--- name: copywriting-hooks description: > Writes opening hooks and post titles for long-form articles in EN or FR — blog posts, Substack/Medium/dev.to, LinkedIn long-form, newsletters, essays. Trigger whenever the user asks for a hook, opening, lede, intro, first sentence/paragraph, opener, accroche, attaque, phrase d'accroche, or première phrase — including punching up a flat intro or draft opening — or for a post title, titre d'article, or headline. Do NOT trigger for social posts (LinkedIn feed, Twitter/X, TikTok, Bluesky), READMEs, taglines, email subjects, ad copy, landing-page headlines, press releases, SEO meta, or body rewrites. Do NOT use for end-of-article CTAs — use samber/cc-skills@copywriting-cta instead.

user-invocable: true license: MIT compatibility: Designed for Claude Code, Codex or similar harness. metadata: author: samber version: "1.1.2" openclaw: emoji: "🪝" homepage: https://github.com/samber/cc-skills allowed-tools: Read Edit Write Glob Grep Agent AskUserQuestion ---

# Copywriting Hooks

## The method

A hook's only job is to make the reader want sentence 2. Voice, structure, formatting, all of it, follow from that one job.

What makes a reader want sentence 2 is one of **five levers**:

1. **Open a gap.** Pose something incomplete that the reader needs to close. Curiosity gap, question, open loop. 2. **Break a prediction.** State something that violates the reader's prior. Contrarian, definition reversal, surprising statistic. 3. **Drop into a scene.** Load sensory or specific detail that builds a vivid frame. In medias res, concrete detail, time anchor. 4. **Promise a payoff.** Name an outcome the reader wants. Benefit, "if you... then this", direct problem. 5. **Borrow weight.** Lean on a name, number, or quote that carries embedded authority. Authority hook, statistic, quote with disagreement.

A strong hook usually pulls two levers at once. "Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon..." is scene plus open loop. "Most people think X. They're wrong." is prediction-break plus gap. Single-lever hooks can still work but are easier to ignore.

Three further principles:

- **Specific beats abstract every time.** Replace "many companies" with "Stripe, Shopify, Vercel". Replace "recently" with a date. Replace "studies show" with the actual finding or cut the claim. - **The first sentence must force the second.** Read each candidate cold. If you would not click sentence 2 after sentence 1, rewrite. - **Match technique to article type.** Personal essay does not open like a tutorial. See the type-fit table below.

---

## Behavior

When this skill triggers:

1. **Confirm the brief.** Topic, audience, target language (EN, FR, or both), approximate length, where it will be published. If any of these is unclear and material, ask before generating. 2. **Pick 3 to 4 hooks from the catalog** below that are genuinely different. Different levers, not three flavors of contrarian. 3. **Write 2 candidates per hook**, specific to the user's article. The two candidates within one hook should explore different angles (different anecdote, different statistic, different scene), not be rewordings of each other. 4. **Present using the Output format** below. 5. **Ask through the question tool.** The choice is a small fixed set, which is what that tool is for. 6. **Wait for the user's pick.** Do not pick for them. 7. **After they pick**, name what the choice commits the rest of the article to. A contrarian hook commits paragraphs 2 to 3 to defending the non-consensus claim. A scene opener commits the next section to either resolving the scene or productively delaying it.

**Diversification rule.** Across your 3 to 4 options include at minimum:

- One intellectual hook (contrarian, definition reversal, historical analogy, curiosity gap) - One sensory hook (in medias res, concrete detail) - One reader-direct hook (conditional, direct problem, promise)

This guarantees real choice. Three flavors of contrarian is not a choice.

**Type-fit reference:**

| Article type | Strong hooks | Avoid | | --- | --- | --- | | Technical deep-dive | concrete detail, statistic, contrarian, direct problem | personal confession, scene opener | | Personal essay | in medias res, personal confession, time anchor, definition reversal | bold claim, direct problem | | Opinion / contrarian | bold claim, definition reversal, contrarian, quote + disagreement | gentle setup, dictionary opener | | Tutorial / how-to | direct problem (PAS), promise, conditional | scene opener, historical analogy | | Reported / investigative | concrete detail, time anchor, in medias res, statistic | bold claim, definition reversal | | Listicle | curiosity gap, counted stakes, conditional | personal confession, in medias res | | Longform analysis | historical analogy, statistic, contrarian | direct problem | | Newsletter issue | personal confession + open loop, conditional, curiosity gap | dictionary opener |

