3 ms·

I'm happy he wrote this, and I'll read it again at home tonight. But what's the deal with "write the title last" and his examples all start with the title?

ccostes 9y ago
I found that odd, too. Guess it's sort of like a tl;dr, but it felt repetitive.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
I don't really understand your point. This is what he means: I often write a placeholder title, write the essay, and then at the very end, spend a good chunk of time iterating on titles until there’s a good one. It isn't uncommon for me to handle blog posts that way as well, or even paid freelance articles if no title was provided. You put in a title that suggests what you are talking about, then you write the piece, then you try to figure out what the most important detail is or the most compelling hook or the shortest way to make the essential point. Writing good titles is quite hard and good titles often grow out of the piece after it is written. You get to the end and you have written multiple paragraphs to give a good lead up and then your final paragraph draws a conclusion in a way you didn't have in mind when you started. And therein lies clues to a good title. I fairly often pull ideas for a title from the last paragraph or two of a blog post. And I usually don't know what that last paragraph will be until I have written the entire piece.
- DigitalJack 9y ago
  I must have missed that. Thanks for pointing it out, I was bothered by the seemingly contradictory advice :) all I noticed was: >"Titles are 80% of the work, but you write it as the very last thing. It has to be an compelling opinion or important learning" followed by >"Most of my writing comes from talking/reading deciding I strongly agree or disagree. These opinions become titles. Titles become essays." and then the example >"The best example of this in my work is 'Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing' which started out as a tweet with 20+ shares, and then was developed into an essay afterwards."
  - deleted 9y ago
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ccostes 9y ago

I found that odd, too. Guess it's sort of like a tl;dr, but it felt repetitive.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

I don't really understand your point. This is what he means: I often write a placeholder title, write the essay, and then at the very end, spend a good chunk of time iterating on titles until there’s a good one. It isn't uncommon for me to handle blog posts that way as well, or even paid freelance articles if no title was provided. You put in a title that suggests what you are talking about, then you write the piece, then you try to figure out what the most important detail is or the most compelling hook or the shortest way to make the essential point. Writing good titles is quite hard and good titles often grow out of the piece after it is written. You get to the end and you have written multiple paragraphs to give a good lead up and then your final paragraph draws a conclusion in a way you didn't have in mind when you started. And therein lies clues to a good title. I fairly often pull ideas for a title from the last paragraph or two of a blog post. And I usually don't know what that last paragraph will be until I have written the entire piece.

DigitalJack 9y ago
I must have missed that. Thanks for pointing it out, I was bothered by the seemingly contradictory advice :) all I noticed was: >"Titles are 80% of the work, but you write it as the very last thing. It has to be an compelling opinion or important learning" followed by >"Most of my writing comes from talking/reading deciding I strongly agree or disagree. These opinions become titles. Titles become essays." and then the example >"The best example of this in my work is 'Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing' which started out as a tweet with 20+ shares, and then was developed into an essay afterwards."
- deleted 9y ago
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