When a reel gets skipped at second two, the usual fix is to rewrite the first line ten times. That almost never works, because the first line is only a symptom. A hook cannot create interest out of nothing. All it can do is point at something interesting that is already sitting in your script. If the script has nothing worth waiting for, no opening line saves it, and a borrowed template makes it worse: a first line that a thousand other accounts have used reads as an ad, and people scroll past ads without thinking about it.
So the order most people use is backwards. Do not write a hook and then find a video for it. Find the gap in your script first, then let line one open it.
The idea is older than short-form video. The psychologist George Loewenstein described curiosity as an information gap: a felt difference between what you know and what you want to know. Curiosity spikes when the gap is small and specific, not when it is huge and vague, and it fades entirely when you either know nothing about the subject or already know the answer (Loewenstein, The psychology of curiosity, Psychological Bulletin, 1994).
Which is exactly why "5 tips to grow on Instagram" does nothing. There is no gap. The viewer already knows the shape of the answer. These four gap types do work, because each one leaves a specific hole open:
This is the one from the reel. Paste your whole script where it says to, then send.
Here is the full script for a short-form video. Read all of it before you respond, and do not rewrite anything yet.
[paste your entire script here, every line, exactly as you would say it]
Act as a retention editor, not a copywriter. Start by telling me in one plain sentence the single question this script actually answers for a viewer, and if it tries to answer more than one, name them all and tell me which is strongest. Then find the moment the script gives that answer away: quote the exact line, say roughly which second it lands on if the whole thing is read at speaking pace, and tell me how much of the video is left after that point. Then score the gap out of 10 on three separate things, with one sentence of reasoning each: how specific the question is, how much a stranger already wanted that answer before they met me, and how long I make them wait for it. Be blunt about low scores. Finish with the single structural change that would widen the gap the most, described as a change to the script, not to the first line.Send this in the same chat, straight after the audit, so Claude still has your script and the gap it found.
Now write line one only, using the gap you just identified. Give me 8 options and nothing else, no preamble and no explanation between them.
Rules for every option: it must point directly at the question the script answers without containing any part of the answer, it must be speakable out loud in under three seconds, and it must use plain words a friend would use rather than marketing language. Ban these openings completely: "here is how to", "the secret to", "nobody talks about", "POV", and anything that starts with a number of tips. Two of the eight must be a flat statement that breaks an assumption, two must name a feeling the viewer has had but has no word for, two must be a specific observation about a thing they have already noticed, and two are your own choice. Under each option, add one short line telling me exactly which unanswered question that opening leaves in the viewer's head. If an option leaves no question open, delete it and write another.Open a brand new chat for this one. It only works if Claude has never seen your script, because you are simulating someone who has never seen it either.
You are a stranger scrolling Instagram at 11pm, half tired, thumb already moving. You have never heard of me and you do not follow me. I am going to give you only the first line of a video, with no context at all.
Read it once, at scrolling speed, then answer four things in order. One: in your own words, what question is now sitting in your head, if any. Two: on a scale of 1 to 10, how badly do you need that question answered right now. Three: would you keep watching, or keep scrolling, and say which one honestly rather than encouragingly. Four: if you would scroll, name the exact word or phrase that made you lose interest. Do not be polite about it and do not suggest improvements unless I ask.
The line is: [paste your new line one here]If the audit could not name a single clear question, that is the useful result. It means the video is a list of things you know rather than an answer to something someone wanted. Fix the script, not the hook.
The audit found no clear curiosity gap in this script, so I want to rebuild it around one instead of patching the opening.
Here is the topic and who it is for: [topic] for [the exact person, for example "marketers who have never used AI for ad copy"]. Here is the one useful thing I actually know that they probably do not: [your real insight, in plain words, even if it sounds obvious to you].
Give me three different gap-first structures for this video. For each one, write the question the whole video exists to answer, the specific moment I am allowed to answer it (as a fraction of the video, for example "at 80 percent"), the three or four beats that come before that answer and what each beat withholds, and the payoff line itself. Then tell me which of the three has the most tension for a viewer who does not already follow me, and why. Keep every beat something I could actually say out loud in one breath.A curiosity gap is a promise. Open one and refuse to close it and you get a great three-second retention curve and an audience that stops trusting you by the fourth video. The rule I hold myself to: whatever line one implies, the video answers it fully, on camera, before the CTA. The DM resource is extra depth, never the missing answer.
If you script more than once a week, stop pasting prompt 1 by hand. A skill is a small folder with one file in it that teaches Claude your process once, then triggers itself whenever you ask for it. Skills work on every plan, Free through Enterprise.
~/.claude/skills/ instead. Full steps: creating custom skills.Build me a reusable Claude skill that runs a curiosity gap audit on any short-form video script I paste.
Write the SKILL.md yourself. Give it a short lowercase hyphenated name with no "claude" or "anthropic" in it, and a description that says both what it does and when to use it, because that description is what makes you trigger it on your own. The instructions inside should run three passes in order: first find the single question the script answers and the exact line that gives the answer away, then score the gap out of 10 for specificity, pre-existing viewer desire, and delay before payoff, then write 8 options for line one that open the gap without answering it. Tell the skill to refuse to write hook options if it could not find a gap, and to tell me the script needs rebuilding instead. Before you write it, ask me the three or four questions you need about my niche, my usual video length, and my voice. When you are done, package it as a zipped folder and tell me exactly how to upload it.
Loewenstein, G. (1994). The psychology of curiosity, Psychological Bulletin 116(1), the original information-gap paper
Instagram, ranking explained (what the reels system predicts)
Creating custom skills (Claude Help Center)
Agent Skills, official overview