See how Maggie O'Farrell uses inventive writing to lure readers into a story whose ending we think we already know.

See how Rebecca Roanhorse uses suspense to make readers desperate to know more about the fantasy world she builds in Black Sun.

Learn how Jesse Q. Sutanto hooks readers while launching a complex plot and large cast of characters in Dial A for Aunties.

See how Laura Dave uses our knowledge of the novel's hook to delay gratification, increase suspense, and turn readers into sleuths.

How do you engage and disrupt genre tropes to hook your readers?

Learn the techniques Lauren Groff uses to introduce readers to a distant historical setting in Matrix.

See how Tana French uses sentence style, summary, and suspense to pull readers into the first chapter of The Searcher.

What are the benefits and drawbacks to including a prologue in your novel? We’ll examine the prologue to N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became to find out.

A close look at the messages readers get from the title, cover, epigraph, and illustration of NK Jemisin’s The City We Became.

In the opening of The Dutch House, Ann Patchett strategically opens story questions, provides layers of narration, and makes setting details do double duty to draw in readers.