceful hands glided over Lainey's back in a gentle caress.

Write on!

I originally intended to post this as a piece on Writing with Rhythm. But the more I wrote, the more I realized I was writing about Voice and Style and noting the ways in which they differed.

       Voice and Style

Voice and Style are not the same thing, and yet we all want to know if we have a voice. What's my writer's voice? The question is always asked. I can't say it any better than Donald Maass who explained it in Writing the Breakout Novel. "By voice I think they mean not only a unique way of putting words together, but a unique sensibility, a distinctive way of looking at the world, an outlook that enriches an author's oeuvre". http://www.maassagency.com/books.html

       Is That My Heart?

To find our voice, we have to tell our story our way. We must let characters be themselves without restriction. We must pour our hearts into our themes. As I look back on the different books I've written, even the unpublished ones, I start to notice trends and troubles in main characters, even though they are very different people. Is that my heart, my voice, leaking out? I think so.

       Structure Reveals

There is still the factor of putting words together in a unique way. I discovered that sentence structure, or the variations of it, is part of my voice - the method I use to tell the story my way. Sometimes I use too many inverted sentences. During revisions, I have to go back and reexamine many of them because passive voice tends to lurk in the lines. Yet, I won't quit writing inverted sentences. It's part of my writing rhythm and ultimately, when my body of work is complete, it will reveal telling things about my voice.

       Emerging Voice

As we find our writing voice -- a process that occurs as we write more -- we start to see our own styles / patterns emerge. We start to set our hearts free. A cadence begins as words flow onto the page. Themes, however subtle, appear, revealing our souls.

Examine your work. Do you see how your way of telling a story is different from the masses? Do you notice trends in style? Do you see your heart, there on the page? If so, you're looking at your voice, speaking back to you. The more you write, the stronger your voice becomes. The more you study craft, the sharper your style develops.

Write on!

Creating a page-turner is every writer's dream, a book that readers can't put down until dawn winks on the horizon and exhaustion claims them. But how do you do that? I've given a great deal of consideration to what makes a page-turner. The result of that contemplation is that we writers have to explore the core of our stories.

Starting with a good idea and traveling the discovery stage is like drawing a line through a puzzle maze from the beginning to the end. But is winding our way through a good plot enough to create a page-turner? To do that we need to create a matrix, a multi-dimensional story grid. We need to study and expose themes that matter to our characters and will resonate with readers.

We need to explore the core of our idea and ask ourselves: what are the larger issues our character is facing? Are they issues of loneliness? Guilt? The loss of a dream? Bitterness and resentment? Humiliation? Fear? Abandonment? Being caught up in an historic event? Then we need to do the same thing for lesser characters in the book. It's when these characters meet and interact, with each of their core issues exposed, that conflict is heightened. (As an excellent example, make sure you read to the end of the post to note the diversity of themes dealt with in the novel I just finished reading.)

The same thing can be said of plot. What is the plot? What will make it richer? Is the question or dilemma we are raising enough to sustain a high level of anticipation on the part of the reader? Do we need to raise more questions? That's probably certain.

Recently, I read an opening that set up the main character having trouble with nightmares. Hopefully, as the book goes on, there is much more to it than that. While her nightmares were horrible, I wouldn't be much compelled to read an entire novel to find out how she gets over them. I paused on page five. I hope that the problem of her nightmares is going to lead to some further revelation soon, or I will have to abandon the novel.

When it comes down to it, story core is established by unearthing its themes and aiming at them while we write. There are many ways to explore your story's core to discover untapped themes. You can use a story-building method like Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method (http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php) or you can "storyboard" using note cards or post-its to arrange scenes. You can even use an old-fashioned outline. Just ask yourself a list of questions to discover whether each scene contains distinct conflict and whether or not it is outward or internal, loud or subtle, and whether or not it is strong enough to keep a reader going further.

You can do the same thing with character worksheets.There are plenty of them available on the internet. Or you can make up your own questions. You might start by asking your protagonist and then your antagonist, What do you most care about? What's your biggest fear? What was your darkest moment? What is your deepest desire -- Physically? Emotionally? Spiritually? What is keeping you from reaching your goal or desire?

Exploring the Core will help you nail down the important themes of the story. Without a strong main theme, and several sub-themes, it won't stick to a reader for long. It'll be nice, but forgettable.

