Yehudis Kormornick, the bestselling author of The Last Slave (among other titles) is sharing with us her 8 Key Elements to Hook Your Reader.
Although this article can certainly be understood without having read The Last Slave, you’ll get a lot more out of it if you read the book itself. Click here to buy it from Feldheim or here from amazon.
Your book is your gift to the world. At the heart of this gift are your main themes, the truths you’re going to explore in your novel, the impact it will make. The wrapping paper is your entertainment, your craft, your incredible writing, the way you grip your reader. That wrapping paper needs to be beautiful. But the core is your meaning.
So, ask yourself the questions: Aside from giving your reader a few hours of entertainment, why should someone read your book? How will your story impact their lives? How can you elevate your work beyond entertainment value and infuse it with meaning and truth? How can you use your incredible talents to make the greatest kiddush Hashem?
Even if you’ve already completed your book, it’s not too late. My revision process for The Last Slave took me five years. A first draft is not the finished product, and it’s important to spend time on this no matter what stage you are in the writing process.
Now the question is, how to begin?
What makes a great beginning?
When someone picks up a novel they want to be transported to another world. A strong opening is one of the most important elements of writing a story because it’s the readers’ first impression of your book, and it needs to hook them before they put it back on the shelf. A great first chapter grabs the readers’ attention and instantly takes them out of their world and straight into the world of your story.
Here are eight key elements to hook your reader right from the start:
1. The tone and genre should reflect the rest of the book.
The tone includes the voice, the vibe, and the general mood of the story.
You don’t want to start your novel in a light-hearted comedy style if you are writing a murder mystery. Imagine you have a shoe store. In the front window, you have rows of beautiful shoes. You charge a $5 entrance fee but when the customer comes inside, they find handbags, purses, socks, and hardly any shoes. That customer has a right to feel frustrated.
Your opening chapter is your display window. It’s ok to sell handbags as well as shoes, but be upfront with your reader about the journey you’re taking them on and be consistent.
Let’s take a look at the first four lines of The Last Slave to see how the tone is set:
“I was born to hate. Father says I was born for the palace. Born to make him proud. But we both know the truth. First comes hate, the black canvas onto which we paint our lives. Then comes everything else. It is us against them, and to be us is to despise.”
The first line makes the reader ask questions: Why was she born to hate and who was she born to hate? It instantly sets the tone for the entire narrative by telling us that this is a book that deals with dark themes. This is a book about hate. The external hatred of the Jewish People as well as internal hate, the kind that consumes and eats us up on the inside.
The next element to include in the first chapter is:
2. The setting.
Readers want to open a book and be instantly immersed. They want to experience the setting with their sense and feel as if they are really there, right in the midst of the story. It’s important to strike the right balance and not give too much description that will bore the reader, but we do need to know where we are and what historical time period we’re in. We need just enough vivid, powerful imagery to allow us to picture the scene.
Ideally, the setting should be visualized before anyone starts speaking. If you don’t paint the scene before the dialogue begins, it’s harder for the reader to get immersed in the story because it feels like the characters are talking in a void.
In The Last Slave, here is how I set the scene on the first page:
“Hate hangs heavy in the air like a shroud over Egypt. Rushing through the reeds on the riverbank. Sweeping like a sandstorm over the glorious Nile. Whistling on the desert breeze. Growing louder and louder until it is all you can hear. For the Hebrews are multiplying. And so is our hate.”
Instantly you know where you are. In just a few sentences, you can see the Nile. You can hear the rushing of the reeds, feel the heat of the desert. You can feel the intensity of the hatred permeating the land of Egypt. And you know the cause; the Hebrews.
The next key element to include in the opening chapter is:
3. The protagonist and their inner conflict.
It is this character who the reader will follow throughout the story. Who the reader will connect with. If that character gets killed off in chapter two the reader will feel cheated. If that character turns out to be irrelevant to the story, the reader will feel frustrated.
Early on, we need to understand your protagonist’s emotions, their fears, and their inner turmoil. Because it’s internal conflict that is the secret ingredient to capturing your reader’s attention. Without a sense of who the character is, what they value, and what they’re afraid of, the reader will be unable to appreciate the significance of the plot, and your story will have less impact.
