Writing the first chapter hook

Now on my third revision of Hearthstone, I seem to be channeling some of the important lessons I’ve learned over the summer. I spent the last three months taking a break from writing my second book to enjoy the short summer weather (a good thing too since now it’s already coat and gloves season here in Toronto) and to just clear my head. A part of this “clearing of my head” I read a few books, some long novels and some short stories. Most were very good, and a very few were difficult to finish. One of my takeaways from this experience was that a good novel always has a good first chapter – it is the hook. Obvious and self-explanatory but yet we writers always forget because we are so wrapped up in our own minds that we do not see the story the same way as our readers.

The first chapter must have the following elements:

1) Introduction of both the hero and heroine
2) The start must be at some pivotal point of thought or action
3) The end of the chapter should be open ended or the tipping point of an action that will cause the reader to continue to the next chapter to learn what will happen

General guidelines include:

- Keep it simple, keep it real
- Don’t introduce too many characters right away
- Don’t get bogged down on frivolous details unless it is your style of writing and it will be consistent throughout

Happy writing!