Casting the Bait: What lure should I use and how should I use it?

[Heliotrope]

We have all heard the term "hook" when it comes to writing fiction.

Make sure you have a hook in the first sentence, paragraph, chapter, first five pages, first thirty pages, whatever.

But sometimes, when we look at real world examples, we find the books we love have hooked us a whisper, and some of the books we have put down started with an enormous bang.

So what constitute a good "hook" and how does one use it?

Where should the hook take place?

If the hook comes at the end of a long line, how do we lure the reader to keep reading until they get there?

How does micro-tension fit into all of this? What about voice? Humor? Writing style?

 

[Heliotrope]

My own personal opinion is that the "hook" is the big, over arching question in the back of the reader's mind that will take the entire novel to solve.

Don't present a hook, then solve it in the next chapter. To me, the "hook" is the promise to the reader that "this will be a good story." "This will be an interesting mystery." Don't answer the question until almost the very last page.

An example of a "hook" for me would be:

What gigantic monster just devoured that park worker, and how will they stop it? - Jurassic park.

Will the inhabitants of Westeros be able to figure out who belongs on the Iron Throne before winter comes and the White Walkers destroy them all? - Game of Thrones

How will Moana return Tephiti's heart to her and restore life to her island? - Moana

Will this strange and magical British Nanny be able to save this falling apart family? - Mary Poppins

Will this Orphan boy ever get revenge on the evil Wizard who killed his parents? - Harry Potter

These are all large, over arching questions which take THE ENTIRE FILM or novel to solve. To me, this is the "hook".

Anything else, all the little bits of microtension or tense scenes or turns of phrase, are all lures. Small little sparkly things that keep leading us along. But really, we read because we want to know the answer to the large, over arching story question.

This is what I think editors/agents mean when they say "The hook isn't big enough." I think they mean the story question isn't big enough. Not interesting enough. It doesn't matter. Not big enough stakes or emotional investment.

Thoughts?

 

[Heliotrope]

Oh, and Dem, my opinion on Name of the Wind was that it was a pretty string of lures which did not meet my expectation on delivering on the hook. Therefore, I liked reading it, but hated the story and wouldn't read it again.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

There are just different types of hooks. When people say hook, they often mean first line/paragraph, they might mean the last line, whatever keeps you reading for that moment. But as you suggest, there is another hook. In The Story Grid, Coyne (if I recall correctly) uses the term hook for the first act... this is probably more accurate for how think of the greater story hook. If no hook is set by the end of act 1, yer screwed! See my trying to read Rothfuss. This is where lures, or the screenwriting term I like, plates in the air come into play... these are the questions/microtensions that keep me reading.

EDIT: Here's another point that causes problems for me. In books on writing, such as Stein on Writing, he (they) often list great opening lines, and while I don't see a flaw with most of them, and some are good, my typical response to them is very neutral, and even "meh". So, the power of the first line is really about how the novel paid off that opening, not how good the opening actually is.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

If pretty lure is his prose, I'll grudgingly concede, the guy can write better than many. I never felt the hook, so there's no way it could deliver. I might eventually read it, because I am curious. And I did buy it twice for the purpose of study... And I'd rather read War and Peace again, and it was not my fave.

Oh, and Dem, my opinion on Name of the Wind was that it was a pretty string of lures which did not meet my expectation on delivering on the hook. Therefore, I liked reading it, but hated the story and wouldn't read it again.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yeah, I felt like the "Hook" was (and It's been a while) something about some bad guy who murdered his parents in his "troupe" who was looking for something (I can't remember what.)

So I read the entire book waiting for Kvothe to learn magic so he could avenge the bad guy.... but nothing happened. He went to magic school and fought a dragon and he did not deliver on the promise he made to me (the reader) at the beginning. It felt like an enormous waste of time and a huge let down.

The "Hook" for me was the bad guy who orphaned him. It was never explained or mentioned again.

 

[Steerpike]

The "Hook" for me was the bad guy who orphaned him. It was never explained or mentioned again.

This issue arises often with novels that are not stand-alone or self-contained stories. Kvothe continues to look for this person, from what I recall, and I suspect we'll see that wrapped up in book 3, probably at the very end, so that the three books together complete the arc.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Yeah, I made it to that point, and that's where the story (Finally! and I hate the word finally, but it fits here, heh heh) got interesting for a little while. He got beat up in the city and I was curoius. Then Rothfuss just goobered everything up. When a character (in 3rd) begins to recite his life (in 1st) and while in 1st recounts another person's 3rd person tale, and seeing as I wasn't hooked at all to tolerate this... I was gone baby gone... I think it was the second time he started telling a story of someone else telling a story. I couldn't take it anymore.

