Crafting the Perfect Hook: Debut Author Brooke Robinson Reveals Her Opening Chapter Secrets

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EPISODE INFO:
The opening of your story is something we talk about a lot on, through their one-on-one and that's because it's so important. 

It's not just important to get an agent's attention. It's also important to hook and hold on to readers.

Luckily, we have a debut author who balanced her opening in a way that I personally think is genius. And she's going to talk all about how she pulled it off.

BIO:
Today’s guest is Brooke Robinson grew up in Sydney, Australia. She worked as a bookseller, university administrator and playwright in Australia and the UK. For a short time she wrote music reviews and interviewed rock musicians for streetpress magazines in Sydney, and for an even shorter time, considered a career in physics. The Interpreter is her first novel.

Tweet me @DavidRGwyn

Transcript

T103 - B Robinson

Brooke Robinson: [00:00:00] You want it to be, especially the opening chapter for your debut in particular, I would say you want it to be noisy and, and so by that I mean. Something that's gonna attract attention and that's different in some way.

David Gwyn: The opening of your story is something we talk about a lot on, through their one-on-one and that's because it's so important. It's not just important to get an agent's attention. It's also important to hook and hold on to readers. 

Luckily, we have a debut author who balanced her opening in a way that I personally think is genius. And she's going to talk all about how she pulled it off. I'm David Gwyn an agented writer navigating the world of traditional publishing during this first season of the Thriller 101 podcast. We're going to focus on building the skills necessary to write the kind of stories that land you an agent and readers. I'm talking to authors and agents about the best way to write a novel. If you want the expert secrets, this is where you're going to find [00:01:00] them. 

Last week on the podcast, I talked to JM Donellan about his new book Rumors of Her Death, which is out now. 

JM Donellan: Dark humor is my one kind of constant across everything.

Whatever genre I'm working in. It's always good to have a. Combination of blood and laughter. 

David Gwyn: I had a great time talking to him. So if you're interested in hearing more, I've linked that interview in the show notes. Today's guest is Brooke Robinson. She grew up in Sydney, Australia. She worked as a bookseller university administrator and playwright in Australia and in the UK for short time, she wrote music reviews and interviewed rock musicians for street, press magazines and Sydney. The interpreter is her first novel, Brooke. And I talk about how she structured her opening, how a theater background influenced her writing and so much more. 

And stick around because she gives some phenomenal advice about what to do in your opening as a querying author. You're going to love this. Let's get right into it.

Brooke, welcome to the interview series. Thanks so much for being here. 

Brooke Robinson: Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

David Gwyn: Yeah. I'm really excited to chat with you.

So your debut [00:02:00] novel The Interpreter, which will be out by the time people hear this, so congratulations. Thank you. . Can you tell us what it's about? 

Brooke Robinson: It's about a woman called Revelle, who is a language interpreter in the criminal justice system here in London. She interprets for everyone from people who have witnessed a crime, people who've been a victim of a crime and of course people who are accused of crimes.

And she is tired of sort of sitting back and, and watching people who she believe are guilty be acquitted. And so she decides to start deliberately. Mistranslating witness statements in order to help convict people who she thinks are guilty. So a little bit of what I call linguistic vigilantism.

But of course the trouble starts when someone realizes what she's done and they decide to come after her and get their own little bit of vigilante justice. 

David Gwyn: So, where did this idea come from? It's, it's such a unique idea. 

Brooke Robinson: There's a column in the Guardian newspaper here in the [00:03:00] UK called Experience, which is where people write in non-writer, they'll write in and, and talk about something interesting about their lives, I think in 500 words.

And sometimes it's like, you know, it's kind of really crazy stuff like, I live in a house with 200 dogs or something like that, but sometimes it's, it's something about what people do for a living. And a woman wrote in and said she was a language interpreter. And she just talked about what it's like to, to translate for, for people in court who have been a victim or accused of a crime.

