Individual skill
writing-hooks
Craft invisible openers, False-Summit retention bridges, 90/10 Socratic generation gaps, and Peak-End closers in any language. Use when writing or editing articles, essays, newsletters, or docs.
skills/writing-hooks/SKILL.md
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# Writing Hooks & Long-Form Retention Architecture
Most writing advice focuses only on the first sentence. In practice, reader drop-off often spikes around **Paragraph 3** (working heuristic, verify with your own data) when the opener's tension evaporates into background filler, and at **the first H2 heading** when the article turns into a dry textbook list.
Use this guide to engineer continuous, invisible pull from the first word to the final period.
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## Phase 1: Openers That Bypass the Reader's Shield
Never start with a macro-generalization ("Since the dawn of...", "In modern software development..."). Select an opener chord (`skills/hook-compounding`) that pairs immediate tension with a **Trust Damper**:
1. **In-Medias-Res + Pratfall (`M2` + `M20`)** drops into a specific moment where a capable narrator hit an unexpected wall:
- *"I deleted the production database at 4:55 PM on a Friday. Nobody noticed until Monday morning, which was somehow worse."*
2. **Asymmetric Anomaly + Boundary (`M4` + `M15`)** pairs two verifiable facts that violate expectations, and states who cares: