I have just typed THE END on my latest manuscript. Last Marine Standing is currently at 54000 words, but after editing will probably sit more at 57. That is because I trust my Beta and Editor to tell me if I have f****d up somewhere.
This book has been a hard one to write and I think I know why. A Reason To Stay (book one in this *Heroes* series) was also a difficult one to write and for exactly the same reason as this one.
I needed the hook.
That one moment where the protagonists resolve something, or the mystery is solved, or the peril becomes obvious and our heroes need to fight to survive, or overcome. When I found my hook in book 1 it shocked even me, and the rest of the book simply flowed. Including all the fun stuff I love to write like romance, and lust and falling in love.
Book 2 was at that same point. Why did everything happen? What was the one thing that ties everything together, and it took find took me some time to find that hook. I know why. I love writing people, the emotions, the love story, the dialogue. That part of a book seems to fall in place very naturally. When it comes to a complicated back story with bad guys and good guys and all the guys in between, then I have to spend a lot of time thinking outside the box.
As a person who likes things to make sense and fall into place easily, the block of a more detailed *crime* story can stop me writing the bits I love. Then, suddenly I fall in love with the crime part as well, the hook is in place, I have a resolution in my head and SUDDENLY I am writing thousands of words and THE END happens before I know it.
Some readers have told me they didn’t see the hook coming in A Reason To Stay, and to a writer that means I must have written it right! I wonder if people will second guess the story in Last Marine Standing? And now i am off to find a hook for Texas Book 6… wish me luck!
Authors, do you have *the hook* first, or does it just happen as you go along? Readers, do you enjoy it when there is the eureka moment and the hook is revealed?
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Great post. Thank you for sharing. I do love a book with a good hook. I mean one reason I read books is the hope that authors will wow me.