Reading and applying

I recently entered a contest and won. The prize I won was a copy of Les Edgerton's HOOKED. Have any of you read this? If you haven't it's fantastic. If you're a serious writer or at least want to be, but are having trouble keeping agents from requesting more than a partial from you, then this is the book for you. It's all about how to hook a reader from the first page and keeping them interested. Seriously, go put this on your wishlist for the Holiday's. You won't regret it.

The thing I love about improvement books, is you can gain so much knowledge from them. But the thing some people might dislike about them is that they have no idea how to apply what they may have learned. Sometimes this can be difficult.

For instance: In HOOKED, I learned that agents and editors have a check list. Things they look for within those first pages that will either make them say, nope, stop reading and go on to the next pile, or continue reading. Well, what are some of these things? If you start off with dialogue and continue without any kind of direction to the story then they might stop reading after the first chapter. If you flood your first chapter with massive amounts of back story you might as well shoot yourself in the foot.

This book helps you see how to overcome these silly mistakes. YAY!

So what's in books that usually hook's you?

For me: I love a strong voice, and the occasional love interest, however make me laugh and I'm usually sold.