I agree with you 100% XD. I am exactly the same way. But I think we may be the odd ones here. As an aspiring writer I think I have a responsibility to understand what others like. Then I can decide how much I want to conform to expectations. An author who refuses to bend will likely meet with little success. I will write mostly what I enjoy, and tweak the odd bit here and there for my intended market. If my editor demands some serious changes I will probably comply... Quite often it is the editors, I think, who insist on crazy hooks and such... Writing only what I enjoy would just be silly... I'm an odd duck, and no one would read it.
From what I've been reading in this thread so far, you don't hate hooks so much as you hate tired, lame excuses for book beginnings. Sure, hooks need to be a little more creative, and I agree, those action-based hooks make me turn away from a novel right away. However, not all hooks are bad, and the ones that have been suggested here so far are, in fact, pretty good. If I'd thought of half of them, I'd have gotten my novel off on a better foot already!
Is it just possible that you do not like the genre of the story? Many times books that start off like this are rapid pased books. They have a lot going on and fast and leave you feeling like you have just walked out of a blockbuster movie. Pacing can turn people away from a novel as much as anything else. I remember a book I read as a child called "Rehersal for a Renaisance." The novel started very slowly and I had no clue where it was going. It took me a few weeks to get through the first third. After that though the book became a fine adventure. Just a little slower then what I was used to. Same with Robert Jordan. He would always start his writing so slowly. He had no real hook. The only reason I continued to read his other novels is because after I read the first one I realized that they were interesting after the first 100 pages. He was writing 700 page novels though so that ain't saying much.
I like a good action hook. Now, that's a good action hook. One that is tastefully executed and done with no worry about offending people or keeping it politically correct for the mass markets. Hooks in general are a lot of fun. Don't get me wrong, I love the literary meanings and deeper, more intricately woven stories as much as any of you guys, but to write off the other side of the spectrum is a bit hasty. There are merits anywhere you look. You can write a great action hook-filled story as much as you can write a bad subtly-crafted story.
Personally, I don't need an overwhelming, or even just whelming hook. All I ask is that something be happening. Dialogue, a character DOING something. If it starts with an information-dump, which is 90% of all books in the universe, then I am immediately underwhelmed. "Oh? There's a bunch of crud happening in a world that is different from ours? That's nice. Hey, that looks like a good book over there!" I want something in the opening that tells me the characters are going to be interesting, that there is something happening that I can care about. It's more about the style of writing than anything else, to be sure, but really. . . .
This confuses me. I'm befuddled, bamboozled, confounded, and thoroughly discombobulated. Are you saying that you don't like action? If so, then it's not the action 'hook' you dislike, it's action in general. If you DO like action, are you saying you don't like a book that starts with action? To this, I say: Wha--? Do you pick up the book, read the first line, and think, "Bah! Stuff is already happening? Balderdash! This author knows nothing of writing! How dare he put action in an action book!" And then move on?
Depends on how it's done. If the hook's only purpose is to suck you in and it doesn't add to the actual story, then I feel manipulated. If it adds, then I'm pretty happy because it serves a purpose (other than to sell me the book) AND I'm entertained. I hate boring beginnings.
I like one sentence that normally doesn't have any connotation in and of itself: "The city lights looked beautiful at night" was how I've started the unnamed novel I'm working on
I have an intense dislike for clichés. They are a caustic venom to me, they eat away a part of my very soul. Having said that, I have sort of defeated the purpose of hooks. I have decided a long time ago that, no matter how terribly boring a book is, if I open it with the intention to read it, I will finish it, regardless of the cost to my mental health. This means that hooks are instantly rendered useless. If I'm already going to read it, then you can't really "hook" me, can you? This doesn't mean that I won't rant internally against the disgusting tactic of emotional manipulation (because that's what hooks are, emotional manipulators, don't let anyone tell you otherwise). You see, when I read a book, I want the author to tell me a story. I don't want the author to "evoke" feelings in me. I don't want the author to make me laugh, cry, cringe or frown. I am perfectly capable of experimenting emotions on my own, thank you very much. If your story is good enough, the emotions will come on their own, no need to manipulate them. Bottom line, I hate hooks as well. Each and every one of them.
Well, I don't agree with most of the OP's points, but I'm not a huge fan of the WHAM-BANG-ACTION! openings either. I like more gradual openings. Not boring ones, but ones that make a reader more curious than "OMG SOMETHING BAD'S GONNA HAPPEN!!" This is one of the reasons I enjoy much longer stories--I like time spent on getting to know the characters and their backgrounds and thought processes and how this world works and whatnot. (Not in infodump style, but revealed as it relates to the plot. I loved "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" because it was long and involved and I really got to know the characters and story, not just the REALLY ACTIONY EXCITING PARTS.) Too many books nowadays cater to the WHAM-BANG-ACTION-SOMETHING EXCITING HAPPENS!! mindset, and it just doesn't suit me. I like development. I don't care about WHAM-BANG-SOMETHING EXCITING HAPPENING if I haven't grown to care WHY it's happening, or to whom it's happening. Take for example some stranger getting murdered halfway across the world. Why should I care about this person much?--I don't know them. If I got to know them first, THEN I would care more about their fate. Same with a book and its characters. That's just me though. And I don't hate hooks. An action hook isn't enough to make me put a book down, same as a kind of dull hook isn't enough to make me put one down. I'm a bit more patient than that...as I just explained.
