How to Structure Your Writing
A few lessons on improving readability.
Great writers understand structure.
If your readers don’t understand your writing, they won’t understand your ideas. Improving readability improves understanding. Your goal as a writer is to get the reader to understand your ideas.
To achieve that goal, you need structure in your writing. You need to make your writing digestible, bite-sized. Smoothly transition from one idea to the next.
Here’s how you do it.
Go From a Big to a Small Idea
The hook is how you grab the reader. To write a great hook, you need two things:
- Keep the hook short.
- Make the first sentence grab the reader.
Keeping your hook sentences short makes them easy to scan. Especially if you’re writing on social media. You’re trying to grab someone’s attention.
So keep the sentence short and sweet.
Writing a hook that is polarizing, personal, or captivating helps grab the reader.
Your hook introduces the big idea. Now that you have the reader’s attention, you’re going to explain yourself. You’ll justify your reasoning.
