I recently met New York Times Bestselling Author C.J. Box, and one of the things he told me is something I have felt and struggled with for a long time.  His comment was that you have to really work on that first line of your book.  Make it have punch and really grab the reader.  It has to hook the reader in so they don’t find something more interesting or entertaining to occupy their time.  He gave me a few examples, and while I whole-heartedly agree with him, I can see where the difficulty in doing them in your book can be a struggle.  I also give my readers more credit than he does and think that your hook can certainly be several sentences into the book, but it still has to be there.  And more than anything, your first chapter is extremely critical in developing the interest level in your reader and creating a hook to turn the page to the next chapter.

So here is your assignment, grab any dozen books and read the first line or two.  Then grab one of C.J. Box’s books and read his first lines.  Tell me the difference it makes to you as a reader and see what I mean.  Maybe all the books you choose use this technique well, but I bet you’ll see a difference.

How do you decide on what point of view to write in?  Do you wish the intimacy of a first person narrative or the objectivity of a third person voice that is neutral and all knowing?  With newer writers it is often easier to write in the first person, but it does, at the very least, hamper the ability for a main character description.  First person descriptions of the main character can especially seem forced and egotistical if not handled well.  Sometimes there's hardly any practical way for some self-descriptions to come out of the mouth of that character that doesn't make it sound out of place.  On the plus side, first person narration gives you a unique opportunity to carry on inner dialogues in the mind of that character that can be quite entertaining and not easily carried out by an omniscient narrator.  How have you handled these kinds of choices in your writing?  What kinds of problems have you encountered and how did you solve them? .