The original point of view of this thread is so confusing to me. Why would you not want the opening of a book to catch your attention? What?
Exactly. Yes. Yes. And also, yes. I want the plainest, most ordinary beginning ever. I'm sort of an unconventional reader. I want the book to start out boring. Because it was published, obviously someone out there thought it was a good book, and therefore, I can give it the benefit of the doubt even if it has a boring beginning. It's interesting to see the plot escalate from a regular situation to an extreme one. If the book starts with someone shooting someone, that's boring to me. If it starts with a man quitting his job and then leads to someone shooting someone, that's exciting. I realize what I said earlier in this post about the benefit of the doubt is somewhat contradictory, since if I can give boring books a chance I should be inclined to do the same with exciting ones. But I just choose not to. It's not fair or reasonable, but whoever said it had to be?
A hook is on the book flap. It's the little twist on a classic idea that makes your book different, or it's the high concept that no one else has done. If you tell someone that you've written a vampire novel, and they say, "That's been done a million times. What's your hook?" That's what they're asking for. Starting with a bang is called in medias res.
I can't help but wonder, Miswrite, if one day you will 'grow out' of it. I find that when I do unreasonable things that I understand to be unreasonable, I eventually grow bored or weary of it. One day I'll say, "Ah, forget it. Why torture myself by not reading interesting books just because they start off interesting?" That's just my introspection being written for the world to see.
Most likely, Atari - because I grew out of liking hooks, so I may as well grow out of hating them sometime. I was tired of picking up book after book that started off interesting, then having myself disappointed over and over, so I just said, "Forget it, I don't have the energy to keep doing this. I'm going to ignore every book with a hook." Will the opposite happen at some point? Probably. But then I will enjoy it, because it will be my own free will to read what I want, and that's good, so I won't care that I changed my opinion anyway
Hey, you know what they [don't] say! Changing opinions on a whim is the spice of life! Where would we be if we did not change? At least you aren't like me. I'm INCREDIBLY picky with the books I read because I don't have the attention span to read rambling, unnecessary descriptions, but at the same time; I don't enjoy books that aren't written in a style that is, on its own, interesting. Furthermore, if the character is constantly depressed, I lose interest really fast. Moreover, I just CAN'T stay interested when a story is more about talking about the plot than actually having the plot work. One reason that my being picky IS so picky is because a mixed combination of awesome is what I require. I can stand descriptions, but its more along the lines of describing people as they are doing things, rather than politics or what ever. If it isn't IMPORTANT when the harvest is due, then why tell me? If the CHARACTERS tell that information, then that's good. Bah, I can't even DEFINE what interests me because it's so. . . odd. Bottom line: It's more style of writing than anything else. And what style, you may ask? Well, I have to say. . . simplistic. The problem with using the word 'simplistic' is that I like a COMPLEX form of simplicity. Like, the writing is simplistic, but talks about complex things, thus making those complex things simplified. Agh!
a hook doesn't even have to be something huge my hook ends up being about three paragraphs long...like I said, and the raw, unrevised, unedited version of my beginning is in my blog and it doesn't start with some wild, crazy event. All it says is "The city lights looked beautiful at night." end first sentence and paragraph... second paragraph, a transport, a single passenger in a darkened craft approaching a building. A paragraph of two of explain what was happening and why and you're off to the races..nothing huge, pretentious or annoying...
Haha yeah I was just thinking exactly the same thing! What was that all about!? Simplicity, a complex form of simpicity!? Isn't that a contradiction in itself? I was in the mind of thinking that a hook was what a story was all about? If you think about isn't the first chapter ALWAYS a hook? It will always make you read on and thus a hook... A hook isn't always a build up in tension to a main plot point but it will always lead onto the story and be something integral such as a character background/discription or a narrator's feelings of the event/setting etc. If you had a first chapter where nothing happened it would defeat the point of a story because: a) It wouldn't be exciting or interesting b) It wouldn't make you want to read on However I do get what you're saying about having a cliff-hanger opening paragraph and then 100 pages of character description, it can be annoying!
I should not be surprised that you don't understand, but then; I don't really, either. I suppose I do not mean 'simple' as such, but more. . . well, I don't know! What I do know is that there are writings where, as SOON as I start reading, I think, "Oh, I love this," whether or not something exciting is happening. Other times, it can pitch me directly into an action scene (scenes which I enjoy) and I will know, based solely on the writing style, that I will not enjoy the book. It's like, one style goes right into the 'comprehension' part of my brain and I get it, and I feel like the author is leveling with me. The other, I feel like the writer is being complex, or rather, writing in a manner that is almost round about. Not direct. I hate to use the word 'direct,' because this may lead some to believe that I mean 'concise and to the point,' which is not the case, as I particularly enjoy writing that makes use of different sentence structures and lengths without limit. It's a fundamental, "I don't like the way this is written." I cannot, as I have demonstrated, explain it, though, because I, myself, don't even know what it is that I like or dislike.
What book have you read that doesn't start with a hook? I a curious to see if you truly hate them, or you just believe you hate them.
I tend to like stories that start off with a type of philosophical statement or question. I especially like them if they are subtle and don't seem forced. This way I feel smart for noticing them. Ha ha.