In The Last Slave, we learn right from the start that Tia is a fourteen-year-old Egyptian aristocrat that is about to enter the palace as a lady-in-waiting. We know that she desperately wants to make her father proud of her but that her curiosity about the Hebrews and her inability to hold her tongue makes her a continual source of disappointment to him.
From the very beginning, your main character must be a compelling, interesting character that readers can relate to. It’s not about getting the reader to relate to the experience that your character is going through, but about getting them to relate to the feelings about those experiences.
None of us here are fourteen-year-old ancient Egyptian aristocrats, but all of us can relate to the fear that we’re not good enough, the desire for our parents to love us and be proud of us.
Here are some other examples of internal conflict to give you a better idea of how to create tension:
• She wants to marry for love, but she feels obligated to her family to marry for money or prestige.
• She wants to reveal the truth about herself or a situation, but she is afraid that the people close to her will abandon her.
• She wants to leave her job, but her family is relying on her.
• She wants to achieve a certain goal, but fear of failure is keeping her from pursuing it.
• She wants to have deep and loving relationships but she thinks she doesn’t deserve to be happy.
Now ask yourself the questions: What does your main character want and why can’t she get it? What does she think will bring her happiness and what fear is holding her back?
The answers to these questions should be weaved into your first chapter. Their ultimate goal may not necessarily come up in the opening chapter but they do need to have an immediate goal that will lead them to the ultimate goal.
The next key element to include in the opening chapter is:
4: Introduce the other major characters.
“Major” is the key here. Don’t let minor characters upstage the protagonist in your opening chapter. If you need to have the secretary or the waiter in your opening, don’t tell us their names if they’re not relevant, just say ‘the waiter.’ And even if they are going to become major characters as the novel progresses, you don’t need to introduce them now when right now they are not relevant.
Chapter one should focus on the main character. Revealing her main concern and hinting at the journey or challenges ahead of her. Other main characters can be present, but the fewer the better. The spotlight should be on the protagonist. When we’re given too many names to digest in the opening chapter it’s overwhelming and confusing for the reader. They won’t know which character is important to the story, they won’t be able to follow who’s who, and by chapter two they won’t remember who anyone is. Also, if we have too much dialogue before we properly introduce our characters to the reader, the characters just appear to be talking heads going back and forth.
Don’t feel as if you need to introduce all the characters right away. It’s better to focus on a few in the first chapter, and sow the rest in later on. Sometimes, in the rush to get the story moving, everyone gets named, maybe even superficially described. However, very few of these characters stick. Then, later on, when these characters reappear, the reader doesn’t have any idea who they are. Names shouldn’t just be rattled off with a hurried description because no reader is going to remember them.
Every time you introduce a character in your story, that character should stay with the reader. Each new character needs enough story time for them to be remembered. Especially characters that are important to the story. This will probably mean saving certain character introductions for later chapters.
In my first chapter, there are only three characters. The protagonist, Tia, and her parents. Let’s see how Tia’s mother is made memorable.
“Father is still muttering angrily at his scroll when Mother sweeps into the room, late, as usual, eyes and eyebrows freshly painted, her massive wig generously perfumed with her favorite jasmine fragrance. The rich, floral scent fills the room. Smoothing out the pleats in her immaculate white gown, she takes a seat.”
Before she’s said a word, we already have a very clear picture of who Tia’s mother is. Only after she is clearly established in the reader’s mind, and the reader can picture her and even smell the scent she is wearing does she begin to speak.
So, take a moment to ask yourself, how many named characters are in your first chapter, and are they all vital to your first chapter?
5: External Conflict.
Your characters can’t just be sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for something to happen to them. They need to be doing something. Not like brushing their teeth or eating a bowl of cornflakes or dropping their kids off at school. Something interesting.
I understand that not every first chapter can have a magical snake attacking the protagonist! However, your opening chapter does need to have some level of conflict in order to engage the reader; an argument, a failed test, a lost job, a missed appointment. If you can get your main character in trouble in the first few pages, your readers are much more likely to become engaged in the story.