---

## Output format

Always present options exactly like this:

``` ## Hook options for: [working title]

**Option 1: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

**Option 2: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

**Option 3: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

Which? Reply with letter combination (e.g., "1B") or "more" for different techniques. ```

If the user says "more" or "none", produce 3 different hooks (not new candidates for the same hooks). If the user says "blend 1A and 2B", write a combined hook and check in again.

---

## The hook catalog (18)

Each hook: what it does, examples (mix EN and FR, real and illustrative), when to use, when to avoid.

### 1. Curiosity Gap

Open an information gap the reader wants closed.

- EN: "How does Shen Yun make any money? Short answer: they don't." (Packy McCormick) - EN: "Many years ago, one mustard dominated the supermarket shelves: French's." (Gladwell, "The Ketchup Conundrum") - FR: "Trois startups françaises ont franchi le milliard cette année. Aucune n'est dans la tech." - EN: "I've been a surgeon for eight years. For the past couple of them, my performance in the operating room has reached a plateau." (Gawande)

**Use when**: you can honestly close the gap in 2 or 3 sentences. The gap must be one the reader cares about. **Avoid**: vague gaps ("You won't believe what happened next") that the reader cannot even guess at.

### 2. Contrarian

Knock down a consensus belief the reader holds.

- EN: "Prevailing wisdom claims that the best way to achieve what we want in life is to set specific, actionable goals." (Clear, "Forget About Setting Goals", proceeds to argue the opposite) - EN: "To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel." (Graham, "Do What You Love", proceeds to complicate it) - EN: "If you're not saying 'HELL YEAH!' about something, say no." (Sivers) - FR: "Le Marketing est TOUT ce que l'IA ne peut pas faire !" (Truphème)

**Use when**: you have a defensible non-consensus view and 200 to 400 words to defend it. **Avoid**: strawmen, gratuitous edginess, contrarianism for its own sake.

### 3. Bold Claim / Promise

State the outcome upfront, before the proof.

- EN: "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock." (Ogilvy) - EN: "They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play!—" (Caples 1925) - EN: "Give me 15 minutes and I'll give you a super-power memory." (Schwartz) - FR: "En 5 minutes : la structure qui fait passer le taux de complétion d'un article de 18% à 64%."

**Use when**: you can deliver on the promise concretely in the article. **Avoid**: promises larger than the payoff. Destroys trust permanently.

### 4. Scene Opener / In Medias Res

Drop the reader inside a specific moment, no setup.

- EN: "Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood in a dark corner of the bar between two attractive but fading blondes who sat waiting for him to say something." (Talese) - EN: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." (Thompson) - EN: "The center was not holding." (Didion) - FR: "Le 14 mai 2024, à 6h12, trois hommes en civil sonnent à la porte d'un appartement du XVe arrondissement."

**Use when**: longform, profile, reported piece, essay. **Avoid**: short technical pieces where the reader has not earned the scene yet.

### 5. Surprising Statistic

Lead with a number that violates the prior.

- EN: "You have five seconds to get people's attention." (Housel, self-demonstrating) - EN: "Thirty-seven thousand Americans died in car accidents in 1955, six times today's rate adjusted for miles driven." (Housel) - EN: "Approximately 40 percent of the actions you perform each day are habits, not actual decisions." (Clear) - FR: "Tu as moins de 3 secondes pour convaincre tes audiences que ton contenu est intéressant." (Truphème)

**Use when**: the number is genuinely surprising and you can cite it accurately. **Avoid**: vague stats ("studies show 90%..."), stats that confirm the reader's prior (no surprise equals no hook).

### 6. Question

Pose a question the reader actually wants answered.

- EN: "If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like?" (Graham) - EN: "Why do we make kids go to school?" (Caplan) - FR: "Pourquoi 80% des articles LinkedIn ne dépassent jamais 100 vues ? Spoiler : ce n'est pas l'algorithme." - FR: "Avez-vous le courage de gagner la moitié d'un million de dollars cette année ?" (Schwartz)

**Use when**: the reader was implicitly carrying the question. **Avoid**: "Have you ever wondered...?", "Did you know...?", "What if I told you...?". These presuppose curiosity not yet formed.

### 7. Quote + Disagreement

Borrow weight, then twist.

- EN: "Vernor Vinge: 'We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.'" (Urban setup) - EN: "Steve Jobs said people don't know what they want until you show it to them. For SaaS, this is exactly backwards." - EN: "Henry Ford supposedly said his customers would have asked for faster horses. For most products, that excuse is wrong." - FR: "Henry Ford disait qu'on lui aurait demandé des chevaux plus rapides. Pour 90% des produits, c'est faux."

**Use when**: you have a real quote that supports or genuinely contrasts your point. **Avoid**: misattributed Einstein, Seneca, Confucius, Bouddha platitudes. Cliché.

### 8. Personal Confession

Admit something vulnerable, then universalize.

- EN: "I cheated on my husband." (Strayed) - EN: "I've been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days." (Urban, "The Tail End") - EN: "It's been a minute. This is as long as I've gone without writing an essay since starting Not Boring." (McCormick) - FR: "À 34 ans, j'ai démissionné sans plan B. Voici ce que personne ne dit sur la suite."

