Readers often tell me that my books draw them in from the first few
sentences. This is of course a very pleasant thing to hear, but it’s
also no accident—I’ve spent many years refining my technique and
learning various ways to quickly engage the reader. For the benefit of
other authors who are learning the basics, I thought I would write a
blog post and discuss a few of these techniques in detail. While I
admit it takes practice and finesse to execute them well, the methods
are simple enough and can be learned by anyone who aspires to write more
engaging fiction.
1. Open with Enticing Dialogue that Immediately Establishes Tension
One of my young adult novels,
Wild Child, opens with a single line:
“Let’s swim over to the cliffs.”
Dialogue is always attention-getting in itself, but this short sentence also
contains two tension building elements. Cliffs are dangerous in
themselves, and swimming “over” to them sounds a bit risky, too, even
though we do not yet know who is speaking and where these people are
located.
The question is cleared up in the next paragraph, in which we learn that
the two characters—one male and one female—are on a lake, lounging on a
small boat, and the cliffs are a half-mile away. That’s indeed a long
swim. More importantly, in this second paragraph we also learn that
Kyle, the person to whom Briana is speaking, isn’t at all keen on the
idea.
In the next few paragraphs, it becomes clear that the two are both
teenagers and that Briana has a reputation for being a “wild ass” and
often pushes Kyle into taking risks, even when it’s against his better
judgment. Kyle tries to make excuses, telling Briana that another boat
could come along and that the driver might not see them swimming, but
she keeps pushing him, calling him a chicken and rousing his male ego.
Although not stated, it’s obvious that Kyle doesn’t want to look like a
coward, especially in front of a girl. He finally gives in.
They’re soon in the water and both swimming hard. Now we’re fully
engaged with the story. We want to see who’s going to win this “race"
to the cliffs, and we’re also worried that something might happen them
as they swim across this large, seemingly deserted body of water.
2. Use a Titillating Prologue to Showcase Your Deliciously Twisted Villain
Book 1 of my Lust, Money & Murder series opens with the line,
The
man picked her up in Vernazza, a picturesque village perched along the
rugged coastline of the Italian Riviera.
From these few words, we already know that a man has picked up a woman,
and in an exotic location. These two facts are enough to pique the
interest of the nosy part of us that wants to read on merely to see what
juicy things might come next.
And come next, they do. Sentence 2 reads:
From his salt-and-pepper
hair, and his lined face, Maria guessed that he was in his early 50s.
The implication here is that the man is much older than the woman or
girl, and that he’s buying her. We read on to find out that our
suspicions are correct—he’s “spending lavishly on her,” showering her
with drinks, dinner, a dress, shoes...
Now we wonder: will this approach be successful? By Paragraph 5, we
know it is, and that Maria is a more-than-willing participant in the
tawdry arrangement. When she asks the man’s name, he shrugs it off with,
“Are names important,
cara?” All she knows is that he is a businessman
from Rome, and she supposes it doesn’t matter. This is followed by a
short paragraph which delivers a bit of the hoped-for “juicy details”
(you can read the book to find out—it’s a
free download).
But as far as engagement goes, that's all just foreplay. It's a sneaky method of keeping
the reader's attention until we reach the next scene of the prologue—the key
scene. This takes place after our two naughty characters have had a
three-day frolic of nonstop sexual and sensual pleasure. Maria still
doesn’t know the man’s name, and neither do we, which makes us suspect
that he is up to no good. Indeed he is...we watch, with a kind of
detached horror, as he deftly manipulates her into testing out a large
amount of counterfeit bills at a nearby casino and then “rewards” her by
shoving her off a cliff (yes, another cliff!) and “into the abyss.”
Nice guy, huh?
Readers tell me that they want to keep on reading the book to see how
the hero—whom we have not yet met—will deal with this monster.
3. Show Your Hero Being Mistreated by the World and Make the Your Reader Sympathize
In my newest series,
Passion, Power & Sin, I also used a prologue to
depict a colorful and “deliciously evil” villain, one who readers
hopefully want to see more of. In this case, I present you with Ricardo
Maya, an egotistical Venezuelan man who lives aboard a 300 million euro
superyacht in what can only be described as obscene luxury. He’s
clearly involved in some sort of a scam that is so financially
devastating to his victims that many of them commit suicide. But
writing an engaging prologue isn’t enough. You also have to quickly
capture your reader’s attention when he or she reaches the main body of
your story..
In the case of Passion, Power & Sin, when we turn to Chapter 1 we
are introduced to another character who is apparently living in obscene
luxury. Her name is Heather Bancroft, and she is happily on her way to
work in New York City, “floating” along Fifth Avenue in her
chauffeur-driven limousine, peering out the tinted windows with pity at
all the poor slobs who struggle to make ends meet. From this
description we assume that she must be some high-level executive in
Manhattan, or maybe a celebrity of some sort. We learn that she shops
regularly at Tiffany’s and Oscar de la Renta, has a personal trainer
named Hanz, and spends her weekends sipping Dom Perignon and nibbling on
beluga caviar.
Just as we’re getting sick and tired of hearing about all this
extravagance, not to mention feeling more than a little envious of
Heather's lifestyle, we find out this is all simply a fantasy she
engages in every day to keep her mind off her aching feet as she makes
the 40 block walk to work. In reality, Heather can’t even afford a bus
ticket, let alone a chauffeur-driven limo. When she arrives at the
office, we further learn that she occupies a tiny cubicle “wedged between the
kitchen and a copying machine” and is nothing more than a low-level
assistant at a PR firm who is ordered around like a galley slave. We
also discover that she’s actually from North Carolina, not New York City,
and that she recently moved to the Big Apple thinking—wrongly—that she
could make enough money to save her mother’s house from foreclosure.
Heather is clearly miserable, but she’s keeping her chin up and doing
her best to cope. The next morning, when she gets a rare chance to
prove her true worth to the higher-ups at the company, we are eager to root for her and continue reading to see how she makes out.
Conclusion
These are just three different techniques that I’ve used in my
storytelling to grab the attention of readers early-on and keep them
turning the pages. There are many others.
Feel free to steal them.
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