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What Are A Short Story's "First Five Pages"?

Addison

Auror
For novels, you have the first five pages to hook and engage the reader. But what about short stories? Or Novelettes? Novellas?

In a short story I'd say you have the first page, or the first X words. For Novelettes and Novellas, Maybe the first two pages or a word count. What do you guys think?
 

elemtilas

Inkling
As a reader, I'd say that for a short story, you basically have the genre, the title and somewhere between the first sentence and first paragraph to attract and keep my attention. E.g., what got me into Lord Dunsany was the single title The Sword of Welleran --- the name is aesthetic and served as a hook; another title was The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth --- something just clicked, a feeling that the style and content would be satisfying and worth reading. Contrary, if you wrote a story entitled Legolas and Gimli Do Broadway . . . enh . . . no. Just no.

If it's not a genre of interest to me... well, that goes without saying. If the title screams "this is a story you really want to read!" then chances are good I'll take the bait. That first paragraph will tell me if the setting and characters and story are something I'll actually care about or be moved by and will therefore become compelled to finish.

Of the three, I think the opening paragraph is the most key.

Oh, almost more importantly than actual word count are basics like spelling, grammar & usage. If you can't be bothered to spell your words right or compose well thought out sentences, then why should I be bothered to read them? (This, of course, goes for longer works as well.)
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Legolas and Gimli do Broadway? I'm in. That could be one helluva vaudeville act too.

I don't read many shorts myself, but I don't give 5 pages automatically to a novel anyhow. Whatever it is for me, it'd probably be the same no matter the length of the work. Get my attention with story and showing you know how to write, and I give another page or two, and we'll see.
 
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Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Anything I say will be pretty arbitrary. Some short stories aren't even five pages long.

For me, since short stories are... well... short, I'll read until it makes my eyes roll, but otherwise, if it's just a vanilla story, I'll go to the end to see if there's a nice pay off. Sometimes there is and the story gets elevated. Other times, nothing with a having some vanilla from time to time.
 
Lately I've been thinking that there are hooks, but there are also lures.

A short story title probably isn't going to hook me, but it might lure me. It could hook me if it gives me a clear indication of what I'll encounter in the story and a decent hint of what I'll have experienced by the time I finish the story–and if those things are something I definitely want to experience. I feel that I am lured by headline links, online; but I'm not sure I can say I am hooked by them.

For the longest time, I've been thinking that a strong, peculiar voice, great prose, an unusual description of the milieu or characters could "hook" me. But are these lures rather than hooks? Maybe these are good to have in order to convince a reader to read until the hook. Maybe if these are strong enough lures, they can serve as hooks. I've sometimes begun reading something that was obviously a powerful voice, or very good prose, or unusual, only to find I end up losing interest for some reason. But I think I'm probably not the best case for creating a universal, because I'm finicky and peculiar.

I bring these things up because my impulse is to say "the sooner the better" vis-à-vis hooks. Why wait 5 pages or 2 pages or 1 page? Heh. But these questions may be influenced by my need for great lures rather than a super-early hook.

What hooks me, makes me want to keep reading to the end, is some kind of indication that the whole journey will be worth the journeying, heh. An interest in the character, the conflict, the hullabaloo. And for me, these things usually require more than a title, a first line, or a first paragraph. Not that they require 20 pages or 50, heh.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Yeah, lures are a good description of things. There might not even be a true "hook" that gets me, just a bunch of lures that keep me swimming into the net, heh heh.
 
Yeah. Mostly, I'm wanting to distinguish between those things that will draw us forward into the next however many paragraphs and the Hook(tm) that sells us on reading the story.

Often I'll see a zippy line, description, opening paragraph, voice, whatever that lures me into reading more, but it's not enough to hook me on the story. I'm at a disadvantage because I'm very easily lured by the odd/unusual, heh. But at the same time, once I've disposed of that, my interest can wane very quickly.

A search for info on hooks will lead to articles and blog posts that seem to support the idea that a zippy first line can hook a reader. I read one yesterday, and the author offered up one of her first lines as an example. I thought, yeah, that's interesting, but it doesn't hook me into the whole story. I might read a little more to see what's what.

I think this is why I'll often see an in media res opening, a crazy one-liner, whatever, but very quickly the enjoyable experience of reading the whole thing peters out; I'm not "hooked," and the effort to lure me (to an eventual hook?) isn't sustained. I sometimes feel the author established that early lure and thought, I'm done hooking now! and moved on, heh.