I just finishing Elizabeth Musser's The Swan House. Her prose is rather long-winded and I found aspects of some scenes, especially near the beginning, to be repetitive. It would have been hard to stick with except that she does a superb job of building themes into her story core that created a slow but firm gripping process. In fact, she did it so well that I cried near the end. I loved the way the themes picked up like unbound threads here and there, but wove together into a perfect tapestry at the end. She made me wonder what her first thoughts were as she began conceiving ideas to write this book. Maybe they went something like this:

• I want to write a story about... a young girl coming of age in Atlanta during the civil rights unrest in the early 1960s in which she is torn between her wealthy white upbringing and her friendship with - and attraction to - a poor, young black man.  
• I want to incorporate the tragic plane crash that occurred in Paris in 1961 affecting the lives of thousands of Atlanta's citizens. I'm also intrigued by the famous, historic Swan Mansion and want to somehow include it in the story - even as an image.  
• How does the protagonist meet and develop a relationship with Carl Matthews, the young black man? Ah... through her family's maid whom she'd mostly not given much consideration toward while growing up.  
• Why does she meet him? Oh, yes, her mother is killed in that plane crash. She was a well-known artist, touring in Europe. The protagonist, Mary Swan Middleton  begins going to the inner city with her maid to "help out" at a mission as a means to focus on other people's problems and assuage her grief.
• Oh! And her mother had secrets... she'd been institutionalized and the girl had never been told the truth about her mother. She finds out during a party when another student blurts out that Mary Swan's mother was "crazy".
• It turns out Mom suffered severe, cyclical depression which affected her art.
• Mary Swan is confused about faith, and comes to discover who Jesus is through the work of an inner city mission and a woman who left luxury beind to serve others.
  
• How does she discover the truth about her mother and other secrets harbored in her family's past? Oh, a dare. A tradition of her elite private school -- a mystery that has to be solved by a selected junior classman each year, it's a mystery that winds deeper and deeper and is intricately connected to her own life.
• And on, and on...

Of course, Ms. Musser's thought processes may have worked completely differently, in a dissimilar order entirely, or maybe the complete idea just burst upon her in a dream -- I'm merely guessing. Likely, she wrote pages and pages of notes just to squirrel out the details. But the point is that one thing usually leads to another in a matrix-like novel. Themes emerge, in this case themes of racial injustice, the fragile emotions of teenage girls, the anguish of coping with death and tragedy, depression as an illness, evolving class structure in America, fractured families, salvation and faith, first love, discovering gifts and passions, and others. Ms. Musser surely must have ferreted out these themes and aimed toward them for her book to have come to such a tightly woven finish that it could produce tears! I'm pretty tough.

As writers ask questions of their characters and plant themselves deeply into their story situation, as they imagine all the nuances of era and personalities, as they consider larger issues and deeper human needs, themes and conflict will layer in grid upon grid until a story matrixe merges and a page-turner evolves. So, don't be satisfied with a simple, linear plot, and characters who have no depth of personality . Explore the core.

     I just wrote the last chapter of a book. At the time, I knew it was the last chapter, but when it came to the last sentence, I never saw it coming. Suddenly I said to myself, "Wow, that's it. That's the end." And I didn't leap up and down because you know what? It felt forced.

     The last few chapters of that story literally drained me. I could feel my brain sucking through out a hole in my head where a cap labeled "novel" was not screwed tightly shut. And now it's finished.

     I use the term "finished" very loosely, because in every instance of finishing a WIP I need to edit profusely.  But, in this one, I'll have to go back and really do some serious cutting, slashing, and cyber-burning.Then I'm going to pop up a fresh, white screen and dive into serious rewrites, from scratch if need be.

     I bet you're not envying me!

     So what should you do when a scene is feeling forced?

Stop. Step away from the story. Look at what's happening around you. What books are you reading? Hear any good sermons lately? What's the drama going on in your friendships, family, and on Facebook? Surely in all that, there've been a few words worth grabbing and hanging onto -- a few ideas you can turn over, coat in chocolate mayhem, and plop into your character's worlds.

