To Hook or Not to Hook, That is the Question? Read online

ruse would be detected, but someone did that with Pride and Prejudice, submitting Jane Austen’s work to ten literary agents, nine of whom rejected it, and one only spotted the trick. It is a truth universally acknowledged that the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice is one of the best-known opening lines in English literature.

  “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

  Pride and Prejudice has been around for twice as long as The Riddle of the Sands, and has seldom if ever been out of print. It does not have a hook in the opening paragraph, but people still read it and adore it. I have loved the Bennet girls ever since I encountered them at school. I have found Mr Bennet a delight, and Mrs Bennet a pain in the neck to say the very least.

  Jane Austen did not meet the exacting demands of modern literary agents, and I fear she would be in good company as I suspect that John Buchan and Erskine Childers would also be the recipients of a rejection letter, for not one of these undistinguished and lacklustre writers had a hook.

  I confess that I like the way that Buchan, Childers and Austen opened their novels. I was able to relax in the peaceful life their characters relaxed in, and to get to know them as people before all hell erupted, or in Jane Austen’s case, before romance and frustration erupted. By insisting on a hook, the Literary Agent has ruled out what I suggest is a valid and effective way of opening a novel.

  In it, the author sets the scene by the pace of the novel. Regency, Victorian, and early twentieth century readers loved it. I was taught that short staccato sentences create pace. Longer more complex sentences that flow around the reader, and embrace multiple ideas in a single sentence, convey tranquillity.

  Maybe the modern reader demands instant gratification, and a bleeding corpse on page one. Maybe Buchan and Childers would be consigned to the slush pile, but I hope not. I, for one, do not believe that the modern reader cannot respond to the change of pace that is inherent in Buchan or Childers. As a child, I enjoyed the placid bits at the start where I could be lazy and relaxed, but knew that the pace would soon hot up.

  After a while, I realised that the freedom that had been open to Buchan and Childers was not open to me. The hook and “the pitch” were mandatory. At this traumatic moment, ‘Deep POV’ entered my already troubled life. I found that many agents and publishers will only accept a book if it is written in ‘Deep POV’ and that ‘Head Hopping’ is a mortal sin. It seemed that the author who is guilty of ‘head hopping’ ranks with, but after, the lowest of black beetles. No black beetle would dream of such a heinous crime.

  I decided I had better find out what Deep POV was and what head hopping was. They are literary conventions that state that the reader will identify better with the character if the story is told in larger chunks from one character’s point of view only. The author can, if need be, change from one character to another in a scene, but once only. To do more is to be guilty of head hopping.

  It is explained that the average reader is apparently too stupid to cope with head hopping. Shouldst thou head hop, the idiot will just get confused. I confess I was confused and I spent a little while looking through some of the literature on our shelves. I found that some books were written from the omniscient viewpoint, where the novelist knows everything and reveals it to the reader.

  Some were written from a singular viewpoint, and in Childers, “The Riddle of the Sands” we see events as they are related by Carruthers. Some novels follow deep POV. Others, though I was anguished to discover, move from head to head as appropriate. It included some classic authors who clearly did not know enough of their trade not to make this heinous mistake. My initial thought was ‘Away with these idiots. They are not writers. They are dolts. They would be rejected today, now we know better.’

  I read a scene where the interrogator questions the suspect. First we have the question, and then the answer. Rather than give us the bald facts, the writer takes us into the head of the suspect, so we know the conflicts and fears he has. Then he switches to the questioner who must use the answer to advance his interrogation. How does he do this? We discover how he thinks out the next move in this game of verbal chess. Then it is the suspect’s turn.

  As the duel progresses, we hop from head to head. This is confusing. It is shameful, or is it?

  What the author had done is to allow us to appreciate the deadly duel that is in progress. Had he been chained to Deep POV, he could have hopped heads once. We as readers would be the poorer, as we would have lost out on knowing the mind games in this thrilling battle.

  The hook assuredly has a place, and it would be mad to say it does not. Deep POV has a role to play and it would be mad to deny that, but the hook and deep POV are tools and nothing more. A good cabinetmaker uses all his tools, not just one or two of them. He uses them as and when it is right to use them.

  Personally, I believe that the reader of today is not markedly less capable than his Victorian ancestor. I would like to think he is better equipped, for many Victorian readers were the first generation in their family to possess the ability to read. They did not have the benefit of parents who could read and speak to them of literature.

  If a Victorian child from a Board School could cope with head hopping, are you, the modern reader, too stupid to do the same? I would not dare to suggest anything as patronising as that. The author, literary agent or literary critic who says ‘I am superior to the ignorant peasants who read these books’ is arrogant and foolish.

  I have O levels, A levels, an honours degree and professional qualifications, but I can think of many times that I have learned from people who have not had the benefit of such an education. Education confers knowledge. It does not necessarily confer wisdom or even understanding. Readers come from every walk of life, and I do not intend to express a bogus superiority.

  To say that you, the modern reader, is too stupid to cope with head hopping is to adopt a superiority that, I for one, do not feel. I think I can cope with head hopping in classic literature, and I have a firm opinion that you can do so just as well. If head hopping tells the story better than deep POV, then I say ‘Lets Hop, Baby.’

  What of the hook? John Buchan and Erskine Childers saw no need for it. They thought their audience was bright enough to accept the build up of pace and suspense as a part of the art of story telling. Today, with TV, there is pressure to get the story line out within 15 seconds, but do we have to follow that depressing trend in literature.

  Surely a book is a more civilised way to explore events? I can enjoy a meal in the unhurried surroundings of a plush restaurant, but at times, I want something from a fast food outlet. Partaking of one meal does not mean that I turn away from the other in scorn. There are times, when I am listening to ‘The News’ that I want a fast punch line, but is that the case when I read a novel?

  For me, the answer is a resounding no. Maybe the modern reader is conditioned by the world we live in so that he or she demands the ‘Instant gratification’ of a corpse in the first paragraph. Attitudes do change, so it could be so, but I sincerely hope not.

  We now hear of academic writers deciding that classics such as Mark Twain need to be rewritten for Political Correctness. Maybe we will get to the stage that Jane Austen needs to be rewritten to meet modern literary expectations. If so, I have thought out the ideal opening lines.

  ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, and with the body of a young woman on the floor of his bedroom must be in want of a good lawyer.’

  As Mr Bingley stared at the body of Gertrude Snodgrass lying on the floor in his bedroom, he was deeply troubled. This was not because Gertrude was dead, for she was a most troublesome young woman, as her unreasonableness in where she had chosen to be murdered indicated. Bingley had not murdered her, but as he had a vitriolic row with her ten minutes previously and now held a blood stained knife in his hand in front of twenty-three witnesses, it might be difficult
to convince the authorities of this.’

  Compared to Jane’s lacklustre beginning, you have to admit that I have breathed life, or rather death, into the plot before the end of line four. Will Mr Bingley have a chance to meet the Bennet girls, or is he going to hang for the murder of the unreasonable Miss Snodgrass?

  I hope to retain some of Jane Austen’s superb quotes, but you have to admit that Pride and Corpses, as I shall entitle the improved novel, has a first class hook that the original has been lacking for 200 years. Jane really needed a good literary agent to put her on the right track.

  Lidiya is