---
name: Copywriting Hooks
slug: copywriting-hooks
category: Writing
description: Copywriting Hooks writes opening hooks and post titles for long-form articles in English or French. Use it when you need a lede, intro, first sentence, opener, or headline for blogs, newsletters, essays, or long-form posts.
github: "https://github.com/samber/cc-skills/tree/main/skills/copywriting-hooks"
language: CSS
stars: 201
forks: 15
install: "npx degit https://github.com/samber/cc-skills/tree/main/skills/copywriting-hooks ~/.claude/skills/copywriting-hooks"
installs_to: ~/.claude/skills/copywriting-hooks
source_path: skills/copywriting-hooks/SKILL.md
collection_size: 21
category_size: 1227
collection_url: "https://dirskills.com/collections/samber/cc-skills"
added: 2026-09-05T05:30:28.929Z
last_synced: 2026-09-05T05:30:28.929Z
canonical_url: "https://dirskills.com/skills/copywriting-hooks"
---

# Copywriting Hooks

Copywriting Hooks writes opening hooks and post titles for long-form articles in English or French. Use it when you need a lede, intro, first sentence, opener, or headline for blogs, newsletters, essays, or long-form posts.

**Install:**

```bash
npx degit https://github.com/samber/cc-skills/tree/main/skills/copywriting-hooks ~/.claude/skills/copywriting-hooks
```

## README

# Copywriting Hooks

## The method

A hook's only job is to make the reader want sentence 2. Voice, structure, formatting, all of it, follow from that one job.

What makes a reader want sentence 2 is one of **five levers**:

1. **Open a gap.** Pose something incomplete that the reader needs to close. Curiosity gap, question, open loop.
2. **Break a prediction.** State something that violates the reader's prior. Contrarian, definition reversal, surprising statistic.
3. **Drop into a scene.** Load sensory or specific detail that builds a vivid frame. In medias res, concrete detail, time anchor.
4. **Promise a payoff.** Name an outcome the reader wants. Benefit, "if you... then this", direct problem.
5. **Borrow weight.** Lean on a name, number, or quote that carries embedded authority. Authority hook, statistic, quote with disagreement.

A strong hook usually pulls two levers at once. "Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon..." is scene plus open loop. "Most people think X. They're wrong." is prediction-break plus gap. Single-lever hooks can still work but are easier to ignore.

Three further principles:

- **Specific beats abstract every time.** Replace "many companies" with "Stripe, Shopify, Vercel". Replace "recently" with a date. Replace "studies show" with the actual finding or cut the claim.
- **The first sentence must force the second.** Read each candidate cold. If you would not click sentence 2 after sentence 1, rewrite.
- **Match technique to article type.** Personal essay does not open like a tutorial. See the type-fit table below.

---

## Behavior

When this skill triggers:

1. **Confirm the brief.** Topic, audience, target language (EN, FR, or both), approximate length, where it will be published. If any of these is unclear and material, ask before generating.
2. **Pick 3 to 4 hooks from the catalog** below that are genuinely different. Different levers, not three flavors of contrarian.
3. **Write 2 candidates per hook**, specific to the user's article. The two candidates within one hook should explore different angles (different anecdote, different statistic, different scene), not be rewordings of each other.
4. **Present using the Output format** below.
5. **Ask through the question tool.** The choice is a small fixed set, which is what that tool is for.
6. **Wait for the user's pick.** Do not pick for them.
7. **After they pick**, name what the choice commits the rest of the article to. A contrarian hook commits paragraphs 2 to 3 to defending the non-consensus claim. A scene opener commits the next section to either resolving the scene or productively delaying it.

**Diversification rule.** Across your 3 to 4 options include at minimum:

- One intellectual hook (contrarian, definition reversal, historical analogy, curiosity gap)
- One sensory hook (in medias res, concrete detail)
- One reader-direct hook (conditional, direct problem, promise)

This guarantees real choice. Three flavors of contrarian is not a choice.

