Hooks

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Hooks can be the greatest writing you'll ever do. In a few words, you have to tear the reader out of whatever he/she is doing with your hook that says, "You'll never walk away till you read this!"

Far too many books seem to think it's granted the reader is going to be fascinated with the writing. You know what I'm talking about. Writers don't just compete with other writers these days for the reader's attention.

We compete with the Internet and all the instant material, we compete with music, we compete with the TV. The attention span of our society has shrunk to the size of an ant egg. If you're writing doesn't have a hook, they will set down the thing you've been working on for years to flip on a channel, decide they don't like that, flip to another, then another, then another....

Hooks aren't just for newspapers, though studying them is good practise. Ideally, you hook the reader with a great title, something that will stop them in a cold sweat as they're browsing a bookstore (or the Internet). Then, you have to hook them with the first sentence of your book. From there, strive to have some hook for every paragraph.

A hook for every sentence? That's hard, but not COMPLETELY impossible. Imagine what it is about this sentence that excites you.

If anyone has anything to add to this, just drop a comment.

P.S. My brother saw the first made-up headline at the top and actually believed it!