How to drive away readers 
I don’t have to tell you that writing is a tough racket. What can help make or break your career is whether or not you can attract and keep readers. Not just to a blog or a Web site, but to an online or print publication, to corporate writing, and more.
There are a number of factors that can drive readers away, never to come back. Or, at the very least, not read something that you’ve written. Michael Stelzner discusses some of the reasons why most writing is never read here.
Although Stelzner’s focus is on writing whitepapers, he points out some crucial flaws that creep into a lot of non-fiction writing, specfically:
- Long winded: Remember those boring textbooks that had paragraphs that spanned multiple pages. The brain is wired for breaks and that’s why we have a carriage return on our keyboards. Try having a conversation with someone who can’t get to the point and you’ll understand why long paragraphs are boring!
- No logical flow: This may seem simple, but a story has a beginning, middle and an end. Too often poor writing is missing one of more of these basic elements. If you are selling video software, begin with the challenges faced by video folks, talk about how to solve the problem (the middle) and then tell reader’s where to buy the product (the end).
But Stelzner also points out five things that all good writing should contain:
- Stories
- Lists
- A tease
- Shorter paragraphs
- Simplicity
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