EDIT: My personal opinion is it should've been restructured and rewritten. I can't speak to the ending and promises, as Steerpike says, it's a book 1.

Yeah, I felt like the "Hook" was (and It's been a while) something about some bad guy who murdered his parents in his "troupe" who was looking for something (I can't remember what.)

So I read the entire book waiting for Kvothe to learn magic so he could avenge the bad guy.... but nothing happened. He went to magic school and fought a dragon and he did not deliver on the promise he made to me (the reader) at the beginning. It felt like an enormous waste of time and a huge let down.

The "Hook" for me was the bad guy who orphaned him. It was never explained or mentioned again.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Here's a big IF, since Helio's memory might be imperfect, but if it's "never mentioned again" and it is the final payoff for book 3, that in itself would be an issue. Callbacks and foreshadow should keep things moving in that direction.

This issue arises often with novels that are not stand-alone or self-contained stories. Kvothe continues to look for this person, from what I recall, and I suspect we'll see that wrapped up in book 3, probably at the very end, so that the three books together complete the arc.

 

[Steerpike]

Here's a big IF, since Helio's memory might be imperfect, but if it's "never mentioned again" and it is the final payoff for book 3, that in itself would be an issue. Callbacks and foreshadow should keep things moving in that direction.

It does come up again. At the end of the first book, Kvothe is still looking for this guy, and I'd say kind of obsessed with him for obvious reasons. He goes off to investigate some other killings that he thinks are related, which I think turns out to be true. He's gathering clues related to it, and if I remember correctly it turns out the second killings were basically for the same reason his parents were killed.

It has been a while since I read it, but I think that's pretty accurate. I can't say what happens in the second book, as I haven't read it.

 

[FifthView]

My own personal opinion is that the "hook" is the big, over arching question in the back of the reader's mind that will take the entire novel to solve.

Don't present a hook, then solve it in the next chapter. To me, the "hook" is the promise to the reader that "this will be a good story." "This will be an interesting mystery." Don't answer the question until almost the very last page.

Now I'm wishing I'd saved one of my last comments in that other thread for this thread.

I'd mentioned there that the log line is a good example of a hook. Maybe not as written, but rather in the types of things included. A character we'll care about, conflict, stakes, general premise.

In a way, this is like the question that so obsessed the viewers of The Truman Show:

Before that question can become important to us, we need some idea of character, conflict, stakes.

In the other thread, I'd used the example of opening a novel with some high-octane action. A swordfight to the death between two men, and we happen to be in the head of one of those men. If this character is new to us, we can't really care much about him unless a lot of character is built into that scene. The stakes? Someone we don't know might die; but then again, swordfights in fantasy novels always have that generic stake. The conflict? Heh, we might not have a clue as to why they are fighting. So it's not really a great hook. Perhaps it can be a lure if written well.*

Instead, maybe we need some time to introduce the character, the milieu, the scope/consequences of stakes, and so forth: a context for the hook. Put our POV character into a swordfight after these things, and that might be a far better hook, or part of the hook—as long as it's tied into that larger question of the whole story. Maybe it's that fight that brings all these elements together, into focus. (This would be a story-specific example though.)

We could also do a roll-out of those elements of the hook rather than generally introducing characters and milieu and having those things coming to a head in a single moment. I like D.'s mention of having a whole act as a hook. It could be a whole prologue. Five pages. At some point, these elements may combine to give us the whole hook, but not in a single sentence heh.

None of this is to say that lures are, by comparison, unimportant. I rather think they are incredibly important.

Edit: Incidentally, Svrtnsse also mentioned "the promise" made to the reader, in the other thread. I can't help thinking that making that promise is important to building the hook.

*Edit#2: And perhaps the swordfight can be a great opening hook, if these important elements are baked into it, written into it. The example was just a top-of-the-head stereotypical "in media res" action scene that can often fail as a hook.

 

[FifthView]

I think I'll just add this bit here, from that other thread.

I've been mulling the question in that thread: How soon should you present the hook?

