4 ms·

If it's too artificial, that's right. But, answering the question "why am I blogging about that? Why is that important?" is a great way to start an article. And

If it's too artificial, that's right. But, answering the question "why am I blogging about that? Why is that important?" is a great way to start an article. And, most of the time, you can do it with a story-like setup.

belorn 8y ago
I think doing so is a major mistake. The reader found the text through either searching or reference (like a link on HN), and thus the answer "why am I reading this" is already provided before they even loaded the site. It is much better to hook the reader with what makes the text unique, confirming the decision to continue reading, and then further down explain why this is important, the history, and why the author is writing about it.
- sacado2 8y ago
  Indeed, but IMO that's the role of the "chapô" (not sure about the English word there; abstract? leading paragraph? I mean the short first paragraph, sometimes written in a different font, that's here to engage the reader). So, in an article titled "is blogging still relevant?", that first paragraph could be something like "Contrary to popular belief, blogging is still a viable economic activity nowadays. Finding readers may be harder than before, and require some more efforts from the reader, though". And, then, have your article start as a pure story : "You're in front of your computer, facing the blank screen. Finding ideas is hard, today. You start asking yourself "Does it even make sense? Bah, nobody will read my prose anyway". Then, you close your word processor and look for the new cat video, thinking it's a better use of your time. Well, you couldn't be more wrong. Blah blah..." OR, after the leading paragraph, you could still use a narrative stucture (setup, problem, attempts to solve the problem), but in a low profile version, ie without the made up character: "Numbers don't lie: there are 10 times more blogs nowadays than 5 years ago, and people spend 5 times less time on blogs, since they spend most of their online time on facebook or instagram. One might wonder if starting a new blog today still makes sense. Well, first, blah blah..."

belorn 8y ago

I think doing so is a major mistake. The reader found the text through either searching or reference (like a link on HN), and thus the answer "why am I reading this" is already provided before they even loaded the site. It is much better to hook the reader with what makes the text unique, confirming the decision to continue reading, and then further down explain why this is important, the history, and why the author is writing about it.

sacado2 8y ago
Indeed, but IMO that's the role of the "chapô" (not sure about the English word there; abstract? leading paragraph? I mean the short first paragraph, sometimes written in a different font, that's here to engage the reader). So, in an article titled "is blogging still relevant?", that first paragraph could be something like "Contrary to popular belief, blogging is still a viable economic activity nowadays. Finding readers may be harder than before, and require some more efforts from the reader, though". And, then, have your article start as a pure story : "You're in front of your computer, facing the blank screen. Finding ideas is hard, today. You start asking yourself "Does it even make sense? Bah, nobody will read my prose anyway". Then, you close your word processor and look for the new cat video, thinking it's a better use of your time. Well, you couldn't be more wrong. Blah blah..." OR, after the leading paragraph, you could still use a narrative stucture (setup, problem, attempts to solve the problem), but in a low profile version, ie without the made up character: "Numbers don't lie: there are 10 times more blogs nowadays than 5 years ago, and people spend 5 times less time on blogs, since they spend most of their online time on facebook or instagram. One might wonder if starting a new blog today still makes sense. Well, first, blah blah..."