You've Got Five Pages, Hatchet Island by Paul Doiron, to Tell Me You're Good.

The first chapter can make or break a reader's engagement with a story. We as writers must craft brilliant opening pages in order to hook those picky readers, so let's study the stories of others to see how they do it! The opening pages of Hatchet Island by Paul Doiron is, sadly, a return to prologues. We meet a nameless character suffering insomnia, one who has simply given up on life in college and in general. After months of isolation, he finally ventures out into the world...only to throw himself from a bridge. Now I'm sure some readers will be intrigued by what happened to this nameless character. Why did this character make that choice? Was it the birds and the birdkeeper he worked for that drove him to kill himself? How could living with birds do such a thing? For me, though, this prologue put a sour taste in my mouth. I'm all for a good murder mystery, but when life is lost in a story, it should mean something. Like Colleen Hoover's Verity, I felt like killing off a nameless person for the sake of shock value in the first few pages dulls the impact of any future loss of life later in the story. Plus there are so many other ways to show that time on an island has transformed a person for the worse: their habits, their language, their little actions. All these can steadily impact those around them and lead to other, bigger transformations down the road. I know not every writer feels this way, but I will always appreciate a chance to peel back layers to find the rot, rather than simply smashing the fruit underfoot to send that rot flying in bits all over the ground. What will you, fellow creative, learn in the first five pages? Let's find out!