Try another POV. Is this scene really written best from that character's POV? What would happen if you reconstructed it another way, from someone else's angle? Instead of a woman watching her boyfriend walk out the door leaving her feel lost, aloof, and angry, what if you told it from his side, showing how justified yet nagged with doubt he feels?

Give it a different setting. I admit, I seem to find myself easily sucked into "they're eating dinner when suddenly..." ditches,or "she's lying in bed staring at the ceiling when..." ditches, or some similar pit of same ol, same ol'. When I notice that happening a lot, especially if I'm finding myself getting stuck into a forced scenario, I take it outside. I try to think of someplace new: in a boat on a lake, on a train, in the woods, at a park, in a stranger's house, on a busy street, in a historic building or home. And who else is there? Can there be other people hanging on the fringes of this scene?

Think of a worst-case-scenario. An even more dramatic way to get a scene flowing again is to ask, what is the absolute worst thing that could happen to this person right now? Or what would most surprise them at this moment?

The thing with all forced scenes is there is either not enough conflict going on, or -- in the case of endings -- there is not a big enough pay-off. So always ask, page by page, what's the conflict? What's the pay-off? Why will anybody care? What will raise the stakes and make it better?

Sometimes making these kinds of switches and asking these kinds of questions is like oiling a rusty hinge. You add some options and work them back and forth until the story suddenly gives. You might not even end up keeping the changes. But the act of making them could spark a whole new idea which will get the scene moving forward again.

On an entirely different note, please join me this Friday at Believing is Seeing. http://sandrasookoo.wordpress.com/  I'll be sharing a bit about what makes a book great in my eyes, and discussing the path to writing and publishing The Green Veil with host Sandra Sooku. I'd love to have you!

You've heard it before. Use strong verbs! Still, no matter what your veteran author status, it pays to spend time looking back over your work for better verb choices.

Sometimes when the muse is coiled around our thoughts and we're winging out words a thousand per hour, we become so mentally visual that we might miss conveying a perfect verb just because it seems so apparent in our minds exactly what's taking place. After all, won't the reader see that man spiraling into the canyon breach off the bridge the way we do, or feel our heroine's heart cracking wide open from the infusion of her tears?

It's easy to slip into trite expressions when lost in the throes of a scene. Her heart broke and she was crushed? Blah. Said a million times before. Same with plummeting into space off that bridge. Those are great verbs, don't get me wrong. But context has something to say about it too. Some verbs have been used again and again inside certain contexts.

On another post I mentioned my pet peeve with "he deepened the kiss". That's a really good description. It uses a great verb to help us get the picture and even the feel. Sometimes it's exactly the right choice. But it's growing over-used. It's time we brilliant wordsmiths think of some new verb to talk about that flaming smooch. I'm starting to lose the tingle.

Think of all the common, ordinary, blasé verbs out there: make, do, went, came, looked, fell, leaned... and so on. They slip into our prose almost by accident. Not that we want to become flowery. But, come one. Let's at least paint a clear picture.

He went out the door. A bland sentence like that begs for an adjective describing his manner when going out the door. But don't succumb to adjective temptation! Show his departure with a livelier verb.

He strode out the door (exudes confidence). He rushed out the door (depicts anxiousness or excitement). He marched out the door (hints at anger or authority). He meandered out the door (depicts a relaxed, sloppy, or even playful attitude). He plodded out the door (implies either weariness, laziness or resistance).

You get the idea. You are probably always on the lookout for placing engaging verbs in your stories, but while you're editing, keep a special eye out for dull words that may have interloped their way into your work while your thoughts were somehow otherwise engaged in character or plot.

     Coming up with ideas isn't really very hard. Sometimes they burst upon us in a flash of light. On occasion we literally dream them. In other instances a theme nags at us long enough until finally a character starts growing around it. But having a good idea isn't enough to begin plotting a novel or even winging one by the seat of our pants. Because no matter how inspired we feel, we have to ask ourselves the probing question, what makes this idea unique? Is the story I have in mind as original as I think it is?

   A Novel Idea! 

     It's almost human nature to believe in the uniqueness of our own creative thoughts, and it's in our spiritual natures to understand that we are, indeed, created with individuality. Even so, there is "nothing new under the sun". This makes writing fiction especially challenging. Predictability is bane.  

     A novel is "an extended work of prose" -- fiction, or at least mostly so. But the adjective definition of novel is this: "of a kind not seen before; fresh; new; original."

