How Do We Captivate Our Reader On Page One?
Everything today is fast-paced and readers’ attentions are harder to grab than ever.
Your readers must be interested in the story from the beginning.
But how can we make our readers curious from page one?
We as writers MUST grab our reader’s attention on page one. You have to find a way to hook your reader from the get-go.
Hopefully, this post will inspire you and help you to come up with great ideas for how to grab your reader’s attention from the start and keep it.
How do we captivate our reader on page one?
Ways to Captivate Our Reader On Page One:
- Start the story in the heat of it, then go back to where it all started
- Create tension through angry or flirtatious dialogue
- Introduce your characters fears and desires early on
- Describe the setting, and make it interesting
- Start with urgency
Captivate Our Reader On Page One: Start the story in the heat of it, then go back to where it all started
This is a commonly used tactic to grab a reader’s attention.
Start your story in the middle of a climactic moment. Draw the reader into the heat of the moment. Let them feel the emotional and physical weight of the moment. Make the stakes high and create a big problem and before anything gets resolved, take them into the past.
Start to tell them about the main character and lead them back to that climactic moment.
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Captivate Our Reader On Page One: Create tension through angry or flirtatious dialogue
Start your story with a couple walking down a beach.
Make them in love and holding hands and being cuddly, but as they walk along the conversation changes to something dark and they start to argue and get mad.
One of them gets aggressive and starts shouting angrily.
Presenting a problem through dialogue will make a reader curious about how that dialogue will resolve.
Not all of our problems have to be murder and chaos.
Relationships and dialogue can work just as well.
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Captivate Our Reader On Page One: Introduce your characters fears and desires early on
Fears and desires can be a very good way to allow our reader to connect with the main character or secondary characters.
As humans, all of us have fears and desires. Some stringer than others.
Our fears and desires are intimate. When we share them with someone we opening up ourselves to them and being vulnerable.
Make your characters open and vulnerable to your reader so that she or he feels an emotional connection with them.
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Captivate Our Reader On Page One: Describe the setting, and make it interesting
Take a note from Tolkien on this one. His detailed descriptions are epic and poignant.
If you can describe your settings like he was able to your reader will be able to soar off into unknown adventurous lands farther than the eye can see, below the ocean waves and high up on the peaks of the mountains.
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Captivate Our Reader On Page One: Start with urgency
If we want our reader to be hooked from page one we need to create suspense.
A great and easy way to create suspense is by urgency.
Create a time-sensitive event with high stakes.
Make it that your main character has to act quickly or else a bomb will go off.
Write that the main character only has two hours to find the poor victim.
Write that the protagonist has to do what the villain says or innocent hostages will get killed and they have twelve minutes to do it.
How do we captivate our reader on page one?
I hope these ideas help and inspire you to be able to capture your reader’s attention and draw them in from page one!
Now get out there and write something!
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Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
Other posts you may find splendid:
How To Write 4 Scenes That Reveal Who Your Character Is Seamlessly
4 Tips How to Write your Character Hitting Rock Bottom
5 Tricks How to Hide Your Villain Right Before Their Eyes
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