Some thoughts on the “hook”

A lot of storytelling advice talks about the “hook” – how you need to make people really interested in the story right off the bat. Unfortunately, a lot of times writers take that too far and start their story with an action sequence they think will make us excited about the story, but they do nothing to make us emotionally invested in the story. Who cares if a building explodes if we don’t know who’s inside?

Here are two examples, using TV shows:

The Closer- opening scene is two paramedics, working at night, some banter about food and various digestive effects. OK, a fart joke. They find a guy in the middle of the road, disoriented, and decide to take him to the hospital. In the ambulance, he turns on them and shoots them both.

I’ve seen The Closer, I knew these characters were likely red shirts. They weren’t regular cast members and I knew they were there to set the scene. But their minute or two of banter, their teamwork, their camaraderie, and the subsequent action that resulted in their death was emotionally engaging. I knew these characters were not long term, and yet their deaths made me a little sad.

Compare to the pilot of Terra Nova, which had me ranting about plot holes for two hours, but that’s another blog post. In regards to the hook, it opens with a family investigated for having a third child, when population was limited to a family of four. All I could think was, “if a third child is so hardcore against the law, why not have a sterilization law? What idiot thought they could hide a third child for eighteen years? How were they going to give her health care? What about schooling? And even if they home schooled, then how did they think a kid with no peers (her siblings were much older) would grow up socially healthy? THIS MAKES NO SENSE.” Honestly my opinion of this family was so low that I didn’t give a crap that they were screaming about the bad guys finding their extra kid. They were working so hard to engage us emotionally but they threw too much action at us with not enough characterization to have reason to care.

The Closer made me care more for a pair of adult paramedics who get shot (tragic, yes, but as a mom, family issues usually hit me hard) than a family whose child is discovered and dad gets thrown in jail.

Give your characters some individuality before you throw them to the lions. Make us see them as people to care about, and then when the hook comes, the reader will be engaged.