I've been thinking that things like microtension should be used to draw readers through the whole book. (Cliff hangers might be another example, although it's a special case.) One could just as easily say these are "hooks" also, if we are calling this lure to read the next line, paragraph, chapter a "hook." So I'm asking myself what distinguishes the effect of those great opening lines and paragraphs from these other things, beyond their location at the start of the story?

I agree with you: unbroken luring can suck me into a story. I don't know if this means there isn't a story hook or if it means I've bitten into the hook (or, it has bitten into me) and I just never noticed when that happened, heh.

This line of thinking raises the question for me: What's a story hook, as distinguished from all those lures?

To bring this back to the original OP...I'm guessing the length will depend on how the story is approached by the writer. I suspect that excellent luring can allow a longer delay until the story hook. But some caveats:

Different readers have different expectations and tastes, we could probably guess at delays that will on average be too long for most readers (upper limits), and modern tastes seem to have lower upper limits, heh.

Yeah, lures are a good description of things. There might not even be a true "hook" that gets me, just a bunch of lures that keep me swimming into the net, heh heh.
 
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Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
Let's start another post about this? Lures vs. hooks? I would love to discuss this in further depth.

Fifthview, I think I know the blog post you are describing. Is that the one with the girl MC stealing eggs? If it is the same one then I found the same as you... yeah, ok, it get's me "hooked" for the next few sentences... but so what. I also believe it is more a lure than a hook, and has more to do with microtension than hooking me for the entire story.

Anyone want to create the new post? Or should I do it?
 

elemtilas

Inkling
I agree with you: unbroken luring can suck me into a story. I don't know if this means there isn't a story hook or if it means I've bitten into the hook (or, it has bitten into me) and I just never noticed when that happened, heh.

This line of thinking raises the question for me: What's a story hook, as distinguished from all those lures?

The way I see it, there's really no difference. Any one of those enticing lures can act as a hook for any given reader. For you, it might be the fourth one in, for me, it might take longer. Whereas I had Demesnedenoir at the title! :cool:

We all react to stories differently and will focus on one aspect or another. I don't think that's any different when it comes to attracting and keeping a reader's attention. There does, however, come some indefinable time when I as a reader have enough invested in the story that I'm not going to put it down, but I'd become increasingly annoyed by obvious attempts by the author to continually lure & hook me. Enough already! Time to show me you can do more than just string together random cliff hangers and one lure after another. Lures become repellants.

To bring this back to the original OP...I'm guessing the length will depend on how the story is approached by the writer. I suspect that excellent luring can allow a longer delay until the story hook. But some caveats:

Different readers have different expectations and tastes, we could probably guess at delays that will on average be too long for most readers (upper limits), and modern tastes seem to have lower upper limits, heh.

Agreed. It takes Tolkien something four or five books just to get down to the main story. Now, I don't mind that at all: I like that kind of long exposition, in depth description, revelation of deep levels of history and twining together of leading-up-stories. Others may find all that tedious.

I guess what you're saying here is a writer has to much more aware of reader trends and how to play into them?
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Hook, lure, microtension... curious and related things. I'm going to pick on Name of the Wind again, heh heh. And of course, all my opinion, no offense to folks who love it.

For me, I recall things floating in the water, but they were worms, not pizza. So, being a pizza-loving fish I turned away. Eventually, I wanted to try and figure out why people liked the book, so I determined I would read it. After a while, I just sort of kinda started going from lure to lure thinking this isn't so bad, I'm not going to eat anything, but we'll see what happens next. Then! Just as Rothfuss had gotten a little bit interesting he yanked the lure away before I'd even really opened my mouth. But determined, I read past that section in agony (just keep swimming, just keep swimming, there must be a reason people like this book). The bait was barely back in view through murky waters, when he yanked the pathetic, soggy worm away again. As an easily bored fish, I said "whatever" and went to read Red Dragon instead.

Someday I might pick it up again, since I paid for it twice, damn it! And I'm still curious what people like.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
What if it's not actually lures but rather an absence of obstacles that keeps you reading? It's kind of the same thing, except the other way around. Or is it?
If there aren't any obstacles getting in the way, we'll continue reading.

-=-=-

One thing I think is really important in writing is the concept of first impression. I've mainly thought about it when it comes to writing descriptions, but I believe it applies in this case as well. I tend to think that in writing you have until the reader has to (or gets to, whichever comes first) pause for breath to make your first impression - one paragraph, a long sentence, a few lines of conversation.

