Shouts From Down Under

All in good taste. Who would write anything less? *halo*

Elle - on hiatus was the sower of the seed behind this blog topic; hunger and the narrative hook.

I was mucking about, looking at her Kitchen Newsletter:

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where I quote, "Everyone has a special recipe for a special occasion - whether in fiction or real life".

I wouldn't go as far as a recipe for disaster.

www.dictionary.com
Halo
noun, plural ha·los, ha·loes.
1.
Also called nimbus. a geometric shape, usually in the form of a disk, circle, ring, or rayed structure, traditionally representing a radiant light around or above the head of a divine or sacred personage, an ancient or medieval monarch, etc.

All is fair in love and war, and also food. The most righteous human (I'm not that person) can be a bit sneaky, tell white lies, cover up evidence and if none of those things; just withhold information, about something we all find tempting.

Our favourite food.

Yes. How many of us could go 40 days and 40 nights and yet say no to turning stones into bread? I think I'd maybe last one or two meals. Then I'd be thinking of baked dinners, sticky date pudding, toast with Vegemite on it, T bone steak, and more. I'd even think about a vegan diet if I was hungry enough.

Can this subject team up with writing? Well, I'll make an attempt.

You know the saying.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Is it possible to manipulate readers into feeling hungry? I suppose it's obvious. We generate desire, or should, from the first few words, the first paragraph or two. The narrative hook.

But like any feeling of need, or want, there are differing levels, aren't there? Not everyone is so hungry they'd knock down a little old lady to get to the trough first.

We can feel a range of "hungry".

Not being any sort of expert, but my thinking is that in our writing works, we can design ongoing narrative hooks of different attraction, different motive, different reasoning, different mood; the list is endless.

I guess the question is; what is the direction we want our reader to go? What are we setting them up for? What is our intended destination for them, by the next paragraph, say, or the next chapter, or by the end of the first book, or by the end of the series if there's more than one.

Are we creating a huge overall hook line that is like a Super Trawler, the net so vast that we aren't even aware of it until we sit back, set down the book / s and heave a huge gasp of satisfaction. We go "YEAH!" "Oh yeah BABY" I see now why the author wrote this ocean liner, this oil tanker of a work, and now that I've arrived it's clear what kept me motivated beyond 3am every night even though I'm a shiftworker!

I couldn't put the dang thing down! Shriek!!!! There was a giant thing! A narrative hook of gigantic proportion, that if I'd been aware of it to begin with, I'd have probably never read the thing through, because I'd have felt too cynical. I'd be like a baby choking on adult food, that should be fed milk, until it develops normally to the age of eating meat.

Yes, I'm 110% sure we have to have different levels of Narrative hook, just like different levels of appetite. Get ready to feed dem readers people, but not force feed em...

From wanting nothing, satisfied thank you, no I'm ok, really, absolutely had sufficient, no, I'm not hungry whatsoever, I feel bloated, fat, gorged, crook, overfed, selfishly stuffed, guilty of gluttony, and sitting just waiting for a cholesterol induced heart attack any second,

Through banal food curiosity, wonder what that combination tastes like(?), being moreish, peckish, tempted, looking at our watch, asking when will dinner be ready, growling stomach, maybe I'll just check in the kitchen, might be time to order takeout, where's that number for Dominos(?),

ToGotta start cooking something myself if no one else is yet, What's in the fridge that I can eat RIGHT NOW. Rip that bag of chocolates open and don't stop 'til it's empty and no you can't have even one I need the whole lot, Ahhh I can smell that roast cooking and must eat now $%%^&*^#$ give me that plate! GET OUTA THE WAY *Elbow to the FACE*, comin THROUGH!

And further on I have to take over Crimea to get enough Salo to eat and to hell with the EU, The Haque convention, Nato and the Third World War issues, JUST DO IT. Ahh yes! 95% voted for pro us (even dead people voted), Gimme that food or I'll rip your arm off! Your my who? Mother? Outa da way it's my food. I've purchased the entire supermarket chain to get my food secure. Yes please, I'll have a Leg of Lamb, all the vegetables, gravy, plus all the rest of the cafeteria.

If you read some successful author's novels, where are their narrative hooks? In the blurb on the back jacket? In the first paragraph?

I think it's something that has definitely changed in these later years, the same way movies, and the making of movies, has changed.
In that industry, new technology, better acting, different filming techniques and outstanding directing, has produced some fantastic, mind blowing interaction in entertainment.

Then there is gaming, a whole scene by itself, and worth billions.
Some games remain so deceptively simple, yet they frighten hardened cynical gamers whose street cred is surely tattooed on their eyeballs and programmers bank accounts.

I give you League of Legends. Even the old Runescape is still going strong after all these years. www.steampowered.com's Day of Defeat (which I still play sometimes)
People, like my own sons, who have pawned at Call of Duty have returned to simple low tech, low graphic games such as Minecraft.

The narrative hooks are being refined and honed. The psychological gurus have sharpened their pencils, filled their syringes, had their couches re-upholstered, ready for us to relaxxxx, lay back on the clients' (sorry for the network pun there) binary bed and prepare to be totally immersed.

If you weren't out of your mind before, you will be afterwards.

Be warned. This contains lots of bad language, and I post it as an example only. Having said this, I have experienced games like this where it does your head in, good and proper. It's the feeling, the sensation, the things you cannot see but they seed your imagination.



A reminder for people on wdc like me who either don't look around much, or forget what's going on?? What the?? Where is it, the hey, you know, the, that what is it then they could you know I always should it then it worked but, and stuff. *GLAVIN!* yes this term has been knocked off from a comic, can anyone guess which one?

What I meant to say before that static and mixed up thought tsunami erupted, was that up on the top right hand corner of wdc should be a square thing of stuff with a rectangle thing above it saying Recent Items.

It's very handy when you're looking for Elle's kitchen letter to find the item number.

Sparky