Speaker 1: Get ready, because today we're going to discuss what it takes to win your audience over and keep them on board. By the way, my name is Brandon McNulty, I'm the author of Bad Parts, also the author of Entry Wounds, and welcome to my writing channel. One of my subscribers requested a video on the topic of narrative hooks, how to use them and how not to use them. So, what we're going to do today, we're going to start off by answering the question, what is a hook? Then we'll explore different ways to grab your audience's attention, and I'll give you some strategies for using hooks, and I'll also wrap things up with a warning on how not to hook your audience. I'll also be giving examples from several different movies today, I'll put them all up on your screen. Most of these examples are going to focus on things that happen at the very beginning of the stories, but if you are concerned about spoilers, just keep this list in mind. Alright, now let's answer the question, what is a hook? And a hook is a narrative device that grabs the audience's attention and gets them invested in the story. And it may or may not be your story's inciting incident. And the inciting incident, of course, it's an event toward the beginning of the story that shakes up your main character's world and sends them on their story journey. That may be the hook in your story, or you may have a hook before that, you may have several hooks throughout the story. And that's another thing to keep in mind, you can have multiple hooks. You can have a hook at the opening of the story, then maybe at the opening of a subplot, the opening of one scene or several scenes. There are a lot of different times you can use hooks, you don't have to limit them to the very beginning of a story. Now, as I mentioned, the main purpose of a narrative hook is to grab the audience's attention. And now I want to share with you a few different ways of doing this. First way is by raising questions, putting questions in your audience's head, making them curious about what will happen down the line. And this is the best way to get their attention. You want to show the audience something interesting or unusual that spurs their curiosity and makes them wonder what will happen later on in the story. A great example of this comes from the 1982 movie, The Thing. And this movie opens with a scene where a helicopter is flying over Antarctica, and it's tracking down a dog, and the people inside the helicopter are shooting at the dog, they're trying to kill it. And this scene raises a lot of questions because nothing is explained to us. We're just left with the image of these people trying to kill the dog, and we're wondering, why is this dog so important? Why are those people trying to kill it? What will happen if they don't kill it? Second way to grab an audience is by showing something surprising or shocking. This works basically the same way as raising questions, but it has more of a punch to it. An example of this comes from the 2001 movie, Frailty. And this one opens up with an FBI agent who is in the midst of an investigation. He's trying to track down a serial killer known as the God's Hand Killer. And the FBI agent, he returns to his office, and he finds a mysterious man waiting there for him. And this man says that he knows who the killer is. And then the two characters have this exchange.

Speaker 2: Listen, this may sound a little bit crazy, but... I know who the God's Hand Killer is. Nobody just walks into your office and tells you who the killer is. It just doesn't happen that way. Sometimes truth defies reason, Agent Dole. Yeah? So who is it, then? My brother.

Speaker 1: So the revelation here is a surprising one, and it lights up the story right at the start. It puts questions in the audience's head. Who is this mysterious man? What is it that he wants? Why is he willing to reveal his brother's involvement? And then those questions get answered over the course of the movie. Third way to grab an audience, you establish a strong emotional connection to the protagonist. And this usually means that you'll show a character suffering, or making sacrifices, or experiencing a private moment. We see this in the opening of the Joker movie. Arthur Fleck is trying to make a living as a clown who twirls a sign on the sidewalk. Then he gets his sign taken away from him. He tries to recover it, but then he gets attacked and beaten up. And it's a hook that makes us sympathize with the character, and it also makes us wonder how the character will react going forward. Another way to grab your audience's attention is by showing conflicting ideas or emotions. And this is how you create tension in your story. And a great example of this comes from the movie Gran Torino. If you remember at the very beginning, there's that serious setting. We're in the church. There's a funeral mass being held. And we see the main character, Walt Kowalski. He's mourning the loss of his wife. Then his family disrespects him. They show up late. They're dressed inappropriately. They're bad-mouthing him behind his back. And these clashing emotions, Walt being sorrowful while his family is indifferent, this creates tension and signals that there's plenty of conflict yet to come. And then one last way to grab your audience's attention is by starting the story in the middle of dramatic action. This is called in medias res, and this is where your story is already in motion. You drop your audience into a tense moment, and you're right there alongside the characters experiencing some high conflict, high stakes. Okay, so we talked about different ways of grabbing your audience's attention. Now let's shift gears and focus on five tips, five simple yet effective tips, for using narrative hooks in your stories. And the first tip is to open your story right off the bat with a strong, impactful hook. If you're writing a novel, find a way to get a strong hook in your opening chapter, your opening page, or even your opening line. And if you're writing a movie, a TV show, or something similar, find a way to get an impactful hook in your opening scene or even your opening image. Tip number two, if for some reason you can't open up your story with a strong, impactful hook, then build toward one with smaller hooks along the way. An example of this comes from the 2022 movie, The Menu. And this one opens up with a conversation between two people who are about to visit an exclusive restaurant that's on a private island. And the two characters, Tyler and Margo, they're about to board a boat. Tyler is a huge food enthusiast. He can't wait to go to this restaurant. And he invites Margo along as his date. Now Margo, on the other hand, she doesn't really care about fancy food at all. And in this case, she's a total outsider and it creates tension here because we have a situation where their attitudes over food clash. So that's your small hook at the very start. Later, we get another small hook when everyone is checking in. We see that Margo isn't Tyler's designated guest.

Speaker 3: Welcome to Hawthorne. Mr. Ledford and Ms. Westervelt?

Speaker 2: Sorry, yeah, that was a change of plans, so Ms. Westervelt can dismiss. I'm Margo.

