Daily Archives: August 7, 2010

Writing tip: character hook

Once upon a time, I attended the Harriette Austin Writers Conference in Athens, GA. At that time, one of the speakers was an editor with a large publishing firm in New York City. He was a University of Georgia graduate, who had come back to the conference to dispense nuggets of experience and wisdom in his bare feet.

As was my biological predilection, my internal clock being generously out of step with the atomic one that governs the external world, I arrived a little late to the auditorium and found a seat along the aisle but not too far forward so as not to disturb the editor who was about to speak.
After the good morning pleasantries, he said that he often received manuscripts in which the subject matter was as grand as the universe itself (which was understandable since he was an editor of this publisher’s science fiction line of books), but that there was often something missing. He said the little telling character details were often missing. He said the main character could be an important negotiator at an intergalactic conference of species trying to save their galaxy from destruction and time was running. Despite the importance of the conference and the importance of the main character, there was nothing the reader could easily identify with, because there was no “character hook,” something small, even banal, that the reader could identify with. He then asked, what if the main character’s feet hurt? What if this character’s feet hurt because his shoes were too tight and that was what he was focused on at the start of this important conference. The editor said it is this small, telling detail that would provide the hook that would make the rest of the story believable. In this case, the protagonist had a problem the reader could easily identify with. But it could also be a small character detail, such as unruly red hair or preference for the color purple that could provide a hook for the reader.

This editor then stepped around from behind the lectern. He stood on the stage before us in his bare feet. With the microphone in his hand, he looked down at this toes and wiggled them. Then, he looked back up at us.

“Now,” he said, “you may not remember a single thing I say up here today. But I bet you’ll remember I was barefoot.”