Fishing without a hook

I'll see some of you tomorrow at The King's English, 5pm. I'll be the one in the apron.

My eleven-year-old nephew Gabe said recently: "I'm trying to write a story but I need a good hook. I need the first sentence to be a hook, so that the reader will have to keep reading. Some books I read start with a hook. Some don't, but I'll read the first chapter anyway to see if it gets better. No offense, but your books don't start with a hook. They start pretty slow."

Ah, it is true, young Gabe. I've always wanted to be the writer that grabs the reader by the first sentence and never lets go. Often when I start a new book (princess academy, forest born, daisy danger brown...) I tell myself, this time I'm going to do it! This time I'm going to start in medias res and the reader won't be able to put the book down! But alas, my brain apparently doesn't work that way.

I mourn that aspect of my writing sometimes, but I can't regret it completely. It's not for naught, I think. I've had readers tell me, "I thought Goose Girl started really slowly, but I kept reading and it got better. It wasn't until I read it the second time that I realized why Ani was that way in the beginning and why those first things had to happen in order to build to what happened later."

I think this is true of all of my books, but perhaps in none so much as the two I publish this year. I ask a lot of my readers. It's possible many give up about 1/3 of the way through. That's okay, no story is for everyone. And maybe it's not the best writer who requires such an investment before the payoff. But I realize that not only is it natural for me to write this way, I choose to do it, because what's interesting to me is the overall journey. I need to allow my characters to start in one place in order to finish in another.

And maybe the NEXT book I write will start with that hook immediately and still allow for the significant journey. Hey, a girl can dream.