Insights Alive

By Carl Hose, eHow Contributor

 

A hook in a story is that scene that catches (or hooks) your readers' attention. The hook is an essential part of the story. We live in a fast-paced world where readers don't want to waste time on a slow, uninteresting story. Nothing will kill your story like an opening that doesn't make people want to continue reading. Find out how to write a hook for a story that will reel readers in.

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Instructions

1. Ask a question. Center the opening scene or sequences in your story around a question readers will want to know the answer to. This is one of the best ways to hook readers and keep them in your story. You don't need to answer the question right away. The question might be the focal point of the story. If you make the question strong enough, reading on to find out the answer will keep readers turning pages. 

2. Shock readers with an opening that leaves them eager to read on. Write the first scene of your story with an ending that affects your readers. Leave them with a feeling of dread, awe or terror. Make them want to read on to find the logical destination those feelings will lead them to.

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3. Introduce a character, and make him or her likable. If you have a character your readers care about, they will read on to learn more about your character and to find out what happens to him.

4. Make these things happen quickly. If you're writing a short story, hook your readers within the first couple of pages. If you're writing a novel, hook readers by the end of the first chapter.

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Read more: How to Write a Hook for a Story | eHow http://www.ehow.com/how_4868715_write-hook-story.html#ixzz2VdURFquJ

 

출처: http://www.ehow.com/how_4868715_write-hook-story.html

출처: http://www.learnedmarketing.com/the-emotional-hook/#sthash.B50N86PX.dpbs

Composing and Conveying Your Essential Story

by Terry Axelrod, CEO, Raising More Money

출처: http://www.ultimatecampresource.com/site/camp-activity/fundraising-telling-your-essential-story.html

I’ve covered beginning the first chapter with a hook and ending each chapter with one as well. Another type of hook is an emotional hook meant to make your reader empathize with your character through some type of hardship, a problem, or an injustice done to them. This should take place in the prologue or first chapter. It will cause the reader to become emotionally involved with your character and care about what lies ahead. They want to see the character overcome the obstacles.

Examples:
In the prologue, Captain Rafferty Tyler is strip of his rank and a T is branded on the back of his hand for being a thief. In these first few pages, we see an honorable man, who has been framed, lose everything including his fiancée before a crowd of the people who used to respect him.
Pot Potter — Relentless

In chapter one, Bryony, a woman falsely convicted for the murder of her husband and sentenced to an Australia prison, is sold to Captain Hayden St. John. Our first glimpse of Bryony shows her being dragged through the mud by a prison guard. She tries to escape, but St. John comes after her. She is made to walk behind his horse in the rain down muddy roads. When she sees the cemetery, he lets her say good-bye to her baby that had been buried earlier that day. Also we learn in the first chapter, that the Captain has lost his wife and needs a woman to nurse his baby.
Candice Proctor — Night in Eden

Rachel returns home to a town that hates her. Her car
breaks down in front of a closed drive-in theater. She has no money and a hungry little boy to feed. Her late husband had been an evangelist who’d ripped the town off and had blamed his overspending on her demanding lifestyle. Her outlook is so bleak that she offers herself to the drive-in owner in return for money and food.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips — Dream a Little Dream

Find ways to touch your reader’s heart or make them identify with your characters’ situations. These are usually the books I can’t put down.

출처: http://www.elainemeece.com/Suggestions/files/5d9af9380a1a5cc052afa2f36d38da50-4.html

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy 

Grand dame author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro* hit the nail on the head when she said:

There are two hooks that need to be felt for the reader to really buy into the story. The intellectual hook, and the emotional hook.

She went on to explain (I'm paraphrasing here) that the intellectual hook is the plot stuff. The things we want to know because an interesting question has been raised. The emotional hook is the stuff we need to know. The things that we've become emotionally invested in and what to see how it turns out.

If these two things aren't in the first fifth of the novel, then odds are you won't hold on to your reader. You might keep them reading, because one or the other is compelling enough in their own right, but you won't get them the same way. They won't be thinking about your book long after they've finished it. Or talking about it with everyone they know.
I thought this was great advice.

Books that really wow us have both these things. You care deeply about a character and just have to know how their problem turns out. Peak, by Roland Smith, a fantastic story about a 14-year-old boy who gets into trouble for climbing skyscrapers and is sent to live with his father, the world's best mountaineer, who happens to be about to launch an expedition to the summit of Mt. Everest. Kids climbing Everest. How can you not get hooked by that?

Besides a fantastic intellectual hook -- does he make it to the summit? It has a great emotional hook -- what will it cost him to reach the summit?

Blue Fire gave me problems in the first few drafts because the emotional hook just wasn't there. Nya's problems were interesting enough, but you could have easily set the book down and come back later. When you need to know what happens, you don't put the book down. A lot of my revisions went into developing that emotional hook so you need to know what happens with Nya and how she gets out of it. 

