Writing the Open

What this is for

The open decides whether the room is with you or half-listening for the rest of the talk. This guide uses AI to draft candidate openings from your own material and test which one actually earns attention, instead of starting with a generic hook that could belong to any speaker.

When to use it

Use this after your skeleton is built (guide 20), once you know what the talk is actually about and what the audience needs to feel by the end of the open. This is not for finding your idea. It's for shaping the delivery of an idea you already have.

The prompt kit

I'm writing the open for a talk. Here's my skeleton and one idea: [paste from guide 20]

Before drafting anything, ask me: what's the most specific, concrete moment I have that connects directly to this talk's one idea? A specific moment, not a general topic.

Here's the moment: [describe it]

Give me three different ways to open with this moment - not three different moments, the same one told three ways: one that opens mid-action, one that opens with a question to the room, one that opens with a flat, plain statement of what happened. Keep each under 100 words. Use only the details I gave you. Don't add anything I didn't say.

Here are the three openings: [paste them]

Now be the skeptical audience member in the second row. For each one, tell me honestly: does this make you want to know what happens next, or does it sound like every other speaker's opening? Rank them and say why.

I want to check the open connects clearly to the rest of the talk. Here's my chosen open and my skeleton: [paste both]

Does the open set up the one idea, or does it wander off on its own? If it doesn't connect, ask me the question that would help me tighten it.

What good output looks like

A strong open makes the room go quiet, not because it's dramatic, but because it's specific. If the drafted openings could be swapped into any speaker's talk on any topic, they're generic and need another round. The skeptical-audience prompt should give you a real ranking with a real reason, not three equally polite reviews.

Watch out for

Letting the AI smooth your specific moment into something vaguer. A phrase like "a client I once worked with" is weaker than the actual detail, even if the actual detail feels small. Push back if a draft strips out specifics you gave it.

Picking the open that sounds best on the page over the one that sounds best out loud. Read every candidate open out loud before you choose. Some lines that look strong in text fall flat when spoken, and some plain ones land harder than they read.

Opening with a statistic you can't source. If a draft opens with a number, and you didn't give the AI that number, it invented it. Never use a fact in your open you can't personally verify.

Building an opening that doesn't set up the one idea. A great opening moment with nothing to do with where the talk goes is a cold open for a different talk. The fourth prompt exists to catch this before you build the rest around it.