"Go out and ask her into the alley.” Clay looked at Jeremy as if he’d just been told to dance the rumba on a public thoroughfare. I bit back a laugh. “Just walk over to her and point at the alley. Maybe say…I don’t know…something like ‘fifty bucks.’ ” I looked at Jeremy. “Does that sound right? Fifty?” His brows shot up. “Why are you asking me?” “I wasn’t—I just meant, as a general…” I threw up my hands. “How am I supposed to know how much a hooker costs?"

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As I see it, a successful story of any kind should be almost like hypnosis: You fascinate the reader with your first sentence, draw them in further with your second sentence and have them in a mild trance by the third. Then, being careful not to wake them, you carry them away up the back alley of your narrative and when they are hopelessly lost within the story, having surrendered themselves to it, you do them terrible violence with a softball bag and then lead them whimpering to the exit on the last page. Believe me, they'll thank you for it.

— Alan Moore