     Originality is paramount. Therefore, we can't become so mesmerized by, what we perceive to be, the novelty of our idea that we to forget to look at it critically. Yes, it may be as some say, "a heart-breaking work of staggering genius". But then again, maybe it's only our colored glasses that make us think it is. We have to look at our idea through a lens of honesty. Is there truly something fresh here, of a kind / style / voice / theme / character / plot twist not seen before?

     As we go through our paces in the months ahead -- writing, editing, note-booking, gathering wool on our projects -- let's search for a way to tell our stories differently, with a unique voice or a fresh angle. There are plenty of Pride and Prejudices out there. There are enough Lord of the Rings and Star Trek look-alikes. We've told just about every yankee soldier's story, and that of his Civil War bride from the sourth or vise versa.

     Let's write those regencies, fantasies, space operas, and historicals (along with every other genre and then some). But let's not allow them to turn into barely disguised versions and rehashes of those stories and characters everyone recognizes (unless you are intentionally writing another version of the tale and are publicizing it as such).

     I'm about to begin a new project. I have a great idea for a novella -- or, at least I think I do. But first I have to examine it honestly and pick apart it's pieces to really be sure it's fresh and unpredictable.

     There are myriads of ways to cut back on your word count. I know this because I had to cut 20,000 words out of The Green Veil at one point. Besides getting rid of passive voice, excessive adverbs, and so on (which, in some instances, actually cause you to add to the word count by forcing you to do more showing and less telling) there is a smaller, but very effective way to eliminate hundreds -- maybe even thousands -- of words from your manuscript.

     Get rid of excess attribution.

     While you're at it, get rid of any unnecessary wording that points out how a character feels, or looks.

     Back in the day, I learned that he said /she said was the acceptable form of attribution to use. You never used "she squealed" or "he guffawed" when referring to speaking. Editors would say, "You can't guffaw a sentence." But now even the unassuming said is becoming out of vogue, and for good reason. Attribution eats up precious word space, while at the same time removing the reader from the immediacy of the character's deep point of view.

     Instead of a long conversation full of who said what, writers are expected to write with voice and style that keep character conversation flowing in such a way that the reader can keep track of who is speaking simply by the characters' distinct voices and the interspersing of beats which show movement, thoughts, feelings, and so on.

     Take a look at this portion of a scene from my WIP and notice that I never once use words of attribution like said. Yet you can tell by the flow and beats exactly who is speaking and also sense the emotion or movement in the scene, however slight:

     He glanced at her, his eyes as dark and inviting as the cocoa in their drinks.

     "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

     "Because I like to."

     She took a long sip from her mug, closing her eyes behind the steam, absorbing the sweet aroma.

     "Do youever think of going there?"

     "To school?" She set down her mug and harrumphed. "Why would I?"

     "Didn't you think about it when you were with that fellow?"

     "With...oh, you mean Clayton." She shook her head. "It never occurred to me to go to school. I thought that once I married Clay, I'd just be..." she shrugged, "you know... his wife."

     "Seems like a great way to start over."

     She gazed over at the school again, wondering for the first time about what went on inside its brick-walled classrooms. When she looked back, Jamie studied her.

     "You're still staring. But now you have something else going on. I can see it churning around up there in that head of yours." That dark, handsome head.

     "Your mother tells me that you like to teach children."

     "In Sunday school? Yes, I guess that's true. I like telling them stories and helping them learn. I like to do fun, creative things with them."

     "Maybe God wants you to do more than that."

     She straightened her shoulders. "What do you mean?"

     "Maybe you should become a teacher."

     Cori leaned forward. She didn't answer right at first. Jamie's suggestion had both startled and thrilled her at once. A teacher.

     "I -- I don't think I could."

     "Why not? Don't they have a Normal School there?"

     "I just..."

     "A friend of mine who teaches in Eau Claire tells me there are only two in the state." He nodded at the university across the street. "Here you have one of them in your back yard."

     Suddenly Jamie leaned forward, too, and cupped his big hands over hers around her mug."You're smart, Cori. You want something more than waiting under your parents' wings for a husband to come along."

     His touch sent a bolt charging through her, but in the next instant it dissolved. Had she started to think of him beyond what she should? It seemed that he was about to squelch those thoughts.

