Activity

@faith_blum Ooo, yay! I love hooks! As someone who leans more to the pantser side of writing, that is the part that usually comes to me as an idea.

My favorite series is the Chronicles of Narnia. The first page of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe starts with what would seem to be a generic “once upon a time” line. It is a narrative, kind of voice-over introduction to the main characters, their situation, and a bit of their personalities. And usually that seems to be frowned upon as a bad way to start a book. But I think what captivates me from the first page on is Lewis’s writing style. His voice is matter-of-fact and descriptive, but I think what sticks out is that he picks out details that one might not think needed. He says that the children were sent to a professor who lived “in the heart of the country” and adds that it’s “ten miles from the railway station and two miles from the nearest post office.” These details don’t come into play at all in the rest of the book, but they establish the scene much better than just “heart of the country.”

My WIP is rather comedic, so it’s not supposed to take itself too seriously. I used a dramatic first line, and then described my MC waking up and thinking about her sister, the other main character, and the situation. This is the first line:

“When my sister told me she would torture me beyond imagination for my fiasco with her car, I resigned myself to the worst; but I never dared to think a human capable of what she did.”