And probably like most people who are sort of shamefully monolingual. I just never thought about this. Mm. Before and what really struck me, which it seems really obvious, but I, it had never occurred to me as well that they interpret in the first person. And so, you know, and I, up until then, I. I used to write plays and so I thought, well this sounds like an actor.

You know, you go to work, you pretend to be someone else, you [00:04:00] speak for them and you have to mimic their emotions and their body language. I thought this is so interesting that they're like actors, but the horror is real. The crime is real. Right. And you know, and I think about friends of mine who, actors and actors I've worked with on plays and how it can be really hard for them, you know, to take the material home with them.

And, and how, how, you know, how difficult it can be for them to, to leave that character. And that's when it's fiction. So I thought, my God, what must this be like when this is real? And then I sort of, you know, I, I searched and I kind of couldn't believe that someone hadn't done this before in a, crime novel.

David Gwyn: Yeah, it's, it is such a unique idea but obviously, you know, you're playwright, you, you're now diving into to writing fiction.

Is it just that this idea. It just stuck with you and you're like, you couldn't get rid of it. Like to, to take on a, a whole novel with this idea. I mean, it must've been something that really stuck with you. When were you at a point where you're like, oh wait, this [00:05:00] is a, this is not a play, this is a novel. 

Brooke Robinson: I did actually try to write a, initially as a play,

I think I only wrote about 20 or 30 pages, and it, and it, you know, became apparent that this is not, you can't really do this on stage. And so I, yeah, it, it, it, from when I first read it until when I started to write the book, it was about five years, because I guess over the years, wow, this would often happen.

You know, I, I think theater is so restrictive in terms of what, you know, what can work on stage. And that's, that's of course one of the great things about it. But it also means, you know, you have ideas all the time. You think that would make for a great story? Oh, what a shame. It wouldn't work for theater.

And I write theater. So yeah, I, I'd had, you know, the list of, of things that I wanted to do that wouldn't work on stage was getting longer every year. So then 2020, finally I thought, this is the, the time I think to start tackling that list. And. Yeah, I think probably almost anything can work as a, as [00:06:00] a book.

But yeah, theater is, is, you know, the tail wags the dog. I think in terms of, ideas you, you are a bit of a slave to the, the stage, 

David Gwyn: It's so interesting. And so kind of in that same vein, what are you working on now? Are you still, are you staying with novels? Are you going back to plays?

Are you kind of in between? Yeah, 

Brooke Robinson: I think I'm staying with novels. My last play was a commission for a theater in Sydney, where I'm from in Australia. And that play was produced last year. But yeah, I think I'm, I think I'm sort of, Done for now. I'm working on a new crime novel called a Negotiator which is under contract for with Penguin Random House in the UK and Commonwealth.

So yeah, hopefully we'll be going that we'll be going out on submission to us and for other foreign publishers soon. So yeah, this is about a hostage and crisis negotiator with the Metropolitan Police in London, and she gets caught up. On the weekend when she's off duty in a siege as a hostage.[00:07:00]

So she tries to negotiate like from the inside, basically. 

David Gwyn: Oh, cool. And so what is your writing process like? I imagine as, as a playwright, do you find that you're like really good at dialogue and you can just fly right through and you've gotta like, work on the other parts?

Like what does that, what does that look like 

Brooke Robinson: on your end? 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. You know, dialogue is, is what's comfortable and what's easy. What I'm, what I'm still working on is the tricky thing from going from theater to books of course is, you know, constantly having to remind yourself that no one's gonna come in and design the set or design the lights so you have to do all of that. So I think probably playwrights underwrite a little bit, you know, because where, you know, you, you, you're used to leaving space for the actors, for everyone. Yeah. The, the huge creative team that come in and, and put a. A play on the stage. So yeah, that's definitely something that I'm still telling myself, you know, I need to watch out for.

But yeah, I do plan and, [00:08:00] and write in scenes, which I guess is, yeah, you would expect that from someone from drama as well. That, that's definitely the way I tackle it is I think of it as scenes. And, you know, a novel is, is not overwhelming when you think of it as. As just a series of scenes, you know?