**Type-fit reference:**

| Article type | Strong hooks | Avoid |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Technical deep-dive | concrete detail, statistic, contrarian, direct problem | personal confession, scene opener |
| Personal essay | in medias res, personal confession, time anchor, definition reversal | bold claim, direct problem |
| Opinion / contrarian | bold claim, definition reversal, contrarian, quote + disagreement | gentle setup, dictionary opener |
| Tutorial / how-to | direct problem (PAS), promise, conditional | scene opener, historical analogy |
| Reported / investigative | concrete detail, time anchor, in medias res, statistic | bold claim, definition reversal |
| Listicle | curiosity gap, counted stakes, conditional | personal confession, in medias res |
| Longform analysis | historical analogy, statistic, contrarian | direct problem |
| Newsletter issue | personal confession + open loop, conditional, curiosity gap | dictionary opener |

---

## Output format

Always present options exactly like this:

```
## Hook options for: [working title]

**Option 1: [Hook name]** ([lever])
A. [Candidate 1]
B. [Candidate 2]

**Option 2: [Hook name]** ([lever])
A. [Candidate 1]
B. [Candidate 2]

**Option 3: [Hook name]** ([lever])
A. [Candidate 1]
B. [Candidate 2]

Which? Reply with letter combination (e.g., "1B") or "more" for different techniques.
```

If the user says "more" or "none", produce 3 different hooks (not new candidates for the same hooks). If the user says "blend 1A and 2B", write a combined hook and check in again.

---

## The hook catalog (18)

Each hook: what it does, examples (mix EN and FR, real and illustrative), when to use, when to avoid.

### 1. Curiosity Gap

Open an information gap the reader wants closed.

- EN: "How does Shen Yun make any money? Short answer: they don't." (Packy McCormick)
- EN: "Many years ago, one mustard dominated the supermarket shelves: French's." (Gladwell, "The Ketchup Conundrum")
- FR: "Trois startups françaises ont franchi le milliard cette année. Aucune n'est dans la tech."
- EN: "I've been a surgeon for eight years. For the past couple of them, my performance in the operating room has reached a plateau." (Gawande)

**Use when**: you can honestly close the gap in 2 or 3 sentences. The gap must be one the reader cares about. **Avoid**: vague gaps ("You won't believe what happened next") that the reader cannot even guess at.

### 2. Contrarian

Knock down a consensus belief the reader holds.

- EN: "Prevailing wisdom claims that the best way to achieve what we want in life is to set specific, actionable goals." (Clear, "Forget About Setting Goals", proceeds to argue the opposite)
- EN: "To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel." (Graham, "Do What You Love", proceeds to complicate it)
- EN: "If you're not saying 'HELL YEAH!' about something, say no." (Sivers)
- FR: "Le Marketing est TOUT ce que l'IA ne peut pas faire !" (Truphème)

**Use when**: you have a defensible non-consensus view and 200 to 400 words to defend it. **Avoid**: strawmen, gratuitous edginess, contrarianism for its own sake.

### 3. Bold Claim / Promise

State the outcome upfront, before the proof.

- EN: "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock." (Ogilvy)
- EN: "They laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play!—" (Caples 1925)
- EN: "Give me 15 minutes and I'll give you a super-power memory." (Schwartz)
- FR: "En 5 minutes : la structure qui fait passer le taux de complétion d'un article de 18% à 64%."

**Use when**: you can deliver on the promise concretely in the article. **Avoid**: promises larger than the payoff. Destroys trust permanently.

### 4. Scene Opener / In Medias Res

Drop the reader inside a specific moment, no setup.

- EN: "Frank Sinatra, holding a glass of bourbon in one hand and a cigarette in the other, stood in a dark corner of the bar between two attractive but fading blondes who sat waiting for him to say something." (Talese)
- EN: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." (Thompson)
- EN: "The center was not holding." (Didion)
- FR: "Le 14 mai 2024, à 6h12, trois hommes en civil sonnent à la porte d'un appartement du XVe arrondissement."

**Use when**: longform, profile, reported piece, essay. **Avoid**: short technical pieces where the reader has not earned the scene yet.

