Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
Of course you did not know that. It is a standard technique of authors to spend a lot of time with the first paragraph and the beginning of a book because they know that a lot of people read that in book stores. So you were lucky that the rest of the book held the same standard.
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It is not really all that well-known a technique. The majority of authors make the mistake of medium to huge info dumps at the beginning--and yes, this is true of many, many trad authors. The editor's job is to cut the first chapter or two and get to the heart of the story. But there are a lot of writers who think they are writing a great hook even if it says, "She awoke from a dream with a vague feeling of unease and realized she had forgotten to set the coffee maker to start the night before." And then spend 8 paragraphs describing the character making coffee and how important coffee is...while we learn about the color of her robe and where she bought it and how she misses her (divorced husband, late mother, child who moved out, husband who is traveling, cat that died, insert attempt at emotional draw). As if we aren't bored already, we then move to the bathroom scene where we learn her age in the mirror and the color of her hair and gosh, those bags under her eyes...and a continued internal dialogue of why she is (saddened, mad, hopelessly broke, worried, insert small plot device here, but nothing too interesting because author doesn't want to give away too much in the first 3 chapters...)
I cannot tell you how many books I have set aside for this supposed hook you say everyone knows how to write...They are out there in varying degrees. It is a rare mastery of prose that can be description and engaging at the same time, a magic that doesn't occur for an author every time. Nor does it occur for the reader every time, even when the prose doesn't suck terribly. And sometimes those lines come in a flash of no effort, while others you can reword, rearrange...check the thesaurus, overhear a conversation in the grocery story, try that, no it doesn't work, erase the whole thing and realize that the opening is just going to have to start with an ordinary sentence. And you pray the reader will make it to the next one until your brilliance finds its pace all on its own.