ChumokuA hook is the opening line of a video written at an audience rather than to them, and its only job is to open a question the rest of the video closes. That is the whole test: after the first line, does the viewer want to know something they do not know yet. Most openings that fail are not badly written, they are simply statements. A statement is complete on its own, and a viewer who has already received a complete thought has no reason left to stay for the next one.
A hook is not a topic sentence
"Today I am going to show you three editing tricks" is a topic sentence. It is accurate, it is clear, and it closes rather than opens: the viewer now knows what the video contains and can decide they do not need it.
"The third one broke my edit for two hours" opens the same video with a question attached. It is the same information, arranged so that the interesting part is withheld.
The distinction is not cleverness or energy. It is whether the sentence leaves something unresolved.
The test
Read the first line alone, with no video under it, and ask what question it makes you want answered. If there is no question, it is not a hook yet.
Then ask whether the video actually answers that question, and answers it soon. A hook that opens a question the video never closes converts one problem into a worse one: people stay a little longer and leave annoyed, and annoyance is the one reaction that costs you the next video too.
Openings that reliably fail
The greeting. "Hey guys, welcome back" is addressed to people who already subscribed, in a feed full of people who have not.
The credential. "As someone who has been editing for six years" asks the viewer to care who is talking before they have been given a reason to care what is said.
The disclaimer. "This might not work for everyone, but" lowers the stakes of the thing you are about to say, in the two seconds where the stakes are all you have.
The restatement. The on-screen text says it, then the narration says it again. Pick one to say it and give the other something else to do.
The question with an obvious answer. "Do you want more views?" is a question in grammar only. Nobody wants to know the answer, because everybody already has it.
Why hook advice is mostly written for the wrong format
Most published hook advice was written for videos someone clicked on. There, the hook is confirming a decision the viewer already made, so it can afford to be a summary of what is coming.
In a feed the hook is making the decision, not confirming it. That is why the templates transfer so badly, and why an opening that would be perfectly good on a ten-minute video reads as a stall on a thirty-second one.
It is also why the hook cannot be written last, as a lid put on a finished video. The line that would hold a stranger usually comes from the middle of the footage, which means finding it is an editing decision rather than a writing one.
Common questions
How many words should a Shorts hook be?
Short enough to finish inside the first two seconds, which is usually somewhere under ten words. The length matters less than whether the line finishes before the viewer decides.
Do hook formulas work?
They work as a starting point and fail as a finish. A template like "nobody talks about this" opens a question the first time a viewer sees it and reads as noise the tenth. What survives is the specific detail you put inside the template, not the template.
Should the hook be on screen as text, spoken, or both?
Either, but they should not say the same thing. Text and narration repeating each other spends two channels on one piece of information, in the moment when you have the least room to waste.
What is the difference between a hook and a script?
A hook is the opening: it sets something up and stops. A script is the whole video, including the payoff. A useful way to tell them apart is whether the text contains the thing it promises; if it delivers as well as promises, it is a script.
Hooks · Writing
Published 12 September 2026
Chumoku does this reading for you: send it a Short and it watches the whole thing, marks where attention drops, and tells you what to change in the edit. With your channel connected it reads your real retention curve rather than guessing at it.
Try itKeep reading
20 September 2026 · 6 min read
What view jail on Shorts actually tells you
Shorts that keep stopping at the same view count. What the ceiling narrows the problem down to, and which of the usual explanations for it nobody can actually check.
Distribution · Retention
12 September 2026 · 4 min read
Why Shorts get swiped in the first two seconds
A Short is judged in a feed, not after a click. The reasons viewers swipe in the first two seconds, and what to change in the edit.
Hooks · Retention · Editing