Two-second Story Hook

Most young people today (and many older ones) have only a two-second attention span.  I know this because when I see people looking at their cell phones, that’s how often their thumbs scroll between posts.

The average reading rate for most people is about 250 words per minute.  Those who are good at math (with longer attention spans) can calculate that the average person reads eight words in two seconds.

This gives us vital information!  We must squeeze one of the most important and powerful parts of fiction writing into only eight words.

You think this can’t be done?  The following six-word story is attributed to Ernest Hemingway:

For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.

Care to change your mind?

In general, the job of the story hook is to do the following:

1. Strike interest.

2. Tell the reader what the character wants.

3. Show how the character can't get what he or she wants (unmet expectations).

All in eight words.

Eight-word examples

I’ve provided below the first eight words of thirty-four famous novels known for their outstanding first paragraph. I’ve color-coded the selections that meet one or more of the above criteria.  If more than one color appears somewhere in the first eight words, it means that more than one objective has been met.

1. Strike interest.

2. Tell the reader what the character wants.

3. Show how the character can't get what he or she wants (unmet expectations).

I do not do this to offer criticism, because I believe judging a novel by its first eight words is outrageously unreasonable.  But if this is what our potential readers do, then perhaps we should see the world the way they do:

1. “In the late summer of that year we...”—A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

2. “I suppose that’s exactly the problem—I wasn’t...”—The Sellout by Paul Beatty

3. “The sun shone, having no alternative, on the…”—Murphy by Samuel Beckett

4. “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy...”—The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

5. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my...”—The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitsgerald 

6. “Many years later, as he faced the firing…”—One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez,

7. “The sky above the port was the color…”—Neuromancer by William Gibson

8. “It was the day my grandmother exploded.  I...”—The Crow Road by Iain M. Banks

9. “Into the face of the young man who…”—The Luck of the Bodkins by PG Wodehouse

10. “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer…” —The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

11. “Tyler gets me a job as a waiter…”—Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

12. “It was a bright cold day in April…”—1984 by George Orwell

13. “Mother died today.  Or maybe yesterday; I can’t…” —The Stranger by Albert Camus

14. “It was a pleasure to burn.  It was...” —Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

15. “If I am out of my mind, it’s...”—Herzog by Saul Bellow

16. “I am living at the Villa Gorghese.  There…”—Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

17. “Of course, I have not always been a...”—The Drinker by Hans Fallada

18. “A girl always remembers the first corpse she…”—Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

19. “I was looking for a quiet place to…”—The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster

20. “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”—I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith

21. “I had been making the rounds of the…”—The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

22. “I am a sick man… I am a…” —Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

23. “He – for there could be no doubt of…”—Orlando by Virginia Woolf

24. “It was a wrong number that started it...”—City of Glass by Paul Auster

25. “124 was spiteful.  Full of a baby’s venom.”—Beloved by Toni Morrison

26. “The first thing I remember is being under...”—Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski

27. “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my…”—Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

28. “Granted: I am an inmate of a mental...”—The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

29. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family…”—Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

30. “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge…”—Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

31. “Like most people, I didn’t meet and talk…”—Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

32. “On a very cold and lonely Friday last…”—The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon

33. “None of the merry-go-rounds seem to…”—True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne

34. “Once upon a time, in a far off...”—An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

The following are the first eight words of my first three novels:

1. “Hunched over a student desk at the back...”—The Linking by J.J. Richardson

2. “Dark cliffs enshrouded both sides of the Johnson...”—Hanover by J.J. Richardson

3. “It wasn’t Aunt Ruth’s homemade chocolate or butterscotch ...”—Rippling Ground by J.J. Richardson

I may be biased, but everyone is interested in chocolate and butterscotch, especially those who have a two-second attention span.

Less is more

I came across the following adage years ago. I wish I wrote down the source because it has changed many parts of my life ever since:

A good short story with one extra

word is a bad short story.

Some very famous and successful authors, such as Stephen King, Brian Sanderson, and J. K. Rowling, have expressed their struggles with writing short stories. But I know they can do it, especially if they study my website.

Wouldn't eight words be the shortest of short stories?

I realized early on in my parenting of teenagers that during an argument, I got to express only one short sentence. Therefore, I took the greatest care and forethought before opening my mouth.

You get only one short sentence, too. That is, if you want your readers to be on your good side.