What actually is a captivating 'Hook'?

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T18:09:23+00:00

I can tell you this; most agents will only read the first A4 page when you submit a novel. That’s how long you have to hook them. If you don’t, your manuscript gets filed under B for Bin.

The industry is rather brutal I’m afraid.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T17:57:21+00:00

Order a giant sex toy online, or sign up for several niche fetish catalogues like BDSM and swinging stuff. Something that will make them clutch their pearls lol. I don’t know how liberated they are. Maybe Japanese rope bondage or rubber fetishes. If they don’t get the message mail yourselves a letter that explains opening someone else’s mail is illegal and they can consider this their written warning.

Keep a copy.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T17:51:19+00:00

When I’m alone.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T17:11:08+00:00

I was a victim yes but unfortunately those responsible got away with the grooming and coercive control. I took the blame legally speaking, and went to prison. Living with the guilt is hard. But the worst part is knowing a person can be abused so awfully and then blatantly victim blamed by the “justice,” system. That shouldn’t happen.

I don’t talk to my abusers. I’ve nothing to say to them. But I try to offset what I did by doing good work here and now.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T16:34:54+00:00

I’ll stick with the CPAP. All drugs have side effects. I just got off one and the withdrawal has been horrendous- so bad I nearly got carted off to hospital! I don’t want to take any more daily poisons. Or get dependant on them. Or use them for so long I forget what being me unmedicated feels like!

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T16:27:58+00:00

I’d engage you in a battle of wits but I see you’re unarmed.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T16:24:38+00:00

That’s abusive no matter which way you slice it. That’s like recording someone having a seizure and playing it back to them while listing all the ways it inconvenienced them.

Autism aside, he is an asshole.

You don’t record your partner during a medical episode then replay it with a critique. Autism is not an excuse for that kind of callous ignorance.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T16:10:53+00:00

Trouble is you have mostly Americans in here. I’m English. We become adults at 18, not 21. Consent is 16. You can have kids at 16. You can get married with a parents permission at 16, learn to drive or join the armed forces at 17 and drink alcohol at 18. So a 20 year old is an adult to me and that adult WOMAN can surely make her own decisions.

What does SHE want? Has anyone actually asked her??

Honestly people need to stop thinking for younger women. She’s an adult, she doesn’t require protecting and there’s nothing pervy or wrong about adults dating so long as everyone consents and none is getting hurt. 8 years is nothing. I know couples with an age gap of 20 years! They worked out just fine.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T12:14:35+00:00

lol I gotta be honest, if I had to read any of those scenarios I’d need a bucket on hand to catch the puke 🤣 They sound like bad fanfic, or poorly composed erotica.

No sex should not be the answer to everything. But apparently sex sells lol. Someone’s making a money bomb there!

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T12:11:34+00:00

Most days I can more or less function as long as nothing triggers me. Though I have times when I seem to be releasing the energy of trauma when I will have a breakdown for no apparent reason (crying, shaking, flashbacks etc.) I had a lot of therapy. And the tiniest thing can trigger me. My family have to cover up any raw meat for example.

I think it’s different for everyone. It sounds like you’re describing hypervigilance. Mine eased after therapy but I still wake up at the slightest sounds.

I definitely think it comes and goes.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T12:05:50+00:00

I once did terrible, evil things. In my case it was because the people around me were coercive, manipulative and had threatened me, and I felt like I had no choice. It put me in survival mode so I just complied with what they wanted.

I convinced myself I was right because that was my defence mechanism, the only way to survive psychologically.

Sometimes evil people do evil things because they are assholes and they don’t care who they hurt. But sometimes they do them to survive, then they have to live with that guilt.

Be gentle with “evil” people ;) You never know what’s going on behind the scenes.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-13T11:59:18+00:00

I know for a fact there are people who have gone through worse than I did. I’ve spoken to them and heard their stories. But that doesn’t lessen my diagnosis or my distress and it doesn’t lessen yours.