For me, when considering that question in light of the hook vs lures distinction, I began to wonder what all that stuff before the hook is; what's the purpose of the delay?

I think that maybe that stuff's essentially the context for the hook, the time necessary for introducing the important elements of the hook. And I wrote this:

How much time is needed to establish the context for the hook might vary. For a short story, you'll have much less time overall than you'd have for a novel, so introducing the character, the milieu, the conflict, the stakes will need to be accomplished early. If a novel has a fairly straightforward, simple plot, you might be able to introduce the hook without much contextual building first, especially if the characters are already familiar: When Gimli and Legolas decided to do an off-Broadway production of Cats, little did they know they'd be killing Tribbles. Other types of stories might require more before the hook, or the elements that'll combine for the hook might be rolled out more slowly.​

So, taking a stab at this...format (short story, novel), complexity/simplicity of the plot/story/theme, maybe even personal style and target audience might play into the decision. (BTW, I'm not really sure that first line for Gimli & Legolas's adventure is a fully formed hook, heh. No real stakes mentioned. I might work that into the next sentence or two.)

 

[Heliotrope]

Yes, I think, more and more, that that "promise" is the hook.

Let's pretend I pick up a book at the library. It has a black cover with the image of an open bank vault. The vault is empty save for a burned piece of paper.

The title of the book is "The Monogram Cipher".... Or something.

I think "ohhhhhhh!" It's a mystery!

Then I open the book and start reading. It is set in 1920. A duchess has lost her lands and is being charged for the murder of her husband and his lover, who she found together in her bed. She shot both of them.

Or did she?

One of the maids knows a secret. A secret that her family has held since the beginning of the estate five hundred years earlier. The key to the secret lays in the design of the families crest, which is monogrammed in various areas throughout the estate...

Will the maid be able to discover the truth and help her mistress? Or will the entire estate be sold, with the secret still hidden inside?

Ohhhhhhhhh! A hook! I'm in. I need to find out how this is all going to play out!

Let's pretend, because it's me, there is a sexy groundskeeper or something so the writer has promised me a bit of romance as well.

But then half way through we find out that the mansion has been over run by zombies, or aliens, and the groundkeeper gets killed right away, so no chance of romance, and NOT the story I was promised.

M. Night Shayamalyan gets in trouble for this all the time. I personally really liked The Village, but a lot of people hated it. When I saw it in theaters people walked out because it was not what they had been promised. They had been promised a monster movie. A horror. They felt cheated.

(*I had been dragged there by my horror loving husband, who was very disappointed. I hate horror so I was relieved, which is why I probably liked it so much lol).

That is what happens when you don't deliver on your hook.

So I think Dem is right. Act 1 is the hook. The first 25% of the novel is setting up the hook.

So in a novel that might be 25,000 words.

In a short story of only 8 pages then it will be the first 2 pages.

Now, to start "in media res" with my above example, I might start the first chapter with the Duchess being interrogated for murder. Then I've set a lure. It's a nice, shiny, interesting beginning to get the readers involved and engaged and asking questions while I have time to set up the back story and the context and stab them through the throat with the actual hook once they are invested in the character.

 

[Aurora]

Hm. This is why I pants. I'm able to focus more on the tension of one character wants one thing, the other character wants another, and then there's the plot. The hook is so important because it fuels the story and everything stems from it: tension, char growth, mystery, irony, and so forth. It should be clear to the reader what the hook is from the beginning, first couple of pages. Everything else works together to keep the reader entangled. So the setting, characters, dialogue, decisions made, the in between. I cannot do this and outline. I can only do this when I have an idea for a book and go forward with it, but that's just my way. So long as you have a way that works for you it's all that counts.

It took me ages to understand the concept of a hook. Now I see it as what tropes are being used in what plot structure (master plots) and how the characters react to the plot. The tropes are the characters, created individually by a writer's fresh perspective and individuality.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Not only are there different types of hooks, but multiple hooks in any complex novel. I think this is why looking at the first act as the hook can be useful. Every plot and subplot needs a "lure/hook" to eventually form multiple promises/hooks, which will mostly fall into the First Act... making the 1st basically a great big hook.

 

[Svrtnsse]

This is great. It's getting me thinking on how to set up my wip from a hook/promise perspective.