     She frowned. "You barely know me. What makes you think I could handle Normal School, or that I'd even want to? And what's so bad about wanting to marry?" She flushed. It hadn't come out sounding like she'd hoped.

     He squeezed her hands. "There's nothing bad about it." His dimples winked at her. "But I think you want something else besides."

     Now, what if I had followed the compulsion to include attribution? It would have made for a lot of unnecessary telling and had the effect of pulling readers out of the scene, reminding them that they're peering in on a book instead of encouraging them to live vicariously through the characters themselves. (In the following example I also popped in some other telling words, just to give you a basis of comparison for how much better it is when they're not included. The beats are still there, though when lots of attribution is used, the tendency is to rely on telling and exclude interesting beats.) Take a look:

     He glanced at her. His eyes looked as dark and inviting as the cocoa in their drinks.

     "What? Why are you looking at me like that?" Cori asked.

     "Because I like to."

     She took a long sip from her mug, closing her eyes behind the steam, absorbing the sweet aroma.

     "Do you ever think of going there?" he said suddenly, disrupting her daydream.

     "To school?" She set down her mug and harrumphed. "Why would I?" she wanted to know.

     "Didn't you think about it when you were with that fellow?"

     "With...oh, you mean Clayton," she said. She shook her head. "It never occurred to me to go to school. I thought that once I married Clay, I'd just be..." she shrugged, "you know...his wife."

     "Seems like a great way to start over," Jamie pointed out.

     She gazed over at the school again, wondering for the first time about what went on inside its brick-walled classrooms. When she looked back, Jamie studied her.

     "You're still staring," she said. "But now you have something else going on. I can see it churning around up there in that head of yours." That dark, handsome head. Cori thought about how dark and handsome he looked.

     "Your mother tells me that you like to teach children," said Jamie.

     "In Sunday school? Yes, I guess that's true. I like telling them stories and helping them learn. I like to do fun, creative things with them," she added.

     "Maybe God wants you to do more than that."

     She straightened her shoulders. "What do you mean?" she asked.

     "Maybe you should become a teacher," he suggested.

     Cori leaned forward. She didn't answer right at first. Jamie's suggestion had both startled and thrilled her at once. A teacher.

     "I -- I don't think I could."

     "Why not?" he asked. "Don't they have a Normal School there?"

     "I just..." She didn't know what to say.

     "A friend of mine who teaches in Eau Claire tells me there are only two in the state." He nodded at the university across the street. "Here you have one of them in your back yard."

     Suddenly Jamie leaned forward, too, and cupped his big hands over hers around her mug."You're smart, Cori," he said."You want something more than waiting under your parents' wings for a husband to come along."

     His touch sent a bolt charging through her, but in the next instant it dissolved. She wondered, had she started to think of him beyond what she should? It seemed that he was about to squelch those thoughts.

     She frowned. "You barely know me. What makes you think I could handle Normal School, or that I'd even want to? And what's so bad about wanting to marry?" Cori asked. She flushed. It hadn't come out sounding like she'd hoped.

     He squeezed her hands. "There's nothing bad about it," he answered. His dimples winked at her. "But I think you want something else besides."

     Just look at all the unnecessary words, about 50 of them! There's not a one of them that improves the scene by being there. Beats are where it's at -- body movements, inner thoughts, character expressions, sighs. A little action is worth a load of attribution and moves us into the character's being.

     Also, it's exceptionally easy to use beats when writing an action scene. A good fight, for example, with fists flying and guys stumbling in the dirt, make for some exciting beats. But I chose to use this scene as an example because the couple is merely sitting together, enjoying cocoa and conversation. It proves that even in quiet scenes like this, beats can be easily moved in for show instead of tell.

Write on!

     When my dad goes fishing, he nips the barbs off his hooks to give the fish a "more sporting chance". I don't do that. Dinner is too important. Neither can I afford such a luxury when I write the opening of a novel. Can you?

     The opening hook of a story has to be sharp, able to grab readers and hang on to them despite any temptation luring them to spit it out and let it go.

     Maybe you've already re-written your opening a dozen times, each time defining it to make it sharper, stronger, more compelling. But if not, here's what you need to do.

     Start by asking yourself questions.

