| Some years back, before I made the commitment
to sit my arse down and really write, my good
friend Wendy set out a challenge to me. Take an
online romance writing course being offered by
multi-published Harlequin author, and fellow Canadian,
Vanessa Grant. Begrudgingly, I agreed, and never
looked back.
One of the sections in the course dealt with
opening hooks and the power they have to either
grab your reader or make them close the book and
put it back on the shelf.
Everyone is different and what appeals to me
might not appeal to you, but when Vanessa offered
up this opening line of a romance novel, I had
to read the whole book:
"Being dead didn’t make Jack Mercy
less of a son of a bitch."
Many of you might recognize this line, either
because you've read the book, or you've heard
me go on ad nauseum about it, but I'm telling
you, this line changed my life. It is, of course,
the first line in Nora Roberts’s Montana
Sky, which has become one of my all-time
favorite books. One I recommend to all and am
happy to read over and over again.
Just reading that line made me think "holy
crap!" and I wanted—no, NEEDED—to
read more. Who was Jack Mercy and why did everyone
think he was a son of a bitch? Surely, I thought,
he must have some redeeming qualities about him,
so I'm going to keep reading until I find out
what they are. Of course, through the pages of
the story, I sort of lost track of trying to redeem
the sonuvabitch and focused more on the main and
subplots that were unravelling around me. It truly
is classic Roberts.
With so many books being published these days,
and with the price of books steadily increasing,
if you want your book to make its way to the cash
register, you need to hook your reader right from
the get go. You can't afford to start your book
with a wishy-washy opening line. Readers want
the biggest bang for their buck and I think it's
a fair guess to say most will bypass a book that
starts out "It was a beautiful day"
and move right on to finding out about Jack Mercy.
To quote from Vanessa Grant's book Writing
Romance, she says:
"From examining my own reactions as I read
other writers' books, I learned that the curiosity
stirred by the first few words of a book needn't
be monumental. It can concern something quite
trivial, as long as it relates to the larger story
in a meaningful way and makes me wonder "what
next?"
Let's examine these two opening hooks:
"Claire Aldrich counted the splattering
of coins on the white bedspread."
~ A Gentlemen's Bargain by Patricia Waddell
"Two days after his twelfth birthday, his
mother died of a sudden stomach ailment and took
with her the last thin thread of his identity."
~ The Gunn of Killearnan by Dorice Nelson
Pat's opening line immediately makes me wonder
why Claire is counting coins. What does she need?
She obviously doesn't have much money, given the
description Pat writes, but yet Claire obviously
needs money for something specific. What? We also
gather (through assumption) that she doesn't have
enough for whatever it is she needs, so we're
left wondering: What will she do (or HAVE to do)
to get enough money? And, as such, we will continue
to turn pages.
In Dorice's opening, notice that we don't learn
'his' identity. His mother took it with her, remember?
I thought that was brilliant when I read it. But
besides that, we're also left feeling horrible
for this poor young boy. Here he is, a child,
and his mother has died before ever revealing
to him who his father is—or was. So now
we want to know—who IS this boy? Who was
his father? And whatever will become of this poor
lad now?
Sure as heck beats "It was a beautiful day,"
doesn't it?
Laura Drewry is a new member of GVC and, with
the help of her opening hooks, recently sold her
first and second books. This article was originally
printed in the May/June issue of the RWA Online
Newsletter, LoveBytes, and is reprinted
with permission.
Articles may be reprinted in RWA® chapter
newsletters, attributed to the Spotlight.
Non-RWA® newsletters may not reprint articles
without the permission of the authors.
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