If you want your ideal reader to read what you wrote, take a few ideas from successful fishermen and women
- Offer attractive bait
- Set the hook at the first nibble
- Reel ’em in
Your bait is a grabby title.
What makes it grabby?
Anything that answers the reader’s question “what’s in it for me to read this?”
- That would be things like: “How to [solve a particular problem] in 3 Easy Steps”
Something so curiously irresistible it grabs attention like a car wreck on the side of the road.
- That would be things like: “Are People Saying This About You?” or “Is This Something You Should Know?” or “ Why Didn’t Anyone Tell You This?”
Set the hook with a hooky first paragraph.
Here are two examples:
EXAMPLE 1: (from my book Becoming Conscious: One Women’s Story of Spiritual Awakening)
“I’m afraid of heights and we didn’t have a gun; an overdose might leave me alive, but mentally incapacitated. A razor to my wrists was way too grizzly, and I’d heard that a person looked really ugly, all bloated and purple, from carbon monoxide poisoning. I wonder how long it would take to starve to death?”
EXAMPLE 2: From my current ghostwriting assignment. Working title: The Making of Dee (not yet published)
“There was a party going on. I didn’t know him from Adam. We were in an upstairs bedroom in somebody’s house. He had a weird vibe, but he was kind of good looking in a rugged sort of way, and he showed interest in me, so I went for it.”
Reel your reader in with sticky content.
Here are a few things that make content sticky:
- Tight writing. Carrie Fisher is quoted as saying: “Instant gratification takes too long.” The days of someone settling down with War and Peace are over (unless it is required reading). Get to the point with as few words as possible. Here’s a link to my previous post on tight writing. (Cleaning Up Your Articles “Final” Draft)
- Content that solves the reader’s urgent problem: I’d read 1,000 pages if I knew at the end, while dining on chocolate cake and Rocky Road ice cream, I’d be 30 lbs lighter!
- Your personal story, vulnerably told, of living through your dark night of the soul. Nothing is more gripping than a told-from-the-heart personal story of bringing a “shadow self” into the light.
EXAMPLE:
The book Cool, Hip & Sober, written by my writing teacher, Bill Manville, after drinking his way into two New York hospitals in ten days — his kidneys too alcohol-paralyzed to pee. He is now sober over 20 years.
WRITING A BOOK? Be sure to end each chapter with a sticky, page-turner sentence.
EXAMPLES from my book:
- “I sucked in my breath and blew it out. ‘Ready,’ I answered with the sinking feeling I was about to be walked off a plank.”
- “I hope this works. I have four months to breathe life into my bank account!”
- “I had no way of knowing I had embarked on a path of building consciousness and all the turmoil that would create in my life.”
What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know. What topics would keep you reading to the very end despite “not having the time to read it right now.” If you have a title, or opening paragraph you’d like feedback on, send me an email, jennifer@JenniferTheEditor.org. I’d love to hear from you. Keep on writing!
Jennifer the Editor
Helping people with a book inside them . . . get it OUT!
Ghostwriting – Editing – Manuscript Evaluations
http://JenniferTheEditor.org
Jennifer@JenniferTheEditor.org
