By: Kristen Lamb
We can Twitter
’til we flitter and Facebook ’til we face plant and that won’t matter much in
the greater scheme of things if we fail at our single most important job—writing
a great book. Our single greatest challenge is to hook the reader hard enough
to buy (and then read) our novel.
Sales ultimately
are impacted by reviews and if no one reads and no one finishes?
Exactly.
Yes, covers are
important and social media is vital, but those sample pages can mean the
difference in No Sale and Big Hit.
One writing book
every writer should have is Hooked by Les Edgerton. I think this was the first
craft book that truly woke me up and showed me all I really didn’t know about
writing.
As a new author,
there were far too many elements I believed were important when in reality? Not
so much. Additionally, because I was focusing on the wrong “stuff” I was
failing to develop the “right” stuff.
What I love about
Hooked is how Les demonstrates how all the factors that go into making great
beginnings don’t just evaporate. These are tactics we must keep employing throughout
the work to keep the reader engaged and turning pages. Our job is to obliterate
sleep, to send our readers tired and grouchy and over caffeinated to work…but
ultimately satisfied.
Let’s talk about
some common ways beginnings fall flat.
The Writer is
Easing Into the Story
Nope. I can’t
tell you how many times I’ve had writers wail, “But you don’t understand! The
story really starts on page 50.”
Okay, then cut
off 49 pages and you’re golden.
Modern audiences
simply don’t have the attention span for us to go on too long. Yes, I get that
the authors of yesteryear got away with this, but they were competing against
shoveling manure and shoeing horses, not YouTube, Facebook and 24-hour
entertainment. Additionally, writers back in the day were often paid by the
word, so that sucker was padded worse than a freshman term paper.
These days we
need to get to the point as quickly as possible and fiction is about one thing
and ONE thing only. Problems.
Readers Don’t Need a Set-Up…Really
. . .
To read the rest of the post, click here:
~*~
If you missed my
latest writing and marketing tweets, here they are again:
- What Information Theory Teaches Writers | Plot to Punctuation http://ow.ly/t0xj300Nv3V
- Black Gate » Articles » Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: “Head-Hopper” – A Correction and a New Example http://ow.ly/wA1W300Nv7n
- The “Than” Versus “Then” Debacle http://ow.ly/tDdl300Nvn3
- Book Promotion: Do This, Not That - The Book Designer http://ow.ly/puFF300NvrF
- Learn how your own creativity is a trap, and the system for getting unstuck during free training on May 25, 2016. http://ow.ly/ObtO300Nvw9
- The Visual Writer: Using Images To Bring Your Writing Alive With Nancy Hendrickson | The Creative Penn http://ow.ly/ZS1E300NvAX
- Blogging Got You Down? Follow These 6 Steps - Social Media Just for Writers http://ow.ly/giej300NvDA
- The System We Use to Write and Sell Books - The Self-Publishing Podcast http://ow.ly/XbsR300NvHf
- Botched Beginnings—Common First-Page Killers | Kristen Lamb's Blog http://ow.ly/4Vlk300NvKc
- 6 Tips for How to Organize Your Novel's Edits - Helping Writers Become Authors http://ow.ly/foZu300NvQ1
- Top 5 Mistakes Writers Make When Self-Publishing an eBook - Training Authors for Success http://ow.ly/xI7Z300NvZ1
- Ultimate Guide: How To Write A Series - Writer's Edit http://ow.ly/kUxr300NwaN
- Top Tips for Creating Quality Evergreen Content http://ow.ly/JB6K300Nxek
- Use Translation to Help Writer’s Block | A Writer's Path http://ow.ly/eVGK300Nxgu
- First Pages of Best-Selling Novels: Support and Defend | Live Write Thrive http://ow.ly/2Npm300NxlB
- Fiction University: Upcycling and Upending Clichés http://ow.ly/bf6i300Nxpg
- Character Development Worksheet (Free Printable) http://ow.ly/xIGT300NxsN
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