How Writing a Good Hook is like Running a Good Con

Recently, I've been watching the show Leverage, and because I have also recently read the first 5 thousand words of 59 separate novels, I've been thinking about what makes a good hook. There were a few that had me by the first line, others that had me by the end of the first paragraph, and still others that didn't really have me until the end of the first chapter.

Was one more "right" than the other? I don't think so. They all accomplished the same thing, which was to keep my attention well enough that the urge to continue reading was irresistible. So, what is the secret to writing the perfect hook?

The short answer is easy: there is none.

There is no single thing that ensures your hook will be a good one. There are no hard and fast rules to depend on because it's the execution of the thing that gives it an edge. A good hook is good because it does something (maybe a lot of somethings) really well and defies the reader to look away.

The longer answer isn't so easy, which is why I'm leaning on Leverage (oh, how soon the bad jokes begin...) to help me out.

For the purposes of this metaphor, the writer is the con-artist and the novel is the con and the reader is, you guessed it, about to get conned.

As anyone who watches Leverage knows, a good con begins before any interaction between the con-artist and the con-ee, which is to say, the con begins before the reader ever sees the first line of the novel. This is the exciting time when the reader is looking forward to something sweet or exciting or intense. They want to get something out of the time they're about to commit to reading, in essence, this makes them an Easy Mark. The con begins when the reader decides to do what they love - read.

Enter the Grifter aka The Oh-so-important First Line
The Grifter comes in with a smile and lovely perfume and says, "I want to show you something... it's a secret. But I can tell by that stack of books behind you that you're the kind of person I can trust. Won't you take a peek?"

Like the Grifter, the first line makes a promise to the reader about what's to come. This is the time for you to bait the hook, to whet the appetite of the reader, and to show them that there is something here worth sticking around for. It's an offering, a hint, and a tease all at once. A delicate balance of information and mystery! And they are worth working hard on because they are what will get your reader to invest - time, effort, energy and imagination - into your story.

And this is where things start to get real.

Enter the Hacker aka Building Your World
You never see the Hacker. He's behind the scenes, pulling strings and staying two steps ahead. He's the guy opening doors and building bridges from disbelief to belief. He's the guy who says, "I'm gonna rock your world and you'll never even know my name."

Yeah. He's cocky like that.

These are the lines that immediately follow the first. This is the time to follow the promise and the tease of that first line with something more concrete. The set is built around the reader and it's the Hacker's job to make them think it's as real the world they live in. Be convincing because this is the backbone of the trap. If they can see where the Hacker has fallen down on the job (leaving gaps in your world-building), they're less likely to trust the story before them. So, ground the reader completely because it's time to steal their hearts.

Enter the Thief aka the Prancing Princess of Plot
Using groundwork laid by the Hacker, the Thief makes the promise of the first line come to life before your eyes. She really works in concert with the Hacker, but she gets her own section because I'm forcing an inorganic metaphor onto an organic process. In reality, this is all extremely messy and entangled, but I like the illusion of order.

So! The Thief weaves a trap as the reader moves deeper into the story, she moves quickly and quietly so that even if they catch a glimpse of her, they didn't realize what she was up to. She does the impossible and says, "It really wasn't impossible. See?" She defies expectation! She balances upside down, on one hand, while breaking into a vault! She leaves little pieces of plot around and thanks to the work of the Hacker, they tantalize and excite because they are not what we expected to find. Exciting!

But what now? Why should the reader care?

Enter the Hitter aka The Stakes
The Hitter doesn't smile. He doesn't apologize for who he is and he doesn't wear pink. In fact, the Hitter doesn't even speak. Frankly, he'd rather punch you in the gut.

This is the guy that convinces the reader that the con isn't fooling around. This is a story that means business and it's not the sort you wanna look away from. This is the time to show the reader what it is about this story that matters. They've already got the set-up, now it's time to introduce the stakes. The Hitter doesn't back down, he bumps everything up a notch until we have urgency! Tension! A reader who is eager and (if the Hitter has his way) even a little terrified.

And so...

Enter the Mastermind aka The Final Note
With all the work that's come before, there seems little left for the Mastermind to do. But his is the crucial moment. The very end of that first chapter, the fulfillment of the promise dropped by the Grifter, the realization of the work done by the Hacker, the Thief, and the Hitter. The Mastermind tracks all of these things and delivers the final note. He sweeps in at the end with a devilish and satisfied grin and says, "Right this way." Because if he and his team have done their work well, then the reader will be helpless. They will thank the Mastermind and move right along to chapter two as if it was their intention all along.

