Craft Glossary · term

Opening / hook

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Plain English: The first line, paragraph, page, and chapter — the audition. Agents and readers decide fast and look for reasons to stop.

Rule: Open with a situated voice and a sense that something is about to happen — a character wanting something, in a specific place, with an implied imminent change. Establish voice and stakes before exposition.

Fail: Opening on info-dump, backstory, weather, or an "average Tuesday"; a generic or performative voice; or action with no meaningful implication behind it (a car chase we have no reason to care about yet).

See: Premise / hook · Velocity

Arjuna Badger Press · Craft Library

Glossary · Doctrine · Anti-patterns · Triptych form · LLM tells

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