How to Hook Your Reader
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How to Begin Your StoryHow to Begin Your Story
Without a great beginning, a beginning that draws the reader in and hooks them your story is dead. The beginning becomes especially important in a family history narrative. We all know how difficult it can be to get our relatives to read about their family history. They may not have a particular interest in their history; maybe you forced them into reading this story, perhaps some guilt is involved. Regardless, how they got to that first page you want to be sure they stay, and they stay because they are intrigued.
The beginning is the start of your story up until your first plot point. The first plot point being the event that causes your ancestor to take action and set them on a path to their goal. This first plot point is often referred to as the inciting incident or the first turning point.
There is no tried and true answer to where to begin. Throw out the idea that your family history must start at the beginning of a life, in chronological order. Look at your research, your ancestor’s story and find a moment, event, question or surprise that you feel will grab your reader’s attention. Your story’s beginning should set the tone and mood, establish a point of view and make the author’s voice heard (that’s you).
A Checklist for the Beginning of Your Story
- A Hook – the opening lines, the first moments of your story that grabs the reader’s attention, that captures your reader’s curiosity and propels them to keep reading.
The hook can come in a variety of ways:
- Start with a question – put a question in your reader’s minds. Make them wonder what does this have to do with my ancestor, my family history. How is my ancestor going to get out of this situation?
- Begin at a crucial moment – Choose a critical juncture in your family history, an event that captures your reader’s attention and will encourage them to learn what happens next.
- Create an interesting picture – Start your family history with description that helps your reader’s paint a picture of their ancestor’s setting. Put them in a scene, give them some action and your reader will be drawn in.
- Introduce an intriguing character– A character that grabs your reader’s attention will encourage them to stay to find out more. Let your ancestor’s personality take the lead.
- Start with an unusual situation – Show us your ancestor in a unique situation that makes your family take notice, and they’ll be sticking around to see what it’s all about.
With each passing sentence, you want to continue to build, coaxing the reader to stay with you. Each paragraph should build on the last, pulling them deeper until they can’t turn back. The last sentence of each paragraph should be a catalyst to the next. We all remember a book that we couldn’t put down. The authors of these books excelled at creating great beginnings that drive you forward into the story.
Besides the hook, the start of your family history story should offer the reader other elements that will help capture their attention and curiosity.
- Introduce the Protagonist – Introduce us to the Protagonist Ancestor if you haven’t done so in the hook. Assist the reader in establishing a relationship with your primary character.
- Establish the Setting – The reader should be able to visualize where the story takes place, area, time and even season.
- Introduce the Antagonist – Introduce us to the Antagonist Ancestor ( if there is one). Keep it brief, don’t give us everything up front.
- Introduce a Story Question – Present the reader with a challenge that your ancestor faces. Have your readers asking the question, How will they overcome this challenge?
- Theme – Introduce, your reader to the theme of your family history story. Give them something to think about, what does your family history mean?
What Your Beginning Shouldn’t Include
- Avoid backstory or flashbacks. Stay in the present story. There is plenty of time to add historical information later.
- Too much description, particularly of the central character, give us just enough to paint a picture, not a long drawn out description. Stick to unique and very specific details. It’s important to remember, in this case, more is not necessarily better.
- Don’t introduce too many characters.
- Don’t change point of views between characters, too confusing this early on. If you are writing your family history from the point of view of two ancestors, let the reader get comfortable with one point of view before changing.
- Too many locations, keep your beginning limited to one or two locations. Ancestors travelled but let’s not have them in a dozen different places in the first chapter.
- Don’t spoon-feed the reader, giving everything they need to know about their family history upfront. You’re writing this story to share a family history in a compelling read. Make them hang with you until the end, don’t share everything in the first chapter.
- Prologues – much debated, but personally I dislike books that start with a prologue because they are often a place to dump backstory and it often feels lazy. It’s a personal choice; prologues are best used to raise a question in the reader’s mind about the main character.
Window to the Physical WorldWindow to the Physical World
Writing the physical world of our ancestors may seem impossible at times. We face two concerns, how do we know what it looked like and how do we bring that world to life on the page.
Replicating that world will once again rely heavily on your family history research along with social history research. I encourage you, where possible to visit the ancestral hometowns of your ancestors. Walk the streets, visit the local historical societies and learn everything you can about their surroundings, from the house they lived in, to the street they lived on. Absorb the town that was a part of their daily life. If you can’t go in person visit through the magic of Google Earth. Reproduce your ancestor’s setting down to the most minute detail.
Once you have your research, you now must turn to painting a picture of the landscape with words so the reader can visualize being there. We want them to feel as if they are standing beside their ancestor, seeing what they are seeing.
As we have previously discussed with regards to scenes; we will rely on our senses, all of them, specific details, and figurative language to make this happen. However, before writing physical description of your ancestor’s world let’s discuss the importance setting plays in your family history story.
You learned in previous posts, setting is a component of scene, without a setting to anchor your reader, they are lost.
However, I see writers not doing justice to setting. They may include a year, maybe a town name or a place like a the kitchen, but that’s where the description often stops. More detail, particular detail is needed. When I say more, I don’t mean describe the entire house, or the whole town. Give the reader intimate details of the immediate setting. For example, if we’re in the kitchen then give the reader the colour of the tablecloth, the smell of the stew cooking on the stove, the creak of the chair and the burnt out lightbulb dangling above.
A setting can also set tone, a feeling and it can be a character in of itself. For example, the supportive small town or the thick forest holding back progress or a chaotic city that overwhelms a new resident can play a pivotal role in a story. The setting can offer far more complications or support in your story than just a pretty backdrop in which to tell your story. Keep in mind that what you choose to share in terms of details are the very tools you will use to create tone and evoke feeling. Is the kitchen warm and cozy, or cold and desolate? The description you share should be hand-picked and carefully worded to evoke the feelings you want to bring forward to the reader.
Setting can also take on a character type role. Many of you writing memoir might find this to be true when writing about a childhood home, or a grandparent’s house, a setting that conjures up immense emotion.
Consider how the environment plays into your ancestor’s emotions. Take out something you’ve written so far this month. Read it. Is the location clear? The physical setting established? Are there details, or is it very general in nature? Does it reflect a feeling an emotion, could it?
On the other side, setting shouldn’t take over your writing. Long narratives describing a family home or locations pull the reader away from the action and the story. Describing setting within a scene requires a delicate balance, just enough to to feel like we are there, not to much that it pulls us out of the story.
You, the family history writer control the window to your ancestor’s physical world, think cautiously about how you wish to portray that world to your reader and what feeling and emotion it could bring to the story.
Thanks Lynn, This was quite helpful
Thank you so much, I am enjoying The Ancestor Profile Blueprint!
Excellent, Lynn! I loved your examples – they made your types of hooks clear and sparked ideas for me.