In this 45‑minute workshop, the facilitator leads the Story Spark Day 16 session focused on crafting effective story openings, or "hooks." The session begins with a brief rationale: a strong hook captures audience attention within the first few seconds, essential in a distraction‑filled environment. Five hook categories are presented—shock/surprise, curiosity, emotion, bold statement, and cliffhanger—each illustrated with a short example. Participants (Dinesh, Harsha, Rajesh, Alka, etc.) then engage in a timed exercise: they select a recent story and generate three distinct hooks using any of the five techniques. The facilitator collects each participant’s three hooks, offers brief feedback, and asks how the exercise felt. Participants share insights about the difficulty of creating hooks, the need to “drag” attention, and the importance of hook‑hold‑payoff in storytelling. The facilitator then outlines three practical sources for studying hooks—social‑media posts, film/OTT openings, and public speeches—and concludes with three daily affirmations (“I am a magnetic storyteller,” “I capture attention with boldness and spark curiosity with confidence,” “My stories start strong and stick forever”). The session ends with a call to practice the exercise and a preview of Day 17.
Chapters
Okay, let's start. So welcome everyone to the day 16 of Story Spark session. We have come halfway through the month, and now what we want to do is we want to get into tactic— tactical knowledge of storytelling. So, so far we worked on mindset, we worked on creating and getting great stories, but this is where we are going to get tactical into. So the first thing that I've thought about is working on hook or opening. As they say, if you don't capture the attention of your audience in the first few seconds, you're not going to get their attention throughout. So welcome Rajesh, welcome Harsha, good to have you. Today we are going to talk about the hook, the types of hook, And then we are going to do an exercise where you are going to use one story but have different hooks for the same. Okay, so let's quickly get into what is a hook and what kinds of hook. So anybody wants to share what exactly is a hook in a story? Yes, Arshad.
Okay, hook is very important in, uh, storytelling. Today, we— in older days, there is no need of getting a— but today is more competition. So there is, you know, so many storytelling process are there. So we need to put the audience immediately within 3 seconds.
Correct, correct.
That is very important.
Absolutely wonderful. Yeah, there are too many things. We have phone, we have so many distractions.
So many distractions is there.
Absolutely, absolutely. So if you want your people to give attention to you, you need to make sure that you are hooking them with your first few seconds. So there are many types of hook. So today, in today's session, I have taken 5 different types of hook and and we are going to work on that. So the first type of hook is shock or surprise. It's very common, but it's very useful as well when you want to give a shock or surprise. For example, I put an example also next to it, right? I once got rejected 31 times in a row. Still, I didn't quit. It's a shock and surprise that why did you not quit? Even after getting rejected 31 times. The second type of hook is curiosity. What if I told you a 2-minute story changed my entire career? Now that's a curiosity because we want to know what is that thing that changed the career with the 2-minute story of the whole career of 40-50 years. The third type of hook is emotions. My mom cried the day I walked off the stage, or I 'I couldn't hold back my tears when I got that in my hand,' right? That's another emotion that you're putting out there. The fourth hook is a bold statement like, 'Public speaking is not a skill, it's a survival tool,' or, 'People are not afraid of public speaking, they're afraid of the shame that they have when they get rejected.' And last one is like a cliffhanger. Everything was fine until the lights went out, right? It's like the hero framework. So those are 5 types of hook I put you here, and this is the exercise. So what is the exercise today? Today's exercise is very tactical. Think of a story that you have told recently or you want to tell, and now you have— this screen will be there. I want you to think about 3 different hooks. For the same story using any of the 3 different techniques. So this does require you to go out of your comfort zone. So I'm gonna give you 2 minutes. I'm gonna put the music on and think about the story. What we are going to share afterwards is not the whole story, but you're gonna say hook 1, hook 2, hook 3, and we're gonna give feedback on that. So let's get started. I'm gonna start the music. And you'll have 2 minutes to come up with 3 different hooks. Last 45 seconds. Okay, time's up. So let's start. Let's go around the room and let's— whoever joined first, I'm gonna pick up on Dinesh Ji. So Dinesh Ji would love to hear your 3 hooks. Let me replace Spotlight with you. Yes.
Thank you. So the first one, yes, I got avoided for 10 times. I posted my clips on Instagram.
Nice.
So that's one. Second one, what if I tell you that my first clip It got more than 1,000 views in less than 24 hours.
Brilliant.
And third thing, everything was fine until I didn't join Haritosh Srivastav.
Awesome, thank you so much. Interesting story. Power to you. Now let's go to Harsha.
3 men are sitting in a park, one old man and two young people. Okay, he said, today my daughter called me, I am very happy. That was first book.
Nice.
Second one says, okay, then I will go. Then old man leaves. The two people, young people, talks how, how it happens. The daughter died 10 years back. He says I called to him. Okay, how, how you called? You are a man, she is a daughter. How is this possible? Through voice changer I called him because he don't know his daughter what died 10 years back. If he knows the reality, he will die every minute. So I am, uh, saying lies to him. This was the thought. Thank you.