**Use when**: personal byline, essay, newsletter. **Avoid**: corporate byline, technical articles where the author voice is not personal, performative vulnerability ("I almost didn't write this...").

### 9. Concrete Specific Detail

Replace abstraction with a single vivid detail.

- EN: "John Laroche is a tall guy, skinny as a stick, pale-eyed, slouch-shouldered, and sharply handsome, despite the fact that he is missing all his front teeth." (Orlean) - EN: "Charles Bukowski was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a chronic gambler, a lout, a cheapskate, a deadbeat, and on his worst days, a poet." (Manson) - FR: "Quand on la voit arriver dans les locaux du Bondy Blog, ce samedi 24 février, difficile de se dire qu'elle est fichée illégalement par les services de renseignement français." - FR: "Un Post-it collé sur mon écran : 'Supprime ton premier paragraphe.'"

**Use when**: profile, reported piece, contrarian biographical setup. **Avoid**: s

--- name: copywriting-hooks description: > Writes opening hooks and post titles for long-form articles in EN or FR — blog posts, Substack/Medium/dev.to, LinkedIn long-form, newsletters, essays. Trigger whenever the user asks for a hook, opening, lede, intro, first sentence/paragraph, opener, accroche, attaque, phrase d'accroche, or première phrase — including punching up a flat intro or draft opening — or for a post title, titre d'article, or headline. Do NOT trigger for social posts (LinkedIn feed, Twitter/X, TikTok, Bluesky), READMEs, taglines, email subjects, ad copy, landing-page headlines, press releases, SEO meta, or body rewrites. Do NOT use for end-of-article CTAs — use samber/cc-skills@copywriting-cta instead.

user-invocable: true license: MIT compatibility: Designed for Claude Code, Codex or similar harness. metadata: author: samber version: "1.1.2" openclaw: emoji: "🪝" homepage: https://github.com/samber/cc-skills allowed-tools: Read Edit Write Glob Grep Agent AskUserQuestion ---

# Copywriting Hooks

## The method

A hook's only job is to make the reader want sentence 2. Voice, structure, formatting, all of it, follow from that one job.

What makes a reader want sentence 2 is one of **five levers**:

1. **Open a gap.** Pose something incomplete that the reader needs to close. Curiosity gap, question, open loop. 2. **Break a prediction.** State something that violates the reader's prior. Contrarian, definition reversal, surprising statistic. 3. **Drop into a scene.** Load sensory or specific detail that builds a vivid frame. In medias res, concrete detail, time anchor. 4. **Promise a payoff.** Name an outcome the reader wants. Benefit, "if you... then this", direct problem. 5. **Borrow weight.** Lean on a name, number, or quote that carries embedded authority. Authority hook, statistic, quote with disagreement.

A strong hook usually pulls two levers at once. "Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon..." is scene plus open loop. "Most people think X. They're wrong." is prediction-break plus gap. Single-lever hooks can still work but are easier to ignore.

Three further principles:

- **Specific beats abstract every time.** Replace "many companies" with "Stripe, Shopify, Vercel". Replace "recently" with a date. Replace "studies show" with the actual finding or cut the claim. - **The first sentence must force the second.** Read each candidate cold. If you would not click sentence 2 after sentence 1, rewrite. - **Match technique to article type.** Personal essay does not open like a tutorial. See the type-fit table below.

---

## Behavior

When this skill triggers:

1. **Confirm the brief.** Topic, audience, target language (EN, FR, or both), approximate length, where it will be published. If any of these is unclear and material, ask before generating. 2. **Pick 3 to 4 hooks from the catalog** below that are genuinely different. Different levers, not three flavors of contrarian. 3. **Write 2 candidates per hook**, specific to the user's article. The two candidates within one hook should explore different angles (different anecdote, different statistic, different scene), not be rewordings of each other. 4. **Present using the Output format** below. 5. **Ask through the question tool.** The choice is a small fixed set, which is what that tool is for. 6. **Wait for the user's pick.** Do not pick for them. 7. **After they pick**, name what the choice commits the rest of the article to. A contrarian hook commits paragraphs 2 to 3 to defending the non-consensus claim. A scene opener commits the next section to either resolving the scene or productively delaying it.

**Diversification rule.** Across your 3 to 4 options include at minimum:

- One intellectual hook (contrarian, definition reversal, historical analogy, curiosity gap) - One sensory hook (in medias res, concrete detail) - One reader-direct hook (conditional, direct problem, promise)

This guarantees real choice. Three flavors of contrarian is not a choice.

**Type-fit reference:**

| Article type | Strong hooks | Avoid | | --- | --- | --- | | Technical deep-dive | concrete detail, statistic, contrarian, direct problem | personal confession, scene opener | | Personal essay | in medias res, personal confession, time anchor, definition reversal | bold claim, direct problem | | Opinion / contrarian | bold claim, definition reversal, contrarian, quote + disagreement | gentle setup, dictionary opener | | Tutorial / how-to | direct problem (PAS), promise, conditional | scene opener, historical analogy | | Reported / investigative | concrete detail, time anchor, in medias res, statistic | bold claim, definition reversal | | Listicle | curiosity gap, counted stakes, conditional | personal confession, in medias res | | Longform analysis | historical analogy, statistic, contrarian | direct problem | | Newsletter issue | personal confession + open loop, conditional, curiosity gap | dictionary opener |

---

## Output format

Always present options exactly like this:

