WHAT MAKES

A STORY A HIT:
IMMEDIATE
SO WHAT MAKES A
STORY A HIT?
While there is no magic formula for what makes a story
successful, there are a few key elements we see time
and time again in serialized stories that really make
them click. The three elements are: Immediate,
Engaging, and Commercial.

This guide will cover ‘Immediate’ 101, 201, and 301.

Look out in the future for the two subsequent guides—
Engaging and Commercial.

Let’s get started.

Immediate means the story gets right to
the point. We want the audience invested IMMEDIATE
from the very first chapter. Your first
chapter should give them a taste of the 101:
reading experience they’re about to have.
Whether that’s the heart-stopping first OPENING
meeting of fated mates or the shocking
discovery of a gruesome murder in a CHAPTER
sleepy town, your first chapter should
make a promise to the reader about the
story to come.

PUT THE HOOK IN THE FIRST CHAPTER

The hook is the first major event in your story that sets the tone, establishes the characters,
and gives the reader something to invest in.

Examples of hook: NOT a hook:

• A body is found gruesomely • Waking up and getting ready to go to
murdered school or work
• The ignored fourth son suddenly • Background information on the
becomes king after the rest of his family history of the kingdom
dies in a mysterious accident • Explanation of alien biology
• The main character witnesses aliens
• The protagonist’s normal day in the
arriving on earth
life
• Getting trapped in an elevator with a
cute stranger
• Finding out your new boyfriend is the
son of a mafia don
CHOOSING AN OPENING:
INCITING INCIDENTS
PICKING THE MOST DETERMINE THE INCITING
EFFECTIVE, IMMEDIATE SPOT INCIDENT
TO OPEN YOUR STORY If you’re having trouble thinking of an inciting
Think about the moment when everything incident, here are some questions that might
changes for the protagonist, the first event that help:
causes the protagonist’s life to go in a different
direction. In screenwriting, this is called the • What is the moment where everything

Inciting Incident. This is a great place to start changes for the protagonist?

your story, especially in terms of Immediacy. • What new problem does the protagonist

This is the event that kicks everything else off need to solve?

and sets the rest of the plot in motion. • What new question does the protagonist
need to answer?

In a rom-com, the inciting incident is almost • What event challenges the protagonist’s
always the moment where our protagonists assumptions about the world and/or
meet, perhaps by colliding in a busy hallway themselves?
and spilling coffee on one another. In a sci-fi
story, this could be the moment of first contact
with aliens. The inciting incident should match
the tone and scope of your story and create the
conditions for the rest of the plot to happen.
WRITING THE OPENING
Okay, you’ve chosen the best moment to open your story. How do you actually write it for
maximum Immediacy? Here are some ways to think about writing the opening. These are great
elements to focus on to get your reader hooked.

1. MEET THE CHARACTERS 3. AMP UP THE EMOTION

Who are these people, and why should the The event you’ve chosen should matter to
reader care about them? Your opening your protagonist, and we need to see how
chapter should ideally allow us to meet at and why it matters. If the event doesn’t
least one of your main characters. This matter, or your protagonist is bored, that’s
should not be a full description of the a sign that you may not have chosen the
character and their entire backstory. Think best inciting incident. When you’re writing,
about it: when you meet someone for the focus on the emotion by using descriptive
first time, you don’t generally give your language to create an emotional
entire personal history. Rather, this is the experience for your reader.
first taste of who the protagonist is as a
person.

2. FOCUS ON THE ACTION

What’s happening in the scene? Keep the
focus on the present action of the scene,
not what has led up to it. Keep the
exposition to a minimum–only what is
necessary for the reader to understand
what’s happening.
 4. ESTABLISH THE CONFLICT
What’s the problem the protagonist is faced with? If that
problem originates in the world around them (evil warlord
trying to take over the world, murderer on the loose) that’s an
external conflict. If the conflict is mostly about how the
character feels (like they don’t fit in, that they’ll never love
again), that’s an internal conflict. Your story should ideally
have a combination of external and internal conflicts, but it’s
FOCUS ON
normal for a story to tilt one way or the other. For example, a
• Emotion
mystery can have an internal conflict about how the detective
• Action
feels burnt out from the job, but the external conflict of solving
• Stakes
the murder is more important and drives the plot.
• Relevance
5. HINT AT THE STAKES
A conflict does not have to be world-shatteringly big to matter
AVOID
(not every story is about the end of the world!), but it does
• Backstory
need to matter intensely to the protagonists. The stakes are
• Exposition
why the conflict matters to the characters, and thus why it
• Lead-up
matters to the readers.
• Digression