So there you have it. My round about way of saying that all writers are con artists.

(And also that I love Leverage.)

The Leaning Tower of Critique-a

Remember the time I gave a very public demonstration of my tendency to leap before looking? That would be this post in which I made an open offer of crit to the world at large. Very soon after I put that post up, five g-chat windows opened looking a little like this:

Window 1: ARE YOU CRAZY?

Window 2: YOU ARE CRAZY.

Window 3: Put a cap on it or TAKE IT DOWN!

Window 4: omgomgomgomgomgomgOOOOOOMG

Window 5: O_O

To which I responded, "Oh, pshhhh, you're over-reacting. It will be fine." Because I didn't really think I could possibly get more than 20 or 30. . .  I wasn't just wrong, I was VERY wrong. And I soon decided the best course of action (for my sanity) was not to think about it all in terms of numbers, but to simply move through them as systematically as possible.

It took me a little longer than I thought, but my reading time was punctuated by having previously agreed to 3 full manuscript crits, one busy trip to New Orleans for ALA, and one trip to Minneapolis where I joined Tessa, Maggie, and her husband for a short leg of their tour during which I was made to sleep below the water line in an old tug boat where alligators scratched at the hull by my ear all night long. What? You think there are no alligators in Minneapolis? I think you're wrong! 

But that's neither here nor there, I want to talk about numbers. The stone cold stats of my recent insanity.

Ready? Go!

Total number of 5k submissions received: 59 (which I think should be spelled fifty-FREAKING-nine)

The fruit breakdown: 

Coconuts: 39 (SO MANY COCONUTS!)
Applenuts: 3 (yes, 3 separate people created a new category to break my brain)
Apples: 12
Peaches: 5

Number of characters named Lily: 13 

First crit sent out on 6/14
Last crits sent out on 7/30

Words read: 295,000
Total word count on 59 crit letters: 62,208 <- I feel like I should point out, that is a NOVEL. O_O

Now that I'm done, they're sort of gratifying to see. I don't really want to jump in and repeat the activity anytime soon, but I did learn a lot by doing this and perhaps more importantly, I got to meet a lot of talented writers I might not have otherwise. So, a big thank you to everyone who was brave enough to send me their work! Thinking through your stories has been both immensely enjoyable and immensely helpful and I'm grateful to every one of you!  

And now, I will buckle down and do nothing but write my fingers silly for the next several months.  

This is the post...

. . .wherein I get to use phrases like "represented by" and "my agent." Were technology a little further along, this would also be the post from which I could shower you with confetti.

I am pleased as pudding, pie and posies to announce that I am now represented by Sarah Davies at The Greenhouse Literary Agency.

(!!!!!!!!!!!!! <-my excitement defies words) On the evening of May 15, 2011, I sent out the first queries I've sent since my senior year of high school. It was exciting and terrifying and I soon had a happy handful of requests for my manuscript. My manuscript! Things happened much faster than I ever could have hoped for and I won't go into all the details here. Instead I will skip to the part where I sign my agency agreement with an impish grin and thematic nail polish. --->

So! I am celebrating this moment. Would you like to know how? Yes, I think you would. I'm celebrating by making a potentially reckless offer that is open to anyone.

*ahem*

In celebration of being able to say the words "my agent is" I am giving away critique like it's the end of the world! This is not a contest, this is a public demonstration of my tendency to leap first and learn how to fly on the way down. Call me Icarus, with superglue.

Here's how it works.

• You send me the first 5k of your wip (I don't care if it is a complete draft or not) in an email to nataliecparker AT gmail DOT com (attached as a word doc) with the subject line: CALL ME ICARUS: title of your wip here.
• In the body of that email, please give me the following information: your name, your genre and your sensitivity level based on my newly crafted scale of fruits! See below:

I AM A PEACH - I am delicate. Look at me sideways and I'll bruise. Please be gentle and kind.
I AM AN APPLE - I've been around the block. It takes a little effort to hurt me, but it can be done. Pull your strongest punches, please.
I AM A COCONUT - I am a fortress. Bring it on.

• Cut off date is Friday, June 17th at midnight.

I will read and crit in the order in which these arrive and work as quickly as possible. That's it! Anyone and everyone is welcome because I am crazy excited!

And since it bears repeating - My agent is Sarah Davies!

For the love of Gothic!

(Quick note - several of you are waiting for an announcement. This is not that post. This is a cryptic and teaser-riddled note to indicate that there is announcement to come, but I am not ready for the reveal. This is a note to remind you that I am 32 - 77% evil on any given day.)

