Hooks — Cheat Sheet

Non-Negotiable Rules (check every hook)

One thought, one gap. Two ideas lands neither. Compress every candidate to ONE element.
Under 18 words; 10-15 is the sweet spot; first sentence under 10 words. Two short sentences is the ceiling.
Confession energy, not command. Narrator's experience beats pointing at the reader ('Do you struggle with...' = dead).
Consequence first, mechanism later. Lead with the wound, not the scalpel.
Caveman/4th-grade language. If they read it twice to understand, it's dead. Clarity beats cleverness.
NEVER use em dashes (reads as AI). Use ellipses for pacing instead.
Load the swipe files first (Sky House AT Winners, then Besque) + the offer's winners. Primer is not optional.
Bar is 'holy shit, I have to know more.' If you feel comfortable reading it, it's not vicious enough.
Keep the WHAT crystal clear; let only the HOW or WHY be the mystery. Reader is curious, never confused.

Every hook gets a SHRUG ('who cares') or a SHAKE ('oh shit, how is that possible'). Aim for shake.
Shake = hyper-relevant + hyper-specific + unscratchable curiosity + emotionally vicious. Missing one usually = relevance or charged language.
Belief-naming test: state in ONE sentence the belief the hook shifts. Can't name it = no hook.
Grade against 6: specific+relevant, emotionally charged, high stakes, open loop, borderline-unbelievable, instantly understandable.
Relevance is the most-common missing piece — a dramatic line with no tie to their problem caps at 5/10.
'Borderline unbelievable' = right on the edge, not over it.
Buried-lead hunt: your best hook is usually a disruptive line buried mid-ad. AI writes throat-clearing openers. Drag the epiphany to the front.

Use words that TRIGGER emotion (visual/physical), not words that describe it. 'Betrayal/grief/gutted' are too nice.
Charged: cheat, caught, affair, fat, fart, limp, smell, naked, humiliate, banned, sexless, die, panties, beg.
Germanic roots: sweat not perspire, bad not severe, swelling not inflammatory response.
One or two charged words max — stacking kills it. The charged word IS the hook. Protect it.
Kill euphemisms ('revived our dead love life' → the concrete version). Make it concrete.
Watch product-adjacent smears: 'stench' is charged but poisons a fragrance product.
Put quotes around ONE loaded word ('Botox', 'Wrinkles') — signals insider skepticism + makes it pop. Never more than one.

L1 White Noise: generic, zero stakes ('If you have wrinkles, you need to hear this') — kill it.
L2 Corporate Handshake: polite benefit, a lecture. Predictable, no tension — kill it.
L3 Shoulder Tap: conflict/betrayal — the product they trust is the enemy. Earns a pause.
L4 SLAP: gossip/drama scene you walk in on mid-action. THE standard. Aim here for ALL ads.
To climb: find the tension inside the benefit → add a CHARACTER (sister, ex, dermatologist) → make it one-line scene.
Every winning hook has a character, not just a narrator. The relationship IS the tension (jealousy, rivalry, guilt, betrayal).
Doctor-as-rebel-insider beats 'a doctor says' — an expert BETRAYING their own industry.
SLAP test: would you repeat this to a friend? Do you need to know what happened next?

Unaware: no product mention. Lean curiosity/story; relevance can arrive later; benefits stay implied.
Problem-aware: call out symptoms in their own words, agitate the pain hard, hint at a new cause.
Solution-aware: differentiate, position against what's already failed them ('Not another retinol').
Product-aware: counter the reason they haven't bought — objections, FOMO, social proof.
Most-aware: direct offer, urgency, guarantee, price anchor, CTA-forward.
Hidden-cause hooks dominate cold/unaware traffic: 'the symptom you blamed on X is actually caused by Y.'
Curiosity before pain: the curiosity block is unique to your ad; generic pain could open any ad in the niche. Flip a pain-led draft.
Sell the story/article/ranking/list, not the product. The product is the payoff at the funnel's end, never the hook.
Unaware story-hook build order: add indirect relevance → intensify the story → inject charged words → compress to one element.

A video hook must do all 3: stop scroll + filter audience (right person self-selects) + earn the next 5 seconds.
5 stop layers: 0-sec visual → visual relevance (0-2s) → looks real (high production = smells like a commercial) → 3-5s spoken hook → ad text (support only).
3 modes run at once: Visual carries targeting, Caption carries the specific claim, Audio carries emotional tone. Make them agree.
Motion's 5 tactics: Confession, Bold Claim, Contrast, Relatability, Curiosity — run the concept through all 5.
Confession fails with no resolution (=clickbait); Bold Claim fails with a boring visual; Relatability fails if there's no reason to keep watching.
Curiosity = known (targeting) + unknown (tension). Make the KNOWN specific — pure mystery gets broad CTR but poor conversion.
Trinity: Hook grabs attention → Image proves it fast (exaggerate the claim visibly) → Headline makes it believable (expert reaction, list, scarcity). Never repeat each other.

Run the concept through all 15 template categories (Problem Reframe, Concealment, Family Moment, Spouse Reaction, Authority Betrayal, Effort Betrayal, etc.) — surfaces hooks you'd never find.
Write at 'level three' when prompting — the instruction reliably raises output quality.
First pass is never the keeper. Iterate by naming the instinct: 'more charged,' 'simpler,' 'push the stakes.'
Relatability hooks require research: mine subreddits, reviews, support tickets for the exact verbatim phrases customers use.
Reach for ~400 formulas in Hook-Formulas-Master.md by category (story, contrarian, specificity, family witness, hidden-cause).
Triple Hook = Qualifier + Main + Twist ('...but I did it WITHOUT [false belief]'). Cross 2-3 categories for hybrids.
When a hook is right but sounds constructed, pull hook-voice-patterns for a native container ('Who was gonna tell me...', 'So here's what I don't understand').

Hook feels flat → find the tension inside the benefit, add a character (ex, sister, dermatologist), make it a one-line scene.
Can't tell if it works → run the shrug/shake gut-call, then name the belief it shifts in one sentence. Can't name it? No hook.
Missing something but don't know what → it's almost always relevance or charged language. Tie it to their actual problem or swap in one trigger word.
Reads like an ad → rewrite until it sounds like someone venting in a Facebook group; cut credentials/setup, front-load the intrigue.
Two ideas fighting → compress to ONE element; kill the second sentence.
Blank page → hunt the buried lead in the body copy, or run the offer through all 15 template categories.