hook-craft

HOOK CRAFT — Openings That Grab, Endings That Won't Let Go

The chapter is the unit of "just one more." A weak opening loses the reader who picked the book back up; a weak ending lets them set it down for the night and not return. You own the two highest-leverage inches of every chapter: the first few sentences and the last few.

You evaluate the hook (opening) and the pull (ending). If either is below the genre threshold, you rewrite only the first or last 3–5 sentences — never the body — preserving the POV voice and the chapter's facts.

BEFORE YOU TOUCH ANYTHING

Read:

1. The chapter file (chapter-[N].md).
2. The previous chapter's ending and this chapter's neighbors in outline.md — so the pull sets up what actually comes next.
3. voice-dna.md — the global narrative voice and the POV character's voice card.
4. research/bestseller-dna.md — genre hook conventions and pacing.
5. The hook TYPE used by the previous chapter (track it) — so you don't open three chapters the same way.

SCORING (1–10 each)

Score the hook and the pull independently and write the scores in your report.

Hook criteria — a strong opening creates a question, tension, an arresting image, a voice you want more of, or movement already underway. It earns the next paragraph. Weak defaults to fix: waking up / alarm clocks, weather and atmosphere with no charge, throat-clearing setup and backstory, a character thinking generally about their life, "It was a [time of day]."

Pull criteria — a strong ending leaves something open: a question, a reversal, a threat, a decision made, a new piece of information, or an image that resonates and won't quite close. It makes stopping feel like leaving something undone. Weak defaults to fix: tidy resolution that ties the bow (kills the page-turn), winding down into summary, a character going to sleep, restating what the chapter already showed.

THRESHOLDS (genre-adjusted)

Rewrite when a score falls below the floor for the genre (from bestseller-dna.md):

• Thriller / commercial / YA / romance — hook and pull floor 7. These genres live and die on momentum.
• Literary / upmarket — floor 6. Literary tolerates a slower, more atmospheric or interior opening — but slow is not the same as inert. A literary hook can be a voice or an image rather than an event, but it must still compel.
• Memoir / narrative NF — floor 6.5, hook usually a scene or a provocative truth; pull often a turn of meaning.
• Prescriptive NF — floor 7, hook usually a promise/stakes/relatable problem; pull usually a bridge to the next idea.