Writing the opening to a story requires a ‘hook’ so that the reader feels engaged and wants to follow your writing into a new world away from their daily concerns.
Any easy way to invite a reader into your story is to ask them a question. Hook your reader in by asking them a question. Make your question provocative so that they join in straight away.
And use the direct address to make your reader feel included and noticed.
This is an experiment with an opening to my novel Turning Left. Prologues are a way of setting up a story using a different time-zone or place to the main story. They are popular in thrillers and give information that has a direct bearing on the main narrative, yet is also mysterious until the problems within the story are resolved.
Turning Left is a ghost story, where the ‘real’ person, the ‘live person’ is ironically a ghost of their own past. I have always loved doppelganger stories and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a great exploration of the uneasy, malevolent double. Plenty to read about Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on this blog.
So hook your reader by asking them a question and use direct address. then see how your story replies to your question!
Prologue.
Have you ever been mistaken for anybody else? I am sure you have. We all have. There must be limits to God’s palette for human beings after all. Maybe that’s why we get mistaken sometimes. It’s as if we are echoes, repetitions that catch our neighbours unawares and make them wave in our direction until only ourselves, we turn around and they scurry away, sometimes disappointed, sometimes relieved. Often a bit of both.
But imagine if you’re the one who is mistaking yourself, what then? Which way would you turn? Would you stick with your old, familiar lie or risk everything on your newly found, lost self?
I swear, this happened to me. My life reached a crossroads and I faltered. Because the problem was, I quite liked being good old Rachel Howarth. I knew Rachel’s habits. I liked where Rachel liked. Ray was someone quite different. More irascible. Less accommodating. Her gaze sharper. As time went on, Ray peered out through Rachel’s eyes, growing in resolve. Poor Rachel. I ‘d had a reasonable 24 years with her slightly shy, yet always curious ways. She was what I trusted. Her signature demanded no flourish. Her smile was reassuring. Of course, in secret, she felt dull to her bones.
This Ray person was another matter. Ray retaliated. She sensed hypocrisy. Ray wanted to make Sydney-Cartonesque declarations like, ‘ You have been the dream of my soul.’ And she wanted to mean it. Breathe such a life.
You can see where this might have caused some tension.
So, this is a tale of retrieved identity. It’s my story and I swear, on everything, I still believe in, that it’s true. That’s why I’m here at Folly Beach, thousands of miles away from the school that brought me to such a crossroads, after luring me in and making me so very comfortable. Now here I am, left to sort everything out, all by myself.
I’m just not sure I can do it. Or even which one I should ask.
Not only is the first sentence a brilliant hook in the form of a question, but what a question! And the words that follow certainly wind the reader in. Love it.