Curiosity Gap Architect

Build an Unexpected hook for a message, pitch, essay, ad, talk, or email — first break the audience's expected pattern to CAPTURE attention, then open a curiosity gap (a knowledge gap they didn't know existed) to HOLD attention all the way to the core message. Use this skill whenever the user says 'how do I hook them', 'what's my opening line', 'I need to get attention', 'this is boring how do I make it interesting', 'what's my angle', 'stop losing the audience', 'hook for my post', 'cold-open', 'lead paragraph', 'ad headline', 'landing page hero', 'intro for my talk', 'title that makes people click', 'my opening is flat', 'people tune out in the first 10 seconds', 'how do I make this dry topic interesting', 'email subject line', 'tweet hook', 'YouTube intro', 'TED-style opener', 'how Nora Ephron taught leads', 'Cialdini mystery opening', 'how to use surprise without being gimmicky'. Applies the two Unexpected mechanisms from Made to Stick Chapter 2: (1) SURPRISE via schema-break for short-term attention capture, (2) CURIOSITY GAP via Gap Theory of Curiosity (Loewenstein) for long-term attention hold. Every surprise option is scored against the POST-DICTABLE TEST — a good surprise feels inevitable in hindsight and drives home the core message; a gimmicky surprise gets a laugh but the audience can't remember the point. Produces 3 scored hook variants the user can drop into their draft. Does NOT rewrite the body of the message — only the hook and the gap structure. Does NOT manufacture shock or clickbait for its own sake. Relevant for: copywriters, marketers, product marketers, founders pitching, teachers, trainers, public speakers, content writers, journalists, fundraisers, PR, messaging, narrative design, persuasion, attention, Heath brothers, SUCCESs, Unexpected, Gap Theory, Loewenstein, schema break, postdictable, Ephron lead, Nordstrom Nordies, Cialdini Saturn rings, popcorn Silverman.

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Install

Claude CodeClawhHubnpxCursorCodexGemini CLI

1. Add marketplace

› /plugin marketplace add bookforge-ai/bookforge-skills

2. Install plugin

› /plugin install made-to-stick@bookforge-skills

3. Use the skill

› /curiosity-gap-architect

CC-BY-SA · Open sourceGitHub

Source Book

Made to Stick

Chip Heath, Dan Heath

More from Made to Stick

Communicationhybrid

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Messaginghybrid

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Extract the single-sentence core of any message — the one thing that must survive if everything else is lost. Use this skill whenever the user asks 'what's my one sentence?', 'simplify this pitch', 'find the core', 'one-liner for this', 'elevator pitch', 'boil this down', 'what's the headline?', 'TL;DR this', 'what's the one thing?', or has a draft, announcement, pitch, product description, speech, or strategy memo that says too many things at once. Also invoke when the user struggles with 'my message isn't landing', 'I have 30 seconds to explain this', 'we can't agree on messaging', 'nobody remembers our pitch', or wants a Commander's Intent, high-concept pitch, tagline, mission statement, or forced prioritization of candidate points. This is the foundation skill for all sticky messaging — run it BEFORE any unexpected/concrete/credible/emotional/story framing work.

Credibilityplan-only

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Pick the strongest credibility evidence for a claim and kill weak evidence chains with the Sinatra Test. Use this skill whenever the user asks 'how do I prove this?', 'how do I make this more credible?', 'which statistic should I cite?', 'do I need a source for this?', 'how do I build trust?', 'this claim sounds unbelievable', 'they won't believe us', 'we need a case study', 'should I quote an expert?', 'is this testimonial strong enough?', 'which proof point should I lead with?', 'my pitch needs more evidence', 'the numbers aren't landing', 'how do I back this up without a credentials wall?', 'who should say this for maximum credibility?', or 'is one example enough or do I need data?'. Also invoke when the user has a marketing claim, sales pitch, fundraising ask, research finding, policy argument, product benefit, or security/reliability promise and must choose between authority quotes, customer stories, statistics, vivid details, testable demos, or a single hero example. This skill ranks evidence across six named credibility categories (external authority, antiauthority, testable credentials, vivid details, Sinatra Test hero example, statistics-as-illustration) and applies the Sinatra Test as a pass/fail filter to cut weak chains. Run BEFORE shipping any claim that a skeptical audience might doubt.

Communicationhybrid

Curse Of Knowledge Detector

Diagnose a draft for the Curse of Knowledge — the expert blind spot that makes insiders write copy full of unexplained jargon, buried assumptions, strategy-level abstractions, and tacit shared context that lose non-expert audiences. Use this skill whenever reviewing a pitch, announcement, explainer, landing page, onboarding doc, slide, internal memo, or technical write-up for clarity to a non-expert. Activate when the user says things like "why isn't my message landing", "make this clearer", "my audience doesn't get it", "I can't tell if this is too technical", "diagnose this draft", "is this too jargony", "expert blind spot", "tapper listener", "translate for non-experts", "audit this for jargon", "I'm too close to this", or provides a draft plus an audience description and asks for a clarity critique. Also triggers when a user complains that smart readers stare blankly at their copy, when an explainer is full of acronyms, when an announcement leads with context instead of news, or when a strategy deck reads like a mission statement generator. This skill does NOT rewrite the draft end-to-end (that is the message-clinic skill) and does NOT score the full SUCCESs rubric (that is the stickiness-audit skill) — it produces a targeted report of Curse-of-Knowledge violations with locations, reasons, and rewrite guidance.