Grab your reader
“The hardest thing about killing a hitchhiker is finding one to pick up.”
That is the opening line to the book I am currently reading. Think about that. What expectations has that presented in the mind of the reader? Are you sympathetic to the character or at least curious? What is it about that statement that will keep you reading.
For me is the series of questions that immediately jump in my head. I want to know who is saying it and why.
That is the goal of every writer. Once we have set up the questions in the reader’s mind we will have them intrigued enough for us to let them know a bit more about the world we’ve constructed and the people in it.
How can you set up that kind of opening? The first thing is to get in your writer’s voice. Think about what it is you really want to say and how you want to say it. This character seems to be a rather humorous person to me. They seem to take a very horrible topic and make light of it. It is a twisted way of looking at something and so I want to find out why they look at it like that. This author clearly knows their character well.
And the book is Serial by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch. I just got it free on the Kindle I got for Christmas. [No I am not compensated for these comments. We have to say that now so we don’t get the blog police after us.]
At Writing Career Coach we have been talking about improving your writing. To learn more follow the links below.
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