I spent a year writing posts that were technically true and completely unreadable.
"Learned a lot about pricing this month." "Shipping has been going well." "Big lessons from the latest release." Every one is a summary of a post I never actually wrote.
The habit that fixed it takes about ten seconds. Before publishing, find the most specific sentence in the draft. Then check whether it is the first line. It almost never is. It's usually sitting in paragraph three, hedged, after two paragraphs of setup.
"Learned a lot about pricing" becomes "I raised my price 40% and two customers thanked me." Same month, same lesson, same person. One of them gets read.
The test: could anyone else in your position have written this sentence? If yes, it's a category, not a detail. Go find the number, the quote, or the specific moment.
Specificity also gives readers something to disagree with, which is where most replies come from.
The buried line is usually the post.
Top comments (1)
I really appreciate the point about specificity being key to engaging writing, and how the most specific sentence is often buried in the text. The example of "Learned a lot about pricing" becoming "I raised my price 40% and two customers thanked me" perfectly illustrates this - it's amazing how a simple rephrasing can make a sentence so much more compelling. By making this change, you're not only adding more detail, but also creating a clearer narrative that draws the reader in. Have you found that this approach has influenced your writing process beyond just the first line, perhaps changing how you structure and refine your ideas throughout the entire piece?