Speculative Fiction Writing Workshops:
Openings and Hooks

 

James Gunn's: "A story, like a puppy, should be picked up a little ahead of the middle

That is, "Generally speaking - all such admonitions have their exceptions - a story should be started when the story issue is engaged. In [Asimov's short story] "Reason," the issue is Cutie�s refusal to believe that Powell and Donovan, the comparatively feeble and mentally deficient humans, have created him, and it continues with their failures to convince the robot otherwise. The reader should be thrown into the middle of the situation, where the tension is high."

Here's more about what I have to say about openings and hooks during the workshops (from those handouts I put together for y'all):

The first sentence needs to convince readers to read the second, and so on. You need to hook the reader, then keep them on the line as you reel them in toward a satisfying ending.

In a piece of fiction, you (the author) need to know what the story is about, how it's going to end, instruct the reader how to read this story (including genre identification, so they know if they need to solve intellectual challenges, if this can actually happen, and so forth) and get out of it what you want them to get out of it.

If you open with big action or drama, the reader wonders why � now you have time to develop that, explore why someone would want to (for example) blow up their house. But opening with nothing really happening, or straight-up backstory, is a much harder sell to get the reader to keep going. Same with opening with a dream - why should we care? 

Be careful about opening with complex sentences � okay later on when the reader is prepared to work their way through complexity, but at first it's more effective to introduce characters in context with a problem via short, direct sentences. 

Similarly, dialogue openings are tough � they need to suggests the story problem, develop character, and pull in the reader. Most dialogue openings feel empty and insubstantial, because we don�t yet know who�s speaking, why, or where they are.

You only need to put enough into opening paragraph to introduce suspense, not encapsulate everything that's to come. Poul Anderson's "twin delights of surprise and rightness," so when looking back can see what clues you planted. Clues what it's about but not revealing it until the right moment.

In Hooked, Les Edgerton defines the hook as, "something that intrigues the reader, and it can be virtually anything that makes the reader want to read further. It can be a story question - will the protagonist overcome the daunting problem that confronts him? - or it can be the lovely language of the author, or any of a dozen and one other things. In short, anything that can draw the reader in can serve as a hook. What most good hooks have in common is that they have strong inciting incidents that plunge the protagonist immediately into trouble - the trouble that's going to occupy the rest of the story" (p. 38).

He lists the components of an opening scene as the following:

1. The inciting incident - the event that creates the character's initial problem and hints at the deeper story-worthy problem (finding a loved one shot dead).
2. Initial surface problem - (need to find the murderer).
3. The story-worthy problem - the driving force for the protagonist (does the character succumb to desire for revenge?).
4. The setup - give only enough to allow the reader to understand the inciting incident and hint at the story-worthy problem.
5. The backstory - at little as is physically possible (rule for new writers: just don't do it). What's necessary can come out in dribs and drabs, or in dialogue or internally as situation prompts it. Most backstory belongs only in writer's notes. 
6. The opening line - work it the most (Leroy was so mean, wherever he stood was the bad part of town).
7. Language - establish the tone and voice for the entire story (if irreverent or funny, the story needs to stay that way).
8. Character introduction - brevity is key and should be shown via the action of the inciting incident.
9. Setting - brevity is key as are evoking (at least three) senses.
10. Foreshadowing - the promise of the story.

Remember, the goal of an opening is to:

1. Introduce the story-worthy problem.
2. Hook the reader.
3. Establish the rules of the story.
4. Forecast the ending of the story.

"You absolutely have to hook and hold the reader's attention with your opening line; if they get to the second or third page and are still not interested in what's going on, they'll turn to the next story in the anthology or pull another novel off the shelf. So your opening line has to be intensely immediate, grabbing the reader's attention while simultaneously establishing time, place, situation, character, and conflict" � Gary Braunbeck, Many Genres, One Craft.

Finally, you might find the posts tagged "openings" in my blog useful: 
https://mckitterick.tumblr.com/tagged/openings

Hope that helps!

Thanks to Young Gunn and Ad Astra workshops alum Kathy Kitts for getting this started, and to others for questions and contributions!

Related SF-Writing Workshops and Resources

"Science into Fiction" Spec-Fic Writing Workshops:
  Series 1: "The Higgs Boson in This Particular Universe"
  Series 2: "Creativity and the Brain"
  Series 3: "Writing in (and about) the Age of Artificial Intelligence"
  Series 4: "Six great stories and what makes them work: The science of SF writing"
  Series 5: "Hopepunk" coming Fall 2026: apply Summer 2026

Chris McKitterick's Spec-Fic Writing Workshop & Repeat Offenders Workshop

Kij Johnson & Barbara Webb's SF&F Novel Writing Workshops and Masterclasses

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updated 8/28/2023