Category Archives: hooks

Movie trailers offer writers techniques to hook readers

Posted on January 20, 2024 | Leave a comment

Movie trailers are hooks to promote movies.  A trailer contains a series of snippets from a film which, its promoters hope, will lead you to view the film.  Trailers contain the most exciting, dramatic, scary, or humorous parts of a film, the parts most likely to lure you to see the whole film.

Usually, information in trailers is not presented in the same order as it is presented in the film.  Dramatic camera angles add edginess and energy.  The non-linear structure of trailers keeps the audience from guessing at the story line and ending.  You have to watch the film to find out.  Music provides atmosphere.  Voice-overs offer brief story lines.

Trailers shown on TV are usually 20 to 30 seconds long.  Trailers shown in movie theaters before a featured film is shown are longer, up to two-and-a-half minutes long.

Beginning in the 1970s, movie trailers were produced to be shown on prime-time TV at first, and then almost nonstop in the days before a movie’s release.  “Red band” trailers warn audiences of content not appropriate for some audiences, such as children.  Nowadays, many movie trailers are being custom made for various Internet sites and their audiences.

What can writers learn from trailers to improve their hooks? 

Some trailers begin by panning over scenery to set a mood or to identify a location.  Gentle farmland, fierce ocean waves breaking below cliffs, and a bird’s-eye view of New York’s skyscrapers identify vastly different locations and moods.  Farmland might suggest a rural, 19th century satire, or conversely, the site of the Battle of Hastings.  Crashing ocean waves might suggest a dangerous war invasion or a passionate romance.  And skyscrapers’ roofs might suggest a sophisticated comedy or a terrorist plan unfolding.  Writers can think of their eyes as cameras.  What scenery would cameras focus on to support the location and themes of a story, or to offer an ironical twist?

Trailers sometimes use repetitive sounds to entice an audience.  Music which sounds like car horns.  The chirping of birds.  The clicking of typewriter keys.  The cries of an unattended baby.  These instantly provide mood.  Writers can simulate sounds with words to hook readers.

A narrator’s voice can lure readers.  Though an audience can’t hear the voice, an audience can imagine how it sounds with good enough text description.  Writers can duplicate a voice’s tempo, its breathlessness, its harshness of tone, its childlike vocabulary or reasoning.

The next time a trailer comes across your screen, analyze how it hooks.  What techniques does the filmmaker use that you can use to hook readers?

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Posted in English Writing Instruction, hooks, movie trailers

Three examples of news hooks and eight techniques used in them

Posted on January 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

What is this “hook” that ELA teachers want students to start essays with?

A hook is any kind of information at the beginning of an essay which catches the reader’s attention and keeps the reader reading.  Let’s look at a few from news stories (not feature stories) from the January 12th edition of The New York Times:

  • “The Midwest Braces for a Blizzard, and More Severe Storms Will Slam the South.” People always want to know how approaching weather will affect them. This headline tells of extreme weather over a large section of the US, so it grabs readers’ attention.
  • “What Was Ron DeSantis’s Campaign Strategy in Iowa?” Millions of Americans support the Florida governor’s efforts to win the Republican nomination, and millions more want to know what DeSantis is up to.  This headline grabs readers’ attention.
  • “Elton John’s First Auction in 21 Years Has It All: Boots to Banksy.” Elton John is a musician with millions of fans.  An auction of his flamboyant clothes is like an auction of Princess Diana’s gowns, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime event.  It entices readers.

News story headlines are good examples of what hooks should be.  Editors put the most important information first, the information which they think will be most devoured by readers.  This is called the inverted pyramid style.  News stories start with the most important information, continue with details of less importance, and trail off with details of little importance.

To heighten reader interest, headlines use powerful verbs.  In the first example above, the verbs “braces” and “slam” grab readers’ eyes.   You “brace” against something powerful which has the power to “slam” you.  Hmm.  Let me read more.

Another technique to heighten interest is to ask a question—not a question which can be answered with a yes or a no, but a question which demands thought by the reader.  The second example above does this when it asks what DeSantis’s campaign strategy was.

A third technique used in news story headline hooks is to name a celebrity whose very name will attract readers.  Ron DeSantis and Elton John do this.

Using a precise number—like “21 years”—is another luring technique.  There’s something honest about stating an exact number which also attracts readers.

Naming locations also attracts readers.  The first example names the Midwest and the South.  The second example names Iowa.  Readers with connections to those locations are drawn to the news stories naming them.

Another technique to draw readers is to use a figure of speech that works.  “From Boots to Bansky” shows alliteration.

“Boots to Bansky” also provokes curiosity.  People who know Elton John know that his performing outfits, including his boots, are outrageous.  But what about Bansky?  What is Bansky?  Why is Bansky named in the headline?  Readers’ curiosity may draw them into the article to find out.

To conclude, news story headlines are good examples of hooks which draw readers into news stories.

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Posted in hooks

Where should a student start an essay?

Posted on March 31, 2019 | Leave a comment

If you are teaching children essay writing, at which point do you tell students to begin their writing?  With the hook?  With the introduction?  With the thesis?  Somewhere else?

Lately when my students start to write essays, I tell them to skip over the introduction completely for now except for its last sentence, the thesis.  That is where I tell them to begin.

Then I tell them to write the topic sentences of the body paragraphs.  After that, I tell them to fill in the body paragraphs with detailed sentences.  Then, after the student knows the contents of the body, I tell students to write their introductions at the top of one page and their conclusions at the bottom of that page, so the students can see them both together.