``` ## Hook options for: [working title]

**Option 1: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

**Option 2: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

**Option 3: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

Which? Reply with letter combination (e.g., "1B") or "more" for different techniques. ```

If the user says "more" or "none", produce 3 different hooks (not new candidates for the same hooks). If the user says "blend 1A and 2B", write a combined hook and check in again.

---

## The hook catalog (18)

Each hook: what it does, examples (mix EN and FR, real and illustrative), when to use, when to avoid.

### 1. Curiosity Gap

Open an information gap the reader wants closed.

- EN: "How does Shen Yun make any money? Short answer: they don't." (Packy McCormick) - EN: "Many years ago, one mustard dominated the supermarket shelves: French's." (Gladwell, "The Ketchup Conundrum") - FR: "Trois startups françaises ont franchi le milliard cette année. Aucune n'est dans la tech." - EN: "I've been a surgeon for eight years. For the past couple of them, my performance in the operating room has reached a plateau." (Gawande)

**Use when**: you can honestly close the gap in 2 or 3 sentences. The gap must be one the reader cares about. **Avoid**: vague gaps ("You won't believe what happened next") that the reader cannot even guess at.

### 2. Contrarian

Knock down a consensus belief the reader holds.

- EN: "Prevailing wisdom claims that the best way to achieve what we want in life is to set specific, actionable goals." (Clear, "Forget About Setting Goals", proceeds to argue the opposite) - EN: "To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel." (Graham, "Do What You Love", proceeds to complicate it) - EN: "If you're not saying 'HELL YEAH!' about something, say no." (Sivers) - FR: "Le Marketing est TOUT ce que l'IA ne peut pas faire !" (Truphème)

**Use when**: you have a defensible non-consensus view and 200 to 400 words to defend it. **Avoid**: strawmen, gratuitous edginess, contrarianism for its own sake.

### 3. Bold Claim / Promise

State the outcome upfront, before the proof.

- EN: "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock." (Ogilvy) - EN: "They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play!—" (Caples 1925) - EN: "Give me 15 minutes and I'll give you a super-power memory." (Schwartz) - FR: "En 5 minutes : la structure qui fait passer le taux de complétion d'un article de 18% à 64%."

**Use when**: you can deliver on the promise concretely in the article. **Avoid**: promises larger than the payoff. Destroys trust permanently.

### 4. Scene Opener / In Medias Res

Drop the reader inside a specific moment, no setup.

- EN: "Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood in a dark corner of the bar between two attractive but fading blondes who sat waiting for him to say something." (Talese) - EN: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." (Thompson) - EN: "The center was not holding." (Didion) - FR: "Le 14 mai 2024, à 6h12, trois hommes en civil sonnent à la porte d'un appartement du XVe arrondissement."

**Use when**: longform, profile, reported piece, essay. **Avoid**: short technical pieces where the reader has not earned the scene yet.

### 5. Surprising Statistic

Lead with a number that violates the prior.

- EN: "You have five seconds to get people's attention." (Housel, self-demonstrating) - EN: "Thirty-seven thousand Americans died in car accidents in 1955, six times today's rate adjusted for miles driven." (Housel) - EN: "Approximately 40 percent of the actions you perform each day are habits, not actual decisions." (Clear) - FR: "Tu as moins de 3 secondes pour convaincre tes audiences que ton contenu est intéressant." (Truphème)

**Use when**: the number is genuinely surprising and you can cite it accurately. **Avoid**: vague stats ("studies show 90%..."), stats that confirm the reader's prior (no surprise equals no hook).

### 6. Question

Pose a question the reader actually wants answered.

- EN: "If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like?" (Graham) - EN: "Why do we make kids go to school?" (Caplan) - FR: "Pourquoi 80% des articles LinkedIn ne dépassent jamais 100 vues ? Spoiler : ce n'est pas l'algorithme." - FR: "Avez-vous le courage de gagner la moitié d'un million de dollars cette année ?" (Schwartz)

**Use when**: the reader was implicitly carrying the question. **Avoid**: "Have you ever wondered...?", "Did you know...?", "What if I told you...?". These presuppose curiosity not yet formed.

### 7. Quote + Disagreement

Borrow weight, then twist.

- EN: "Vernor Vinge: 'We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.'" (Urban setup) - EN: "Steve Jobs said people don't know what they want until you show it to them. For SaaS, this is exactly backwards." - EN: "Henry Ford supposedly said his customers would have asked for faster horses. For most products, that excuse is wrong." - FR: "Henry Ford disait qu'on lui aurait demandé des chevaux plus rapides. Pour 90% des produits, c'est faux."

**Use when**: you have a real quote that supports or genuinely contrasts your point. **Avoid**: misattributed Einstein, Seneca, Confucius, Bouddha platitudes. Cliché.

### 8. Personal Confession

Admit something vulnerable, then universalize.

- EN: "I cheated on my husband." (Strayed) - EN: "I've been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days." (Urban, "The Tail End") - EN: "It's been a minute. This is as long as I've gone without writing an essay since starting Not Boring." (McCormick) - FR: "À 34 ans, j'ai démissionné sans plan B. Voici ce que personne ne dit sur la suite."

**Use when**: personal byline, essay, newsletter. **Avoid**: corporate byline, technical articles where the author voice is not personal, performative vulnerability ("I almost didn't write this...").

### 9. Concrete Specific Detail

Replace abstraction with a single vivid detail.

- EN: "John Laroche is a tall guy, skinny as a stick, pale-eyed, slouch-shouldered, and sharply handsome, despite the fact that he is missing all his front teeth." (Orlean) - EN: "Charles Bukowski was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a chronic gambler, a lout, a cheapskate, a deadbeat, and on his worst days, a poet." (Manson) - FR: "Quand on la voit arriver dans les locaux du Bondy Blog, ce samedi 24 février, difficile de se dire qu'elle est fichée illégalement par les services de renseignement français." - FR: "Un Post-it collé sur mon écran : 'Supprime ton premier paragraphe.'"