Speaker 1: This is an awkward moment that builds an emotional connection to the character. It once again establishes her as an outsider, which works as a small hook. And then once they get to the restaurant, we get a major hook. The mysterious celebrity chef who runs the island, he notices Margo and reacts as though he's alarmed by her presence. And it raises some serious questions and it propels the story forward. Tip number three, don't limit hooks to the very beginning of your story. Oftentimes you'll hear people say that the beginning of a story needs to hook the audience. And that's true, but you can also have hooks scattered throughout your story. Sometimes you can even use them when you're introducing a side character or a subplot. An example of this comes from the movie 1408. And this is about a man who doesn't believe in the supernatural and when he does, he goes to various haunted locations and writes books about them. And then he receives a postcard daring him to visit a haunted hotel room in New York City and he takes up the challenge. And then right before he leaves for New York City, we get a subplot hook when his editor talks to him over the phone.

Speaker 3: Yeah, uh, on a more personal note, are you sure you want to come here? Yeah, of course, it'll make a solid closing chapter of the book. Yeah, yeah, I know the routine, but I mean, it's New York. All that happened. You really want to put yourself through that?

Speaker 1: So this is a minor hook, but it's an effective one and it sets up the emotional heart of the story. Tip number four, when one question gets resolved, raise another one. And this goes back to the idea of scattering hooks throughout your story. An example of this comes from the movie Alien. And if you remember early on, there is a major hook when the facehugger creature latches onto Kane's face. And this raises all sorts of questions like what is that thing on Kane's face? What is it doing to him? Why won't it let go? Then eventually it does let go, and then that raises the question well, what was the whole point of all that? And then in the middle of the story we get our answer with the chestburster scene, and then beyond that there are still more questions. Where did that chestburster creature go? And then what's going to happen next? How are the heroes going to resolve this issue? How are they going to stop the alien? And then the fifth tip, strategically combine multiple types of hooks. I'm not saying throw every single type into your story or every single type into your opening scene, but in some cases you can combine multiple types of hooks in order to get a greater impact. An example of this would come from Breaking Bad. In the very first scene of Breaking Bad it drops us into the middle of dramatic action as Walt is driving away and then he ends up crashing his vehicle. And we see unusual things like Walt wearing a mask and driving around in his underwear. And then there's strong emotion when Walt nervously addresses his family through a video recording. And finally the scene ends with Walt pointing his gun in the direction of approaching sirens which raises tons of questions like what's going to happen next? How will this guy get out of this mess? And why is he even here in the first place? Okay, now before we wrap up this video I want to give you some quick tips on how not to hook your audience. And these are some things you want to avoid doing especially at the very beginning of the story. The first thing to avoid is too much description or info dumping. Most audiences do not want to get buried under a pile of details at the start of a story. Instead, get your audience invested in the characters and their goals. Once you've established the characters then you can start unloading heavy details and describing the history of your story world. Second thing you want to avoid is overwhelming your audience. And when you start a story there's going to be a temptation to use a ton of different hooks in order to find something that works something that actually grabs the audience. But you need to be selective. You can't just throw everything you can at them. And if you do, you may end up confusing or overwhelming people. An example of this comes from the 2019 movie Nezah. And this one opens up with an info dump about a special item known as the Chaos Pearl. Then we get introduced to two side characters who battle the Chaos Pearl and then there's fast paced action, there's magic there's humor, there's backstory there's a wizard master who saves the day and then the Chaos Pearl gets divided into two parts before we get another info dump that sets up the main storyline. And the thing is, there's just too much going on in the span of three minutes. And thankfully the movie gets better once it settles down because a hectic opening can create a lot of confusion. Now as I mentioned, there's nothing wrong with combining multiple hooks like in the Breaking Bad example I gave you. However, that example works because it keeps things simple. It focuses strictly on Walt and his immediate situation. Nezah on the other hand hits us with a whirlwind of information right at the start and some of the most interesting details get buried among others. Another thing to avoid is opening up your story with action scenes that don't have context or stakes. Now movies and TV can get away with this if they're visually stylish but if you're writing a novel be careful if you're starting things off with tons of action. It's critical that you give us a reason to care about the action that's happening. Don't just show us a bunch of explosions or gunshots or swinging swords. Answer the question, why should we care? And then the last thing to avoid is vague or inconsistent openings. And sometimes a writer will start a story with a scene that tries to be clever but in the end it only leaves the audience feeling bored or confused. And it's important to consider what types of questions you want to put in your audience's heads. When that opening scene ends you want them wondering what will happen next. You don't want them wondering what did they just watch. An example of this comes from the movie Justice League, the theatrical cut. And this one opens up with a kid interviewing Superman on a cell phone and this scene is just weird. The tone, the direction, the purpose it's just all over the place It definitely doesn't hook the audience and in most cases it's only going to alienate them. So when you are coming up with your intro scene try and settle on one good hook. If you want to include some others like in Breaking Bad you can do that as well but at least focus on getting a clear effective hook in there. As long as you get your audience on board you can have success with your story. So I hope this helps. Question of the day, what is your favorite movie and at what point did it grab your attention? Let us know in the comments section below. Thank you for watching. If you want to support the channel please pick up a copy of either one of my books. Bad Parts is great if you like small town horror it's about people trading away their sick and injured body parts in order to get healthy again and then Entry Wounds is great if you like thrillers it's about a guy who picks up a haunted gun and he cannot put it down until he kills six people with it. Also be sure to check out my other videos like, share, and subscribe and as always remember to keep on writing.