#2,731 in Literature & fiction books
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Reddit mentions of I Am Pilgrim: A Thriller
Sentiment score: 2
Reddit mentions: 3
We found 3 Reddit mentions of I Am Pilgrim: A Thriller. Here are the top ones.
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| Release date | May 2014 |
If you have a few minutes, I'd encourage you to have a look at the opening of I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. You can read it in Amazon's "Look Inside" preview. This is an international spy thriller, so it's not in our field, but it's one of the best genre fiction books I've read recently. I think this novel should be studied for its excellent pacing; even the slow parts are interesting.
Hayes utilizes a gruesome murder in the opening of his story. However, he actually opens on his main character. In fact, we become introduced to his main character through his behavior and thoughts while the murder scene is being revealed. By the end of the opening, we've got a pretty good idea what sort of person the main character is; at least, we know them well enough that we've begun to empathize with them. We are hooked, engaged emotionally, and want to keep reading.
My very long winded point in all this is that I think you want to view your opening from this perspective: You've got maybe 200 words in which to hook your reader, somehow, anyhow. If you can't manage this, you risk your potential reader putting your book back on the shelf. So you don't have too much time to waste on secondary considerations such as beautiful scenery. You need to hook your reader, and one of the best ways to do this is to get them to empathize with your main character, to create an emotional bond. You want to somehow figure out a way to make an emotional connection with your reader in the first 200 words.
If you can do this with a terrorist attack or a pack of rabid wolverines, go for it.
If you can write any sort of good beginning, you need to do it. What I mean by good is, you would hand it to someone to read, and they would say, "Wow, this is good." If you can manage to write anything that does that...you win. We aren't for the most part geniuses of litritchaw, we're genre fiction writers. If you can write a whole book and find a publisher that says, "Wow, this is good," I don't think we can really quibble over how many imaginary buckets of blood you had to splash around to do it.
I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
The Gray Man by Mark Greaney
The Remaining + sequels by DJ Molles.
I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes.