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The first paragraph of any essay should contain an opening hook (a device for
getting the attention of the reader). In narrative essays, the introductory paragraph might
also contain necessary information for establishing the context or the situation (exposition), and
it might conclude with the narrative hook, which begins the central conflict.
Dialogue hook:
Have you dived in the pass yet? the proprietor of the hotel asked the first evening, when we told
him that we liked the diving.
No, we said, not yet.
Ah, he said, You must dive the pass. It is the most exciting dive on Rangiroa,
Why is that?
The swiftness of the current, and also there are many fish.
Sharks? someone asked.
Yes, he said, smiling, usually some sharks.
I was in Tahiti for Christmas with my family. We were visiting several island, and we had begun with the
most remote.
-- opening of Michael Crichtons essay Sharks in Travels.
I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that. I was about seven years old
when I got my first big lesson.
-- opening of Dick Gregorys essay Shame
Setting Hook:
It is Sunday afternoon, and sun is pouring through the kitchen window by the sink. A rainbow
filtered through a suspended crystal, striking the floor, lying in wait for the kitten who has now become a
cat. The dust is still falling, particles floating before my eyes, whole little worlds, so much like that speck
Horton, the ethical elephant, guarded even at the peril of his life. My hand reaches out
Humor Hook:
Knock, Knock.
Whos there?
Orange.
Orange Who?
Orange you glad to see me?
It was the summer of knock, knock jokes and bad puns. It was the summer that I met Francis.
End-of-the-Story Hook:
WHEN WRITING A NARRATIVE, USE ONLY WHEN THE READER ALREADY KNOWS HOW THE STORY ENDS, WHICH IS USUALLY
NOT THE CASE (UNLESS THE WRITER IS A CELEBRITY) .
In the time of the April lilacs in the year 1865, a man in the city of Washington, D.C., trusted a guard to
watch at a door, and the guard was careless, left the door, and the man was shot, lingered a night, passed away,
was laid in a box, and carried north and west a thousand miles, bells sobbed; cities wore crepe; people stood with
their hats off as the railroad burial car came past at midnight, dawn, or noon.
-- opening of Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, the beginning of Carl Sandburgs biography of Lincoln
There was a burst of orange in the western sky; the sun slowly moved below the horizon.
In front of the sun was the shadowed figure of an old house and a tall oak tree. The light of the
sun made them both look black and old like they had been scorched by fire and were ready to
collapse. In front of the house and tree was a black, two-lane highway. Behind me were
monotonous rows of almost identical off white trailers. The air smelled salty because of the
waterway. In the background, I could hear the sound of birds chirping and children playing.
The birds chirping was high-pitched and fast; they seemed excited that the day was over. The
children sounded excited too, with their loud, jovial screams of laughter. The hard concrete on
which I sat was rough and chipped. Behind my back I could feel the splintered wooden pole
scratch me. It was connected to the broken down old gazebo behind me. Above my head was
that bright orange sky, with gray clouds in long strands moving out across it like ocean waves
coming from the setting sun. With the beauty of the evening in all its action and brightness, I
was bored.
I was at the coast for that summer at a small family campground.
This is an example of a/an ____________________ hook.
The sun rose like a golden eye over the Earth, and the night gave birth to a new day. The
first light carried the scents of sweet marigolds, honey, and dew. A deer leapt across the
meadow, making a slight rustling as it hit the knee-high grasses. The birds called out, some
fluting beautifully, others squawking, while the bats slept, their dark night-shift over. A horse
neighed irritably for its breakfast of golden hay and lush grain. The green grass was a cold, wet
compress on the forehead of a waking giant, reluctant to start his day. The pond below the hill
still slept under a blanket of fine mist pale and ghost-like in the orange glow of the dawn sun.
The cattails waved in the cool breeze, and a water-skipper, skimming across its glassy domain,
was swallowed promptly by a scaly fish.
It had been two years since
This is an example of a/an ____________________ hook.
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