Beginnings #5Ws and How #Hooking Readers and Editors

Want to capture readers and editors immediately? The important journalistic tools Who? Where? When? What? Why? and How? work as well in fiction as when writing articles.

I read as much as possible, especially, inspirational fiction.  Most of the novels faithfully follow the rule of presenting the lead character(s) in the first few sentences or paragraphs and hinting at the problem. My favorite titles don't stop there. So what else do I want to know and look for right away to pull me in and make me part of the story?

• Who? A lonely six-year-old? A heartbroken widower. A romantic young girl?
• Where? A city street in Seattle? A battle front in Afghanistan? At the Mardi Gras in New Orleans? Lost in the Far North?
• When? Now? During the Civil War? Sometime in the future? In Bible days?
• What? A problem significant enough to make me want to read on.
• Why/How? Relates to something in my life. I want to know more about it. I feel a kinship with the person facing it. I am appalled, excited, happy, or sad. 

 From my novella Winterlude, included in the upcoming TREASURED CHRISTMAS BRIDES collection (debuting September 2nd; available for pre-order. Amazon.com).

Early November, mid-1930s

Ariel Dixon gazed into the shadowy image reflected in the mirror on her bedroom wall. Dread of the coming interview with her aunt showed in the sea-green eyes. An inner voice taunted, You have to tell her.

Ariel turned from the mirror, but the accusing voice went on. Where is your Dixon courage? You’ve faced raging seas, been chased by wild animals. How hard can confessing to Aunt Rebekah be? You don’t want her to hear what you’ve done from someone else, do you?

“No! Please, God, give me strength,” Ariel prayed. She sat down on the fluffy green bedspread that matched the brocaded draperies at her window. Peace gradually crept into her troubled heart. God would not desert her. She took her well-used Bible from the bedside stand. A tiny envelope rested inside the front cover. Ariel’s fingers trembled when she opened it. Even after all these years, the dusty remains of a single forget-me-not brought pain. Why had her girlhood companion vanished without a trace? Why did Jean Thoreau’s memory still have the power to stir her?

Oh, for those long-ago carefree days! The excitement of life in San Diego had pushed precious memories aside. Now they returned full force, along with contempt for herself. "How could I have fallen prey to the lure of fool’s gold after knowing Jean?” Ariel whispered.

The other novellas also offer intriguing beginnings

There has to be a way. Amanda Cabot's The Christmas Star Bride finds Esther Hathaway furiously kneading pumpernickel bread four weeks before Christmas 1885, Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, and searching for a way to give her soon-to-be-married niece an unforgettable gift. 

From Rebecca Germany's A Token of Promise. October 1897, San Francisco,  Gabe Monroe appreciates the color red in a sunset, a strawberry pie, and in a woman's blushing cheeks. He does not appreciate tomato red on his freshly-polished top boots that may well stain the beaver cloth.  

Band of Angel's, Cathy Marie Hake. Colorado 1893. After learning that gold fever doesn't always produce riches, Jarrod McLeod finds gold! He stares at his rusty, second-hand gold pan in disbelief. Not fool's gold. Not flakes. Or a nugget. A small woman's wedding band bearing the inscription AW & JM.

MaryLu Tyndall's Christmas Bounty, set in 1855 Santa Barbara, California opens with the poignant question? "What kind of God would allow children to go hungry?" Heroine Caroline Moreau jingles the few coins left in her purse and selects a few vegetables and a sack of beans. How can she and her eight-year-old son survive?

The Gold Rush Christmas, August 1897, Port Orchard, Washington. Samantha Harris brushes away tears and sadly watches the last quilt be packed. Alaska may be a land of opportunities, as her twin brother insists, but all Samantha wants is to find their minister father somewhere in its forbidding depths and bring him back to civilization. 

* * *

Note:  The original version of Winterlude opened, "It started with a single snowflake, as out of place on the windshield of Emmett Carey's ostentatious Pierce Silver Arrow as a date palm in Alaska." 

Statement of fact. Appeal only in that it raises the questions, "What started?" "How could an out-of-place snowflake start anything important?" Not enough to keep many readers reading.

Emmett's reaction to Alaska followed. Too much focus on someone other than the heroine and real hero.

Many times I have pointed out the importance of hooking readers right away. The answer has often been, "I get into all that later." Sorry. Editors won't get to later. If they aren't intrigued with the first few paragraphs they stop reading and usually reject the manuscript."

Before I had a computer, the floor around my typewriter table was littered with discarded beginnings. Others write differently, but until I had an opening that satisfied me, I was unable to continue. It wasn't set in cement, just in place enough to let me get on with the story and revise later if necessary.

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