5 Elements of a Scene: #1 an Opening Hook by Kayelle Allen
What is a scene? In fictional writing, it’s a place where action occurs (scene of the crime), or an incident takes place (a seduction, an argument, a beginning conflict, etc.). There are more, but this should suffice for our purposes.
Good scenes consist of five things. An opening hook, a complication, a discovery, a response, and a closing hook.
Wait… are you saying I have to have two hooks? One at the beginning and one at the end?
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Let’s start with a look at the first.
Opening Hook
A great opening hook will follow up on a previous scene or be a completely new hook. You want to grab the reader’s attention and hang onto it for the entire scene. A solid hook reveals something that an important character wants or needs.
You also need scenes to be either action or reaction. A good scene will have a goal, a conflict, and something that goes wrong. But it will also have reactions to these and perhaps create a dilemma.
A good scene must move the story forward and generate or reveal conflict.
Consider these things when creating a scene.
How does the protagonist or antagonist feel about what’s happening?
Go deeper than their surface emotions. Avoid she smiled, she nodded, she sighed, she looked over at…, etc.
How does the scene impact this person emotionally? What is at stake for them? What will happen that they want? What do they not want to happen?
How does the person react internally to this happens? Avoid she was so happy / he felt sad / her heart thudded / his breath caught, and so on.
Avoid passive information
We’ll take a look at the first-person narrative in my own book, Beneath the Gates. This is a bundle of stories set in the Colonies of Man. Here’s the opening sentence in the first paragraph of The Last Vhalgenn chapter one:
In the private receiving chamber, I knelt before the king I hadn’t seen in over two years, an ache in my knees and groin and back that four hours ahorse had burned into my muscle; and delivered the news of victorious battle I’d been dispatched to bring.
This opening hook tells us who, what, where, when, and why.
Who:
“I” which we infer from the title to be “the last Vhalgenn” – although we don’t yet know what a Vhalgenn is. We’d like to find out, but this hook doesn’t reveal gender or describe the person revealing the story. Why? Because this is first person, and the character already knows what they look like. We’ll discover more about the Vhalgenn as the story progresses.
What:
Relaying news of victorious battle. From this, we know the story takes place during war time. Against whom or between what kingdoms? At this point, all that matters is that we get a hint of setting and time period.
Where:
A private receiving chamber – which implies a place of status or perhaps rule or government.
When:
It had been two years since this person had seen the king. Why had it been so long? Why had they seen the king prior to this? That it’s delivered after “four hours ahorse” tells us there is likely no faster transport. This gives a hint of time period – one in which horses are the usual means of transportation. Why is this news being delivered now, instead of after the person has rested?
Why:
(victorious news that) I’d been dispatched to bring – this person has received a command or request to deliver news. That fact seems to imply a lesser rank. This will turn out to be untrue later in the story, when the real reason the Vhalgenn was chosen is revealed. That fact is critical to the story, but here, there is no more than a hint.
That’s a lot to reveal in one sentence or opening scene.
Scene tip:
Emotion doesn’t show with words like he sighed, he nodded, his heart pounded, he met her gaze, etc. It’s layered in with how the character reacts to the setting. Much of that is accomplished through verbs that relay emotion, opinion, or setting. Notice the words in bold:
In the private receiving chamber, I knelt before the king I hadn’t seen in over two years, an ache in my knees and groin and back that four hours ahorse had burned into my muscle; and delivered the news of victorious battle I’d been dispatched to bring.
In this hook we get multiple layers of emotion, imagery, and opinion. Whether a hook is one sentence, a paragraph, or multiple pages, that is exactly what an opening hook (whether one line or one plus page) should provide.
I hope this helps you tap into your artistic and creative skill and helps you craft your next opening hook.
Beneath the Gates mixes archaeology, science fiction, fantasy, and mythology. It includes full versions of The Last Vhalgenn and Trailing Kaiwulf, plus exclusive bonus stories. https://books2read.com/beneath-the-gates
Next month, we’ll take a look at section two of a scene: the complication.
How have you used a creative hook to grab a reader’s attention? Feel free to leave an example and the name of the book.
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