Hook generator for short videos

Key takeaways

• 30 templates in 7 kinds: question, mistake, number, result first, contrarian, story, curiosity.
• Measured: the first sentence of 10 short NASA videos took a median of 3.0 seconds (middle half 2.9 to 4.5) and 9 words.
• 4 of the 10 opened with a question, the most common single pattern.
• At 155 words per minute, 3.0 seconds is about 7 words.
• Copy a line, or send it to the script template as your hook.
• A template is a starting point; the line has to match what the video actually delivers.

Measured: how long the first sentence takes

We took the first sentence of the captions of 10 short NASA explainers. The median was 9 words and 3.0 seconds, and the middle half took 2.9 to 4.5 seconds; 4 of the 10 opened with a question. The longest openings were introductions at events, not made for a feed.

7 kinds of hooks

Every template fits one of these patterns. Each opens a reason to keep watching in a different way.

• Question: Opens a gap the viewer wants closed. Example: "Why do most new creators get podcasting wrong?"
• Mistake: People stay to check they are not making it. Example: "Stop doing this if you care about podcasting."
• Number: Promises a clear, countable payoff. Example: "3 podcasting tips I wish I knew sooner."
• Result first: Shows the end so the viewer wants the how. Example: "This is how I got my first 1,000 listeners with podcasting."
• Contrarian: Disagrees with what the viewer believes. Example: "Unpopular opinion: podcasting is overrated."
• Story: Starts in the middle of something happening. Example: "Last week podcasting almost went completely wrong."
• Curiosity: Names something the viewer has not seen yet. Example: "Watch what happens when new creators try this with podcasting."

What a template cannot do

No line is viral on its own. A hook makes a promise, and the next seconds have to keep it: a question needs an answer, a number needs the list, a result needs the how. Pick the kind that matches what your video really delivers, then make it specific with your own topic, numbers and words. The best way to know which works for you is to try two openings of the same video and compare how many people keep watching in your platform's analytics.

From hook to video

Press "Use in a script" to put the hook at the top of the video script template, finish the script there, then read it in the teleprompter or bring it to Koldflux, which turns your exact words into a reviewable vertical Short.

Measured: how fast people actually speak

We measured pace on 21 public domain NASA videos on Wikimedia Commons that have human-written English captions: 11 short explainers, 5 interviews, 3 briefings and 2 live shows, 51,094 words in 6.1 hours. Pace is the number of caption words divided by the time from the first caption to the last, so pauses, applause and breaths count, the way they do when you read a script. 3 more videos were left out because the speech recognition found less than 30% of their caption words in the audio: they are music with text on screen, and their captions are for reading, not speech. NASA video is generally not subject to copyright in the United States, according to NASA's media guidelines. The captions, the figures and the scripts are kept with the page's evidence.

The middle half of the videos spoke at 133 to 167 words per minute, and the median was 154, so the tools start at 155. Short explainers were faster (161) and briefings slower (125), because a briefing is full of pauses and questions. Audiobook readers in LibriSpeech, another set we measured, averaged 157. When only the time someone is actually talking counts, the median rises to 168: that is how fast the words come, without the breaks.

How it works and why it is private

Everything runs in the page. The script is kept in your browser's own storage so it is still there when you come back; it is not sent anywhere. The teleprompter asks for the camera and microphone only when you press the record button, and the recording is made by your browser and kept on your device until you download it.

How the numbers were measured

We measured pace on 21 public domain NASA videos on Wikimedia Commons that have human-written English captions: 11 short explainers, 5 interviews, 3 briefings and 2 live shows, 51,094 words in 6.1 hours. Pace is the number of caption words divided by the time from the first caption to the last, so pauses, applause and breaths count, the way they do when you read a script. 3 more videos were left out because the speech recognition found less than 30% of their caption words in the audio: they are music with text on screen, and their captions are for reading, not speech. NASA video is generally not subject to copyright in the United States, according to NASA's media guidelines. The captions, the figures and the scripts are kept with the page's evidence.

The opening is the first sentence of the captions, timed from the first caption; videos whose captions had no sentence punctuation in the first 40 words were left out of the opening figures.

Questions people ask

Related

Sources and how we checked

1. Wikimedia Commons: NASA videos with English captions (TimedText), public domain (read 2026-10-11)
2. NASA Brand Center: Images and media usage guidelines (read 2026-10-11)
3. Another step toward one of the most complex spaceflight missions in history, NASA provided updates on Artemis III and announced crew members for the test flight (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
4. Astronauts Koch and Meir React to International Space Station Mission Updates (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
5. Building toward a Moon Base- NASA Announces More Lunar Lander Missions (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
6. Connecting Classrooms to Space- Ham Radio Explainer by NASA Astronaut Nichole Ayers (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
7. February 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
8. How Are We Made of Star Stuff - We Asked a NASA Expert (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
9. How Do Stars Influence the Search for Life? We Asked a NASA Expert (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
10. NASA - Human Fingerprint on Global Air Quality (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
11. Space to Ground- A New Mission- 08-09-2019 (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)
12. What Are the Dangers of Going to Space - We Asked a NASA Expert (NASA, public domain) (read 2026-10-11)

Reviewed October 11, 2026. The speaking pace was measured on the human captions of 21 public domain NASA videos; the captions, figures and scripts are in data/seo/hub/evidence/2026-10-11/speech-rate.