Have you ever bought a book that got you so caught up that you just stayed home to read it?
Photo by Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash
I haven’t read a book like that in a long time.
When I was in college, I’d gotten a book from the grocery store (more books are probably sold in grocery stores than book stores), and I’d started reading the book that night before bed.
When I woke up, the book was still in my mind. So, I decided to skip classes and stay home and read it. I remember it was a really cold and rainy day, which in Rhode Island meant it was anytime except for June through August.
Don’t ask me the name of the book. I honestly can’t remember it. But back then, I had no real taste for what was a good book or not – I just know that it had to grab me for me to like it. Some books were good, some were bad.
[Tweet “Your Novel has to have a hook or it will fail.”]
I don’t know where I’m going with this except to say – some books just grab you. You can’t put them down.I now know two of the secrets of that (short sentences and directing from the pen), but essentially what the book has to have is a working hook, just like a movie pitch.
“It’s about a guy who…”
If it’s not interesting from that point, it’s not going to grab you.
“It’s about an ex-cop who is trying to recover from the death of his wife, when suddenly all chaos breaks out around him as millions disappear, and he finds himself trying to get a small band of survivors into hiding in the sub-arctic before the pursuers catch and kill them.”
Does it grab you? It’s really got to grab you from the elemental level, the “it’s about a guy” pitch or it’s not going to fly. This is why actually the screenwriting has moved me into being a better novel writer!
So the question for my fiction readers is this: What books grabbed you? What was it about the book that really kept you reading, to the point you stayed in bed, covers pulled up and the book in your hands all day?
