Friday afternoon my husband and I had a nice lunch together, then he asked if I could run an errand for him (he was going back in to the office) and return a purchase to a major electronics chain store.
I walked into the store, in my usual sort of absentminded fog, strolled over to the customer service area, and immediately noticed that everyone was very angry.
There were two men from management looking grim and anxious with their arms crossed. The customer service representatives were frozen. There were two customers being helped at the same time and both were sort of leaning in over the desk, looking tense. There was a police officer (who is frequently assigned a beat at the store) watching intently. The customers in line seemed very stiff and kept looking sideways at each other.
And I had just sort of wandered in in a very peppy mood and into this tension. What’s more, I couldn’t even tell what was going on. Finally, the elderly lady in front of me turned around and said in a fierce tone, “Someone should help that woman!”
“That woman?” I asked, nodding to the middle aged woman at the desk. “What’s happening?”
But I didn’t get an answer because suddenly the woman erupted like Mt Vesuvius, yelling that that was the worst customer service she’d ever seen, going up to the police officer and seeming to make some sort of low-voiced suggestion to her (maybe that they arrest the customer service department?!) then storming out the door, still yelling.
Afterwards no one looked at anyone else and the customer service people started quickly helping the rest of the line. And I never did find out what was going on.
But it made me think that this is the kind of thing we want to do with our readers.
We don’t know what kind of day our readers are having. Maybe they’ve just had a nice lunch and are feeling happy and daydreamy, like I was. Maybe they’re having a rough day or week.
We want to drag our readers into something different—something funny, something tense, something interesting. We want to provide some escape and something to pique their curiosity or interest. We want to get them hooked.
Read any good openings lately? Written any? How do you propel your readers into a new world?
For some reason, Blogger insists this post was published Friday, instead of today! Trying to republish it now…
Walking into a situation like that is like walking into a wall of emotion. So tense. Always makes me jittery.
Very interesting point! I had never thought about this, but then when I read that hook is what I’m looking for, something to take me away from “the real world”!
Maybe her kids had inserted a cookie into the DVD player and she was mad she couldn’t return it as defective?
I dread customer service lines. I used to work for a theme park in their guest relations department. I merely typed response letter, but I could NEVER have handled the job of the ones who actually had to deal with the people face to face.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
Elizabeth – Wow! You really walked into a tinder box! I think you’re right that it can make a story more engaging if we put our readers into something different – something suspenseful – like that. My only caveat is that we also have to “play fair.” That said, though, I think we can use chapter and section openings as well as the prologue to put our readers into unexpected situations.
Oh, yes…more of this going on than is good for our health. I was in a telephone store one day, and this man went apeshit on a young woman – she handled it brilliantly but it didn’t matter – he just got more and more abusive – she called over her manager (a young guy) who listened to him as he lied about what happened. I stood forward and said ‘excuse me – but this man was swearing at your employee’. The irate man turned to me and told me I should ‘get in my car and leave’. I told him that I had no intention of doing anything he told me to and I just wanted to make sure the record was straight. Afterwards, I waited until irate man was gone and I went to the manager and told him that his employee had handled it absolutely brilliantly. I hate it when people just stand there! And I don’t mean you – you obviously arrived after the event had occurred. But what is up with everyone? I do get told to mind my own business, but like many elderly sleuths in books – I won’t.
I have a kind of instinct that makes me want to defuse a situation like that by saying something very silly that makes everyone think I’m nuts! – sometimes it doesn’t even work, either!
The best thing is probably not to do anything but as I get older I am more fearless about intervening…reminding myself more and more of my late mother.
OH, Come on, now! You can’t just hook me like that and leave me hanging! I need to know what was going on with that lady at the customer service counter.
Oh no, by the end I was dying to know what was going on, and you didn’t find out! LOL! Excellent build-up. I love to hook the reader with emotion of some kind then reel them in.
Such a great way to bring this point home. I am often totally oblivious, but sometimes what is happening is SO BIG that I can’t not try to find out… it’s a PAGETURNER…
It seems to me there is an art to setting it up so the reader has CLUES and feels ALMOST able to solve it, but they think they have to turn that next page to find the final clue… I usually have to work to draw things out this much, but I love it when I find it.
You never know what is around the corner. I often walk around in a dream world. I’ve walked out in front of moving cars and walked to the front of long lines–while not paying attention.
I love hooks. Love ’em. Love to read them and write them.
I think by my fifth book, I had the tension thing down! Better late than never.
Alex–Could have been! She had some huge box with her…
Jemi–Me too. At first I almost wondered if I’d wandered into a burglary of some kind. But the police officer was being very still, so I figured it was okay.
Judy–Unexpected situations are great for pulling readers in. :)
Jan–Good for you! I’d like to have you around for my advocate any day! Yes, I did wonder, because there were a few people in the line who seemed like they knew *exactly* what was happening and were just completely frozen. Not sure why…
Sheila–I think I was happy to just watch because this woman seemed so fierce that I thought she might do better without having an absentminded writer try to help her out when it was already too late for me to know what was happening. Ha! But humor sometimes does work, I think.
BettyZade–That’s the way I felt! It was such a tense situation.
Terry–Me either! I’d have died. Can’t handle conflict.
Heather–I think that’s a lot of fun, too. Particularly when they’re sort of dumped into it.
Hart–Right! And sometimes that’s because we’re giving the reader those hints about what’s going on but no real concrete info. Of course, in a book, we couldn’t leave the reader dangling like I just did (and the folks at the electronics store left *me* dangling!)
Margot–You’re right–we’re not limited to the very beginning of the book. There are plenty of other opportunities to stick our readers in something unexpected.
Diane–I think tension is tough!
I like the way Jan described how she handled herself in a similar situation. That’s what’s so interesting. Different characters would handle things differently.
I love it when books do that. I often read for escape and books are just the thing to cheer me up or make me sad or angry but ultimately take me out of whatever I’m doing at the moment in the real world.