Nobody in this sub seems to understand what a hook actually is

I keep seeing prompts where people post a whole paragraph of setting and expect that to be a hook. A hook is one or two sentences that make you NEED to know what happens next. Like "The letter arrived three days after she died" is a hook. Not "In a small town in Maine, a woman named Sarah lived by the ocean and liked to write poetry." I've counted 14 prompts this week that start with background instead of tension. How do you all decide if your first sentence actually grabs a reader?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencerm461mo ago

That's not a bad way to look at it, but a hook can also be a single strong image or odd detail that makes you curious. A whole paragraph of setting isn't a hook, but one weird sentence about the setting can still pull you in.

eva9089d ago

Wait, you're saying one single weird sentence can work as a hook? Like just one line, no buildup at all?

simonl111mo ago

One weird sentence? That's wild. Never thought of it like that.