HOW TO WRITE THE PERFECT HOOK

Writing that first chapter can be brutal. Hooking your audience, introducing your characters, worldbuilding, creating that inciting incident. Where do you even start? It can be overwhelming. Here are some tips and tricks that'll have your readers falling in love with your work before they've even made it out of the bookstore.

You'll hear that the first line of your novel is the most important, I would give you slightly different advice. Broaden that to your first chapter. This isn't because that chapter is going to be the best chapter in your book, or the one that your readers will go back to time and time again. It is because this chapter will be the only one many people will read. It doesn't matter how great the rest of your book is if it gets put down within the first few pages. So, hooking your readers in early on is incredibly important.

Here are a few tips on creating the perfect beginning for your novel.

• Create intrigue

Have your character start out by making an interesting decision. Throw them out of their regular routine and give them an action or snippet of dialogue that catches your attention. Maybe they go against obvious social norms, or do something that your readers wouldn't expect. Then, don't explain it for a few pages. Maybe it is foreshadowing and won't be addressed again until much later in your book, but creating that moment of intrigue for readers will give them a reason to keep reading. Leave a question unanswered for them to mill over.

• Start your novel as close to possible to your inciting incident

Maybe that first sentence is the beginning of the incident that is going to set up your main conflict that the protagonist will overcome throughout your novel. Maybe you want to do a little bit of interesting worldbuilding first or let your readers see more of their typical life before it starts. But make sure you don't drag it on for chapters before anything interesting happens. If your readers are bored before they've even made it through the first chapter, you have a problem.

• Drop your reader into your world

Believe it or not, you really don't have to introduce your characters all up front. If you try to start out with a long physical description of your characters and lay out their entire past lives for your reader in the first chapter, it isn't going to go well. First of all, you haven't given your reader a reason to care yet. Second, you are oversharing. You don't get to know people that way naturally, you learn piece by piece and have intimate moments with people that show who they really are. This goes back to show, don't tell. Having your reader dropped into your world and showing, not telling, them what is going on is much more compelling. Your reader isn't stupid, they'll catch on quickly based on your characters' words and actions. It's all about context clues and painting around the picture you are really trying to show.

*Another word of related advice, if you are writing in first person, don't let your reader know more about another character than the POV would!

• Don't go overboard with inner monologue

Don't go too deep into your character's thoughts in the opening chapters. There shouldn't be much time for them to think, let them operate on instinct. Again, if your reader doesn't have a reason to care about how your characters are feeling or thinking, you are only going to bore them. These first few scenes are all about action. Yes, you are going to need to introduce some characters, and you have to do some worldbuilding, but once you have those basic components, you have to start that inciting incident.

• Avoid clichés

There are some beginnings that are considered very cliché and are generally just not a great way to start a story. You can find lists of them online, but a few that I see most commonly are starting with your character waking up, starting with an onomatopoeia, and starting with a summary of your world or characters.

• End strong

You should end your first chapter with a bang. Maybe you end on a cliffhanger in the middle of your inciting incident, or you introduce a new character that has the potential to change everything, or maybe it's something entirely different. Regardless, your reader needs a reason to keep going. You need to leave things teetering, or even shattered. Leave loose ends untied so your reader isn't satisfied until they turn the page. Once they've agreed to bite into that second chapter, the chances of them finishing your book skyrocket compared to what they were.