Comments on: Free HOOK Edit: It's a story—

By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:28:42 +0000

I get a wonderful sense of desperation from this person. He (I’m assuming it’s a “he”)is so desperate to explain his actions–apparently, actions that were quite bad. You know he is begging for forgiveness, maybe from himself as much as from others. But you don’t really know if he deserves forgiveness. You don’t quite know whether to feel sympathy or plain horror. It conveys a lot of emotion in very few words.

By: Lady Glamis

Lady Glamis — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:41:40 +0000

I do love the mystery in this hook! Great job!

By: Ashley Ludwig

Ashley Ludwig — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:56:33 +0000

Talk about a hook! anti-hero? Love it. Very intriguing. I like Maureen’s addition of I know I loved her… so his intentions meant well?

By: Maureen

Maureen — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:10:36 +0000

Well, the author now has 100 more words to unfold the story and still remain within “hook” parameters — would be interesting to see a rework on this one!

By: gotheca

gotheca — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:56:03 +0000

Maureen,

Ah, yes. But we don’t know yet that what the narrator is talking about is love. If by “love” they mean, “I loved her, so I had to kill her,” that’s not love. And calling it love in the hook risks losing readers who know that.

We’re working to keep this narrator interesting, which means complexity, which means we have to bend over backward not to tell the reader to like them.

We’ll find out as the story unfolds what the narrator really feels and what it means. In the meantime, whether or not the woman loved the narrator is important because the kicker is she can’t tell us anymore.

Victoria

By: Maureen

Maureen — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:41:54 +0000

I agree with the heavy editing here, but I think one point was left out that might well be crucial — that despite the possibility of it being unrequited, the narrator’s love was certain. So I would suggest:

“I think she loved me. I know I loved her.”