David Gwyn: So, how did you, how did you get started writing? Did you always know you wanted to be a writer? 

Brooke Robinson: No, I, funnily enough, my first job was I worked in a bookshop at school and university.

And as, as silly as it sounds, although I worked in a bookshop, it still didn't occur to me that like real people actually wrote books and made a living doing that. You know, I, yeah, it seems ridiculous. But so I, I did always like writing, but I sort of thought, well, I'll have to be a journalist just because that's, That's the only way people make, like normal people make a living writing.

 And although I, I'm a big news junkie actually, and have huge respect for, investigative journalists. I knew I wasn't gonna be doing like, hard hitting [00:09:00] c n n interviews that just wasn't my sort of personality. Then actually originally at university I was doing a physics degree.

I, I didn't last very long,. So it took me quite a while. It wasn't until my early twenties I sort of thought I sort of started going to the theater and did a creative writing degree, and I thought, yeah, I thought I would kind of give that a go, but I definitely wasn't one of these, you know, you often hear authors saying, oh, I, when I was three I was writing.

I definitely wasn't doing anything like that. 

David Gwyn: Did you really find like the. Love of story that, that led you through playwriting or was it the performance aspect of it? What was it that led you down there as opposed to like right off the bat into something like novels?

Brooke Robinson: I thought it was so thrilling when I started going to see theater. There's something about like, someone live in the room, making dialogue kind of really come alive and being really embodied in a, in a character who's right in front of you. And I think that's really [00:10:00] addictive and I maybe didn't think I would be in theater for so long, but

it is really addictive. Once you've heard actors doing your lines, it's hard to give that up. 

David Gwyn: So I wanna shift gears a little bit. I always like to have, when, when authors are on here, I always like to ask them to give their agent a shout out.

So you're a rep by Katie Greenstreet, paper literary, right. So what is so great about working with Katie? 

Brooke Robinson: Well, look, I think the main thing that's wonderful about working with, I mean, apart from the fact that she's a wonderful person, is I think you what, what you really want in an agent is someone who you have a shared taste.

I think. I think that's really important. And I think we just have very similar very similar taste, similar ideas. So yeah, I think, I think that's what everyone should look for. Of course, you wanna look for someone who's, who's lovely. And, and, and Katie is, is such a a great champion of me as well.

You know, you, I really feel like I'm A priority, which is a strange feeling coming from theater, if you talk to any playwrights , [00:11:00] everyone complains about, the theaters treat you like you are like a nuisance. You know, but no publishing, I found everyone is absolutely lovely and.

Wants you to be there. So yes, that would be my advice. Apart from looking for an agent who's lovely and wonderful as Katie is, look for someone who you know with whom you share taste,

David Gwyn: That's great advice. 

Okay. Let's pause here for a second. So far, we've talked about Brooke's background, what she was looking for in an agent and how she went about writing her debut. 

And the next part of the interview, Brooke shares all her insights on what to have in your opening 

to make it as strong as the opening to her novel. 

But before we hear that it was recently brought to my attention that some guests who I invite to be on the podcast to hang out with us. They do something before agreeing. Do you know what that thing is? Any guesses. Well, they look at ratings and reviews. It tells them how engaged an audience is. And if people enjoy listening, Thriller 101 is sitting at [00:12:00] seven ratings right now. 

If you want me to quiz your favorite authors about how they write their books and you want to be able to pitch more agents as part of the agent pitch contest. Then make sure you take a second now to rate and review the podcast. 

Because apparently people read them. I do it safely. Like if you're driving, ask Siri to remind you to do it later or something. But I think we can get to 15 ratings . Also be putting a very special place in my weekly newsletter that I send out on Sundays for anyone who leaves a nice review. 

I'll post the review there for everyone to read. And as an added incentive, I will give an update next episode, on how many ratings we have help the podcast get to 15. It'll make my day. And apparently. 

We'll help attract more guests. 

