Hey, have I got your attention?
Exploiting curiosity as a hook in our stories
With the Frazzled Lit Short Story Award 2025 being open for submissions until the end of June, I’ve been thinking a lot about stories and the nature of writing.
In this post, I’m focusing on the important topic of reader engagement.
When we read a short story, the writer presents us with a narrative and a series of events - which may or may not be linear - that take us on a journey from start to middle to the end of the tale. The protagonist may be altered in some way by this journey, or they might not. They will encounter challenges and conflict, and something will usually be at stake for them, which can range from a minor internal conflict they need to resolve, right up to and including saving the entire galaxy.
All good so far, right?
But a writer can have all and any of these components of story, and still end up with a dull result.
What is it, then, that makes a story captivating?
I would argue that there are three main components we can use to grab the reader and hold their interest:
A memorable protagonist.
A strong character and/or narrative voice.
Presenting a series of mysteries which the reader will want to solve.
In this post, I’ll discuss the third of these components, using the opening of my award-winning short story Beautiful Like Her as an example of how one can exploit the human mind’s natural puzzle-solving instinct to hook readers.
Here’s the opening:
Beautiful Like Her
Boys became worthless under her gaze, girls grew murderous. A scald to the eyes, Mossy Byrne once called her, like her beauty could melt the soul right out of you, or like an onion, and any fella who dared to peel her would be left in tears. Everyone had something to say about my sister, about Caoimhe Brady. She belonged to sherbet bursts of summer, they said, to soft melt of tarmac and bicycle spokes swishing in their breathless way. She belonged to yachts and trails of gulls, their crystal shrieks too poor a song to ever fall upon her ear. She belonged to sky and sea and feckless clouds, she belonged to endless love. She belonged to everything and anyone, but she never belonged to me.
In the mornings, I sing to Caoimhe. Bonnie Rait, I Can’t Make You Love Me, her favourite. ‘You should be on the telly,’ she says, pausing between spoonfuls of muesli. I offer her another but she compresses her lips and shakes her head. ‘Eh-eh.’
I set the bowl aside, take her bib away, and pick up her lipstick, amethyst shine. ‘Want?’
‘Hmm.’
‘Then pucker those lips.’
‘Do you love me, Laura?’
‘Who couldn’t love you, Caoimhe Brady?’
Okay, let’s unpack this!
The narrator (Laura, but we don’t know her name just yet) begins by describing her sister Caoimhe (an Irish name, pronounced Kee-va, meaning ‘gentle’ or ‘beautiful’) by recounting what others said about her. The terms may be flattering, but there is a sense of sadness here, and a strong suggestion from Mossy Byrne that Caoimhe was conceited about her beauty.
The final line of the first paragraph is a bit of a smack; Caoimhe belonged to everyone, but not to Laura, and in this, there is a hint of loss and grief, perhaps even regret, on Laura’s part. She was deprived of a sister, and so missed out on an important experience.
What questions might the reader ask themselves at this point?
The initial one is likely to be: Who is this narrator, and who is Caoimhe?
The next one is the central mystery of the story: Why weren’t these sisters close, and what took place in their young lives to bring them to this point?
Now we come into the present, and an action and dialogue sequence:
In the mornings, I sing to Caoimhe. Bonnie Rait, I Can’t Make You Love Me, her favourite.
Laura sings to Caoimhe. In what sort of scenario might this happen?
Caoimhe compliments her singing, then refuses the offer of more food.
So, Laura is feeding Caoimhe, who is wearing a bib. Is this the same beautiful girl she told us about in the first paragraph, and if so, what happened to her? Is she suffering from a chronic illness, or was she injured in an accident?
Questions and more questions, enough to hook the reader, drawing them into the story as they search for answers.
At the end of the opening, we come across these lines:
‘Do you love me, Laura?’
‘Who couldn’t love you, Caoimhe Brady?’
Only now do we learn Laura’s name; cool, one mystery is solved, and this is important, to reward the reader by giving them an occasional answer, but in the same breath, I pose another mystery: Does Laura love Caoimhe?
We don’t yet know the answer, but it’s clear that if she does, she’s not willing to say so, or is witholding her love. Note also the subtle call-back to the title of the Bonnie Rait song; Caoimhe can’t make Laura love her, and vice versa. Is this some form of punishment on Laura’s part, because of a festering resentment? Did Caoimhe withold her love from Laura when they were younger, and now Laura is taking her revenge when Caoimhe is vulnerable? Now that we know Caoimhe is in some way dependent on Laura, do we think it is fair to treat her this way?
There are mysteries within mysteries here, hopefully enough to fully engage the reader and make them want to read on as the story slowly reveals the answers, but it does so like the opening of a delicate flower. Until it is fully open, we won’t truly appreciate it.
My story Beautiful Like Her is only one example of how reader engagement can be achieved by exploiting the reader’s natural instinct to solve puzzles.
In writing, there are no rules, so we can write in whatever way we wish.
This creative freedom can lead to many new forms of expression, and exciting experimental work. I feel we should encourage ourselves as artists to push the limits in everything (or at least some of the material) we write.
Feel free to drop a comment with your thoughts on this post!
The Frazzled Lit Short Story Award 2025, judged by Irish author Nuala O’Connor, is open for entries until June 30th, 2025.
I went and read the entire story.
Perfection.