You've Got Five Pages, The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, to Tell Me You're Good.

Welcome back, my fellow creatives!Yup, I'm back to looking at the first five pages of various stories, for those five pages can make or break the engagement of a reader--or an agent. So, let's scope out the stories of others to see how they hook an audience!One can say a lot with a little, especially when you know your readers. Moore's opening line "The bed is empty" hits a nerve with anyone who has checked on loved ones sleeping, especially children. In the case of The God of the Woods, the opening focuses on counselor Louise discovering one of the campers, the child Barbara, is missing. The sections of opening text are tight scenes between her and another counselor, or her reflecting on the night before. Each section ends with a touch of a cliffhanger not unlike Lee Child's structure in his Jack Reacher novels, which I appreciate. Such sections ensure there's no time for off-topic information, for every second of a disappearance counts. The cliffhangers consistently allude to little things that deepen the severity of an already severe situation, too. Why wasn't the other counselor doing her job? Why would Louise cheat on her partner? Why is it even worse that the child Barbara is missing rather than any other child? We readers want answers, so we keep reading. For those ready to kick the hornet's nest of a past and run like hell, The God of the Woods may be just the mystery for you.And what will we discover in the following story's pages?We'll have to wait and see. xxxxRead on, share on, and write on, my friends!