Hooking the Reader and Setting the Tone of the Story By Connie Vines #Hooking your reader, #ChapterOne, #Romance novels,

 Chapter One: Hooking the reader and setting the tone of the story

Chapter One, page one, has to hook the reader and set the story's tone. 

In some ways, the opening chapter has to work harder than any of the others. Chapter One is the one most writers agonize over the most. 

Begin at the point the story actually starts – or even after it’s started.

I like to begin with dialogue, followed by action. 

Make sure the opening sets the tone for the rest of the novel. 

Easy-peasy. 

Except when it isn't.

Tanayia--Whisper upon the Water. (historical YA novel). It was my first award-winning novel. I was also honored with a lifetime achievement award for my work on behalf of Native American Children.

While the use of a prologue is usually discouraged, it was a simple way to transport a reader into the past.

1868

The Governor of New Mexico decreed that all Indian children over the age of six be educated in the ways of the while man.

Indian Commissioner, Thomas Morgan, said, "It is cheaper to educate the Indians than to kill them".

1880, Apacheria, Season of Ripened Berries.

  

Isolated bands of colored clay on white limestone remain where the sagebrush is stripped from Mother Earth by sudden storms and surface waters. Desolate. Bleak. A land made of barren rock and twisted paths that reach out into the silence.

A world of hunger and hardship. This is my world. I am Tanayia. I was born thirteen winters ago. We call ourselves N'dee, the People. The white man calls us Apache.

On the lighter side.  "Who doesn't love a cowboy?"

Chapter One

Charlene hadn't told Rachel that she'd fixed her up with a cowboy, much less Lynx Maddox, the "Wild Cat" of the rodeo circuit.  Rachel sighed. She should have known. After all, Charlene only dated men who wore boots and Stetsons.

If you like your romance Cajun style, you'll enjoy this mix of short stories. 🐊

"Marrying off Murphy." Like all Cajun fairy tales, it began harmless enough. A match-maker 

 promises to turn a stuffy professor into a charming prince. So, why does the confirmed bachlorette suddenly wish she was dressed for the ball?

"Love Potion #9"  Watch what happens when you mix a traditional Creole woman with a fun-loving Cajun man and throw in a Voodoo Love Potion--stand back! The Louisiana Bayou ain't never gonna be the same!

"A Slice of Scandal". A producer finds herself embroiled in a mystery as hot as her Bayou Cooking Show. When an undercover cop-turned-chef shows up and dishes up more heat than a bottle of Louisiana hot peppers.  Can she prove her innocence before the real killer finds her? Or, will she become the main course in a murder trial?

"1-800-FORTUNE" Garlic hangs from the rafters, but this sexy Loupe Garou isn't looking for trouble or a cure for what ails him. What's a law-abiding werewolf to do when a gypsy woman shows up with mischief on her mind?  

To purchase or for sample reads of my novels:

BWL (publisher's site)  https://www.bookswelove.com/

AMAZON: Kindle, audio, print. (Canada or USA)

Or at your favorite online bookseller.

Happy Reading,

Connie

 

The Key to Your Heroine--is Hidden in Your Closet? by Connie Vines

 Research is my middle name.

I plan family vacations to include possible ‘future book settings’, ‘historical events’, ‘regional foods’—well, you know where I’m going with this.

In the past, research often required hours spent at the public library using the card catalog, or reading microfiche.  Oh, how the Internet has simplified my life.

However, breathing life into your heroine, and bringing your story to life, are all elements that writers spend hours and hours perfecting.

Sensory details, setting, motivation, and that ‘something’ which is the spark of each and every story is often elusive.  Sometimes, just sometimes, the pieces of your fictional universe fall neatly, and unexpectedly, into place.

This is what happened to me.

While sorting through my closet, I discovered a treasure of carefully-packed-away-items.  Being the eldest daughter, I’ve acquired the family photos, was blessed with the oral histories of grandparents and one great-grandmother, as well as that of and other relatives.  I carefully placed the items on my bed.  I stroking a silk scarf belonging to my maternal grandmother. I focused on the blending of colors and the threads of silver catching the light. This was when I knew I was experiencing an 'important moment' in her life.  A snap-shot of who she was, who she wanted to be—a time before she was my grandmother. Before she was married. Before she had a child of her own.

She was a young woman.

Had she gone shopping with her sister or her mother to purchase this scarf?  Or had she ridden the EL, after work, to a department store in downtown Chicago?  

Was she going to a dance? 

To dinner?

Or, to the theater?

Her mother, Marie, was raised on a farm in Bohemia, Czechoslovakia (before it became the Czech Republic). As an adult she moved to Prague, working as a secretary until she married her husband, They had 6 children, my grandmother was the youngest.

In 1898, the family (minus my grandmother, who was born in the United States) boarded a ship and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to Ellis Island and before settling in Chicago, Ill . 

My grandmother in the 1920s working at A.B. Dick.
Which later became Xerox.  She became their 1st female supervisor and held
 that position until she retired.

I located pieces of her jewelry, the scarf still smelled faintly of her perfume (or was it simply my memory of her fragrance?), necklaces, earrings, broaches, and bracelets. There was a beaded evening bag.  I recalled a photo taken when she and her sister worked as extras in the motion pictures of the 1920 and 1930s.  They stayed with their older brother (musician, Tony Lada of the Louisiana Five) in San Monica, California.  

Tony (Anton) Lada's band was the first band to tour Europe. He preformed at the Troubadour. He was one of the founding members of SAG .  There were so many stories about Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, and many more. . . 

I was certain I had it in a box, perhaps a few of the pictures had already been scanned to my computer.

The wax music cylinders were all damaged in a flood but I had some sheet music and one '78 record. 

Louisiana Five/youtube link

These are the steps that help me discover my heroine and my hero.  

This is why my characters become living, breathing people to me and to my readers—step by step; their stories are revealed to me as snapshots of pieces of their lives. 

Gritty Old Chicago?  

The glorious film sets when talking pictures were cutting edge? Or the days of silent movies.

Rudolph Valentino was all the rage (Catch his silent movies on YouTube—he really was was a hottie!)

There are so many wonderful stories in passed down through a family oral history.

The relative who immigrated from Sicily.  

I also have my great-great-grandmother’s butter churn from the 1800s— when made the journey from Tennessee via a covered wagon (the Scottish branch of the family tree) but that’s another story.

So, what treasure do you have hiding in your closet?

What stories have your ancestors passed down to you?

What story is waiting to be told?

Thank you for stopping by to read my blog posting.

My current release, "Gumbo Ya Ya" is set in New Orleans and the Louisiana bayou. My husband's family is from Louisiana. New Orleans and The French Quarter are wonderful cities. 

Remember, my novels always, always include delicious recipes. And Gumbo Ya Ya, not only has gumbo recipes; but old time pass-down-family recipes, too!

Happy Reading!

Connie

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