hook-craft

Mode skill. Default-enabled on the Copy specialist.

When to use

Use when the deliverable is a scroll-stopping opener — the first line that determines whether the second line gets read. Covers social-post openers, short-form video opens (as written copy; video execution is Channels'), email subject lines and preview text, cold-outbound first sentences, ad headlines, landing-page hero one-liners.

The reader can leave costlessly after one line. The hook has to earn the second line or it dies.

Hook taxonomies

Six patterns. They are starting points, not formulas. Pick one based on awareness stage and customer voice — do not roll through all six.

1. Pattern interrupt. Break the expected first beat. ("Nobody asks for this advice, but you should fire your best customer.") Best for: unaware audiences, mid-feed social, oversaturated subject-line categories.

2. Curiosity gap. Name an outcome without the cause. ("She doubled her list in 11 days. Her answer was three words.") Best for: problem-aware. The gap must close in the body or it reads as clickbait.

3. Specific promise. State the outcome with a concrete number or timeframe. ("Three changes that cut my reply time from 6 hours to 40 minutes.") Best for: problem-aware to solution-aware. Specificity is the credibility.

4. Social proof open. Borrowed authority or volume. ("4,200 founders use this on Mondays.") Best for: product-aware, comparison-stage. Real numbers only.

5. Contrarian. State the opposite of the consensus. ("Stop optimizing your CV. Recruiters are not reading it.") Best for: solution-aware audiences fatigued by category-standard advice.

6. Named identity. Call out the exact reader. ("If you run a 3-person agency that bills under $30k a month, this is for you.") Best for: niche-targeted assets, cold outbound. The narrower, the harder it lands.

The first-line contract

Every hook must satisfy one rule: the first line earns the second. After writing the hook, write the second line. If the second line does not feel inevitable given the first, the first line is wrong. Rework the first, not the second.

A working hook produces forward pull — the reader does not decide to keep reading, they just keep reading. If the user (or you, reading aloud) has to decide to continue, the hook is failing.

Procedure

1. Get the awareness stage (run the awareness-stages mode if unclear).
2. Pull customer voice if available (run the customer-voice mode if not).
3. Pick a pattern that fits the stage. Unaware → pattern interrupt, named identity, story open. Problem-aware → curiosity gap, specific promise, customer-voice pain phrase. Solution-aware → contrarian, category claim. Product-aware → social proof, comparison. Most-aware → offer-forward (rarely a "hook" per se).
4. Draft 5–10 variations. Quantity here is non-negotiable — the first three are warm-up.
5. Write the second line for each. Cut any hook whose second line does not feel inevitable.
6. Read aloud. Anything you trip on, the reader trips on.
7. Bold the strongest one. Deliver all surviving variations; bold the pick; one sentence on why.

Decision rules

• Test against the awareness stage. A pattern-interrupt hook on a most-aware audience kills the click. A social-proof hook on an unaware audience has nothing to anchor.
• Specificity beats cleverness. "Stop ending Friday with six tabs open" beats "Reclaim your week."
• Cut warm-up clauses. "So, recently I was thinking about…" is throat-clearing. Delete to the first real noun.
• Customer-voice phrases usually win headlines. Your invented phrase competes against a real person's exact words.
• One hook per asset. Stacking two hooks splits the reader's attention.

Anti-patterns

• Clever ≠ effective. The reader is bored, not amused.
• Same hook pattern five times in a row. Variation across a sequence matters.
• Curiosity gaps the body never closes. The gap is a debt the body must pay.
• Inventing numbers to fill a specific-promise slot. The reader will check.
• Opening with the brand name. "At [brand], we believe…" is throat-clearing.

Before / after

Brief: "Hook for a LinkedIn post about why founders should stop doing customer support themselves. Audience: solo founders running B2B SaaS, $5k–$30k MRR."

Awareness stage: Problem-aware. They feel the time drain.

Before (clever, vague, no second-line pull):

Founders, are you stuck in the support inbox?

After (named identity + specific promise, customer-voice pulled from interviews):

You are a $12k-MRR founder answering the same five tickets every morning. Here is the exact moment you should hire your first VA — and what it actually costs.

The "after" opens with a named identity and promises a specific decision point; the second line becomes the reason to keep reading. The "before" asks a yes/no question and dies on it.