The first draft of an essay is put together something like this (after the student writes an organizer):

  • The thesis is written at the top of the notebook paper or computer document.
  • Under it is written the first body paragraph topic sentence. About 2/3 of the way down the notebook paper is written the second body paragraph topic sentence.  On the back top is written the third body paragraph topic sentence.  Half way down is written the fourth, if there is a fourth.  If the student is using a computer, these sentences can be written one beneath the other since inserting more material is easy.
  • At this point, I ask the students to check to see if each topic sentence supports the thesis. If not, this is the time to make it work.
  • Next, the students fill in the body paragraphs with details from their prewriting organizer, making sure that each detail supports the paragraph topic sentence.
  • Finally, on a separate notebook paper (or at the top of the essay), students compose the introduction with or without a hook.  Below it, the student composes the conclusion, trying as much as possible, to pick up some thread mentioned in the introduction.  If the student is using a computer, the student can move the conclusion to the end once he or she has compared it to the introduction.

At this point students can type a rough draft if they have worked on notebook paper, assembling the paragraphs in the correct order.  Once the essay is on computer, they can revise.

Students tell me that at school they are told to start writing essays with the hook.  I tell my students to skip right over that.  Why?  What I am looking for is not creativity but logic, the logic of topic sentences which support a thesis and paragraph details which support the topic sentences.  That is the meat of an essay, and that is what I see missing in students’ essays these days.  When that logic is established, the student can work on a creative (or not) introduction and a conclusion which dovetails with that introduction.

 

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Posted in adding details, conclusions, essay conclusions, essay introduction, essay thesis, essay writing, first drafts, full circle conclusions, hooks, how to teach writing, organizing information, teaching writing, thesis, writing tips

What parents want writing teachers / tutors to teach

Posted on July 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

When parents ask for writing help for their children, what kind of help do they want?Child writing

  • Grammar?
  • Vocabulary?
  • Sentence structures?
  • Organizing?
  • Transitions?
  • Introductions and hooks?
  • Conclusions?
  • Spelling?
  • Cursive handwriting?
  • Details?
  • Revising?
  • Particular types of writing (paragraphs? essays? book reports? short answer responses? long answer responses? summaries?)
  • Narrative elements (character development? plot? setting? foreshadowing?  point of view? conflict? dialog? voice? suspense?)
  • Verb tenses?
  • Paraphrasing?
  • Clarity?
  • Dialog?
  • Figures of speech?

Most parents have no idea so many elements combine to create good writing.  When they see a list like this, they are taken aback.

That is why it is important for parents and teachers to agree on what students should learn at various ages.  If a parent thinks the student should be perfecting grammar, but the teacher instead focuses on organization of information, the parent will not be happy.  Or if a parent thinks a student should be using a great piece of rhetoric as a model, but the teacher wants the student to develop his own way of expression, again the parent will be dissatisfied.

Only when a parent is aware of all that a student is expected to learn can the parent and teacher have a meaningful conversation about how to improve a student’s writing.

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Posted in adding details, clarity, complex sentence, compound sentence, conclusions, cursive handwriting, dialog in writing, elements of a narrative, essay conclusions, essay introduction, essay thesis, essay writing, foreshadowing, grammar, hooks, how to teach writing, narrative writing, paraphrasing, point of view character, prewriting organizer, revising first drafts, sentence modeling, short answer responses, simple sentence, spelling, Transitions, vocabulary building

When you are writing the sentences of an essay, where do you begin?

Posted on May 20, 2018 | Leave a comment
  1.  with the hook?
  2. with the introduction?
  3. with the thesis or essay topic sentence?
  4. with the supporting topic sentences?
  5. with the conclusion?

The answer is with the thesis /  essay topic sentence.

3rd grader writing an essay.But too many students don’t start there.  They start with a topic—say Harry Potter books—and then focus on writing a hook to get someone to read their essay about Harry Potter books.  When they are writing their hook they have no idea about the precise topic of their essay, just that it has something to do with Harry Potter books.  Wrong approach!

To impress upon my students how primary the thesis is to an essay, I have them write it on their planner before they plan in detail.  Then when they begin to write sentences, I have them skip five or six lines on notebook paper (or on a computer) and write their thesis there, partway down the paper, leaving room to add an introduction later.

The thesis is the anchor of the whole paper.  I have students box that sentence in color for easy referral.

Next, I have the student write the body paragraph topic sentences. This time I ask students to skip ten or more spaces after each body paragraph.  Later they can come back and fill in those spaces with details.

We read over those topic sentences and check out each one against the thesis.  Does the topic sentence support the thesis?  If yes, keep it.  If no, toss it and write another topic sentence which does.

Next, students write the body paragraph sentences with all the details which back up the paragraph’s topic sentence and the thesis.

Now that they know what their essay is about they can go back and write the introduction and the conclusion.

Think of an essay as a wedding ceremony.  What is most important in the ceremony?  Is it the music as the bride walks down the aisle?  Is it the flowers?   Is it the witnesses?  The kiss?  Of course not.  It’s the vows.  The vows are just a few words.  “I take you, Harry, to be my husband.”  “I take you, Meghan, to be my wife.”  Those vows are followed by supporting details like “for better or for worse,” and “in sickness and in health.”

The vows are like the thesis.  “In good times and in bad” and the other details are like the body of the essay.  The music is like the introduction and conclusion.  And the bride’s beautiful dress is the hook.  You can have a wedding without the dress and the music, but you cannot have one without the vows.  The vows are where you begin, just as the thesis is where you begin an essay.

An essay is a planned, organized piece of writing with one overarching idea expressed in a topic sentence / thesis.  Until you know what that thesis is, it makes no sense to write any other sentences because every other sentence must support the thesis.

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Posted in conclusions, essay conclusions, essay introduction, essay thesis, essay writing, hooks, Introductions, teaching writing, writing tips