# 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.
