Keep Your Promise

 by Jan Drexler 

We’ve all heard the advice to start your story with a good hook.

What’s a hook? A hook is your opening sentence or paragraph that catches the readers’ attention and makes them want to read to the end of the book.

We have many resources to help us craft a good hook, but today I want to discuss what happens when a hook goes wrong.

My husband and I enjoy watching movies in the evening. Lately we’ve been bingeing on old westerns from the 1950’s, and we’ve discovered some gems. Of course, there have been some duds, too.

For me, one of those duds was a Robert Mitchum film, The Man with the Gun.

Clicking on the picture will take you to the film. Before we go on, please watch the first 40 seconds. That’s right – ONLY the first 40 seconds. 

(If the link doesn't work, go to Youtube to watch it)

First of all, let’s get past the obvious: NEVER kill the dog in your story!

Okay, now on to the problem.

This is the hook. The bad guy, Ed Pinchot, rides into town and the first thing we see him do is to shoot a dog. Where can this character go from here?

I spent the rest of the movie wondering what Pinchot would do next. Would he rampage through town with his gang shooting up the place? Would he have a showdown with the good guy? Would he try to steal the good guy’s girl?

After all, the opening scene showed his cruelty. A bad guy’s story arc is a negative one, so his first scene should show his negative traits, and we can expect that things will only get worse from here.

But in this story, it doesn’t.

Yes, Pinchot shows up again, but he is consistently the weaker character in every scene he’s in. He doesn’t confront the good guy, we never see him rallying his troops, we never see him take any action at all.

I kept thinking – “But he’ll show up at the end. There will be a big shoot-out like the OK Corral. He’ll almost win, but in the end, Robert Mitchum's character will come out on top.”

I kept expecting it.

And it didn’t happen.

What did happen? Go back to the movie and fast forward to the 1:20 point and you’ll see.

Pinchot rides into town with his boss. The entire movie has been leading to this point. THIS is the big moment. Good vs. Evil. Bad guys vs. good guys.

In fact, we haven’t even seen Pinchot's boss, Dade Holman, until this point. He’s been a faceless threat through the whole story.

But when you watch the clip, you can see that this scene only lasts 90 seconds.

The film attempts to increase the tension throughout the movie, raising the stakes with the shadowy threat of Dade Holman always lurking in the shadows.

But when the final battle comes, it falls flat. No discussion between the characters, no flash of tension. Not even any real conflict.

Yes, I’m pretty sure I muttered bad things at the television through the whole movie. I really didn’t like it.

Why?

Because the storytellers (the writers and director) didn’t live up to the promise they had made to the viewers at the beginning of the movie.

That opening scene said, “This guy here? Watch him. He’s the bad guy, and he’s scary bad.”

The rest of the movie pretty much ignored him.



How does this relate to our writing? 

First of all, don’t promise something that you can't deliver.

That’s what happened in The Man with the Gun. The writers made a promise, but the rest of the story made it impossible to deliver on that promise. It would have been better if the bad guy didn’t shoot the dog, but only threatened to. Then his other appearances in the movie could build on that threat instead of falling short of the promise. 

Second, make your promise fit your character.

The bad guy, Ed Pinchot, was threatening, but he was like a dog barking at the end of a chain. Dade Holman controlled him, and he only went as far as his boss allowed him to.

In that opening scene, he acted on his own…but it was the only time in the movie that he did. 

Third, follow through on your promise.

In The Man with the Gun, the story fell flat because that beginning promise was never resolved.

What could have been done differently? Like I said earlier, the writers could have changed the promise to make it a threat rather than an action. Or they could have made his character’s actions escalate in violence until he finally killed someone. 

Anton Chekov once wrote, “If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last.”

That means that every element in a story must be necessary, and elements should not make “false promises” by never coming into play.

If you make a promise, follow through. 

-If Ebenezer Scrooge refuses to let Bob Cratchit put one more piece of coal on the fire in the first scene, he had better send Bob out to buy more coal at the end of the story. 

-If Will Turner shows himself to be a talented swordsman early on in the film, we had better see him using that blade in stunning ways by the end of the story. 

-If we see George Bailey risking his life to save his brother when they were children, you know we will witness his heroic actions to save his family, his business, and his town.

Another great example of  writers following through with their promise is the classic children’s book, The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Weise. In the first few pages we see Ping witnessing what happens to the last duck that marches across the wooden bridge to the boat in the evening. After a series of events, what happens at the end? Ping is the last duck. “SPANK came the spank on Ping’s back!”

When I read this story to preschoolers, it never fails to happen. Every child’s eyes widen when they realize that Ping is going to be the last duck to go over the little bridge. They understand the necessary ending because the author set up the situation – promised the ending – in such a clear way. 

Have you thought about the promise you’re making to your reader in your opening scene? Do you follow through with it?

And readers – think about some of the best books you’ve read. Go back and read the opening hook. Did the author follow through with their promises?

Jan Drexler has always been a "book girl" who still loves to spend time within the pages of her favorite books. She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her dear husband of many years and their active, crazy dogs, Jack and Sam. You can learn more about Jan and her books on her website, www.JanDrexler.com.