Sunday Writing Tip: Make Sure Your Scene Beginnings Hook Your Readers

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Each week, I’ll offer a tip you can take and apply to your WIP to help improve it. They’ll be easy to do and shouldn’t take long, so they’ll be tips you can do without taking up your Sunday. Though I do reserve the right to offer a good tip now and then that will take longer—but only because it would apply to the entire manuscript.

This week, check how you open each scene and/or chapter and make sure you’re giving readers a reason to turn the page.
So last week we looked at our scene endings. This week, let’s look at how we’re beginning each scene and chapter.

The beginning of a scene or chapter is where we show readers why they want to read this scene. There needs to be something in it for them, otherwise they might set the book down and go watch TV. You want to ask the right story questions to pique their interest and make them want to learn the answers to them. You want to tempt them with the potential for something bad to happen. You even want to dangle the possibility of good things happening that they’ve been hoping for all along.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com