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Hi. So I was thinking of writing a story on the site, and I was wondering what would constitute a good story hook. Whenever I write for anything else, my biggest issue is the opening paragraph, so I was looking for help. I'm still tossing around ideas with myself on what to write, but I'd still like help with the hook. I have an opening paragraph idea that I will write below, and if you guys could tell me anything that I should change about it, please let me know. Thanks.

P.S: If I put this in the wrong area or went about this the wrong way, please let me know. Again, thanks.

Here's the idea:

Crackle. Creak. Crash. You wake up to the arid smell of smoke clogging your nostrils, perverting the very air you breathe until it becomes poison. Hurrying, you dash to a window, avoiding all the burning debris falling around you and fumble with the red latch, trying, with all the indomitable hope and crushing fear you can muster, to open the window and get to safety. As the ashen smoke fills the entire room, you begin to cough and choke, throat parched and dry, while the latch refuses to budge. When it finally opens, you are gasping for air, suffocating, as you tumble out of the second story window into the bushes below.

Good story hooks are generally ones that immediately put the reader in an action scene (your hook accomplished this), or leave a question lingering in the reader's mind, making them curious as to what the answer is (your hook accomplished this by making the reader's curious as to what started the fire). One way you could improve the opening paragraph is going more into detail as to what the room looks like when it's being engulfed in flames and what the protagonist thinks about the situation at hand. Going more into detail about the threat to the protagonist's safety can inspire more fear into the reader and make them more concerned and feel pity for the protagonist, especially if you write about how the flames are destroying the protagonist's possessions. Writing about what the protagonist thinks gives them more of a personality, you can even use this to make them worry about something (for example: I have to find Emily) in order to inspire more questions in the reader (who is this Emily? Is she okay?).

You can take the action orientated scene even further by letting the reader choose what to do in this situation in order to survive (option a: go through the window. Option b: try to recover some of your valuables before escaping). That way, the reader is even more engaged in what is going on.

You put this in the right place. Also, why not introduce yourself to the community in Newbie Central?

Hmm... I could definitely describe the room. As for the whole grabbing possessions thing, I was planning on making it so the protagonist would have everything burn to the ground, all of their possession, and have to try to make it through the world on the own, and was going to talk about that in the next paragraph if I used the story idea this paragraph sprouted from. I guess I can try to give the option of grabbing some possessions, but I'm not sure if I can drag that whole scene out to be a page length, so I could offer a choice without making the opening page abnormally short. I can certainly try though. And I might introduce myself in Newbie Central, but I suck at introductions of any kind. Opening paragraphs and people alike. Thanks for the input!

Also, as to the whole "What caused the fire" and "What might the protagonist be thinking" part, I was intentionally trying to draw those thoughts away in that paragraph and was planning to focus on it in the following paragraphs. I was trying to base the opening paragraph on something similar to the opening paragraph of "White Fang" by Jack London, where he uses a ton of description to help the reader visualize the surroundings and situation before putting in dialogue or thoughts from the characters. Did I do well on that part? The visualization, I mean.

Grabbing the possessions was only an example, if you feel like offering the choice to try to grab the possessions might ruin the flow of the story or it might ruin the aim of the story, then you can drop it. There's a lot of other ways you can offer choices in this situation, such as alternate routes (such as going through the house rather than going out the window), or you can wait until offering a choice if you think you can't make a good opening page with a choice involved. I have a question; do you have the protagonist's personality and goals completely mapped out? Who your protagonist is can help determine what choices you present that your protagonist might consider.

You don't need a good introduction, even a single sentence along the lines of 'Hi, I'm new here' will suffice.

It all depends on who your protagonist is. Is he/she the kind of person who would worry about other things that might in danger while an event is happening, or is he/she the kind of person who gets out of that situation first, then worries? I believe you did a good job of visualizing what's happening.

I was going to map out the protagonist after I figured out which idea I'm going to go with to write my story. Doesn't make sense to make 5 different character charts now when I could just make one tonight or tomorrow.

I like it. What has always helped me with story hooks is the idea that the story has already been going on before you started writing (and will continue after you stop). This one clearly shows that things were happening before we started reading, or there wouldn't be a fire.

Two very minor things jumped out at me from the paragraph. The first was the window. When I read that I was trying to open the window, it appeared to be stuck. But a sentence later the latch was stuck. That confused me. I know you mentioned the red latch in the first sentence, but when I got to "to open the window," my mind assumed that the latch had been opened -- otherwise, why would I be trying to open the window (and not the latch)?

The second slightly odd thing (and it could certainly just be me) was the description of the smoke as "ashen." While technically I suppose this is true, I don't think I have ever once read the word "ashen" used to describe the color of smoke. When I read "ashen," I picture actual ash and since there's not a volcano going off (I assume), that messed up my visualization of the room.

I agree, I could have written about the window better. I tried to figure out a better way of writing it, but I couldn't think of anything at that moment. Actually, I still can't think of anything for it besides that I realized I should probably change "When it finally opens" to "When the window finally opens." And now that you say that, I realize I might have messed up there. I guess you do flip the latch and then the window.

Maybe I'll change the "finally opens" to "When the latch finally gives, I force open the window" or something similar to that. I guess I could also take "trying to open the window" and then go into how the protagonist forgot it was locked, and then fumbles with the latch after he realizes that.

As for the use of ashen, I was thinking of the house as being wooden as I wrote, and burning wood makes wood ashes, so I decided to say "ashen smoke". I guess I could use a different descriptive word for the smoke. Thanks for pointing that out.

Also, I'm sort of interested in how thinking that the story continues after it ends has helped you with hooks. I completely get the part about it starting before you are writing, but the "will continue after you stop" part has me confused. I get how that is important, but just not relative to hooks. Could you help me understand?

Well for me, it sort of defines the boundaries. The story I'm writing takes place in a specific block of time. There's time after and there's time before. When I know exactly where the story fits in that block of time, I can ensure that the hook brings the reader in and it heads in a direction that will lead to the end of just that space in time. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but it helps me see it better when I see it as a small part of the timeline.

What I'm taking from this is that thinking about it continuing after it ends is that it helps establish a timeframe, so you don't make a hook too long or too short? I may be reading this wrong. Like I said, I'm horrible at hooks, or beginnings of almost any kind. If I took away the wrong thing and you don't know how to explain it, that's fine.