Awesome. Thank you, Harsha. And story power to you. Harsha is back, and Harsha is always thinking in terms of the whole movie. So for those who do not know, Harsha is a movie director as well. Awesome. Let's go to Rajesh ji. So Rajesh ji, please switch on your video.
I didn't, uh, got anything in my mind.
Oh, you didn't get anything in my mind. That could be a good hook, honestly. Like, I was given a task but I didn't get anything in my mind. Okay, you can think about two more, but yeah, we'll come back. Okay, Alka ji, how about you? Unmute yourself. You're on mute, please unmute yourself.
I have only two actually, so—
okay.
The emotion part is that I feel choked when I think about the kind of person that I used to be.
Nice.
Yeah. And what if I told you that there's a difference between being alive and feeling alive?
Excellent.
Very nice, very nice. Thank you so much for sharing. And yes, Rajasi, you can think about two more, but Yes, this exercise is very important because this makes you— now I want to go around the room and quickly in 30 seconds want to know how did it make you feel when you have to really work on this hook part of it, right? So let's go with Dinesh ji.
Yeah, the most thing is you drag, you drag the people to listen to you, or you drag the people to get curious, you drag the people to get, grab their attention.
Absolutely, you need to drag because they are now very much distracted, so you need to drag them to your story. Awesome. Harsha, how about you?
The book is very important in the film industry. So without hook, nowadays we cannot tell a story, tell a cinema short films. It is very, very important. Hook, hold, payoff— these three are very important in storytelling. Thank you, thank you once again.
Absolutely. Hook, hold, payoff is the crux of all the web series, all the movies and everything. Awesome. Rajesh ji, I know you didn't do all the whole three one, but how did this exercise made you feel?
I got it.
You got it? Okay, go ahead.
I didn't get anything in my mind. Second, I murdered him, uh, when he opened his mouth. And third is, uh, I couldn't sleep after meeting him.
Excellent. Now, how did you— how did it made you feel when you went with this exercise?
So first, I, I was completely blank. I was not getting anything. What should I, uh, you know this thing. But after listening to all these, I still got some connections in my mind. I thought, yes, I can make in this way. But yes, hook is very important to grab people's attention and make your, uh, that thought or idea or story, you know, engaging for them. Or people should feel curious, oh, why it is said that I murder him when he opened his mouth? So definitely they'll keep listening to it, what exactly has happened like that. So that way, yes, hook is really very important. That's what I feel.
Awesome.
Okay, how about you?
So the thing I realized is that we really don't work on the hook. At least I start the story as it is. This is what happened, this is what happened, this is what happened. So It made me think that you have to take an effort. It is a, it's a discomfort you to go through to actually search for something interesting to speak to the audience so that they start listening to you. So when you go into a hall, they're all with their own self, then on their phone, they're talking to each other. How do you grab their attention? So we have to go to the discomfort zone within ourselves to make some punchlines so that they start looking at you. That's what today. Thank you.
100%, absolutely. So here is an exercise for all of you today. And you can do, uh, at 3 places you can find a lot of hooks and you can choose which one you want to look for. So the 3 places that you can find hook and you can start analyzing. Number 1 is when you look at any of the social media posts, whether it's Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram video, or any other place, YouTube, etc. Look at their first 5 to 10 seconds. If it is a LinkedIn post, look at their headline, first line to second line. Because most of the times subconsciously we choose which one we want to see the whole post and which one we want to scroll past. Or if it is a video, you want to see which video you want to see and what was the hook they use. So think about that. So that's the first one. Second one that you can do is like Harsh was telling, any good web series, any good movies, any good short movies, long movies, think about what is their first 2 to 5% of the movie. So if it's a 30-minute movie, think about first 1 to 2 minutes. If it is a 3-hour movie, think about first 5 to 10 minutes. If it is 3-minute movie, think about the one, probably 30 seconds, 15 to 30 seconds. Think about how— just see that and pause it and ask the question, how much do I know about this story? And am I excited to watch the next part of the video or whatever I'm watching? So that is second class. The first one is social media, second is movies, OTT and all, and third one is any good speakers or speeches that you come across. Listen to them. Most likely they are not going to start, thank you so much for having me, it is such a great weather today, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm so excited. They will definitely start with the hook, and it could be a story in itself. If it's a bigger speech, story in itself is a good hook. Okay, now we have done this. Now let's go to the last part of the meeting where we are going to use 3 affirmations. And like every day, these affirmations are again relevant. So for the story hooking, I have got 3 affirmations. So let's start with the first one. I'm going to speak first and then I want all of us to follow. So please unmute yourself if you're not yet unmuted. So let's go to first one. I am a magnetic storyteller.
I am a magnetic storyteller.
Awesome. Let's go to the second one. I capture attention with boldness. And spark curiosity with confidence.
Awesome.
And the last one for today: my stories start strong and stick forever.
My strong— my stories start with strong and stick forever. Awesome.
So story power to all of you. And if you are watching this as a video, please do the exercise. You can go back and pause where I talked about the 5 types of hook and think about your 3 different hooks. And you can write it as an audio video note or as a comment in the YouTube. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of the day and see you tomorrow for day 17.