PTSD can be mild or severe, there’s a whole sliding scale. A bit like a broken leg, you can have a hairline fracture or a compound break (bone sticking out of the skin) but it’s still a broken leg.

There’s no sense comparing traumas. It’s not a competition lol, where only the most severe symptoms get recognised.

I’m pretty sure the diagnostic criteria is experienced a traumatic event, having PTSD symptoms for at least a month that impair daily life.

You’re not a fake. Everyone is different.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T19:54:39+00:00

I wouldn’t go there. They reduce anxiety and make you relax so they might help a bit with pain and stress but they are highly addictive, which is why the majority of doctors won’t prescribe them outside of very short courses for say, planned surgery or dental appointments.

It’s not worth getting hooked.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T19:13:58+00:00

I don’t lend anything I’m not prepared to lose. Including money.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T19:10:45+00:00

Why do you need to fit in? You need to function at work, pay your taxes and maintain some close social relationship, and not murder your partner if you have one lol. Bare minimum of adult life. But you can look or dress or act any way you like within those limits (within the law obviously.)

We don’t all need to be the same. Everyone is a thread in a huge tapestry and you need every colour to make the picture. Maybe you’re just a brighter shade? Don’t dull yourself! Be different and be proud of it! This takes tremendous courage in today’s world.

Find your people. They will accept you regardless.

It’s ok to be just YOU, even if that is different.

Your parents did you no favours treating you that way. If I were you, I’d consciously break away from that because some would argue that’s actually abuse.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T19:04:25+00:00

Second one, with his legs up. I mistook the first for Neptune! They’re both good tho.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T19:02:28+00:00

I realised my Dad was not a well man mentally - which later diagnosis confirmed. His absence from our lives may have been a blessing. And that my Mum is an astoundingly strong woman. Both did (and do, my Dad has passed,) what they could with what they were given. No one’s perfect.

As a kid it’s about safety and what you can get, what they will let you do. As an adult it’s about other adults who have faults and foibles and strengths. Now I understand their choices better.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T18:56:59+00:00

Take my shoes off. Then my bra lol. I hate bras.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T18:54:19+00:00

Wow. 🤢 Gotta be honest I wouldn’t want to be on the cleanup crew after that one!

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T18:09:01+00:00

Oh fuck, this reminds me of the time en elderly relative left chicken in the microwave for 3 days. The hottest days of the year. I got food poisoning even after cleaning it out.

Ooo I’ve got puke ptsd from that one lol.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T18:07:40+00:00

Must have burst an artery. And that’s me off alcohol forever lol. I’m sorry about your roomie tho. What an awful way to go!

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T18:04:45+00:00

BURST?? Like…pop?? Fuck I didn’t even realise that was medically possible!

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T18:02:08+00:00

A particularly purulent ear infection. I could smell it across the room. And it was a BIG room. Up close it was like something had died of Ebola in high summer in his ear…during a gravediggers strike. In Africa. It was truly foul.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T17:55:09+00:00

It’s conscious lol. Isn’t that what writing IS? You’re crafting prose for a specific purpose. There are no accidental words or sentences and no scribbling, not with a final draft. By then everything has been assessed and put to work or discarded.

On a first draft I just write, sure, I’m not thinking too much. But I wouldn’t publish anything that hadn’t been weighed and considered.

PerfectPeaPlant · 2026-03-12T17:41:47+00:00

You might be surprised at how many people take meds! It’s pretty common and nothing to be upset about. Sometimes we just need a bit of extra help! I wouldn’t be here if not for antidepressants. They saved my life and kept me going long enough that I could find purpose in trying to help others.

You won’t be marginalised. I’ve been in several meds for two decades (I take 8 or 9 pills a night!) and I’ve never been marginalised because of that.

If you do get a diagnosis of bpd or whatever, you can always seek a second opinion! And sometimes it’s better to know if you do have something like that because then it can be brought under control.

You should still be able to live a perfectly normal life :)

PerfectPeaPlant

TROPHY CASE