Personally, I quite like it when a book starts off with action, but I also don't think it absolutely has to. Usually what I do, is read the back and if that catches my interest, I'll read a page or two. If that catches my imnterest again, then I'll usually give the book a go. If after I start reading it, and it doesn't hold my interest in the first 100 or so pages, then I'll most likely drop it. Just make sure that your book is interesting from start to finish, well written and people will buy it.
A trick which you will either hate or love is one that is sometime used to show what type of action will be in the book later on. By having the first page or so showing something really exciting or interest, and then having it go back to how it gets to that point. This is a trick that Stephenie Meyer used in her Twilight Books, and despite what I or you feel about her writing style. She has done something right when you look at the success she has had with them.
I also thought The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was pretty bad, at least where I quit reading, which was maybe fifty pages.
whats hooks me in a book (and will often persuade me to buy a book) , is that if very early (first page) it introduces an interesting character/s or setting rather than any instant action....(a trick the Mr King, and I am a fan, uses often~). you say your book starts with a man's thoughts, to me that could be good enought to get me hooked .......I guess it depends on how interesting the thoughts make the character sounds
I think what I look at is of course the back cover to see if it's something I haven't read before (I've read so many books, sometimes I forget I've actually read the one I'm considering), and I look to see if the plot is interesting. What I seek in the first few pages isn't necessarily a hook, but I look at the author's writing style. I like authors that write with a quick sense, or a conversational sense. I like Stephen King usually because I find his characters initially interesting (although sometimes they fade out and don't keep the same interest throughout) and I like the style (fairly causual) that he writes. I also like John Grisham for many reasons. All of their books are easy to get into. Others bore me. I started reading Lee Child recently because my sister loves him, and I just cannot get past the first chapter or two of each of the three books I've tried. I don't like his writing style at all. It's very stacatto (spelling?). Very choppy. And all three books I've tried seem to be practically the same story. I also look at who the author is. I like it when the author was a doctor, a lawyer or someone that was an expert in a field, because then I think I'll learn something. That's why I love Tess Gerritsen. Now, the one author that really bothers me is Robin Cook. His stories start out to be very interesting, and I learn things and they're full of new information about something. But, towards the middle to end, the story and characters fall apart. i feel he gets bored or something or is thinking of something else, and they fall apart. Anyway, I think you can build up to the main conflict or lead the reader to discover something interesting without getting into action right away. The two novels I'm working on give some backstory that has action and such but aren't the main story. They lead up to it and are important, but I choose to start that way. I think you just need to get your reader interested and don't - for gosh sakes - just have the character sit there and describe scenery or something!
The problem is that "interesting" is subjective. And also, some people insist that you have to start with a particular type of interesting. All the advice can leave a writer more bewildered than anything else. I often read the first few lines (and last lol) of a book and none hook me. The "back page" summary is what hooks me usually. If that promises to be good, I'll read until it gets unreadable. (Unless it's a school assignment. xD) A first page never has hooked me. I don't think it ever will unless I am very familiar with the author. I don't think a first page CAN hook me. I look for too deep a relationship with a character to let the first page be a judge. And whenever I try to make my own first pages unusually interesting, I wind up with a contrived mess. The book begins where it begins. If you got an interesting story, trust that the beginning you wanted to give it is interesting enough. I'd rather see where the author says the story begins than have them force some silly "interesting" contrivance on me in an attempt to hook me. Let your story be the hook.
Me too, I stopped reading at the same place, it was too boring for me. I don't want to wait until the 100d page to get to the interesting part, and how is a reader supposed to know beforehand that the entire book isn't going to be as slow as the beginning, especially if they aren't familiar with the writer? I think it's particularly important the beginning writers have a strong start in the book, because they have no reputation that tells the reader it's going to be worth the time reading it.
I think that Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy is a classic case of why we need to take a lot of the advice from forums like this with a pinch of salt. He broke so many rules (in particular there was a vast amount of padding, with things like long, detailed and irrelevant shopping lists), but the characters (especially Lisbeth's -- Blomkvist looked too much like a male Mary-Sue for my taste) and the overall story were good enough for people to read past the flaws. And had they been more tightly written they probably wouldn't have fitted within publishers' word counts (too short for three volumes, no natural break for two, too long for one) so they would never have been published at all.
I was always told when I was younger (by my mother and teachers...because I never liked to read back then) that you can't say you hate the book within the first few pages (unless of course it's very poorly written). So, when reading, I usually go for the first 50 pages to figure out how I feel. When writing, I find that I give about a chapter or two of "prequel" before really dishing out the good stuff (maybe that's why I'm not published yet? who knows!)