Okay. Let's head back to the interview. 

I wanna talk a little bit about the first chapter of your book because the opening chapter in a thriller, it can be really difficult for a lot of writers to nail down. Some try to go like straight into the [00:13:00] action and into the inciting incident and like dive straight in or they go to the other side where they're like, day in the life. But it's, it's just too slow for the genre.

And what I feel like your chapter did, which was, which was so well done, it really balanced that where. You didn't get into kind of the inciting incident, the main conflict of the story but it was like a slice of life, but hectic. It showed the kind of personal issues that, that your character was gonna go through and the professional side of, of the struggle she was gonna have.

And I'm dying to know that first chapter, how you kind of maneuver that. Was that always the first chapter? Is that something that took some time? How, how did you find that right blend? 

Brooke Robinson: Right from the beginning. As soon as I. Thought, okay, this is not a play, this is a book the first couple of opening chapters sort of came fully formed, really.

I think what I was going for in, again, you know, this is probably my theater background, so, if you were describing to someone from space what, what a play is, you would say, well, it's live, people on stage in front of you making decisions. I mean, that's basically what a [00:14:00] play is. And so, That's kind of how I like to think of opening chapters is you wanna show your character making a decision, at least one decision.

And ideally you want those, the two choices that they have to, to not be that great. You know, you want 'em to be kind of bad and worse. So in my opening chapter, you know, and it's a relatively small thing, Revelle needs to go into court to interpret for a really big case. She's trying to adopt a child. The, the preschool has rung up and said, no, look, he's sick.

You have to, you have to take him today. And she can't take him into court. And the way her life is, she doesn't. Have anyone that can take care of him. So it, it sounds small, but obviously for her, and as you've said, it's the personal versus the professional challenges in her life, and neither choice is good.

You know, she, she's either gonna leave her son who she's trying to adopt, or potentially this huge case at the old Bailey won't go forward today, which is enormous as well. So, [00:15:00] yeah, that, that's sort of always my approach to opening chapters. You want your character to make a choice, to have to make a choice, and there's no good answer available to them.

David Gwyn: love that. And like even just thinking about the choice that she makes, which is, I think she tries to thread that needle, right? Like she tries to both be a good parent or, you know, adoptive parent and, and also try to do her job. And how in, in some ways she feels like she fails at both, right?

That guilt that she has from someone getting away with. Something. And then also kind of like half losing, like feels like she's lost, she lost her son. I think that that is such an interesting way of showing her struggles is that she's trying to do both and kind of fails at both in this, just this first chapter, which I think is so powerful.

And so do you think about the professional and personal life of your characters and trying to balance those two and show and show conflict in both? Yeah, 

Brooke Robinson: especially the interpreter. I think that's, yeah, definitely. I was [00:16:00] trying to kind of keep in mind every, every scene, every chapter of the book you know, keeping track of those two threads.

Where are, where are we at with one, where are we at with the other, and, and where are they kind of, you know, intersecting. Where are they in conflict and yeah, hopefully they, the kind of conflict kind of tracks almost like parallel railway tracks. That's what we're aiming for as writers, I think, anyway, you know, whether we always get it or not is another thing, but we're aiming for that.

David Gwyn: Are you kind of new to the thriller genre or was your, your playwright background in a similar genre? How did you find thrillers? Why did you choose thrillers? 

Brooke Robinson: My first two plays were psychological thrillers. I, you know, I wouldn't have described them as such at the time.

It was just kind of when I sat down to write, that's what I wanted to write. And of course, you know, probably in the 1960s, 1970s theater in places like America and the uk, thrillers were really popular on stage. And had I been living then, I probably would've been doing quite [00:17:00] well financially as a playwright.

But today, thrillers don't really work on stage. I don't know what it is, I often think about this. I think it's just that artistic directors aren't interested. I think the audience would be interested, but. Probably I should have switched to novels a long time ago instead, what I did was because I wanted to keep writing plays, I changed what I was writing about.