6. KEEP IT RELEVANT
Relevance is also about emphasizing what’s important. If
something is very important, spend more time on it: describe it
more in-depth, give the characters more of a reaction to it, or
spend longer in the moment. What you focus on enlarges, so
what do you want your reader to think about the most?
 IMMEDIATE 201:
EXPANDING HOOKS,
LOGLINES, DEEPENING
THE FIRST CHAPTER.
In Immediate 101, we went over the basics of
making your story Immediate using a hook, with a
deep dive on Inciting Incidents. In this module, we’ll
go over other types of hooks you can use, how to
write a logline, as well as strategies for
incorporating intriguing detail into the opening
chapter.
EXPANDING HOOKS
FLASH FORWARD
If there’s a particularly juicy moment later in your story that you know readers are going to
love, you can use your first chapter to give the reader a preview of that moment. Think of it
like a movie teaser trailer, where the audience gets a hint of what’s to come. The reader
doesn’t need to have all the answers right away, and creating some questions you’ll
answer later can be a powerful hook.

THREAT TEASER
This technique is similar to the Flash Forward, and is particularly common in genres like
horror and mystery/thriller. It puts us in a high-tension moment from someone else’s
perspective, like the murder from the perspective of the killer, or the monster from the
perspective of its first victim. This type of opening is best suited to high-tension stories
and is usually used to build up our sense of the antagonist, to make them seem scary and
dangerous so that we understand why the protagonist has to defeat them. This type of
opening is not generally appropriate for romance-driven stories, because it pulls the
reader’s focus away from the romance and on to something else. But for stories with a lot
of external conflict and a scary antagonist, this can be a great choice to create investment
for the reader.
LOGLINES
A logline is an essential part of the pitching
process, but it’s also a helpful tool for thinking
about your story. A logline is a one sentence
description of your story designed to quickly grab
An Inciting Incident hook should
a reader’s attention. Thinking about a logline can
introduce us to all these elements. A
help you clarify your story’s hook and determine
Flash Forward hook should make us
if your opening chapter is Immediate enough.
aware of the Protagonist, the Goal, and

A LOGLINE WILL GENERALLY the Central Conflict. A Threat Teaser

hook should strongly emphasize the
CONTAIN THE FOLLOWING
Central Conflict and implies the Goal.
ELEMENTS
Go through your opening chapter and
Protagonist + Inciting Incident + Protagonist’s identify where you introduce each of
Goal + Central Conflict these elements. If something is
missing, that might be an indicator you
• The protagonist is the main character of
need to revise your opening chapter to
the story
make it more dynamic and is usually
• The inciting incident is the moment that
an indicator you’ve focused too much
kicks off the plot
on exposition or backstory, rather than
• The protagonist’s goal is the thing that the
the front story.
protagonist is trying to achieve
• The central conflict is the main problem of
question that the protagonist is trying to
solve

The first chapter should include at least 2/4 of

these elements.
 WRITING YOUR LOGLINE
The great news is now that you’ve gone through this exercise and identified
your Protagonist and their Goal, the Inciting Incident, Goal, and Central Conflict,
you have the basic structure of your logline ready to go.

Try this formula to get a feel for writing your logline:

When [Inciting Incident] happens, [Protagonist] must [action] in order to [Goal]

DEEPENING THE EXERCISE
Write out the history of the

FIRST CHAPTER place your opening scene

takes place in. It can be as
extensive or as brief as you
1. HINTING AT CHARACTERIZATION
like, as political or
In the opening chapter of your story, we want to meet the
mundane as you want, but
characters and get to know them a bit. But this is more than
should have at least three
just getting to know their plot motivations and personal goals.
events in it. Now, take
We want to get an idea of what makes them distinct and
those events and turn them
interesting and to hint at their backstory. Incorporating some
into a Specific Detail in
Specific Details about your character will help the reader
your scene. Maybe a
understand what makes them unique, and thus help the
historical battle becomes a
reader to connect to them.
statue or a place name. Or,
if you’re writing something
2. HINTING AT WORLDBUILDING
in our contemporary world,
The promise of a rich world can help to hook your reader, but
maybe the protagonist’s
the focus of the hook should be on the front story. How does
grandparents’ wedding
this work?
becomes an heirloom tea
set, or a fight with their
Rather than giving the reader a crash course on the history of
parents when they were a
the world, use your opening chapters to give them little hints.
teenager becomes a
If the reader gets the sense that there’s a lot going on under
bedroom door that doesn’t
the surface of the scene in front of them, they will want to
shut right. Try going back
hang around and find out more. Showing them the tip of the
through your scene and
iceberg is more effective than describing the iceberg’s
inserting these little details
dimensions.
where you can. How does
this change the way the
scene feels?
 IMMEDIATE 301:
LINE EDITING, CREATING
TENSION, EXPOSITION,
RELEVANCE, FILTERING,
TENSE, MAINTAINING
TENSION
LINE EDITING
Line editing is the process of going over your writing sentence by sentence to make sure your
prose is polished and working well to keep your reader captivated. We’ll go over some quick ways
to make your prose feel more Immediate. These tips are useful for any chapter you’re working on,
not just the first, so be sure to come back to this in the future.