### 5. Surprising Statistic

Lead with a number that violates the prior.

- EN: "You have five seconds to get people's attention." (Housel, self-demonstrating)
- EN: "Thirty-seven thousand Americans died in car accidents in 1955, six times today's rate adjusted for miles driven." (Housel)
- EN: "Approximately 40 percent of the actions you perform each day are habits, not actual decisions." (Clear)
- FR: "Tu as moins de 3 secondes pour convaincre tes audiences que ton contenu est intéressant." (Truphème)

**Use when**: the number is genuinely surprising and you can cite it accurately. **Avoid**: vague stats ("studies show 90%..."), stats that confirm the reader's prior (no surprise equals no hook).

### 6. Question

Pose a question the reader actually wants answered.

- EN: "If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like?" (Graham)
- EN: "Why do we make kids go to school?" (Caplan)
- FR: "Pourquoi 80% des articles LinkedIn ne dépassent jamais 100 vues ? Spoiler : ce n'est pas l'algorithme."
- FR: "Avez-vous le courage de gagner la moitié d'un million de dollars cette année ?" (Schwartz)

**Use when**: the reader was implicitly carrying the question. **Avoid**: "Have you ever wondered...?", "Did you know...?", "What if I told you...?". These presuppose curiosity not yet formed.

### 7. Quote + Disagreement

Borrow weight, then twist.

- EN: "Vernor Vinge: 'We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.'" (Urban setup)
- EN: "Steve Jobs said people don't know what they want until you show it to them. For SaaS, this is exactly backwards."
- EN: "Henry Ford supposedly said his customers would have asked for faster horses. For most products, that excuse is wrong."
- FR: "Henry Ford disait qu'on lui aurait demandé des chevaux plus rapides. Pour 90% des produits, c'est faux."

**Use when**: you have a real quote that supports or genuinely contrasts your point. **Avoid**: misattributed Einstein, Seneca, Confucius, Bouddha platitudes. Cliché.

### 8. Personal Confession

Admit something vulnerable, then universalize.

- EN: "I cheated on my husband." (Strayed)
- EN: "I've been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days." (Urban, "The Tail End")
- EN: "It's been a minute. This is as long as I've gone without writing an essay since starting Not Boring." (McCormick)
- FR: "À 34 ans, j'ai démissionné sans plan B. Voici ce que personne ne dit sur la suite."

**Use when**: personal byline, essay, newsletter. **Avoid**: corporate byline, technical articles where the author voice is not personal, performative vulnerability ("I almost didn't write this...").

### 9. Concrete Specific Detail

Replace abstraction with a single vivid detail.

- EN: "John Laroche is a tall guy, skinny as a stick, pale-eyed, slouch-shouldered, and sharply handsome, despite the fact that he is missing all his front teeth." (Orlean)
- EN: "Charles Bukowski was an alcoholic, a womanizer, a chronic gambler, a lout, a cheapskate, a deadbeat, and on his worst days, a poet." (Manson)
- FR: "Quand on la voit arriver dans les locaux du Bondy Blog, ce samedi 24 février, difficile de se dire qu'elle est fichée illégalement par les services de renseignement français."
- FR: "Un Post-it collé sur mon écran : 'Supprime ton premier paragraphe.'"

**Use when**: profile, reported piece, contrarian biographical setup. **Avoid**: specificity that does not advance the thesis (clutter).

### 10. Pattern Interrupt

Break expected rhythm with a fragment.

- EN: "Wait." (Godin style)
- EN: "Stop."
- EN: "This is not an article about productivity. It's an article about identity."
- FR: "Non. Ce que vous avez lu cette semaine sur l'IA est faux. Voici pourquoi."

**Use when**: rhythm-driven content, opinion piece, when the reader expects flow and you want to interrupt it. **Avoid**: every article. It becomes its own pattern fast.

### 11. Direct Problem (PAS)

Name the pain, sharpen it, hint at solution.

