Hooks: Win the First Sentence

Granny said you gotta hook 'em, and she said it from a john boat with a moonshine jug between her knees, so I believed her. The first sentence is the keystone of the whole arch. Pull it and everything you stacked on top comes down in a heap, no matter how good the rest was.

This is the lesson I’d have paid for back when my posts were dying in the doorway. Every move I know for building a first line that holds, plus the three openings that guarantee nobody ever reads your second sentence, named so plain you’ll catch them in your own drafts. And the fix I promised you in lesson one, the one that sharpens a flat opening without making you write a single new word.

You already know the job from Granny. Here’s the chamber it loads into.