David Gwyn: Oh, interesting. And so now you feel like maybe you're in the right genre, but just in a different format, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 

Brooke Robinson: yeah. Exactly. Yeah. 

David Gwyn: Oh, that's super cool. Yeah. And so like I mentioned, a lot of the people who listen to, to this podcast are, are writers themselves and, and want to be where you are in, in your career.

And so, If you were thinking kind of more broadly about just the thriller genre, I mean like, like you mentioned you have the background in, in thrillers. You I'm sure have read a bunch and have, have written a really great thriller. So what is it about an opening? Like what do you think is the main one or two things for authors to think about or aspiring authors to think about when they're diving into [00:18:00] that first chapter?

Brooke Robinson: You want it to be, especially the opening chapter for your debut in particular, I would say you want it to be noisy and, and so by that I mean. Something that's gonna attract attention and that's different in some way.

So I guess, you know, mine was a little bit inbuilt, as in, I think from the first chapter. You know, anyone reading it will go, okay, right. So this is a crime thriller, but the interpreter's, the main character I this I haven't seen. So you want something, they haven't seen before. I, and I think it's kind of okay if 90% is.

Conventions that we're familiar with. In fact, it's good, you know, you, you certainly want a, a certain amount of familiarity because that's why we like genre fiction. But I would say really be clear and identify the one, noisy using inverted commas with my fingers noisy trait that you've got that's gonna get attention because we haven't seen that before.

I would say that's the number one. [00:19:00] Also, I mean, primarily what are we trying to do with an opening? We're trying to hook someone in. So I think you have to raise questions, at least one question, one big question. In theater, you know, it's called the dramatic question, and one of my favorite playwrights, the American Marsha Norman, says by page eight, you want to tell your audience when they can go home.

So they need to know when this question is answered, then I can go home. So, you know, if we're talking about C Checkov, three sisters, okay, well if they get to Russia, then I, if they get to Moscow, then I can go home, so you wanna raise, yeah. You wanna raise a question? So the audience is like, okay, I'm reading to find that out.

That's really clear. I know what I'm doing there. I would say, look, again, I guess this is my theater bias coming through, but I would say that you want some good dialogue in that opening as well. I think it's really important that your characters from the beginning sound different. It sounds really obvious, but I think [00:20:00] all of us know from our reading that that can be really quite hard to do and, and you don't, and sometimes we do pick up books and scripts and characters can sound quite similar.

So yeah, from the beginning, I would say really differentiate those voices. 

David Gwyn: I think that that's such great advice for, for people who are listening, and I, I love that idea of like the unique selling point. Like what is the one thing, or maybe two things that are just slightly different about your story.

Especially like you're saying, you know, these agents read a lot of queries for whatever genre they're in, and, and having that. Thing that's different while maintaining a lot of the, the conventions. I, I think that's really important. So what a great thing to kind of end on my, my last, I mean, I could talk to you a about story forever.

This is so much fun. I'm like, I'm like in a masterclass right here. This is so much fun. But my last question for you is is just where can people find you? Where can people look you up? 

Brooke Robinson: Oh, I am on Instagram and X if we are calling it X and Brooke wrote as in [00:21:00] the past tense because there is already all the other variations of, Brooke so Brooke wrote as in it's finished, I'm done.

David Gwyn: Tense. That's great. So if you're, if you're listening and you wanna get in touch and, and I highly suggest if you're listening to check out The Interpreter fantastic novel I'll link to all that stuff so you have quick access to find Brooke and to find her novel. Brooke, like I said, this, this has been awesome.

I, i really enjoyed it. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me. 

Brooke Robinson: Thank you. No, it was so much fun and good luck everyone.

David Gwyn: All right. So that's it. Like I said, in the opening Brooke shares, some insanely useful advice for writers. 

 Next time on the podcast, I'll be talking to literary agent, Kathleen Fox she, and I dissect a submission together and she shares why she's so excited to read the writer's full manuscript. Remember to rate and review the podcast and I'll see you next time .