Storytelling is a life skill that can help you in many areas in life. For instance, if you want to pitch a prospect, you might struggle with writing a captivating hook. So many people struggle with starting the first lines of their email, podcast, or book.
If you can relate, then you might want to know some of the common techniques that you can integrate when writing a hook.
The Importance of Hook
Before we do anything else, you will need to fully understand what a hook is and why you need one. Simply put, a hook comprises the first few sentences of your introduction that is designed to captivate or hook your audience or reader’s attention in a way that they keep reading or listening.
Ideally, your hook should be intriguing and relevant to the topic of the book, email, or speech so that your audience or readers don’t have a hard time engaging with your ideas. Now that we have discussed the basics let us explore some of the best ways to create a hook.
Establish a Vivid Description
One of the easiest ways to establish a hook is to create a vivid description or tell a story. For instance, if you are writing a novel, and you want to ensure that your readers will be glued to the pages from the very first page to the last one, you will want to describe the character’s internal conflict in a way that makes the readers care for the character.
Speaking of a novel, if you have a great story that you want to share with the world but don’t have the time to do so, you might want to opt for freelance ghostwriters for hire and get your story in the hands of your ideal readers. Ghostwriters can help you save time, and you can hire ghostwriters for all sorts of writing, including writing a memoir, a non-fiction book, and writing content for your business promotion.
Nonetheless, getting back to the topic – if you want to capture your audience’s attention from the very beginning, you will want to start by creating a vivid description. This simple yet effective technique engages your audience right away because they need to imagine the scenario that you are creating with your words.
For the description, make sure to use vivid verbs to show, not tell, what someone is doing. More importantly, you will only want to add relevant details that can easily transition to the subject.
Start with a Quote
If you cannot come up with a vivid description to hook your audience, you might want to start with a quote. However, if you use a quote, you are essentially using someone else’s words to grab the attention of your readers or audience, which is why you will want to use a quote from someone with authority on the subject that you are writing or speaking about.
Also, while using a quote, you must ensure that it is something interesting that the person is saying from whom you are borrowing the quote. Make sure that the quote is not too long because the last thing that you might want is for the quote to run over the reader’s heads and make them (readers) lose their interest.
If you use a quote as the opening line, make sure to always cite the quote.
State a Fact
Another great storytelling technique that will help you hook your audience is to start with an interesting fact or a statistic. The facts or statistics should be fairly unique and something that will catch the readers off guard. Again, as with the quote, you must remember to properly cite the information so that the readers or audience know that you aren’t making anything up in your mind.
Start with a Question
Another interesting way to engage your readers, especially a broader audience or a mail recipient, is by asking them meaningful questions. Sometimes, when you are writing an essay, you might start with a rhetorical question which isn’t always meaningful.
Other times, you might ask a question that simply repeats the prompt with the intention of creating a meaningful question. You will want to seriously assess what you would like to ask your audience if you want your audience to really care about your subject.
If you are crafting a cold email, you will want to assess the pain point of your audience and see which questions they would care about the most and what sort of solution they are looking for. You will want to assess what aspect of your topic they could connect with the most.
Integrate a Story Technique
One of the best ways to capture the reader’s attention is by using a story technique and combining it with another technique that we have shared before. At this point you might be wondering why we are placing loads of pressure on a story.
The underlying reason is that the human mind is at least 22 times more likely to remember a fact if it has been presented in the form of a story. The thing about stories is that they are memorable, and stories help us grab the gist of an idea quickly. Stories can trigger one’s emotions, and once you have the right emotion triggered in your audience or readers, you will have them hooked for the rest of the story – until the very end.
Some Other Things to Remember
When it comes to writing a book, you will want to ensure that it is short and clear. If you are writing an email and trying to get the audience’s attention, you will want to stick to no more than three sentences where you ensure that your book introduces and leads the audience to the main topic.
Moreover, make sure to cite outside information so you can avoid plagiarism. If you are writing a speech, and even though your hook is the first part, you will want to write it last. Writing it last will help you establish your argument and come up with an appropriate hook to draw in your audience.
James is the head of marketing at Tamoco