**Use when**: profile, reported piece, contrarian biographical setup. **Avoid**: s

--- name: copywriting-hooks description: > Writes opening hooks and post titles for long-form articles in EN or FR — blog posts, Substack/Medium/dev.to, LinkedIn long-form, newsletters, essays. Trigger whenever the user asks for a hook, opening, lede, intro, first sentence/paragraph, opener, accroche, attaque, phrase d'accroche, or première phrase — including punching up a flat intro or draft opening — or for a post title, titre d'article, or headline. Do NOT trigger for social posts (LinkedIn feed, Twitter/X, TikTok, Bluesky), READMEs, taglines, email subjects, ad copy, landing-page headlines, press releases, SEO meta, or body rewrites. Do NOT use for end-of-article CTAs — use samber/cc-skills@copywriting-cta instead.

user-invocable: true license: MIT compatibility: Designed for Claude Code, Codex or similar harness. metadata: author: samber version: "1.1.2" openclaw: emoji: "🪝" homepage: https://github.com/samber/cc-skills allowed-tools: Read Edit Write Glob Grep Agent AskUserQuestion ---

# Copywriting Hooks

## The method

A hook's only job is to make the reader want sentence 2. Voice, structure, formatting, all of it, follow from that one job.

What makes a reader want sentence 2 is one of **five levers**:

1. **Open a gap.** Pose something incomplete that the reader needs to close. Curiosity gap, question, open loop. 2. **Break a prediction.** State something that violates the reader's prior. Contrarian, definition reversal, surprising statistic. 3. **Drop into a scene.** Load sensory or specific detail that builds a vivid frame. In medias res, concrete detail, time anchor. 4. **Promise a payoff.** Name an outcome the reader wants. Benefit, "if you... then this", direct problem. 5. **Borrow weight.** Lean on a name, number, or quote that carries embedded authority. Authority hook, statistic, quote with disagreement.

A strong hook usually pulls two levers at once. "Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon..." is scene plus open loop. "Most people think X. They're wrong." is prediction-break plus gap. Single-lever hooks can still work but are easier to ignore.

Three further principles:

- **Specific beats abstract every time.** Replace "many companies" with "Stripe, Shopify, Vercel". Replace "recently" with a date. Replace "studies show" with the actual finding or cut the claim. - **The first sentence must force the second.** Read each candidate cold. If you would not click sentence 2 after sentence 1, rewrite. - **Match technique to article type.** Personal essay does not open like a tutorial. See the type-fit table below.

---

## Behavior

When this skill triggers:

1. **Confirm the brief.** Topic, audience, target language (EN, FR, or both), approximate length, where it will be published. If any of these is unclear and material, ask before generating. 2. **Pick 3 to 4 hooks from the catalog** below that are genuinely different. Different levers, not three flavors of contrarian. 3. **Write 2 candidates per hook**, specific to the user's article. The two candidates within one hook should explore different angles (different anecdote, different statistic, different scene), not be rewordings of each other. 4. **Present using the Output format** below. 5. **Ask through the question tool.** The choice is a small fixed set, which is what that tool is for. 6. **Wait for the user's pick.** Do not pick for them. 7. **After they pick**, name what the choice commits the rest of the article to. A contrarian hook commits paragraphs 2 to 3 to defending the non-consensus claim. A scene opener commits the next section to either resolving the scene or productively delaying it.

**Diversification rule.** Across your 3 to 4 options include at minimum:

- One intellectual hook (contrarian, definition reversal, historical analogy, curiosity gap) - One sensory hook (in medias res, concrete detail) - One reader-direct hook (conditional, direct problem, promise)

This guarantees real choice. Three flavors of contrarian is not a choice.

**Type-fit reference:**

| Article type | Strong hooks | Avoid | | --- | --- | --- | | Technical deep-dive | concrete detail, statistic, contrarian, direct problem | personal confession, scene opener | | Personal essay | in medias res, personal confession, time anchor, definition reversal | bold claim, direct problem | | Opinion / contrarian | bold claim, definition reversal, contrarian, quote + disagreement | gentle setup, dictionary opener | | Tutorial / how-to | direct problem (PAS), promise, conditional | scene opener, historical analogy | | Reported / investigative | concrete detail, time anchor, in medias res, statistic | bold claim, definition reversal | | Listicle | curiosity gap, counted stakes, conditional | personal confession, in medias res | | Longform analysis | historical analogy, statistic, contrarian | direct problem | | Newsletter issue | personal confession + open loop, conditional, curiosity gap | dictionary opener |