- EN: "Your articles aren't read. The data says you lose 80% of readers by paragraph two. There's a fix, and it's not what you've been doing."
- EN: "If you're like most marketing managers, you don't have enough time to write your white papers, and the ones you outsource come back generic." (Bly)
- FR: "Vos emails ne sont pas ouverts. Trois mois, taux plafonné à 12%. Le problème n'est pas l'objet, c'est l'expéditeur."
- FR: "Vos articles ne sont pas lus. 80% des lecteurs décrochent dès le deuxième paragraphe. Et la solution n'est pas celle que vous croyez."

**Use when**: tutorial, how-to, sales-adjacent content. **Avoid**: manufactured problems. Reads as fear-mongering. The pain must be real and recognizable.

### 12. Promise / Benefit

State a specific, bounded outcome.

- EN: "Read this in 5 minutes and you'll never write a weak opening again."
- EN: "By the end of this article, you'll know exactly when to use goroutines and when not to."
- EN: "Three things separate writers who get read from writers who don't. None involve writing every day."
- FR: "En 5 minutes : la structure qui fait passer le taux de complétion d'un article de 18% à 64%."

**Use when**: tutorial, how-to. **Avoid**: vague promises ("Learn how to be more productive"). Add a time bound or a number to anchor it.

### 13. Historical Analogy

Open with a vignette from history, pivot to the present.

- EN: "On a Tuesday morning in March 1976, a 21-year-old college dropout sold his Volkswagen Bus for 1,500 dollars. He used the money to build the first Apple computer."
- EN: "In 1965, Robert Lucas wrote a four-page paper that broke macroeconomics."
- EN: Wright Brothers vignette (Housel, "Three Big Things"), pivots to demographics and interest rates.
- FR: "En 1903, à Kitty Hawk, deux frères réparateurs de vélos volent pendant 12 secondes. Personne ne remarque. Voici ce que cette indifférence dit de l'adoption technologique aujourd'hui."

**Use when**: longform analysis, opinion piece, idea essay. **Avoid**: tutorials, news pieces. Reads as indulgent.

### 14. Definition Reversal

"X is not what you think. It's Y."

- EN: "Procrastination isn't laziness. It's a fight between two parts of your brain."
- EN: "This is not an article about productivity. It's an article about identity."
- EN: "Generics were the most requested Go feature for a decade. Three years in, the people who pushed hardest for them are telling you to stop using them."
- FR: "Le copywriting n'est pas de l'écriture. C'est de la psychologie déguisée en phrases."

**Use when**: opinion piece, contrarian deep dive. **Avoid**: when your reframe is just a slight angle. Sounds gimmicky.

### 15. Authority Borrow

Lead with a name plus a specific action.

- EN: "Warren Buffett, at 91, still reads 500 pages a day."
- EN: "When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he killed 70% of the product line in his first year."
- EN: "A boy once asked Charlie Munger..." (Housel narrative variant)
- FR: "Quand Bernard Arnault a racheté Tiffany pour 16 milliards, trois analystes ont prédit un échec. Ils s'étaient tous trompés sur la même chose."

**Use when**: business piece, profile, analytical essay. **Avoid**: name-dropping without payoff. The action must be specific and relevant.

### 16. Time Anchor

Lead with a specific date, hour, or moment.

- EN: "October 2005. Three journalists set up a blog in an apartment of the cité Blanqui, in Bondy."
- EN: "In 2022, the cost of writing a competent article dropped to zero. Most writers haven't noticed."
- EN: "On a Tuesday morning in March 1976, a 21-year-old dropout sold his Volkswagen Bus for 1,500 dollars."
- FR: "Octobre 2005, Bondy. Trois journalistes installent un blog dans un appartement de la cité Blanqui."

**Use when**: reported piece, retrospective, "why now" framing. **Avoid**: vague time anchors ("recently", "these past few years"). Use a specific date or cut the time framing.

### 17. Conditional ("If you... then this")

Self-segment the reader. Pre-target the curiosity.

