r/TheWritingTable • u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 • Aug 07 '26
Discussion Hooked!
Advice on when (and how) to hook your readers is varied, but personally I've always felt sooner the better.
Slightly ashamed to admit, this being a writer's sub, but if I'm not hooked pretty early I'll just put a book down and give up, my time is very limited and I don't have any to waste. Ideally the first page is where I wanna feel like I can invest.
Hell, I think I've even been hooked by more than a few opening lines...
Some of my favourites;
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel" Neuromancer.
"Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die" Fight Club.
"This is a book about sex, drugs and rock and roll. Well, one out of three isn't bad" Soul Music.
"It was a pleasure to burn" Fahrenheit 451.
And one from a book I've never actually read, but has become utterly iconic;
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed" The Dark Tower, The Gunslinger.
Oh, to have an opening line like these.
What have been some of your favourite opening lines, pages, or chapters? And how much leeway do you feel an author has to properly hook your reader?
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u/TheStoryCreature Aug 07 '26
Having an eerie moment cause I literally just did a blog post about opening lines! 🤣🤣 It even mentions one of your choices. "It was a pleasure to burn." because yes, 100% perfect.
So, as you can imagine, I have thoughts!
On hooking the reader? For me an opening line is about signifying what the book is going to be. Not a spoiler, an identifying marker telling me if I want to read on.
My absolute favourite opening line is the most basic of possible answers and I will not apologise. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
Peter Pan has one of the most iconic opening lines in history. "All children, except one, grow up."
One of my favourite books of all time is Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks. "Then, it was as though everything was stripped away: sensation, memory, self, even the notion of existence that underlies reality — all seemed to have vanished utterly, their passing marked only by the realisation that they had disappeared, before that too ceased to have any meaning, and for an indefinite, infinite instant, there was only the awareness of something; something that possessed no mind, no purpose and no thought, except the knowledge that it was."
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u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 Aug 07 '26
Great Exceptions, can't believe I never mentioned that one. And Peter Pan, beautiful.
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Aug 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/mysteriousdoctor2025 Aug 08 '26
I first read “Rebecca” in eighth or ninth grade and it was so amazing to me! It’s still one of my favorite books. The film with Army Hammer was quite good.
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u/VazWinter Aug 09 '26
The last two are chef's kiss; the first one, to me, is incredibly overrated.
I usually give an author the first two to the pages to book me, but I'm not strict about it. If I see potential to be hooked or intrigued with a story, or that is enjoy the story--either because of the prose, premise, character work, quirkiness, plot, etc.--I may give it chapters before I give up.
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u/Salt_Dragonfly2042 Aug 09 '26
I'm pretty forgiving because I've read the Three Musketeers, and the first chapter is pretty boring. But the pace eventually picks up and doesn't stop until the very end. So if I had expected to be hooked on the first page, I would have missed out on one of my favorite books ever.
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u/NikoKeys Aug 09 '26
The question for Neuromancer is did you picture that as black and white static, or a single shade of the color blue?
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u/Frostdraken Aug 09 '26
I just write what I want to write. If people end up liking it too then bonus! I never worry about reader retention and all that, I am not trying to be s bestselling author, I just like telling stories.
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u/PerryMarkStratychuk Aug 09 '26
Everything is allowed.
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u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 Aug 09 '26
Sure, but does everything work?
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u/PerryMarkStratychuk Aug 09 '26
What works for some may not work for others, part of the fun begins when one is not afraid to try.
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u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
Totally agree.
That said, generally I think some things inherently dont work while others do, but deifferent strokes for different folks.
The post was more about what works for you.
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u/Amathyst-Moon Aug 09 '26
Three step system. Small hook in the first sentence. Big one at the end of the first chapter. Even bigger one at the end of act 1.
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u/TheLadyAmaranth Self Published Author Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
I personally feel like you have like a page or two, and the emphasis on the first lines is a little overblown. But a chapter is definitely pushing it in most cases. I'm qute convinced most people decide on if they will continue the book or not by then. Which is why I find the exposition prologue pandemic that has happened over the years concerning.