Wannabe Writers #16

Wannabe Writers is a writing group for the un-published and anyone is welcome to join. This meme is sponsored by Sarah Darlington at Confessions of the Un-Published. It's a place where future authors can ask questions, share stories, and get feedback. Click (here) to find more about how it works.  This is my first Wannabe Writer post.  I hope it is helpful and interesting.


Where I am in the writing process:  I just declared myself officially as a writer at the beginning of this month, May 2010.  I have several ideas written down in my writing notebook.  I haven't actually started writing except for a possible first sentence in one project and lots of notes for another.  The notes are coming from research.  I'm writing non-fiction magazine articles for children and hope to write a non-fiction book for kids as well.  As far as novels go, I think that my love of history will lead me to write historical fiction.

Current problems:  I am also a new blogger and am having so much fun getting to know everyone in the reading/writing/reviewing blog world.  I think I need to start spending more time writing yet I'm learning so much through your blogs.  Perhaps I need to find the right balance between the various activities involved in writing such as networking, marketing, brainstorming, researching, note taking, writing, revising, querying, and the list goes on and on.  Does anyone have a handle on this?

Question of the Week:  How to start a story. I've never been very good a writing hooks. Any suggestions? How did you start your story? (Dialogue, description, action, etc.)

I decided to read everyone's Wannabe Writer #16 posts first to help me think.  I started commenting after reading some and came to the conclusion that different writers have different ways of starting a story.  Even the same writer started different stories differently.  Some plan and revise very carefully sometimes and others have the opening come to them sometimes spontaneously although perhaps not unexpectedly.

I like the idea of the "hook."  I've heard journalists are taught the hook from early on.  It seems to make sense that a writer must grab and hold a reader's attention.  The word motivation comes to mind.  A reader must have a compelling motive to want to read on.  How does a writer motivate a reader to keep reading?  One way might be to give the reader some astounding, shocking, or other attention grabbing bit of information, but then hint at the fact there is much more to know and understand, and he/she won't be satisfied or happy in life unless that "more" is discovered.  I think page-turner authors create this forward, catalytic (sp?) motion not just at the beginning but also at other key points in their works.