How to Use Multiple Opening Hooks | Novel Writing Advice 

I love that you're giving examples from existing books for us to understand better😁

Opening hooks can be simple: when your story is finished, just change the start so it offers a hint of what the story is about.

I'm so glad you're back.

I love it when you post new videos!! So glad you’re back. Please don’t go! 😭 Your videos are THE BEST videos of the booktube community.

Yo, if you see this, glad you're more active lately! I think "In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit" is my favorite hook. Not a huge Tolkien fan, but it just asks so many questions. What the hell is a Hobbit? What's life in this "hole" like? And the next chapter just goes into so much detail about Bilbo's life and the shire and everything

Thanks for offering your services! Your advice is always valuable and you're super articulate! You also get to the topic point quickly which makes learning/remembering important info easy! Glad you're back:)

Ellen Brock the best result of an education system working properly. thank you for shearing

Maybe it’s my penchant for mystery and pulps, but I like it when the protagonist gets dropped into a moving plot machine and has to figure out everything that’s going on alongside the reader.

So Good! This is the best explanation of hooks. Everyone says you have to have a good hook but doesn't really explain a good from bad hook. Thanks for these examples. I would love more examples of good hooks and even examples of poor hooks and why they are poor. Great job.

So glad to see you're making videos again! You're one of my go-to channels for learning about writing. Keep going!

Im so glad you're finally back Ellen! I always love your vids!

This was a terrific video. Ellen. Love that you included The Kite Runner. Just a beautiful book that was so well written with an intriguing hook, great characters and twists and a very satisfying conclusion. Keep them coming!

So glad you're posting your videos again, they're so helpful.

I am also glad you're back. Your recent videos have improved, but have always been truly excellent.

i love your videos because not only do i learn writing tips and gems, but because i get really interested in the books you give as an example. So it's a great way to get reading recommendations!

So happy to see you active again! Love your channel.

Best vid I've ever seen on this subject. The examples make all the difference. Brilliantly done! I'm a new subscriber!

Thank you so much! I am writing my first novel and your videos have been so helpful for me. I love that you use examples to demonstrate different techniques other writers have used. I had a breakthrough after watching this!

Another amazingly helpful video from Ellen, thank you so much!!

This is very helpful. Thanks to you, reverse engineering my opening scene to find out if there are any questions being raised will be of great benefit.

So excited about the forthcoming boot camp. Your videos are so insightful and helpful - thank you Ellen! I’ve contacted you to get booked in for November, I hope we get to work together ☺️

Hello Ellen from Australia!! thank you so much for being so clear when explaining concepts! I've scoured youtube for editing and writing advice and yours is by far, one of the best channels I've watched! thanks so much for your hard work :)

Love your videos! Love writing but feel like I don’t have the time to finish my novel but I’m gonna keep on trying! Thank you so much for your help.

This is awesome advice! I like to learn by example so just hearing how you break down each one has got the gears in my head turning

Finally, youve returned. Im so excited for more of your advice and videos. I hope you get around to making another four or five versions of your 25 ways to spot an amateur author.

so happy to see a new video from you!

I wish you could be here all year!

Ellen, your videos are great. Thanks for making them.

I am watching all your videos now. They are too awesome!

Another fabulous video that I can put right to work in my writing. Thank you.

Definitely something I will think about for the opening of my novel. Thank you so much for sharing :)

Yay, glad you're back ;)

I love your videos! Please make more. I watch them all and like them all! 👍👍👍

Thank you so much for these new videos. Look forward to learning more about writing a novel. I may never write one, but I find it interesting to read and watch movies and to figure out their structure and predict what is coming next.

This is also a great way to build into the future of your novel - sequels and spinoffs!

Thanks for your insight and expertise.

Of course I will tell you the title. It's Warrior Women of Superian Island: The Legend of the Six Breasted Man. I sent your response to someone else I felt like an idiot. Hopefully this gets to u. Thank u so much for reaching out to me. I followed all your suggestions, and pray it resonates with readers. I'm already writing Book 3. Hopefully Book 1 will be out soon.

Can't wait for the prologue video.

Thank you so much Ellen!🌟🦋

Thank you so much. I finished my first book and im waiting to get it published. I already started on book 2. You were very helpful!

Very helpful. Thank you.

This is so helpful! Thank you!

What a great piece of advice :-)

I know you are right. Just hearing your examples makes me want to read the books.

Kite Runner is so incredibly good. Arguably the best I have read in a decade or more. And a great book to learn how to write better.

Water for Elephants ha a really great hook.

Ellen's ALIVE!!!! :)

Yay, a new video.

Those were good examples of how to hook and how to keep them hooked. Quentin Tarantino does this very well himself in his stories by using first dialogue lines that raises questions, adding subtext to his dialogue and creating great suspense over the cours of the scene. You may want to use him as an example as well when you want dive even deeper int this subject in a future video.

