This week: Grabbing Your Readers Edited by: Angus  
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“I was never really insane, except on occasions where my heart was touched.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe ~
"I haven't had this much fun since the rats ate my baby sister."
~ Robert Bloch ~
Author of Psycho
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GRABBING YOUR READERS
SOME DO’S AND DON’T’S
Grabbing, snaring, hooking, it’s all the same. The main point is you want to get the reader’s attention as soon as possible. In a sense (and in my mind, anyway), it really is little like fishing. Use the right bait, hook ‘em good, and don’t let ‘em get away!
Titles
The first thing the reader will see is the title. An eye-catching cover always helps, but it’s the title that draws more interest. Many titles are self-explanatory, and subtitles never hurt. But don’t use a title that might mislead potential readers as to what the story/book is about. Just the other day I saw a book in the library titled Horror Stories (or something very close) by a new author. I was in a hurry because the library was about to close, so I checked it out without reading the intro or the inside of the book jacket. Turns out the book was about the author’s personal horror stories that dealt with relationships, jobs, family, etc.
A subtitle would have helped a lot!
Subjects And Plot
What is the story about? Is it truly fictional horror, such as giant mutant squirrels taking over the world? Or is it about a possible real life horror, like a new age Jack the Ripper terrorizing a small town? Whatever it is, it needs to be interesting enough to hold your readers to the story.
Don’t get depressed if you can’t think of something new to write about. Entirely new ideas are rare, but they are out there. Just watch the nightly news or read a newspaper. Keep your eyes and ears open to something you might be able to put a new twist on. Check out contests for prompts. Look in the back of your refrigerator to see if there’s some kind of new mold growing behind that 7 year-old jar of dill pickles!
Once you have a subject to write about, now you need a plot. How are the giant mutant squirrels going to take over the world? Why are they taking over the world? Do they have a leader? And who’s going to stop them? And how will they be stopped? Or will they be stopped? Did they escape from some secret government laboratory*, or are they just some freaks of nature that evolved over time in the dark jungles of the Amazon?
All these (and more) will need to be dealt with in a manner that makes the reader want to keep turning the pages. Yeah, there might a few slow spots where the mutant squirrels have trouble migrating to other continents, but try to keep the reader engrossed as much as possible.
Subplots
The longer the story, the more characters it will probably have, and therefore more subplots. There’s nothing wrong with subplots as long as they’re relevant and important to the main theme. Too many characters and subplots can confuse the reader.
When I first started reading Stephen King’s The Stand, I almost quit after the first 150 pages. There were just so many characters and subplots happening it was hard to keep up with it!
Characters
Try to make your characters as memorable as possible. That’s not to say they have to be extraordinary, but give them real personalities and qualities the reader can relate to. Maybe give them a peculiarity: a bushy salt and pepper mustache, a raspy voice, wearing gaudy clothes, a lazy eye, a scar, or just something they'll be remembered for.
But most importantly, make them people (or creatures) the reader will care about.
Remember: grabbing your reader is one thing. Holding onto them is another.
*Killer bees, a.k.a. Africanized honey bees, actually did escape from a laboratory in South America, although it wasn't a secret government one. It might have been decent material for a truly fictional horror story if mankind wouldn’t have played around with Mother Nature and made it a real life horror!
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This month's question: What do you consider to be the most important factor in grabbing your reader's attention?
Last time I asked: What type of horror stories do you prefer? Psychological, Monster, Ghost (paranormal), or whatever else you can think of?
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Horror/Scary: January 15, 2020 Issue [#9957]
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