CREATING TENSION WITH

DESCRIPTION
In Immediate 201,, we went over using Specific Detail to give hints about character and
worldbuilding. You can also use descriptive detail to build narrative tension for your reader that
will keep them engaged.

Let’s compare two descriptions of a sunset:

Low red clouds hung like The last rays of the

bloody slashes across the Vs. sunbathed the shore in a
horizon, promising a swift final kiss of gold.
nightfall.

In the first example the word choice and comparison to “bloody slashes” sets the mood of the
scene, and the “swift nightfall” feels ominous, almost deadly. In the second, the emphasis on
the “kiss of gold” makes everything seem peaceful and beautiful, almost like the world is being
tucked into bed. One sentence here is setting the mood for two very different stories and
creating different feelings and expectations for the reader. You can use this to either set up
reader expectations (for example, by using the bloody clouds to set the mood for a murder), or
subvert them (for example, by introducing something shattering and violent into the peaceful
scene)
EXPOSITION
• We covered this in Immediate 101, but just as a reminder:
exposition slows down your prose and prevents it from feeling
Immediate.
• Exposition is when you explain or summarize things for the
reader. It’s a necessary part of storytelling–without it, there
would be way too much detail to sort through. However,
exposition should be kept to a minimum, especially in the first
chapter. Anything you want the reader to connect to, remember,
or care about should be demonstrated through the narration
using action and Specific Detail, and anything you want to skim
over can be put in exposition.
• For instance, a step by step walkthrough of the main
character’s morning routine is not usually necessary
information for the story, and we don’t need every detail of it. If
it’s important for the reader to know that the protagonist ate
breakfast, you can just say she did without bringing us through
the whole process of pouring cereal and making coffee.

When line editing, look at the places where you explain things to the
reader. Is this something you want them to hang on to? Is it important
to the story? If yes, then consider putting it in the story in a more
detailed and narrative way. If it’s not important at all, consider taking it
out. Extraneous information can really slow down your story, so keep it
focused on bringing the reader into the most important information in
the story through emotionally compelling action and illustrative

specific details.
RELEVANCE
When you’re line editing, make sure everything you’re
describing to the reader is relevant to the scene or moment at
hand. Describing things is a way of directing the reader’s
attention, and Immediacy is about hooking that attention
quickly and thoroughly.

Adding in information that isn’t relevant to the scene at hand

can really slow down your story, and it can create confusion
for the reader, since they can get hung up on details or end up
waiting for a payoff that never comes.

When you’re line editing, ask yourself “Is it important that the
reader learns this now?”

FILTERING
Filtering, or filter words, is the practice of narrating a character’s perception. It uses words like
“saw,” “perceived,” “heard,” “felt,” “noticed,” to draw attention to the fact that the character is
experiencing the action.

With Filtering Without Filtering

She saw the car pull in to the driveway The car pulled in to the driveway
He heard the floorboard creak The floorboard creaked
She flinched when she saw the light She flinched when the light turned on
turn on
TENSE AND
MAINTAINING TENSION
Most fiction writing in English uses past tense. This is a great choice
for your story, because most readers are going to be familiar with it. It
“disappears” and allows the reader to immerse themselves in the
story.

Most notable of these is overreliance on what is called Present

continuous tense, where the main verb is modified by a form of the
verb “to be.”

Present Continuous Simple Present

Jill is buttoning her coat. Jill buttons her coat.
Andy is sprinting down the road. Andy sprints down the road.
Evan is slamming the door. Evan slams the door.

So far, we’ve been focusing on the first chapter, since that’s most
important to hooking your reader. However, in order to keep them,
you’ve got to maintain your tension. Don’t treat the first chapter in
isolation. Having a super Immediate first chapter is great, but keeping
the story momentum going in the early chapters is also very important
to maintaining the sense of Immediacy.
 IMMEDIATE.
THERE YOU HAVE IT.
Now you have the foundational elements to understand
”Immediate” in Immediate, Engaging, Commercial.

Look out for material containing details on Engaging and

Commercial.

Now go on and hook some readers!

 These pages can be used to jot down ideas, notes, or
IDEAS takeaways from the guidebook.
 These pages can be used to jot down ideas, notes, or
IDEAS takeaways from the guidebook.
 These pages can be used to jot down ideas, notes, or
IDEAS takeaways from the guidebook.