Hook writer

Hook Writer

The hook is the highest-leverage line in any piece of content. On a feed, attention is the scarce resource and the hook is the only thing competing for it — if the opening fails, nothing else you made gets seen. A great hook can carry mediocre content; a weak hook buries great content.

Two ideas run through everything here:

1. A hook works by opening a gap. Curiosity, tension, stakes, dissonance, self-relevance — the hook creates something the reader needs to resolve, and the only way to resolve it is to keep going. Hooks are about the mechanism, not the template. "The secret to X nobody tells you" is a dead template because it names a mechanism (curiosity) without earning it.
2. A hook is a promise, and the content must pay it off. A hook that overpromises wins the tap and loses the trust — and platforms punish the bounce that follows. The strongest hooks are extracted from the truth of the content, not bolted on top of it.

Step 0 — Read the foundation first

Load brand-profile.md and voice.md. A hook in the wrong voice still fails; the fingerprint and "never" list apply to the opening line as much as the body. If neither exists, run brand-profile (and voice-builder if samples exist) first.

Step 1 — Pin the format and its cutoff

A hook for a caption first line is not a hook for a video's first three seconds. Identify the format and the constraint it imposes (see references/formats.md):

• Caption — one line before the "…more" cutoff (~125 chars on Instagram).
• Video — the first 1–3 seconds, across three channels at once: what's on screen, the first spoken words, and on-screen text. Must work muted.
• Carousel cover — slide 1 is the hook; it must promise the swipe.
• Thread opener — the first post must promise the thread's payoff.
• YouTube — title + thumbnail together.
• Email — subject + preview text, mobile-truncated.

Step 2 — Find the hook in the content

Don't invent a hook and hope the content matches. Mine the actual material for its strongest raw element:

• the most surprising fact or result,
• the highest stakes or cost,
• the most specific number or detail,
• the sharpest point of view,
• the most relatable moment.

That element is the hook's raw material. This is what keeps hooks truthful and makes them feel earned rather than baited.

Step 3 — Generate many, across different mechanisms

Write 5–10 candidate hooks, deliberately using different mechanisms from references/mechanisms.md (curiosity gap, contrarian, stakes, specificity, identity, story, mistake, transformation, question, timeliness, authority). Variety is the point — the goal is to find the strongest angle, not to reword one idea ten times.

Step 4 — Score and select

Run the candidates through the rubric in references/scoring.md and keep the best 1–2. The rubric checks: does it open a real gap? is it specific? is it true to the content? does it fit the format's cutoff? does it sound like them? would a stranger need the next beat? Discard the rest without sentiment — most hooks you write should die.

Step 5 — Tune to format and voice; confirm the payoff

Polish the winner for the format (cut to the caption cutoff; add the visual + on-screen text for video; make the carousel cover legible at a glance). Re-check it sounds like the brand. And confirm the content actually delivers what the hook promises — if it doesn't, change the hook, not the truth.

Deliver options, recommend one

Give the user 2–3 distinct hooks built on different mechanisms, then recommend one with a one-line reason tied to the goal/format. Real alternatives beat a single take, and seeing different mechanisms helps the user feel why one lands hardest.

Quality bar — self-check

• Does the hook open a gap a stranger needs to close?
• Is it specific (a real number, detail, or claim), not vague?
• Is it true — does the content pay it off without a bait-and-switch?
• Does it land inside the format's cutoff (chars, or the first 3 seconds)?
• Does it sound like them (fingerprint hit, "never" list respected)?
• Did you generate several mechanisms and pick the strongest, not settle for the first?

If it doesn't pass "would a stranger need the next beat?", it isn't a hook yet.

Edge cases

• Thin or vague content: ask what the single most surprising / highest-stakes element is. Don't fabricate a hook the content can't support.
• Nothing surprising in the content: that's a content problem, not a hook problem — say so, and either find the relatable angle or suggest sharpening the post itself.
• Sensitive/regulated topics: no fear-mongering, no overstated claims; respect the brand's compliance guardrails even in the opening line.
• Video, muted-first: the on-screen text and the visual must hook on their own; assume sound off.
• Tempted to overpromise for reach: don't. A truthful, slightly less sensational hook that the content delivers beats a viral-bait line that burns trust and bounces.

Related skills

• brand-profile, voice-builder — read first; supply voice and guardrails.
• caption-writer — uses this for the first line; this skill is the deep version.
• reels-script, tiktok-script, short-form-video-script — use this for the opening seconds.
• thread-writer — uses this for the thread opener.
• experimentation-and-ab-testing — when the stakes justify it, test the top 2–3 hooks on a real audience (YouTube's native thumbnail Test & Compare; rotating hooks across similar posts). The rubric picks your best guess; audience data outranks the rubric.

References

• references/mechanisms.md — the hook mechanism taxonomy (why each one works).
• references/formats.md — hook craft by format and the cutoffs that govern each.
• references/scoring.md — the scoring rubric, the generate-and-select method, anti-patterns.
• references/examples.md — content → many hooks → scored → chosen, worked end to end.