---

## Output format

Always present options exactly like this:

``` ## Hook options for: [working title]

**Option 1: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

**Option 2: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

**Option 3: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

Which? Reply with letter combination (e.g., "1B") or "more" for different techniques. ```

If the user says "more" or "none", produce 3 different hooks (not new candidates for the same hooks). If the user says "blend 1A and 2B", write a combined hook and check in again.

---

## The hook catalog (18)

Each hook: what it does, examples (mix EN and FR, real and illustrative), when to use, when to avoid.

### 1. Curiosity Gap

Open an information gap the reader wants closed.

- EN: "How does Shen Yun make any money? Short answer: they don't." (Packy McCormick) - EN: "Many years ago, one mustard dominated the supermarket shelves: French's." (Gladwell, "The Ketchup Conundrum") - FR: "Trois startups françaises ont franchi le milliard cette année. Aucune n'est dans la tech." - EN: "I've been a surgeon for eight years. For the past couple of them, my performance in the operating room has reached a plateau." (Gawande)

**Use when**: you can honestly close the gap in 2 or 3 sentences. The gap must be one the reader cares about. **Avoid**: vague gaps ("You won't believe what happened next") that the reader cannot even guess at.

### 2. Contrarian

Knock down a consensus belief the reader holds.

- EN: "Prevailing wisdom claims that the best way to achieve what we want in life is to set specific, actionable goals." (Clear, "Forget About Setting Goals", proceeds to argue the opposite) - EN: "To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel." (Graham, "Do What You Love", proceeds to complicate it) - EN: "If you're not saying 'HELL YEAH!' about something, say no." (Sivers) - FR: "Le Marketing est TOUT ce que l'IA ne peut pas faire !" (Truphème)

**Use when**: you have a defensible non-consensus view and 200 to 400 words to defend it. **Avoid**: strawmen, gratuitous edginess, contrarianism for its own sake.

### 3. Bold Claim / Promise

State the outcome upfront, before the proof.

- EN: "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock." (Ogilvy) - EN: "They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play!—" (Caples 1925) - EN: "Give me 15 minutes and I'll give you a super-power memory." (Schwartz) - FR: "En 5 minutes : la structure qui fait passer le taux de complétion d'un article de 18% à 64%."

**Use when**: you can deliver on the promise concretely in the article. **Avoid**: promises larger than the payoff. Destroys trust permanently.

### 4. Scene Opener / In Medias Res

Drop the reader inside a specific moment, no setup.

- EN: "Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood in a dark corner of the bar between two attractive but fading blondes who sat waiting for him to say something." (Talese) - EN: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." (Thompson) - EN: "The center was not holding." (Didion) - FR: "Le 14 mai 2024, à 6h12, trois hommes en civil sonnent à la porte d'un appartement du XVe arrondissement."

**Use when**: longform, profile, reported piece, essay. **Avoid**: short technical pieces where the reader has not earned the scene yet.

### 5. Surprising Statistic

Lead with a number that violates the prior.

- EN: "You have five seconds to get people's attention." (Housel, self-demonstrating) - EN: "Thirty-seven thousand Americans died in car accidents in 1955, six times today's rate adjusted for miles driven." (Housel) - EN: "Approximately 40 percent of the actions you perform each day are habits, not actual decisions." (Clear) - FR: "Tu as moins de 3 secondes pour convaincre tes audiences que ton contenu est intéressant." (Truphème)

**Use when**: the number is genuinely surprising and you can cite it accurately. **Avoid**: vague stats ("studies show 90%..."), stats that confirm the reader's prior (no surprise equals no hook).

### 6. Question

Pose a question the reader actually wants answered.

- EN: "If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like?" (Graham) - EN: "Why do we make kids go to school?" (Caplan) - FR: "Pourquoi 80% des articles LinkedIn ne dépassent jamais 100 vues ? Spoiler : ce n'est pas l'algorithme." - FR: "Avez-vous le courage de gagner la moitié d'un million de dollars cette année ?" (Schwartz)

**Use when**: the reader was implicitly carrying the question. **Avoid**: "Have you ever wondered...?", "Did you know...?", "What if I told you...?". These presuppose curiosity not yet formed.

### 7. Quote + Disagreement

Borrow weight, then twist.

- EN: "Vernor Vinge: 'We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.'" (Urban setup) - EN: "Steve Jobs said people don't know what they want until you show it to them. For SaaS, this is exactly backwards." - EN: "Henry Ford supposedly said his customers would have asked for faster horses. For most products, that excuse is wrong." - FR: "Henry Ford disait qu'on lui aurait demandé des chevaux plus rapides. Pour 90% des produits, c'est faux."

**Use when**: you have a real quote that supports or genuinely contrasts your point. **Avoid**: misattributed Einstein, Seneca, Confucius, Bouddha platitudes. Cliché.

### 8. Personal Confession

Admit something vulnerable, then universalize.

- EN: "I cheated on my husband." (Strayed) - EN: "I've been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days." (Urban, "The Tail End") - EN: "It's been a minute. This is as long as I've gone without writing an essay since starting Not Boring." (McCormick) - FR: "À 34 ans, j'ai démissionné sans plan B. Voici ce que personne ne dit sur la suite."