After that the first impression is formed.

Perhaps when it comes to stories, you can think of this first impression as of making a promise. Once you've made this promise you need to show that you can (and will) deliver on it. How long you have for that probably varies a bit, but I think that's more about who you are as a storyteller than on the length of the story.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
There are obstacles in the way of lures, LOL. Open water and a tasty lure are the way to go.

Now an opposite example: I have no recollection of anything Sanderson did to hook me into Mistborn, but his writing and story-telling didn't get in the way either, so I went ahead and finished the first book. I doubt I'll ever read past that, but hey, I had no trouble reading it. So, Sanderson just kinda lured me along until I felt committed, heh heh.
 
The way I see it, there's really no difference. Any one of those enticing lures can act as a hook for any given reader. For you, it might be the fourth one in, for me, it might take longer. Whereas I had Demesnedenoir at the title! :cool:

I'm currently thinking there's a big difference.

I'll tie this back into the OP's question. How soon (or at least upper limit) must we have the story hook for various formats?

If lures and story hooks are basically the same, then a) why on earth wouldn't we go with "first line/paragraph" everytime for every format, and b) if we do answer third paragraph, third or fifth page, then what the heck is all that stuff before it? Heh. What's the purpose of all the stuff before it?

I'd propose that story hook should be something like what I mentioned in my first comment:

What hooks me, makes me want to keep reading to the end, is some kind of indication that the whole journey will be worth the journeying, heh. An interest in the character, the conflict, the hullabaloo.​

Okay, so today I started thinking about log lines. Log lines are basically how you attempt to hook an investor, i.e. someone in position to buy your script. (The term could be used for any short hook and is also used outside the movie industry.) Usually, you'll want a set of elements in the log line like character, conflict, stakes, premise: basically, this is what the story is about, presented in a way that will hook someone into the whole story. It tells the fish this is not only something shiny and fluttery enough to check out but something that will be tasty and promises to satisfy a hunger.

If a story hook is something like this, then the purpose of all the stuff before it is to provide the context for the hook. It's what's necessary for making the hook...hook, heh.

An example. There's a myth (I'll call it that at least) that starting a book with high-octane action is a great hook. Two men are having a swordfight to the death, and one of those men is the POV character. But if this character isn't one I already know, then why would I care what happens to that character? How can the stakes be very interesting if the only stake is "Someone I don't know is having a sword fight and might die." That's kind of a generic stake; yeah, people die in sword fights in fantasy fiction, yadda yadda yawn yawn. I might be lured into reading more if the writing is good, but I'm not sure, at that point, this is ever going to be a character I'll care about, let alone a story I'll desire to finish.

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.

Anyway, this is where my mind is right now.
 
Yeah, that was one of the blog posts I read, but there were others that approached the idea similarly.

If you want to start a new thread, go for it! I've been contemplating these within the framework of the OP, already; but sometimes, establishing the context for the questions, wrapping my mind around them, leads me into this sort of long-winded approach, hah.

Let's start another post about this? Lures vs. hooks? I would love to discuss this in further depth.

Fifthview, I think I know the blog post you are describing. Is that the one with the girl MC stealing eggs? If it is the same one then I found the same as you... yeah, ok, it get's me "hooked" for the next few sentences... but so what. I also believe it is more a lure than a hook, and has more to do with microtension than hooking me for the entire story.

Anyone want to create the new post? Or should I do it?
 
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Addison

Auror
Wow did this take off, albeit on a detour. :)
Tangent to both subjects, short story lengths and hooks vs lures, articles say that short stories should essentially be the climax of a longer story. So let's use Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone as an example.

So the short story version would start...when Harry finds Quirrel and end after the discussion with Dumbledore.
The novela would start when Harry Ron and Hermione jump through the trap door and end after the House Cup dinner at latest, end of Harry's time in the Hospital Wing at soonest.

This has proven helpful as, with my short story, I've been struggling with which spot to begin. So my looking at it as a longer story, like a novel, I'm able to better locate the climax and adjust my story accordingly.

....Sudden thought (using the Harry Potter example), let's say you bought the short story version and J.K Rowling published a Novela version. This means more characters, more action and so forth. Would you be interested? Or would the short story be satisfying enough? Apply this thinking to all your favorites, and imagine if you hadn't read the novels before.
 
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