In the past week, I have gone to see the recent Jane Eyre movie twice. I don't remember the last movie I saw twice in the theatre. It really is that good and if you haven't already gone, I recommend you find it and drive great distances to see it.

Jane Eyre is one of the few gothic novels I haven't actually read. This is a rather blatant and embarrassing hole in my gothic education, but I've always avoided it because one of the previous film adaptations made me shudder in the bad way. This is a Very Bad Reason to avoid a book, I know, but for some reason, it left me with a sense of over-whelming helplessness and women submitting to bad men because they had no other choices.

I'm going to back track to remind you that I *love* (love, love, love) gothic novels. I found them during my undergraduate years, when I was living in England and discovering that the North is just as dreary and weather-worn as Washington state, but in a more quiet way. I started (as so many of us gothic lovers do) with Horace Walppole's The Castle of Otranto and moved quickly onto the work of Anne Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Mary Shelley, John Poliodori. By the time I was through, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey had me laughing out loud.

This addiction carried through to my graduate years. I wrote my MA thesis on the use of gothic conventions in contemporary women's fiction and gave myself an excuse to read a lot of fiction in the course of getting a degree.

But there was no Jane Eyre. There will be now, because if this movie is any indication, I have short-changed myself and this book because ho-leeeeee cowbells. How many things are there to love about this movie? Too many. But I'm going to give you my top three.

1 - It's all so clear! It's in the atmosphere!
Moors! Distant horizons! Castles! Storms! Darkness and light! Fire and night! Secret rooms! Every scene is framed to communicate something about Jane's interior process. If she feels lost and small and hurt and alone, the landscape is unending and wild and ignorant of her presence. If she feels hopeful or happy, the scenes are closer, warmer, intimate.

2 - Not just natural, but SUPERnatural.
This was subtle, but pervasive. A constant undercurrent through Jane's life. Spirits! Ghosts! Connections that cross the moors! I loved this. It's not always so subtle in gothic novels (helloooooo, Castle of Otranto!), but this was just this quiet piece of tension tucked into the darkest corners of Jane's life.

3 - O.M.G. Rochester. O.M.G.
Let's just all agree that Michael Fassbender is beyond brilliant and leave it at that. My point about Mr. Rochester isn't really about Michael, but about how the film showed us how gothic HIS existence is, how entrapped HE is, how he finds his only option is to try and live two separate lives, how one of those lives is being buried alive by circumstances beyond his control. Oh! But this is so beautifully done. It might actually be my favorite thing about this film.

So, now that I've made myself all swoony again, I'm just going to leave it at this - SEE THIS FILM. Now, excuse me, while I go read this book.

Kansas Sky

For the first sentient decade of my life, I lived in Chesapeake, Virginia. We lived on the Elizabeth River and were a short one-hour drive from the beach. I was forever in one body of water or another, tromping around the muddy banks of the river at low tide or scouring the rocky bay walls for periwinkles and starfish. Some time around the release of 'Free Willy' and 'SeaQuest,' I declared my intention to become a marine biologist and stalked by twelfth birthday like no other because that was the day I became eligible for SCUBA lessons. I also decided that there was no way I would ever survive life in a land-locked state.

When I was fifteen, we moved to Japan. It was traumatic, to say the very least, but as an island, it fit my criteria for survival. My parents did not think the time was right for SCUBA lessons as we now lived on the second most polluted bay in the world, but as a consolation prize, my mother signed me up for sailing lessons. It was a short-lived hobby out of which I learned how to tack and jibe and heel (my favorite).

Two years later we made another move as Navy families are wont to do. This time we landed in Washington state where we lived in a small town called Silverdale which was close to the Sound and mountains. Though I had long since abandoned the notion of becoming a marine biologist, this was were I finally snatched my SCUBA certification, albeit six years later than anticipated. There are two things I can say about diving in the Pacific Rim. The first is that it is beyond freezing and the second is that it is so, so worth it.

Three years later, I moved, as college kids are wont to do, to Britain. Sunderland, to be exact, where Tessa and I studied for a year. Again, as an island, this made me exceedingly happy and in addition to backpacking as far as we could go, I did a little diving off the eastern coast of Scotland (also freezing).

The next year, my parents were done with their tour of Washington and returning to their home in the south, Mississippi. I followed and finished college there, though I did no diving. You might think that after doing so much cold water diving, I'd be more than a little anxious to try something in water that didn't require layers of neoprene over every bit of your body or peeing in your wetsuit for warmth (I'm kidding, but not every diver thinks that's a joke), but no.

