# 30 Hook Formulas: EN and FR Templates

Each formula is a pattern, not a literal template. Adapt the wording to the user's voice. Use these when you need to move fast or when a tailored hook is not landing.

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## F1. The Bare Contrarian

_"Most people think [X]. They're wrong. [Why]."_

- EN: "Most people think procrastination is a time-management problem. It's an emotion-regulation problem."
- FR: "Tout le monde pense que le copywriting, c'est de l'écriture. C'est de la psychologie."

## F2. The Specific Anecdote

_"[Year]. [Person] did [thing]. [Hook]."_

- EN: "In 1965, Robert Lucas wrote a four-page paper that broke macroeconomics."
- FR: "Le 24 février 2018, Camille Polloni est entrée dans les locaux du Bondy Blog en sachant qu'elle était fichée illégalement par les services de renseignement."

## F3. The Counted Stakes

_"[Surprising number] [unit] [action]. [Implication]."_

- EN: "Thirty-seven thousand Americans died in car accidents in 1955, six times today's rate adjusted for miles driven." (Housel, verbatim)
- FR: "Chaque mois, plus de 70 millions de nouveaux articles de blog sont publiés sur WordPress."

## F4. The Two-Sentence Open Loop

_"[Scene without context]. [Question-creating detail]."_

- EN: "He pressed Send and waited. Forty-seven seconds later, the company was worth 4 billion dollars less."
- FR: "Il a appuyé sur 'Envoyer'. Quarante-sept secondes plus tard, sa boîte valait quatre milliards d'euros de moins."

## F5. The Personal Confession

_"I [vulnerable thing]. [Twist that universalizes]."_

- EN: "I almost ghost-wrote this article. Then I realized that's exactly the problem."
- FR: "J'ai failli faire écrire cet article par ChatGPT. Puis j'ai compris que c'était exactement le problème."

## F6. The Direct Problem (PAS)

_"You [pain]. [Worse than you think]. [Hint of solution]."_

- EN: "Your articles aren't read. The data says you lose 80% of readers by paragraph two. There's a fix, and it's not what you've been doing."
- FR: "Vos articles ne sont pas lus. 80% des lecteurs décrochent dès le deuxième paragraphe. Et la solution n'est pas celle que vous croyez."

## F7. The Conditional Address

_"If you [situation], you've probably [bad assumption]. Here's what changes that."_

- EN: "If you write for a living, you've probably been taught to start with context. Don't."
- FR: "Si vous écrivez pour gagner votre vie, on vous a sûrement appris à commencer par le contexte. Ne le faites plus."

## F8. The Definition Subversion

_"[Dictionary definition of X]. [Why it's wrong]."_

- EN: Tim Urban's "Why Procrastinators Procrastinate" opener.
- FR: "Copywriting (n.m.) : art d'écrire pour vendre. Définition fausse à 90%."

## F9. The "Three Things" Setup

_"There are three [items] I keep coming back to. [Item 1]. [Item 2]. [Item 3]."_

- EN: "There are three sentences I've read this year that changed how I write. None were on Twitter."
- FR: "Trois phrases lues cette année ont changé ma façon d'écrire. Aucune ne venait de LinkedIn."

## F10. The Quote + Disagreement

_"[Famous person] said '[quote]'. They were wrong."_

- EN: "Steve Jobs said people don't know what they want until you show it to them. For SaaS, this is exactly backwards."
- FR: "Henry Ford disait qu'on lui aurait demandé des chevaux plus rapides. Pour 90% des produits, c'est faux."

## F11. The In Medias Res Scene

_"[Character], [sensory action], [setting] [past verb]."_

- EN: Talese verbatim.
- FR: "Devant son ordinateur, à trois heures du matin, Olivier Roland a relu sa première phrase pour la quatorzième fois."

## F12. The Time-Anchored Provocation

_"In [year], [paradigm shift]. [Most haven't noticed]."_

- EN: "In 2022, the cost of writing a competent article dropped to zero. Most writers haven't noticed."
- FR: "En 2022, le coût de production d'un article correct est tombé à zéro. La plupart ne s'en sont pas aperçus."

## F13. The Counterintuitive List

_"[Number] [things] [verb], and none of them are [obvious answer]."_

- EN: "Seven habits separate writers who get read from writers who don't. None involve writing every day."
- FR: "Sept habitudes séparent les rédacteurs lus des autres. Aucune n'implique d'écrire tous les jours."

## F14. The Forbidden Opener

_"[Statement nobody says]. [Why we should]."_

- EN: "Most B2B articles are written by people who would not, themselves, finish them."
- FR: "La plupart des articles B2B sont écrits par des gens qui ne les liraient pas eux-mêmes."

