The Hook by Warren Bull

(This is a previously published blog by Warren Bull on craft.)

Not Captain Hook or the follow up to a stiff right-hand jab. Every writer in every work needs to have one. When I taught graduate clinical psychology students and psychiatric residents, I used to ask them: What is the main purpose of the first visit with a client? They’d mention important things like determining a preliminary diagnosis, establishing at least a tentative relationship, or more important than those, getting the damned paperwork signed.  I would agree that all those were critical and valuable elements of the first visit. But, I would ask, what is the one, essential goal that superseded all the rest? 

Nobody ever gave the right answer.  I guess my former students let the newbies find out for themselves.  The one goal that had to be accomplished for therapy to ultimately be successful was — to get the client to come back for a second visit.

However great your writing is, if the reader does not turn to page two, she will never know.

 I just watched the opening fifteen minutes of the classic movie Once Upon A Time In The West.  Sergio Leone co-wrote the script from a short story he also co-wrote. For good measure, he directed the movie too.  In the first scenes, the audience hears sounds like the wind blowing a door closed, a squeaky windmill that needed grease, and steps on a wooden porch. I counted 19 spoken words, all from a minor character. The visuals are striking, unkempt, unshaven men, in dusty clothing, and a vast bleak landscape at a railroad station. And the tension builds throughout. I found it absolutely riveting.  Without music, with very little movement by the actors, the sense of foreboding saturates the screen. I truly suggest that you watch it so see how it evokes the expectation of coming violence.

Writers are told, “never write about the weather” to open a book. But Raymond Chandler’s novella Red Wind does exactly that.  There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

Carolyn Hart’s Death On Demand opens with a point-of-view she drops and never uses again in the entire book. That’s a really bad idea.  Unless you’re Carolyn Hart. 

Of course, it helps to thoroughly master the rules before you break them. Whatever rules you hear about, they are only suggestions. Hook ‘em and reel ‘em in.