**Use when**: personal byline, essay, newsletter. **Avoid**: corporate byline, technical articles where the author voice is not personal, performative vulnerability ("I almost didn't write this...").

### 9. Concrete Specific Detail

Replace abstraction with a single vivid detail.

- EN: "John Laroche is a tall guy, skinny as a stick, pale-eyed, slouch-shouldered, and sharply handsome, despite the fact that he is missing all his front teeth." (Orlean) - EN: "Charles Bukowski was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a chronic gambler, a lout, a cheapskate, a deadbeat, and on his worst days, a poet." (Manson) - FR: "Quand on la voit arriver dans les locaux du Bondy Blog, ce samedi 24 février, difficile de se dire qu'elle est fichée illégalement par les services de renseignement français." - FR: "Un Post-it collé sur mon écran : 'Supprime ton premier paragraphe.'"

**Use when**: profile, reported piece, contrarian biographical setup. **Avoid**: s

--- name: copywriting-hooks description: > Writes opening hooks and post titles for long-form articles in EN or FR — blog posts, Substack/Medium/dev.to, LinkedIn long-form, newsletters, essays. Trigger whenever the user asks for a hook, opening, lede, intro, first sentence/paragraph, opener, accroche, attaque, phrase d'accroche, or première phrase — including punching up a flat intro or draft opening — or for a post title, titre d'article, or headline. Do NOT trigger for social posts (LinkedIn feed, Twitter/X, TikTok, Bluesky), READMEs, taglines, email subjects, ad copy, landing-page headlines, press releases, SEO meta, or body rewrites. Do NOT use for end-of-article CTAs — use samber/cc-skills@copywriting-cta instead.

user-invocable: true license: MIT compatibility: Designed for Claude Code, Codex or similar harness. metadata: author: samber version: "1.1.2" openclaw: emoji: "🪝" homepage: https://github.com/samber/cc-skills allowed-tools: Read Edit Write Glob Grep Agent AskUserQuestion ---

# Copywriting Hooks

## The method

A hook's only job is to make the reader want sentence 2. Voice, structure, formatting, all of it, follow from that one job.

What makes a reader want sentence 2 is one of **five levers**:

1. **Open a gap.** Pose something incomplete that the reader needs to close. Curiosity gap, question, open loop. 2. **Break a prediction.** State something that violates the reader's prior. Contrarian, definition reversal, surprising statistic. 3. **Drop into a scene.** Load sensory or specific detail that builds a vivid frame. In medias res, concrete detail, time anchor. 4. **Promise a payoff.** Name an outcome the reader wants. Benefit, "if you... then this", direct problem. 5. **Borrow weight.** Lean on a name, number, or quote that carries embedded authority. Authority hook, statistic, quote with disagreement.

A strong hook usually pulls two levers at once. "Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon..." is scene plus open loop. "Most people think X. They're wrong." is prediction-break plus gap. Single-lever hooks can still work but are easier to ignore.

Three further principles:

- **Specific beats abstract every time.** Replace "many companies" with "Stripe, Shopify, Vercel". Replace "recently" with a date. Replace "studies show" with the actual finding or cut the claim. - **The first sentence must force the second.** Read each candidate cold. If you would not click sentence 2 after sentence 1, rewrite. - **Match technique to article type.** Personal essay does not open like a tutorial. See the type-fit table below.

---

## Behavior

When this skill triggers:

1. **Confirm the brief.** Topic, audience, target language (EN, FR, or both), approximate length, where it will be published. If any of these is unclear and material, ask before generating. 2. **Pick 3 to 4 hooks from the catalog** below that are genuinely different. Different levers, not three flavors of contrarian. 3. **Write 2 candidates per hook**, specific to the user's article. The two candidates within one hook should explore different angles (different anecdote, different statistic, different scene), not be rewordings of each other. 4. **Present using the Output format** below. 5. **Ask through the question tool.** The choice is a small fixed set, which is what that tool is for. 6. **Wait for the user's pick.** Do not pick for them. 7. **After they pick**, name what the choice commits the rest of the article to. A contrarian hook commits paragraphs 2 to 3 to defending the non-consensus claim. A scene opener commits the next section to either resolving the scene or productively delaying it.

**Diversification rule.** Across your 3 to 4 options include at minimum:

- One intellectual hook (contrarian, definition reversal, historical analogy, curiosity gap) - One sensory hook (in medias res, concrete detail) - One reader-direct hook (conditional, direct problem, promise)

This guarantees real choice. Three flavors of contrarian is not a choice.

**Type-fit reference:**

| Article type | Strong hooks | Avoid | | --- | --- | --- | | Technical deep-dive | concrete detail, statistic, contrarian, direct problem | personal confession, scene opener | | Personal essay | in medias res, personal confession, time anchor, definition reversal | bold claim, direct problem | | Opinion / contrarian | bold claim, definition reversal, contrarian, quote + disagreement | gentle setup, dictionary opener | | Tutorial / how-to | direct problem (PAS), promise, conditional | scene opener, historical analogy | | Reported / investigative | concrete detail, time anchor, in medias res, statistic | bold claim, definition reversal | | Listicle | curiosity gap, counted stakes, conditional | personal confession, in medias res | | Longform analysis | historical analogy, statistic, contrarian | direct problem | | Newsletter issue | personal confession + open loop, conditional, curiosity gap | dictionary opener |

---

## Output format

Always present options exactly like this:

