Hook me.

Every now and then I'll pick up a new book and say, hook me. Many do. I turn the page, then I'm reading and into the story.

Some don't. Now if you're one of the huge bestsellers, you don't always have to hook with that first sentence or line. And I must admit that I've sometimes forgotten that a first line needs to hook and have gone back and fixed it.

I recently picked up a book and read the first couple of pages and put it down again. Granted, I was in my car, waiting out a summer shower, but the premise just didn't grab me. And don't you HATE when someone says your premise doesn't grab them? Or your style, or your writing, or the character you introduced?

Wandering into subjective reading again. When I was a brand new author I was convinced that everyone would like my book if they gave it a try. I don't know where I got this notion, but I really believed it. I didn't actually insist to people's faces (real or virtual) that they would love my book, but I believed it.

But people really do have partialities when it comes to genres and sub-genres. I really won't read anything with a zombie protagonist. I'd have to know up front they weren't disintegrating or dead or grotty -- like before I bought the book. I have trouble with Christian fiction. I rarely like coming of age stories, because usually someone dies in coming of age stories. Those have to be disguised big-time for me to read.

So the hooks in stories I don't usually care for have to be phenomenal for me to keep reading. I'll give leeway to writers in my genre, of course, or authors I sometimes like and sometimes don't, or recommendations from friends.

That's the nature of the hook, to get people to read who are giving you a chance. Sometimes it doesn't have to work hard, sometimes it must be phenomenal.

May you set your hooks just right today.
Robin