How to Find the Sellable Hook of Your Memoir

Being human means having similar or shared experiences with others. What happened to you has likely happened to someone else already and will probably happen to someone else soon. So, when you decide to write your memoir, you are in essence saying your story brings a personal perspective to a similar or shared human experience. 

And that personal perspective is often the hook of your memoir. 

What is the sellable hook of your memoir? 

The sellable hook of your memoir is the thing that sets it apart from every other memoir or story like yours. Think of the hook of your memoir as not a tagline but as the enticing foundation on which your story is built. 

For instance, let’s take two memoirs where both main characters suffer from breast cancer. 

One woman’s story is about battling an aggressive form of breast cancer while schooling and dealing with intense financial constraints. But that’s not the hook of the memoir, that’s the plot.  

The hook: the woman is 20 years old. 

That’s a personal (and powerful) hook, why? Because getting breast cancer at such a young age is very rare. But that rarity is what makes her story stand out. 

The other woman is diagnosed with breast cancer at an age when women are likely to have it; perhaps in her mid-forties 

The Hook: She gets diagnosed just as she gets pregnant with her first baby.

An even deeper hook: the diagnosis is pregnancy-associated Breast Cancer. 

They are both stories about cancer, but you’d read both for their hooks and personal perspectives. 

I have used extreme examples here to clarify hook but sometimes, the hook could be how these women dealt with their diagnosis. Perhaps they dealt with it in a peculiar, unexpected way. 

Your hook doesn't have to be extreme. But it should be personal enough that your reader thinks, "oh that's usual," and relatable enough that they say, "Hmm, I get it." 

I know it seems like a tall order, but I promise, it's not. You'd be surprised to find that your story fits that description. 

How to Find the Sellable Hook for Your Memoir 

You can find the sellable hook for your memoir by answering these questions: 

• What’s the most unique thing about me? 
• What’s the most unique thing about my story? 
• What makes my story most unusual?  

By unique, I don’t mean something that’s never happened before. With memoirs, the uniqueness often works best if the hook is from a place of obscurity, peculiarity, or taboo. 

With obscurity, your hook is unique, but not so unique that it's unknown yet unique enough that not a lot of people are familiar with it. 

With taboo, it’s something that’s less talked about because of the shame or mockery associated with it. 

With peculiar, it's strange, eccentric, or weird by most standards. 

So, what makes your hook enticing is that you are bringing a less-known thing to life, bravely taking on a taboo topic no one wants to talk about or sharing something peculiar. 

Difference Between the Hook, Inciting Incident, and Theme 

A hook can sound a lot like your inciting incident, or your theme. But they are all different. Let me clarify: 

Hook 

As mentioned before, the hook is the one thing that sets your story apart from everyone else. It’s the thing that makes your reader go, “oh my gosh! I have to read this.” The hook is not hidden. It’s not something your reader has to dig through your memoir to find. It has to be prominent. You have to wave it like a flag, so it leads your reader straight to your book. 

Also, your hook is something you need to figure out before you begin writing your memoir because it’s the foundation on which your story is built. 

Theme 

Ten memoirs can share a theme (s) but rarely do two memoirs have the same hook. In fact, in fiction, writers go out of their way to differentiate their hook from others. This is another reason why I think anyone can write fiction but not everyone should write a memoir. You can make up hooks in fiction, but you can’t in memoir. 

You can think of theme as the main subject of your memoir - the discourse you are trying to explore. The major difference between a hook and a theme is themes are universal. Themes of conflict, love, war, power, revenge, and the like are universal. The theme of a memoir is very important because it promotes that shared experience. Why? Because anyone, anywhere in the world can understand love, war, power, or wanting revenge. 

Inciting Incident 

The inciting incident is the thing that gets your story going. It’s often the premise of your memoir, or the thing that led you to decide to write it. Every memoir must have an inciting incident. It’s impossible to begin your story without one.  

Inciting incidents are relatable and it’s often the result of them that becomes the story.

Importance of Finding the Sellable Hook of Your Memoir 

A hook is just as important for your reader as it is for an editor or publishing house. Agents get hundreds of submissions weekly, and your hook is the thing that could make them pull yours out of the pile. 

Similarly, readers are bombarded with new releases every day and it’s your hook that will send them straight to Amazon or Barnes and Noble to buy your book. A hook is not just beneficial for the growth of your story, it’s also beneficial for its marketing and sales. 

There are a thousand and one stories out there, all of them saying the same thing, the same way. You need to find your hook, so you can say the same thing, in a different, personal way.  

If you want to get the best value out of your book, give agents a reason to open your manuscript or readers value for their time and money; find your hook. 

Hi! I’m Ezinne Njoku; Ghostwriter of unforgettable memoirs. If you need help ghostwriting your memoir, reviewing your memoir manuscript, or breaking it into a compelling structure.

Send me a DM!

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