Thoughts on story engines
Anyone writing for kids and teens knows it’s important to hook your reader right away. The opening pages have to be a doorway readers want to enter and not look back. But where does that energy come from? It’s something I struggle with in my writing. I get so focused on establishing the characters that I forget to raise the stakes and propel the reader forward.
The thing is, there’s no one way to do that. A story’s energy can be channeled through many different avenues. Some opening pages knock you off your feet. Some draw you in with magnetic tension. A character’s voice can drive the narrative. A vivid world we’re immediately immersed in. A conflict we crave to see play out. A relationship in crisis, or a relationship just beginning. Basically, it can be any element (usually more than one) that convinces the reader to come along.
Even form can be an engine. I was hooked when I began reading Elizabeth Avecedo’s With the Fire on High. The novel’s opening pages include a recipe, which is written in the main character’s voice and reflects her passion for cooking. This creative and unexpected opener sets the tone for the rest of the book and signals to the reader that they’re in for something fresh and exciting.
In Angie Thomas’s On the Come Up, we learn right away that Bri is waiting for a call to see if she can rap in a freestyle battle that night. This opportunity means everything to her. The impending call is like a fuse that’s lit on the first page and carries through the whole first chapter. Underneath all of the surface action—learning about Bri’s background, the setting, and other characters—the tension is burning down until Bri finally gets the call at the chapter’s end.
I could list so many great openers, but the bottom line is: there are many ways to energize a story. It’s important to consider what kind of book you’re writing (adventure, rom-com, horror, etc.), because that will change the story’s pulse. It may take time to figure out what’s powering your narrative, and it also may change throughout your draft.
As I write my novel, I have to remind myself that something life-or-death doesn’t necessarily have to happen in the first pages for a story to be engaging. What’s happening for the character just has to feel exciting and important, even if it seems ordinary on the surface. I can accomplish that in the way I tell the story. It’s a matter of looking for the forces that will capture the reader and turning the volume up.