Cobra Kai: How to Find Your Hook
Cobra Kai: How to Find Your Hook This week, we’re going to be looking at the hook, engine and structure of Cobra Kai, learning how to find the hook of your screenplay or series pilot, and what to do if your original engine seems like it’s running out of steam. Hook is one of those all-powerful tools when you’re a screenwriter. Because hook is not just how you sell scripts. It’s not just how you write scripts. It’s how you get work-for-hire jobs, the primary way that screenwriters make a living. Most writers start off their career thinking it’s all about this one great idea. “I’ve got this top secret idea that only I’ve thought of. I’ve got this piece of IP (intellectual property) that nobody else knows about. I’ve got this book. I’ve got this novel. I’ve got this true story that happened to me. I’ve got this crazy thing that came to me in my dream.” We have this brilliant idea, and we get really stuck on it. We think the idea is the thing that sells. But as you get more advanced, as you start to actually live and work in this industry, you start to realize that ideas are a dime a dozen. And the same ideas tend to kind of make the rounds, again and again. In fact, that really unique idea that you have, that nobody else ever thought of… there’s a good chance that actually somebody else not only has thought of it, but has written it and has circulated it around Hollywood! It’s very rare that you see a new idea. And yet, producers do buy one version of the idea and not the other. They do buy this project and not that project. So it’s important to understand what they are actually buying. As you’ll see as we start to break down the structure of Cobra Kai, It’s not actually the idea that a producer buys when you sell your screenplay. It’s the hook. So what is hook? Hook is your unique take on the idea. Hook is “I found this incredible piece of IP. And this element of it spoke to me. And I saw it a little different than everybody else.” Hook is “this dream came to me. And I saw this kind of unique take on it, this little twist on it.” Hook is the thing that makes you you. And hook is the way you find yourself in what you’re writing. When you’re thinking about hook, don’t think about hook as selling out. Think about hook as a way of entertaining yourself. By finding little fun ironic twists, by finding things that you didn’t see coming when you first had the idea. In television writing, hook becomes even more complicated because hook gets connected to this vital tool called a series engine. A series engine grows out of the key elements of a TV series, and the way those elements are put together each episode and each season to create the same feeling and the same hook again and again and again… to create something that feels the same, but is also different. So we’re going to be talking about that special place of screenwriting magic where hook meets engine. We’re going to be talking about how to find your hook. And we’re going to be talking about what to do if you lose it. You would think once you had a good hook that you would never lose it! Once you had that amazing take on new material, you would think that you would hold on to it like your life depended on it. But if you’re a screenwriter, guaranteed, you have written a draft in which somehow you lost track of that great idea you started with! You’ve written a draft and then realized, “huh, that’s funny, I wrote a different movie.” Or you realize, “wow, that hook is there, but I’ve got secondary characters and subplots that are kind of gumming up the works and taking away from it.” In TV, it gets even more complicated. Because often you start off so strong,