Cooking the Hook

Lessons l dropped in on a webinar yesterday. A free Zoom thing for screenwriters suffering from Writer's Block. The guy was quick to let us know that in the screenwriting world, there was no such thing as writer's book, like three times in the first 5 minutes. I sighed, capped my fountain pen (I was serious about taking notes), and wandered off to do something. Anything. Some minutes later I came back just in time for him to stop beating around the bush and get to the reason I set an alarm. Cynical much? I quote the man, but the light shone on the fact that I already knew these things. Self-evident. If there was more, I didn't want to know. This was plenty.  "If you're losing interest in your story don't expect your reader to hang around." And "What's the structure of the story? What I see as a jigsaw puzzle. Knowing that finding the shape of it was something I used to do without laboring over it.  Then, at some point, I started saying I was "

  The first ring threatened to split her head. She pulled the receiver off the hook by the cord before it could ring again; the handset clattering on the wooden floor making her wince. No one spoke. She sat up and pressed the receiver to her ear. Someone was breathing. In the background, muted voices, music, glass touching glass. “Where are you?” “A bar.” They listened to each other breathe for another minute. His lips closer to the mouthpiece, her ear, he said, “What are you wearing?” She looked at herself in the mirror, confused. “Why?” There was another long pause before Jack said, “You’ve never done this, have you?” “Done what?” “Do you want me to hang up?” “No!” Her face flushed as she realized what he wanted. “Should I start again?” “Nah. Don’t do that,” he said. “I don’t want you to do that.” “Then what?” “I want to see you. Tonight. Can you get away?"