How to write a post people finish reading
Hobby Corner · Journaling
Most hobby posts do not fail because the hobby is dull. They fail in the first two lines, or because the one useful detail is buried in the ninth paragraph. A few habits fix almost all of it.
Before you write
- Decide what a reader should know when they finish. One sentence is enough, and if you cannot write it, the post is not ready.
- Collect the numbers: measurements, temperatures, times, costs.
- Choose your two best pictures. The rest are optional.
While you write
- Start with the result or the question, and tell the story afterwards.
- One idea per post. Whatever does not fit is the next entry of a project.
- Use a number where you would use an adjective. A reader cannot check 'it rose nicely'.
- Show what went wrong. It teaches more than the success does, and readers trust you for it.
- End with what you will try next. It tells people what to come back for.
Numbers beat adjectives
Compare two versions of the same sentence. The first: 'The dough turned out nicely.' The second: 'The dough rose by 40% in five hours at 24 °C and the crumb was open.' The second is shorter to read and impossible to misunderstand, and it lets someone else repeat your result.
A rough shape for a post
- Length
- 150 to 400 words
- Pictures
- One to four, each with a description
- Fact sheet
- Two to five numbers worth remembering
- Ending
- One line about what comes next
Write the post you wished you could have found before you started.