As well as showing conflict in the moment, the first chapter should also hint at the future conflict. Here’s how I incorporate both present and future conflict in the opening chapter:
“My mind is reeling from Father’s words. What does he mean, blot them from history? How far will we go to quench our hate? And before I can stop myself, the words are tumbling out, “But you cannot just erase an entire nation from the records.” I slap my hand over my mouth, but it is too late. Father is on his feet, his face twisted in fury, hands clutching the edge of the table. “Is this what you have been groomed for since birth? Is this what your tutor has been teaching you? Heresy? In two days, you will be inducted into the palace. If you wish to keep your head, you will do well to hold your tongue.”
Here, we see Tia being reprimanded for her present, unacceptable behavior and warned about the future deadly consequences if continues behaving in this way.
So, ask yourself these questions: How do you portray conflict in your opening chapter? Do you hint at future conflict? Is your opening lacking conflict? And if so, how can you create more tension?
6: Start at the right place.
It’s a good idea to start the first chapter right before everything changes. So, you have what is called the setup, the status quo, how things usually are. And then you have the first major event, what is often called the inciting incident, the thing that will change the status quo of your protagonist.
In The Last Slave, the story starts with Tia becoming a lady-in-waiting to Princess Basya, so I begin the first chapter right before Tia enters the palace.
This slice-of-life introduction is how many books begin.
In Harry Potter, the opening chapter shows him living in the cupboard under the stairs at his aunt and uncle’s home, even though the rest of the book takes place in a boarding school for wizards.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, begins before the ghettos, before the yellow stars. It draws you in slowly. Like the calm before the storm.
Compare this to another fictional holocaust book which starts with the police banging on the door in the middle of the night. This may sound very dramatic but it misses the entire setup. We don’t know who the main character is, her relationship with her family, in fact, we don’t know anything about her life. She’s already being dragged away before we have had a chance to connect with her.
This is the problem with starting in the middle of the action. The stakes are high but we don’t care about the main character. On the flip side, if you start too early, the reader will be bored, wondering when the story is going to begin.
Starting the novel right before the big change builds up the anticipation of what’s to come. It lets the readers anticipate what’s going to happen, and allows them to experience the change along with the main character.
The next key element for the opening chapter is:
7: Don’t say everything.
Only write what is vital to the story. This includes dialogue, descriptions, and backstory.
Nobody should be saying “pass the potatoes,” unless those potatoes are loaded with meaning. Nobody should be getting into the car and driving anywhere unless something relevant will be happening on that journey. Nobody should be getting out of bed in the morning, unless it is crucial to the story. Every word in your story is a promise to the reader that this is important. If you spend three paragraphs describing a woman’s purple flowery dress, that dress needs to be vital to the story.
Think of it like an iceberg. The reader should only see the tip of the iceberg, whether it’s character backstory, a traumatic past, setting the scene. Don’t give too much information at the beginning. Even if it’s important. Just give as much as they need to enjoy and understand the story, and weave these important details throughout the book at relevant points.
The final key element for the opening chapter is:
8: Leave your readers with a question.
Ignite curiosity in your readers’ minds. By the end of the first chapter, the reader should be left with a question. Something that will make them curious enough to read on.
In The Last Slave, we know that Tia has a phobia of snakes but we don’t know why. We know that something traumatic happened to her when she was young and that it involves a snake and a Hebrew child, and this is the question we are left with at the end of the first chapter.
Ultimately, this is how you continue to hook your reader throughout the rest of your novel. You pique curiosity in the readers’ minds. She’s going to the palace in two days’ time. How will it go? Will she be able to hold her tongue? Will she get her head chopped off? Then, as the story moves along, you satisfy your readers’ curiosity by answering questions that you’ve already raised while at the same time raising more questions and more curiosity within the reader so that they need to keep on reading.
Finally, don’t agonize over your first chapter at the beginning. The opening requires many elements to make it a powerful hook and it is overwhelming for most writers! Write your story. Then come back to it after you’ve completed your first draft and with a fresh perspective you can spend as much time as it takes working on your opening chapter.
In the same way that a person dresses up to go on a date or go for an interview in order to make a great first impression, the opening chapter must be your best writing. It must be interesting and compelling so that it will capture your readers’ attention and hopefully keep them captivated until the last page.
Wishing you so much hatzlacha!!
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