``` ## Hook options for: [working title]

**Option 1: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

**Option 2: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

**Option 3: [Hook name]** ([lever]) A. [Candidate 1] B. [Candidate 2]

Which? Reply with letter combination (e.g., "1B") or "more" for different techniques. ```

If the user says "more" or "none", produce 3 different hooks (not new candidates for the same hooks). If the user says "blend 1A and 2B", write a combined hook and check in again.

---

## The hook catalog (18)

Each hook: what it does, examples (mix EN and FR, real and illustrative), when to use, when to avoid.

### 1. Curiosity Gap

Open an information gap the reader wants closed.

- EN: "How does Shen Yun make any money? Short answer: they don't." (Packy McCormick) - EN: "Many years ago, one mustard dominated the supermarket shelves: French's." (Gladwell, "The Ketchup Conundrum") - FR: "Trois startups françaises ont franchi le milliard cette année. Aucune n'est dans la tech." - EN: "I've been a surgeon for eight years. For the past couple of them, my performance in the operating room has reached a plateau." (Gawande)

**Use when**: you can honestly close the gap in 2 or 3 sentences. The gap must be one the reader cares about. **Avoid**: vague gaps ("You won't believe what happened next") that the reader cannot even guess at.

### 2. Contrarian

Knock down a consensus belief the reader holds.

- EN: "Prevailing wisdom claims that the best way to achieve what we want in life is to set specific, actionable goals." (Clear, "Forget About Setting Goals", proceeds to argue the opposite) - EN: "To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel." (Graham, "Do What You Love", proceeds to complicate it) - EN: "If you're not saying 'HELL YEAH!' about something, say no." (Sivers) - FR: "Le Marketing est TOUT ce que l'IA ne peut pas faire !" (Truphème)

**Use when**: you have a defensible non-consensus view and 200 to 400 words to defend it. **Avoid**: strawmen, gratuitous edginess, contrarianism for its own sake.

### 3. Bold Claim / Promise

State the outcome upfront, before the proof.

- EN: "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock." (Ogilvy) - EN: "They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play!—" (Caples 1925) - EN: "Give me 15 minutes and I'll give you a super-power memory." (Schwartz) - FR: "En 5 minutes : la structure qui fait passer le taux de complétion d'un article de 18% à 64%."

**Use when**: you can deliver on the promise concretely in the article. **Avoid**: promises larger than the payoff. Destroys trust permanently.

### 4. Scene Opener / In Medias Res

Drop the reader inside a specific moment, no setup.

- EN: "Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood in a dark corner of the bar between two attractive but fading blondes who sat waiting for him to say something." (Talese) - EN: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." (Thompson) - EN: "The center was not holding." (Didion) - FR: "Le 14 mai 2024, à 6h12, trois hommes en civil sonnent à la porte d'un appartement du XVe arrondissement."

**Use when**: longform, profile, reported piece, essay. **Avoid**: short technical pieces where the reader has not earned the scene yet.

### 5. Surprising Statistic

Lead with a number that violates the prior.

- EN: "You have five seconds to get people's attention." (Housel, self-demonstrating) - EN: "Thirty-seven thousand Americans died in car accidents in 1955, six times today's rate adjusted for miles driven." (Housel) - EN: "Approximately 40 percent of the actions you perform each day are habits, not actual decisions." (Clear) - FR: "Tu as moins de 3 secondes pour convaincre tes audiences que ton contenu est intéressant." (Truphème)

**Use when**: the number is genuinely surprising and you can cite it accurately. **Avoid**: vague stats ("studies show 90%..."), stats that confirm the reader's prior (no surprise equals no hook).

### 6. Question

Pose a question the reader actually wants answered.

- EN: "If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like?" (Graham) - EN: "Why do we make kids go to school?" (Caplan) - FR: "Pourquoi 80% des articles LinkedIn ne dépassent jamais 100 vues ? Spoiler : ce n'est pas l'algorithme." - FR: "Avez-vous le courage de gagner la moitié d'un million de dollars cette année ?" (Schwartz)

**Use when**: the reader was implicitly carrying the question. **Avoid**: "Have you ever wondered...?", "Did you know...?", "What if I told you...?". These presuppose curiosity not yet formed.

### 7. Quote + Disagreement

Borrow weight, then twist.

- EN: "Vernor Vinge: 'We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.'" (Urban setup) - EN: "Steve Jobs said people don't know what they want until you show it to them. For SaaS, this is exactly backwards." - EN: "Henry Ford supposedly said his customers would have asked for faster horses. For most products, that excuse is wrong." - FR: "Henry Ford disait qu'on lui aurait demandé des chevaux plus rapides. Pour 90% des produits, c'est faux."

**Use when**: you have a real quote that supports or genuinely contrasts your point. **Avoid**: misattributed Einstein, Seneca, Confucius, Bouddha platitudes. Cliché.

### 8. Personal Confession

Admit something vulnerable, then universalize.

- EN: "I cheated on my husband." (Strayed) - EN: "I've been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days." (Urban, "The Tail End") - EN: "It's been a minute. This is as long as I've gone without writing an essay since starting Not Boring." (McCormick) - FR: "À 34 ans, j'ai démissionné sans plan B. Voici ce que personne ne dit sur la suite."

**Use when**: personal byline, essay, newsletter. **Avoid**: corporate byline, technical articles where the author voice is not personal, performative vulnerability ("I almost didn't write this...").

### 9. Concrete Specific Detail

Replace abstraction with a single vivid detail.

- EN: "John Laroche is a tall guy, skinny as a stick, pale-eyed, slouch-shouldered, and sharply handsome, despite the fact that he is missing all his front teeth." (Orlean) - EN: "Charles Bukowski was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a chronic gambler, a lout, a cheapskate, a deadbeat, and on his worst days, a poet." (Manson) - FR: "Quand on la voit arriver dans les locaux du Bondy Blog, ce samedi 24 février, difficile de se dire qu'elle est fichée illégalement par les services de renseignement français." - FR: "Un Post-it collé sur mon écran : 'Supprime ton premier paragraphe.'"

**Use when**: profile, reported piece, contrarian biographical setup. **Avoid**: s