The Complete Guide to Writing a Post People Actually Finish

Most posts are not bad. They are abandoned. The reader starts, hits a wall somewhere in the second paragraph, and quietly leaves. Nobody tells the writer, and so the writer keeps building the same wall. This guide is about taking it down. It is written for feed posts, forum topics and blog articles alike, because the reasons people stop reading are the same at every length.

Know what the post is for before you write it

Every post that gets finished is doing one job: teaching one thing, asking one question, telling one story, or making one argument. Posts that try to do two of these at once are the ones that lose people, because the reader cannot tell what they are being asked to do. Write the job down in a sentence before you start. "This post teaches a way to take notes in meetings." "This post asks whether anyone has read X." Keep it on the screen while you write, and cut whatever does not serve it.

Earn the first paragraph

You have about two sentences before the reader decides whether to continue. Do not spend them clearing your throat. "I've been thinking a lot lately about..." is throat-clearing. "I stopped taking notes in meetings for a month, and here is what I lost" is a reason to keep going. The strongest openings do one of three things: they state the specific thing you found, they describe the moment the problem became real, or they ask the exact question you want answered.

If your first sentence would still make sense with the rest of the post deleted, it is probably a good first sentence.

One idea per paragraph, and let paragraphs be short

On a phone, a paragraph of eight lines is a grey block. Readers skip grey blocks. Keep paragraphs to three or four sentences, one idea each, and let the white space do some of the work. This is not dumbing down. Some of the clearest writing ever produced is made of short paragraphs, because the writer did the sorting so the reader did not have to.

Use headings as signposts, not decoration

For anything over four hundred words, headings let a reader find their way back after an interruption, and they let a skimmer decide the post is worth reading properly. A good heading tells you what the section says, not just what it is about. "Why I stopped" is better than "Background". "What to do instead" is better than "Solution".

Be concrete at least once per section

Abstract advice slides off. "Be consistent" means nothing until you say "I write three sentences every morning before I open email." A number, a name, an exact phrase, a time of day: these are what the reader remembers and what they repeat to someone else. If a section has no concrete detail in it, you probably have not finished thinking about it.

• Replace "a lot" with a number.
• Replace "recently" with a month.
• Replace "a book I read" with its title.
• Replace "it helped" with what you can do now that you could not before.

Cut the last ten percent

Nearly every draft is a tenth too long, and the surplus is almost always at the ends: an introduction that explains what you are about to do, and a conclusion that repeats what you did. Delete both, read the post again, and you will usually find it starts and ends in the right place. If you want a closing line, make it a question or a single sentence the reader can carry away.

End with something the reader can do

A post people finish is a post that gives them a next step. For a lesson, that is one thing to try this week. For a question, that is the exact thing you want to know, stated plainly so a busy person can answer it in one line. For a story, it is the question the story left you with. A post with nothing to do at the end is a post that gets a like and no reply.

Read it aloud, then post it

Reading aloud catches what the eye forgives: the sentence that runs out of breath, the word you used three times, the paragraph that is really two. It takes two minutes. Then stop editing and post. The members here are generous readers; they would rather have your honest, slightly rough post today than your polished one never.

None of this requires talent. It requires deciding what the post is for, respecting the reader's first two sentences, keeping paragraphs short, being concrete, cutting the ends and offering a next step. Do those six things and the number of people who reach your last line will surprise you. So will the quality of the replies.