From a plotting standpoint, two hooks driving your narrative gives you double the opportunity for great storytelling. If one hook isn't cutting it for some reason, you have the other to fall back on. You can even play them against each other for super tight tension. Add in your inner and outer conflicts (which will no doubt be connected to your hooks in some way, but you might approach them from different directions) and suddenly you have a lot to choose from as you plot. And a lot to dump on your protag.

Intellectual hooks are pretty easy. A great story question, a neat twist, a fascinating premise. You've offered the reader something they haven't seen before (or haven't seen in this way before) and you keep them on their toes, always guessing what will happen next. It'll be plot related, since figuring out the puzzle is an intellectual activity.

Emotional hooks are tougher, especially in plot-driven stories. In order to ping the emotion, readers need to care about the protag. If you aren't sure how exactly to do that, starting with universal themes can help. A child in trouble, a lost love, grief, etc. Things that everyone can relate to and emphasize with. Once you've identified that, work your own twist into it so it fits your story and helps tell the tale you want to tell.

Chances are, your intellectual hook will be connected to your external conflict, and your emotional hook will be connected to your internal conflict. Depending on your story, (plot driven or character driven) you might be developing one over the other, since we tend to obsess over plot in our plot-driven stories and characters in our character-driven stories. So take a little time and look to see how you can develop the other side of your story into something as strong as your main narrative. A thriller with characters we love will only be more thrilling. A literary journey that keeps us guessing will only suck us in more.

It might even help when you go to write those evil queries. You'll have two key elements to use as a foundation, and know exactly what you need to say to get those hooks across.

*This was at World Fantasy in 2009

출처: http://blog.janicehardy.com/2009/11/what-i-learned-at-world-fantasy-week_04.html

08/02/2012 by Gail 6 Comments

We all talk about the need for a visual and emotional “hook” in our fundraising letters.

Never, ever, forget the emotional hook in your appeal letter!

But it’s really hard to pull off.

What you want to do is create a visual metaphor or a story that portrays your message. My buddy direct mail guru Mail Warwickcalls the story or metaphor:  the “dynamite marketing concept.”

It’s something really compelling about the campaign thatcatches people’s attention and motivates them to learn more about it and eventually to respond.

Here’s what not to do:

Mal shared his perspective:

“The problem is that nonprofit folks typically think what they need to do in their letters is to tell their donors all about the great work they are doing.

“They like to talk about the specifics of their work, the programs and projects they have in place, and then they think the donors will come running.”

But we really have to step back and get into the mind of the donor.

We have to determine which aspects of the work we’re doing would really appeal to the donor’s fundamental values and beliefs and what benefits that would provide.

This is very different from starting out an appeal letter:

This sad little boy can break a donor's heart. That's a good thing.

“for 20 years the xxx organization has lovingly served xxxx group of people in our community.” (yawn)

Instead start your letter with a story.

Just like the way lots of newspaper articles begin.

Perhaps it goes like this:

“Johnny Smith woke up Monday morning, hungry again.”

Wow, doesn’t that strike you in a completely different way?

It creates a visual narrative that draws the reader in.

You want to keep reading don’t you?

Starting with a story is an amazing technique.

You could go on to say that Johnny lives right here in our community, and his single mother could not find work.

You could talk about how many nights a week he goes to bed hungry.

Or perhaps how he stuffs his empty backback with cafeteria food at school because he knows there is no food at home.

As you read this, you are forming pictures in your mind.

The story is generating an emotional feeling in your soft heart (I hope.)

Pretty soon, you start to really care about little Johnny.

You are imagining what it must be like to have to sneak food out of the cafeteria so you can have something to eat over the weekend.

This picture tells a story with genuine emotional appeal.

And you might be getting angry that this is happening right here in your community.

Once you are having feelings about Johnny and his situation, you are far more prone to take action and make a gift.

Remember this important axiom:

Logic leads to conclusions.

Emotion leads to action.

Think about all the rabble-rouser politicians out there – people who can stir up a crowd and incite action.

They don’t do it with logic.

Instead they do it with emotion.

Blatant emotion.

BOTTOM LINE: THIS is the way to appeal to your donors’ hearts.

And you’d be surprised at the result.

If you want some help with your year-end appeal letter – to make it so smooth, compelling, alive, and action-oriented that it raises more money than you ever thought possible, then join our August INSIDER Master Classes on how to create a killer appeal letter. I’ve got Tom Ahern, Harvey Mckinnon and myself showing you the way to elicit more gifts from your donors. Find out more about the INSIDERS schedule here. Join us!

AND

If you want some personal expert help drafting your appeal letter, I can help you. Sign up for a personal session and I’ll give you a full critique, edit and suggestions on how to make it far more compelling to your donors. (It’s on a discount until August 4.) Join me!

Get personal help from me here.

출처: http://www.gailperry.com/2012/08/adding-an-emotional-hook-to-your-year-end-appeal-letter/