•      The hook must first and foremost establish a connection between the reader and a character. It's fine to open with a whizz-bang thrill ride, especially if you're writing an action adventure, but if you don't establish the humanness of your introductory character right away, the action is just noise. Compare it to your real life introductions. When you meet a person for the first time, you either connect with them on a bit of a personal level or you don't. You either want to get to know them more, or they become immediately forgettable. It's the same thing when you introduce your character. Does your character have flesh and produce feeling? You might be able to crawl into this character's skin, but can your reader?
  
•      The conflict introduced in the hook must imply a future black moment worth waiting for. Does it have to be as big as a volcano about to swallow the earth in lava? No, of course not. But the conflict should be compelling either because it's universal, dramatic, desperate, or different. Is yours? Now, here's a problem. I see some writers trying to make their hook so explosive that they center too much on the physical problem, and too little on the character connection. Watch out for that! Remember point #1: readers must care about the character before they care about the problem.
•      Do questions yearn -- no -- do they beg to be answered... or not really? Hooks by virtue of their name must have a barb, despite my dad's fishing habits. If you want to net a reader, you have to ask, does my story's hook contain an adequate cliff-hanger? This doesn't have to be a life or death moment. It might be much more subtle than that, but it absolutely must create a question that demands an answer. Physical, mental, or emotional readers must want to ask what will happen next. Will she make it? Is he trustworthy? Who is that masked man? There's nothing wrong with creating a stirring list of worthy questions in a reader's mind. Remember though, you do know what's going to happen. Your readers don't have the luxury of that context. Look at your opening with clear, unbiased eyes. If you didn't already know what was coming, would you care?
•      Is the opening of your novel burdened with back-story? Back story should be non-existent in the hook, or worked in with such tiny, subtle strokes that the reader absorbs it without noticing. It's better if necessary back-story is worked naturally into the story later on. But ask first, is it really necessary?
•      Is your hook showing what's happening in real time? We writers have been fighting the nemesis of "telling" for a long time. "Show, Don't Tell" is a mantra pasted on our brains. But if we should happen to slip, we'd best be sure we don't do it in the opening. This is where a study of deep point-of-view comes in handy. Make your action immediate, personal, and without telling. Use dialogue that matters. Well... do that all the time. Don't describe the sunset or the weather or a dream.

     Plot is woven when something bad happens, and then it gets worse. That building of suspense heightens throughout the course of the story, climaxing at the blackest moment of all. I would suggest that more than one, single stage of "worse" should happen right in the hook, as well as creating more questions. In my book The Green Veil (A COTT champion for Best Hook) it worked this way.

• Something terrible has happened. Colette has been hurt. She's bruised and in pain.

• To make it worse, she's obviously been thrust into a situation that has her feeling dirty and used. She abhors the way men looked at her last night.

• As an earlier conversation plays through her mind, we discover she had a different past, one that seemed bright and filled with promise. Now she lives with horrible regrets about the choices that led to this place she's in.

• Lastly, we discover that it's her husband who has put her in this place.

     Do you see the questions arising:

• Who has abused her? Why?
• Why does he call call Colette "Vashti"?
  
• Can she ever recapture the past? (What else happened in that past?)
  
• What were the choices that brought her to this place?
  
• What could have happened to make her marry this man?
  
• Is the marriage going to make it?

     Here's a more subtle example.

     In my novella, Heart Not Take  we meet Sean. Right off we know he lives in a cabin on a trout stream and that he's a teacher. Someone is arriving to interrupt his play of a nice fish on his line. He thinks it's one of his three sisters. Conflict arises when the interloper tells him she's been hired by his parents to "make a few improvements" on the property. Throughout the course of the opening, several questions start to arise.

•  Why do a few proposed changes cause Sean to bes o rude and irritable toward this woman?

• Who is Jay and why does Sean resent him?

• Why does Jordyn, who is normally strong, professional, and used to dealing with all types of customers feel like crying so easily today?

• How does both Sean and Jordyn's stumbling faith, damaged by personal assault, play into future possible romance between the two of them?

• What other secret does Sean harbor about his past?

     I hope that by asking yourself these questions and by re-examining your opening with a clear, unbiased eye, you will discover ways to sharpen your prose and set your novel's hook.