Story structure
Narrative hook
A literary technique in the opening of a story that "hooks" the reader's attention so that they will keep on reading.
A narrative hook (or just hook) is a literary technique in the opening of a story that "hooks" the reader's attention so that they will keep on reading. The article's catalogue is wide: a startling action or ominous description, a scene from a key moment of a character's life, intrigue without specifics ("And then, after six years, she saw him again"), an in medias res opening such as Beloved, or a thematic statement like the first line of Pride and Prejudice. An "opening" stretches with the form: a single sentence, a few paragraphs in a short story, the first chapter of a novel, the first five to ten minutes of a film.
For serial writers the hook bears weight twice: the first chapter's hook decides whether a browsing reader stays, and every later chapter's first line fights the back-button. The chapter ending is the cliffhanger's job; the hook is the other half of the same promise. See cliffhangers and chapter endings.