"They laughed when I sat down at the piano."

Nine words. You already want to know what happens next.

That is not magic. That is a promise.

The deal inside the line

John Caples wrote that headline in 1926 for the U.S. School of Music, a mail-order piano course. The full line ends: "But when I started to play!"

Read it as a deal. Something goes wrong first. Something goes very right after. Stay and you will see it.

And the ad paid the promise off. The story has the guests laughing, then the first bars of the Moonlight Sonata, then a tense silence, then gasps.

The Advertising Hall of Fame says the ad brought in a record number of coupons when it first ran in Physical Culture magazine. It then ran in other magazines for years.

The hook made a promise. The next lines kept it. Only then did the ad ask for anything.

Every first line is a contract

"Here is a secret." "I made a mistake that cost $4,000." "Nobody tells you this about email." Each one is a small contract. The reader signs by reading line two.

But what happens if you break the contract?

Nobody complains. They just leave. No refund. No angry email. A closed tab. Another lost sale.

Clickbait is a broken contract

In August 2016, Facebook said it would show fewer posts that make people click and then quickly come back to News Feed. It also went after headlines that "withhold or distort information," as The New York Times put it.

Look at what that means. The tell was the bounce. People clicked on the promise, found nothing, and bounced right back. A machine noticed what a copywriter should have known: a hook is a loan. The payoff is the payment.

So a hook can be loud. It can be weird. It can be rude. It can't be a lie.

Where it breaks

The cure for clickbait is not a boring headline. A boring headline promises nothing, so nobody breaks it and nobody clicks it.

The cure is a promise sized to the payoff. Big enough to pull. Small enough to keep.

Caples did not promise "the secret of piano greatness." He promised one party and one surprise. Then he delivered both.

Write the payoff first. Then write the promise that fits it.

Steal this tactic

Write the payoff first

Draft the best moment of your piece. The line, the number, or the story. Then write one opening that points straight at it.

Find where you pay

Underline the spot where your opening promise gets kept. If the reader has to wade through a warm-up to reach it, cut the warm-up.

Ask a friend what's next

Show only your first line. Ask, "What do you expect to read?" If they guess wrong, fix the line or fix the piece.

Swap vague for specific

"Writing tips" promises nothing. "Why your first line gets skipped" promises an answer. Pick the one you can deliver.