- EN: "If you write for a living, you've probably been taught to start with context. Don't."
- EN: "If you've ever read a blog post and forgotten what it said within the hour, this article is the diagnostic."
- EN: "If you're not saying 'HELL YEAH!' about something, say no." (Sivers)
- FR: "Si vos articles sont lus à 80% par vos collègues et à 8% par vos prospects, le problème n'est pas le contenu. C'est l'accroche."

**Use when**: tutorial, advice piece, segmented audience. **Avoid**: conditions too broad ("If you've ever felt stuck..."). Segments nobody.

### 18. Open Loop

Start something, withhold the resolution.

- EN: Talese's Sinatra waiting for him to say something. He never says.
- EN: "He pressed Send and waited. Forty-seven seconds later, the company was worth 4 billion dollars less."
- EN: "Now here's where it gets really interesting..." (Sugarman, transition phrase, also valid as opener)
- FR: "J'ai été contacté par un éditeur la semaine dernière. Ce qu'il m'a demandé m'a fait reconsidérer 15 ans de pratique."

**Use when**: longform, pieces where the journey matters as much as the answer. **Avoid**: unresolved loops. Creates disproportionate betrayal when the article ends without paying off.

---

## Anti-patterns (never propose any of these)

Cliché openers that immediately disqualify the writer:

- "In today's fast-paced world..." / "À l'heure du tout-numérique" / "À l'ère de l'IA" / "Dans un monde où..."
- "Have you ever wondered...?" / "Vous êtes-vous déjà demandé...?"
- Dictionary opener played straight ("Productivity, defined as...")
- "In this article, I'll discuss..." / "Dans cet article, nous allons voir..."
- Generic stats without source ("90% of people...", "Les études montrent...")
- Misattributed Einstein / Seneca / Confucius / Bouddha quotes
- "I'm not an expert, but..." / "Je ne suis pas spécialiste mais..."
- Three rhetorical questions in a row
- "Imagine waking up..." without a specific scene
- "Hot take:", "Unpopular opinion:", "Voici la vérité que personne ne veut entendre..."
- "At [Company], we believe..." / "Chez [Entreprise], nous pensons..."
- "Recently,..." / "Récemment,..." without a specific date
- "You're not alone."

Current AI tells (refresh yearly):

- "It's not just X, it's Y" (the formula construction)
- "Picture this:", "Imagine a world where...", "What if I told you..."
- "Whether you're a seasoned X or a curious newcomer..."
- "In the realm of...", "Navigating the landscape of..."
- "Unlock the power of...", "Dive into...", "Buckle up,", "Let's dive in"
- "Crucially,", "Notably,", "Importantly,", "Essentially," as sentence openers
- French AI tells: "Dans un monde en constante évolution", "Plongez dans...", "Découvrez comment...", "Par ailleurs,...", "Notamment,...", "Il est crucial de..."

Run every candidate through this list before presenting. If a candidate matches, rewrite.

For the extended anti-pattern list, see `references/anti-patterns.md`.

---

## Language handling

**If the audience is French**: write in French, applying the _attaque journalistique_ register.

- Concrete scene-setting, restrained tone, dated anchors, formal "vous" or restrained tutoiement.
- Do not translate American hype tropes literally — "You'll never believe..." becomes "Vous n'allez pas en croire vos yeux", which reads as scam in French.
- French marketing-skepticism baseline is higher than English; high promises trigger _réactance_ faster.

**If English**: default to direct-response register for marketing or tutorial content, longform register for essays and reported pieces.

**If bilingual**: produce hooks in both languages, label clearly.

For deeper register guidance, see `references/anglophone-vs-francophone.md`.

---

## Post Titles

A **title** is what the reader sees before clicking. A **hook** is what they read after. Both earn attention through different mechanisms: the title competes for clicks in a feed or search result; the hook earns continued reading after the click.

### The core mechanic: calibrated curiosity

A title must open a gap without closing it — but the gap must feel real, not manufactured. Research on 8,977 A/B experiments (Upworthy, _Scientific Reports_ 2024) found a curvilinear relationship: too vague produces confusion (no foothold for curiosity); too specific removes motivation to click. The sweet spot: name the stakes, withhold the resolution.

**The craft test.** Does the title open