Thanks for the video..

Please ignore the person that gave it a thumbs down. There's one in every crowd, but it's their right. Personally I want to thank you for your time and effort, it is greatly appreciated. (Also, please ignore the adverbs).

I hope you'll one day make a video about how to write engaging exposition. I still have a little trouble writing it b/c I don't know how to write it without getting too informative.

Awesome helpful aids, Ellen! Thanks so much. (I was # 100 in the "likes" though I wish I could like it a 100 times!)

You’re back! (I guess that’s what you’d call a rhetorical comment.) Anyway, awesome!

in love with your brain.

Thanks a lot!

Brilliant!

cool vid, i watched it twice

Thank you

Love your channel, love your videos. It would be awesome if you had a mic pack or some other audio recording that would make the video not sound so tinny...

my goal is to have hooks throughout so the reader always feels that push of curiosity. I imagine the hard part will be striking a balance between new questions and satisfying answers so the reader doesn't feel too lost.

Too bad "My Sister's Keeper" didn't finish anywhere near as strongly as it started.

Great

I love you!

"My Sister's Keeper" sounds reminiscent of the movie Parts: The Clonus Horror, but it's understandable if you wouldn't automatically make that connection because I'm sure it came out long before your time (1979).

How to Clickbait Your Book

You live!!

Exceclent Video, it leaves me thinking about my current on going draft if it is catching enough the interest of the readers. Probably, one of my first self-reviewing process stage, will be the inclution of metter hooks. I missed in your vide some examples about hooks that are written in third person. If I am not worng, all the examples were in first person, that sound more intimate and commited with the reader. Is it harder to create good hooks when your narrator is on third person?. Thanks in advance and I really love yoour videos.

As a reader, I always avoid a self-published book with a prologue. I'm glad you're going to cover it for the next video and I hope you'll steer newer writers away from that structure. Even accomplished/successful writers have a difficult time pulling it off and most just label it as the first chapter with a time-jump or integrate it into a flashback or something. Maybe it's the just the genres I read most, but to me, a prologue screams "heavy-handed Info dumping backstory"

The winter of 1975 If you've read The Kite Runner, you'll know why this is important and why it comes up so many times in Hosseini's novel

I'd like to hear examples of third-person narrative opening hooks.

Looking for the Thread loop

Hi Ellen! You once said something about staying consistent with verb tenses. I'm not sure if this qualifies as inconsistent verb tenses. "The four young Ulbing children were bewildered at the things taking place around them." Can you tell me whether "were bewildered" and "things taking place" count as inconsistent?

Do you have any advice on how to write first person and second and third person? Please explain each one or any advice? Claudia

Another good video. Thank you miss allen 😆🙏. I'm your big fans. . . May allah bless you with peacefull life 😇

Question: all three of these examples are in first person. Any examples of someone doing this well written in third person?

Now I have my Ear Phones, so I can tune in. Hi Ellen! Love Grifiki

Where have you been?

Hi, very interesting video. I have a question, since you focus on story hooks that start at the beginning of the book. Are there other story configurations that are structured like a chain of hooks? I think that your story hooks set up interesting scenarios that apply to the whole of the book, to a story that runs from the beginning to the end. I am trying to think about books that are more adventure-based, so in order to get from A to B, to C, etc. until you arrive at the end of your story (Z), you'd need multiple hooks, right? I am coming up empty here, except for some pulp fantasy books from the 90s, and those kinda do not count because the overall quest (A-Z) IS a story hook presetented by the prologue.

They come from the northern reaches of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland? Obviously dragons from the rest of the British Isles prefer to holiday elsewhere. Helpful vid, thank you.

yeah but these are all 1st person examples would it look the same if it was in 3rd person

"Authors Hook readers, by working at Libraries. And they never even wrote a Book."

Are hooks used in regular books? Or only novels

Should the opening hook be in the first sentence?

oh

"Who is John Galt?"

Resurrection

I was forced to read The Kite Runner in highschool...

lol that first example qoute was bordering pretentious, sorry if i sound pretentious

Another one similar to the types of hooks presented here is: “At age 11, I broke my piggybank and went to see the hookers.” -M. Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran

DOGS

Great video but why are you sweating?

Honestly, as effective as they are, some of these hooks sound suspiciously reminiscent to clickbait… 😁

Jesus christ you're good looking.

Girl I love your videos and your content, but please get a decent pic lol

You're illustrating ATTEMPTS at a hook. I don't think any of these attempts would hook me --- they'd actually repulse me.

who here is American

Hooks are over rated Smart writing works best

Hi Ellen You don't look altogether comfortable standing while making your presentation, perhaps you should make your self a bit more comfortable. Try recording while seated in your favorite stool or chair.