My current WIP is a rather long series of shorter stories. They all involve the same characters and they're all parts of the same overarching story.
What I'm thinking here is that in order to set up the reader's expectations right I need to make a promise in the first story and then deliver on that throughout the rest of the series. The promise is fairly simple (guy goes looking for his long lost love), but I think that in order to add some weight to the promise I need to get my readers better involved with my main character (the guy).
To get my readers properly involved with the characters, I need them to read the first story, and for them to do that I need to hook them in some way. So I'll need two hooks (or two promises): one for the first story of the series, and one for the series as a whole.

For reference, here are the hooks/promises as I see them at the moment:
- Story: Roy, a werewolf wrestling champion, is requested to lose his next big fight, but will his morals let him do that?
- Series: Roy finds out that the love of his life (whom he thought years dead) is still alive, and he drops everything to travel across the world to see her.

These aren't super advanced or very inventive or original, but I feel they've got strength enough in their simplicity that I can hang up a lot of story on them.

 

[FifthView]

I am not convinced that the story hook must be the entire first act. When you mentioned this earlier, I liked the idea because I thought it could be the first act or require that much time to be presented. But if a short story's hook could be two pages, why not a novel's? Then again, a short story's first two pages might be the first act of a short story, hah.

My current thinking is that the hook requires certain elements, and we only need as much time as necessary for establishing and presenting those elements. Different genres and different story archetypes may have different requirements.

I'm also not sure that thinking in terms of multiple hooks will be helpful, although it might be for some story types (not sure; just throwing the question out there.) I think we enter into a fuzzy realm when we consider simple presentation of the base elements of a hook vs the type of presentation that will make a reader care about those things. Character, conflict, stakes could be presented very quickly but in a way that doesn't make readers care very much about those things; so, how much time will we need to write those things in a manner that will engage? Adding to the fuzziness will be the use of recognizable tropes. Tropes by their nature are not only recognizable without much ado but also may quickly hit the right buttons to inspire interest/engagement for a reader.

Not only are there different types of hooks, but multiple hooks in any complex novel. I think this is why looking at the first act as the hook can be useful. Every plot and subplot needs a "lure/hook" to eventually form multiple promises/hooks, which will mostly fall into the First Act... making the 1st basically a great big hook.

 

[FifthView]

This is great. It's getting me thinking on how to set up my wip from a hook/promise perspective.

Yeah, this discussion is having the same effect on me re: my own WIP.

While I think discussing these things in the abstract is immensely fun—maybe I'm a writing nerd—practical application is really what I'm looking for, heh.

 

[Steerpike]

It may be useful to distinguish between types of hooks or lures when we're talking about an entire act of a book constituting a "hook." While I can see how an act can be structured that way, I'm not in favor of the first acting being "the" hook.

Maybe it is just semantics, but I think of the words "hook" and "lure" as aspects of a book that entice me to try it and then convince me actually settle into reading it. If the author takes the entire first act to "hook" me, I'll be long gone. I'll give a novel a few pages at most. If something hasn't hooked me by then, it goes back on the shelf and I'll buy something else.

Maybe we're just using the terminology differently.

 

[FifthView]

Let's pretend, because it's me, there is a sexy groundskeeper or something so the writer has promised me a bit of romance as well.

But then half way through we find out that the mansion has been over run by zombies, or aliens, and the groundkeeper gets killed right away, so no chance of romance, and NOT the story I was promised.

M. Night Shayamalyan gets in trouble for this all the time. I personally really liked The Village, but a lot of people hated it. When I saw it in theaters people walked out because it was not what they had been promised. They had been promised a monster movie. A horror. They felt cheated.

(*I had been dragged there by my horror loving husband, who was very disappointed. I hate horror so I was relieved, which is why I probably liked it so much lol).

That is what happens when you don't deliver on your hook.

Introducing Shyamalan as a case history is interesting. I was actually listening to an old Writing Excuses podcast a day or two ago in which he was brought up exactly in this context, not delivering on promises. I think there may have been another element in that podcast. Shyamalan had this big mystery buildup and forced so much weight on what would happen in the third act, but the third act just kinda petered out and, on some level, was predictable. (I.e., the mystery wasn't some explosive reveal but just kinda one of those curling party horns, whatever they're called.)

Anyway....I do think we should distinguish the hook from the promise in one small way at least. Simply not delivering on a promise is not necessarily an indication that the hook-as-promise was bad. It might have been; perhaps there should have been a different promise/hook to begin with. But maybe it was a great hook and simply poor execution in the third act.