## F15. The Sensory Hook

_"The [unexpected sensory detail]. [Object revealed]."_

- EN: "The smell hit me first: vanilla, motor oil, and something burnt."
- FR: "L'odeur m'a frappé en premier : vanille, huile de moteur, quelque chose de brûlé."

## F16. The Stat + Question

_"[Stat]. [Question it raises]."_

- EN: "There are 13 divorces among the 10 richest men in the world. What does it actually take to stay married?"
- FR: "Treize divorces parmi les dix hommes les plus riches du monde. Qu'est-ce qui sauve un couple ?"

## F17. The Self-Aware Meta

_"I almost didn't [publish] this. [Reason]. [Twist]."_

Now overused. Use sparingly and only with a genuine reason.

## F18. The Geography Anchor

_"[Place], [moment]. [Person doing thing]."_

- EN: "Palo Alto, 1976. Two men in a garage are trying to figure out how to sell their first computer."
- FR: "Bondy, novembre 2005. Trois journalistes installent un blog dans un appartement de la cité Blanqui."

## F19. The Definition Reframe

_"[X] isn't [common def]. It's [your reframe]."_

- EN: "Procrastination isn't laziness. It's a fight between two parts of your brain."
- FR: "La procrastination n'est pas de la paresse. C'est un combat entre deux parties de ton cerveau."

## F20. The Cost of Inaction

_"If you don't [action], you'll [cost]."_

- EN: "If you don't fix your opening sentence, the rest of your post doesn't matter."
- FR: "Si tu ne soignes pas ta phrase d'accroche, le reste de l'article ne sert à rien."

## F21. The "How I Was Wrong" Confession

_"For [duration] I believed [assumption]. Then [event]."_

- EN: "For ten years, I believed long openings built trust. Then I A/B-tested it and lost."
- FR: "Pendant dix ans, j'ai cru qu'une introduction longue construisait la confiance. Puis j'ai fait un A/B test et j'ai perdu."

## F22. The "Two Types" Setup

_"There are two kinds of [X]. The difference is [unexpected]."_

- EN: "There are two kinds of writers: those who edit and those who don't. The second group rarely gets read."
- FR: "Il y a deux types de rédacteurs : ceux qui relisent et ceux qui ne relisent pas. Les seconds sont rarement lus."

## F23. The Ratio Opener

_"[Specific ratio]. That's [implication]."_

- EN: "1 in 5 of your readers will finish this paragraph. That's the average for paid B2B content."
- FR: "1 lecteur sur 5 finira ce paragraphe. C'est la moyenne pour les articles B2B."

## F24. The Negation

_"This is not a [framing]. It's [unexpected framing]."_

- EN: "This is not an article about productivity. It's an article about identity."
- FR: "Ce n'est pas un article sur la productivité. C'est un article sur l'identité."

## F25. The "What Nobody Tells You"

_"Nobody tells you that [counterintuitive truth]."_

Now overused on LinkedIn. Use with caution.

- EN: "Nobody tells you that the hardest part of writing is deleting."
- FR: "Personne ne te dit que la partie la plus dure de l'écriture, c'est de supprimer."

## F26. The Direct Authority Borrow

_"[Authority] [specific action]. [What it means]."_

- EN: "Eugene Schwartz said your headline has only one job: to compel the reader to read the second sentence."
- FR: "Eugene Schwartz disait que le seul rôle d'un titre, c'est de faire lire la première phrase. Il avait raison, et c'est pire qu'il ne le pensait."

## F27. The "Why Now" Hook

_"[Recent event] changed [domain]. [What most miss]."_

- EN: "GPT-4 changed how articles get written. Most writers are optimizing for the wrong thing."
- FR: "ChatGPT a changé la façon d'écrire. La plupart optimisent pour la mauvaise chose."

## F28. The Object as Character

_"[Object] on [place]. [Meaning]."_

- EN: "A single Post-It note on my monitor reads: 'Cut the first paragraph.'"
- FR: "Un Post-it collé sur mon écran : 'Supprime ton premier paragraphe.'"

## F29. The Reversed Causation

_"We think [A causes B]. The reverse is true."_

- EN: "We think clarity creates good thinking. Actually, good thinking creates clarity."
- FR: "On pense que la clarté produit la bonne pensée. C'est l'inverse."

## F30. The Long-Tail Specific

_"On [specific date], [person] [trivial action]. It would later [huge consequence]."_

- EN: "On a Tuesday morning in March 1976, a 21-year-old college dropout sold his Volkswagen Bus for 1,500 dollars. He used the money to build the first Apple computer."
- FR: "Un mardi matin de mars 1976, un étudiant de 21 ans en rupture d'études a vendu son van Volkswagen 1 500 dollars. Avec cet argent, il a construit le premier Apple."