How to Write a Best Seller – Openings That Sell

Openings That Sell

Success in writing is a lot like success in other facets of life. It takes hard work, dedication, knowledge of the craft, and a little bit of being in the right place at the right time. Now there is no hard and fast way to know what is going to be hot next week let alone next year, but one thing you can know is what is hot now. To do that I am going to take some inspiration from Robin Colucci Hoffman, a self proclaimed New York Times Bestseller List stalker and a speaker I had the honor of interacting with at the Missouri Writers' Guild Conference last weekend. Like Robin, we are going to take a trip to the current best sellers, and see how the number one book this week got it's readers to stay.

Openings Matter

If you don't hook your reader in the first few paragraphs, and sink that hook in the first few pages, then you are probably going to let them get away. (This is also important if you are looking for a publisher or an agent). I don't know about you, but the last thing I want to do is let a potential fan escape the world I created to capture them. In order to find out how this weeks best seller, Whiskey Beach, hooked its readers we are going to examine the first few paragraphs and briefly discuss aspects of the first few pages.

Whiskey Beach, by Nora Roberts  

goodreads rating  3.89 out of 5

Hook the Reader

          Through the chilly curtain of sleet, in the intermittent wash of the great light on the jutting cliff to the south, the massive silhouette of Bluff House loomed over Whiskey Beach. It faced the cold, turbulent Atlantic like a challenge.

          I will last as long as you.

In the first few paragraphs we are introduced to Bluff House, its location “looming over Whiskey Beach,” and the fact that it exist on the east cost facing “the cold, turbulent Atlantic.” But we are not in the house, we are watching it “through the chilly curtain of sleet, in the intermittent wash of the great light.”

In the second, one sentence paragraph, the house symbolically speaks, challenging the very ocean itself, “I will last as long as you.” What power and arrogance this house must have to challenge an ocean that is older than humanity itself.

Why Are We Hooked?

In only 47 words Roberts is able to set the scene and introduce the powerful character of Bluff House, (yes, locations have character thus are characters). As a reader my subconscious is asking several key questions: Who am I, what is my purpose for being here, and why am I staring through the chilly curtain of sleet at the looming house? What is this place, what stories does it have, how does it have such nerve to challenge the very Atlantic. Over the rest of the first page and into the next we learn more about Bluff House, its humble beginnings, how it has survived for three hundred years when so many others have failed.

Be Poetic

On page 2, in a one line paragraph, we find out that “Within its walls, generations of Landons had lived and died, celebrated and mourned, schemed, thrived, triumphed and languished.” In one poetic line the author transitions us from the house to the family it has sheltered, and gives us insight into the lives they have led.

Set that Hook

We are then brought back to the house for two more brief paragraphs before being introduced to the main character, a London himself:

          For Eli Landon it was the only place left to go. Not a refuge as much as an escape from everything his life had become over the past eleven horrible months.

          He barely recognized himself.

After answering most of our questions about Bluff House, with just 35 more words,  the author is able to answer our question of “who am I?” while at the same time opening up a whole new line of questioning. Why is this Eli's only place left to go? What is he trying to escape? What horrors has he experienced over the past eleven months that leave him barley able to recognize himself?

In less than two pages the author is able to draw us in with an intriguing setting, dazzle us with its personality and history, and then hook us, all while introducing the main character of the story.

I can't tell you how to write a best seller, but I can tell you that Nora Roberts got it right. She drew in her audience and kept them in her world long enough to please them. This should be the goal of all writers.

Read a few pages onAmazon

In the below comments tell me what you think of the opening, and why it did or did not work for you.

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