Writing Tips

Hook is a way by which an author captures the reader’s mind and keeps them as asking for more. This is the best approach for any writers/authors to grab the readers’ attention. Remember the hook needs to match with your story theme. Hooks can be in a form of sentence or a paragraph. It should not deviate from the actual theme. But if you are writing a book/novel, feel free to use different approaches to engage your readers. Lets look into the different type of hook approach with examples in the writing.

#1 Opening hook

Authors frequently use this approach at the very start of their story to make the audience guessing from the beginning itself. Generally they start with a question hook. Examples of opening hooks.

“Have you seen that thing that flew on top of our roof of our house ?” Tom asked in excitement.

This is a great opening hook of a story to start with, where readers will keep imagining what was that thing that flew on top of Tom’s house .It can be anything – UFO, bird. They will get the answer once they keep on studying the story .

#2 Descriptive

Authors use this hook genre more frequently to describe a scene in a story . The author basically uses metaphors, jargon, adjectives to make the paraphrase
more enticing to the readers.

“Trees started growing and new leaves and flowers could be seen in the garden.”

The author here describes an ambience making the audience guess spring season has arrived.

#3 Suspense

Suspense hook approach is used in almost every story genres though it is predominantly used in mystery stories.

Example of suspense hook is given below:

“Strong winds banging the walls. Jason reluctantly woke up to close the window. As Jason walked closer towards the window, he heard a creepy voice calling his name from behind the window pane.”

#4 Informative/statistics

Here the author uses data ,statistics to convey piece of information to the readers . The author emphasizes on the numbers,data,percentage or by referring facts to hook readers .

#5 Anecdote

Here author uses short story or historic events to describe and refer some plot of the story and grab readers’ attention. The story can be fictitious or any historic facts. Either way , the author keeps the readers asking for more .

“I still remember my school days. I saw a little boy sitting all alone in the playground, but with a book in his hand. Everyone busy in chatting, making friends, playing but this boy was engrossed in the note books. Now in office , I met this man who just told he studied in the same school as mine and I remembered those memories and understood why this guy is the Senior Vice President. His thirst to learn and ability to study since childhood has made him what he is today.”

#6 Poetic hook

These are stylish hooks used by authors to grab the attention of the reader.Author uses poetic phrases to captivate the readers.
One example – From R L Stevenson’s Treasure Island

“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum”

This is so catchy and the readers expect these kinds of hooks in the middle of an adventurous story to get glued to the book.

Conclusion

The hook approach can be anything. There is no hard and fast rule. As a writer, you need to keep your readers engaged in your story.