Hook
A hook is the opening passage that gives a reader a reason to continue: a question raised, a character worth watching, or a situation that has just changed.
Sol Stein watched browsers in bookshops and found the pattern brutal: most read the jacket flap and then went to page one, and almost none got past page three before either taking the book to the till or putting it down for another. Agents read the same way, which makes the hook an audition rather than a flourish.
What a hook has to do
Stein's goals for a first paragraph are modest and testable: excite curiosity, preferably about a person or a relationship; establish a setting; lend the story resonance.
There is a longer working checklist for an opening. Does it:
- raise a question?
- introduce a vivid character?
- surprise?
- change the existing circumstances?
- create immediate danger?
- build a sinister atmosphere?
- leap into action?
It is best used as a list to fail against. An opening that ticks none of those has gone past slow into inert.
A hook from a real script
The Runner, a feature screenplay by Jeffrey Doka, the editor behind Final Boss Editing, has no character on screen for its first two paragraphs.
EXT. U.S. - MEXICO BORDER - DAY (PRESENT)
Mesquite bushes and cacti rush past as we barrel through the empty sky over the desert. The shadow of a small airplane darts across the sand below.
It darkens a large bullet-riddled sign hanging on an iron fence and bounds onward. We pause to read: "U.S.A. Border. Illegal immigration and smuggling are federal offenses."
Why it works: it ticks three boxes on the list before anyone speaks. It leaps into action (the rush of the desert), builds atmosphere (the bullet holes), and raises a question: who is flying low over the border, past a sign about smuggling? The reader turns the page to meet them.
Common mistakes
- A first page spent orienting the reader. Description of the room, the weather and the family history is the writer getting comfortable. Start where the circumstances change and let the reader assemble the rest.
- Action with no one to care about. Noise is not a hook. The question has to be about a person, or about to be.
- A hook the book does not keep. A thriller opening on a novel that turns out to be a quiet family drama has made a promise it breaks. The opening should sound like the book.
Another way in is to open in medias res and supply the background once there is a reason to want it. We covered more opening fixes in a live edit of two first chapters, starting with the simplest: make your first sentence outline a problem.
Frequently asked questions
What is a hook in writing?
A hook is the opening of a story, or of a chapter, that makes the reader want to keep going. It usually works by raising a question the reader wants answered, often about a person in trouble.
Does a hook have to be the first sentence?
No. The first sentence helps, but the hook is really the first page or so. What matters is that by the end of it the reader has a question, a person to follow, or a situation that has just changed.