Now, I live in Kansas and I am occasionally baffled by this fact. As far as water goes, it has a few rivers, a few lakes and exquisite summer storms. It is as land-locked as it could possibly be. Kansas is in the very center of this country and as such, the epitome of where I said I would never in a thousand years live.

And yet.

Yesterday, when the sun was high and the sky so wide and so blue, we drove west to Topeka. We drove over rolling hills, past piles of buffalo all sleeping out in the sun, around lazy bits of pasture and adolescent crops. I watched the wind pour away from me, down sweeps of prairie and tall grasses. I watched hawks watch the world below. I saw so much sky. And remembered that it is as wide as the ocean.

Sign-Post -> LJ

So! For a while, I've been experimenting with cross-posting here from my primary platform, LiveJournal. For the time being, I have decided to post solely on LJ and stop updating this page. I may come back, but for now, this is a place-holder with a giant sign-post point to where you can read all of my exciting updates.

Please, join me on LJ where I am nataliesee: http://nataliesee.livejournal.com

Crit Partners: The Teddy Roosevelt Method

(WARNING: Any and all jokes found within the following are hereby NOT the responsibility of the writer, but of a cultural condition common to many readers. In other words, have fun.)

At some point in my high school career, I became infatuated with Teddy Roosevelt. Not in a learn everything I can about him or grow a mustache sort of way, but in a much more respectable way. In a casual, friendly sort of way. I introduced him into conversations, "Oh, Teddy would have liked that." And brought him into jokes, "Wait a minute, I need to get my 'big stick' out."

If you're not as familiar as I am with Teddy and his big stick, I'm going to enlighten you. Teddy's talk of his big stick was really his special form of ideology. He is known to have been fond of the African proverb, "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." Basically, this means that the threat of great violence and destruction is sometimes all you need to get where you're going.

Enter the big stick jokes.

These jokes followed me to college where I continued to baffle my friends with vague references to Teddy's 'Big Stick.' And even to grad school where we spent two weeks studying him, his obsession with taxidermy and his role in establishing our idea of the American family in one of my Women's Studies courses. Yes, really.

Of course, there comes a time when you realize that some jokes are just too obscure and you back them slowly out of your vocabulary. This probably happened a little late with me and Teddy, I'll admit. I am just too, too fond of the man as an historical figure. What can I say? He makes me laugh!

And he carries a BIG STICK. Just because. And I will always imagine that he walked through the halls of the White House whistling a jaunty tune and waving his big stick around with a laugh.

I imagine he also had a song about his big stick. A theme song, so to speak.

So what does this have to do with crit partners? Maybe nothing to you, but this past week Maggie put up a Crit Partner Love Connection post and I've been using a lot of hunting metaphors in my search for the elusive CP. And, of course, hunting metaphors always make me think on Teddy fondly and who can think of Teddy without thinking, too, of his big stick? Not I!

But it has actually been relevant to the entire process of critique and finding that partner who not only can deal with you but wants to. And vice versa. It's not an easy thing to do because. . .

Ready for it? This is the part where the I make the metaphor make sense. . .

Because you're handing your painstakingly crafted work over to someone who might be smiling, but they're also holding a Big Effing Stick on their shoulder and you know they're just itching to use it. ITCHING.

Now, they might have more precise tools in their tool belt like a scalpel or a torque wrench, but that's not what you see. You see the Big Effing Stick held high and you sort of tremble and laugh and wonder if your painstakingly crafted work is strong enough to handle even one blow from that looming piece of doom.

But here's the brilliance of Maggie's swap and really of critique in general: everyone has a Big Effing Stick. That doesn't mean that you use it. If we divorce Teddy's method from the scene of international relations and scale it down a bit, it means that when you're working collaboratively with someone, just because you can rend them to pieces and leave them a sobbing wreck doesn't mean that you do.

I spent my weekend swapping 50 pages with a small collection of folks and was so, so pleased when our interactions were pointed, productive and civil. Critiquing and receiving critique is hard work and in my opinion, it needs to be a mutual exchange, where there are big sticks a-plenty and no one thinks to use them.

It comes down to this - it's easy to be mean; it's hard to be constructive.

I think that it is easier to hear constructive crit when you are in partnership with someone and that is the brilliance of the CP. I have one, I want two. My search is on-going, but my weekend was really very wonderful. I heard people say some really hard things about my wip and I, in turn, said some pretty brutal things to people about theirs, but it was all in good spirit and I'm feeling all charged up about my next revision instead of burned out and depressed.

So (this is the plug) if you are in the market for a crit partner, get thee to Maggie's post and see if any of the big sticks out there match up with yours!

(um. sorry about that one)

(a little)