Scene Workshop: Hook Your Readers in Chapter One with Cathryn deVries

Your Next Draft

You get one shot to grab their attention. Don’t waste it with characters staring off into space.
You've put all this work into uncovering your character's internal arc. You know them SO WELL.
When you step into a scene, you're giving your absolute all to uncovering the deep meaning and purpose behind it, the profound arc of character transformation that's happening in even the smallest moments.
Yet in doing all that . . . you've lost the plot. You've crafted complex inner worlds for your characters, but all they're literally doing is staring off into space.
And you're worried that in the times when you most want to hook your readers—like your absolutely critical opening pages—you're boring them instead.
Bored readers put books down.
So what do you do? Throw in some discord and explosions to create external chaos? Cut the scene and start the story at a different point entirely?
Or is there a way to use what you know of your character's internal arc to find the perfect external action that will hook your readers and keep them turning pages?
This is exactly the challenge Cathryn deVries encountered in the first chapter of her novel. So we workshopped it together—and in this episode, you'll hear how we solved it, and how you can hook your readers, too.
Links mentioned in the episode:

• Notes to Novel with Savannah Gilbo
• Read Cathryn’s scene: alicesudlow.com/76
• Read When a Slave Falls, Cathryn’s award-winning short story
• Read Lightning Hunter, a story set in the same world as the scene we workshopped
• Find Cathryn on her website, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

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