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I'm very much a fan of the inverted pyramid structure[1], which is alluded to in the post but not quite spelled out. You want the point of the article as early

I'm very much a fan of the inverted pyramid structure[1], which is alluded to in the post but not quite spelled out. You want the point of the article as early as possible, in the title or the first paragraph, and then you elaborate on why. This filters out people who aren't going to be interested, and piques the interest of those who will. You can also just stop reading at any point and will have gotten the most out of it anyway. Most annoying format of writing I know is the article that strings you along some meandering 40k word essay and you can barely find out what it's about until two thirds the way down. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)

layer8 2y ago
One annoying feature of the inverted pyramid structure is that it often isn’t clear to the reader. The reader reads on and things keep getting rehashed in more and more (not necessarily interesting) detail, and to the reader it’s not clear that the article is effectively already done in its scope and no new point will be coming up (although they’re not even halfway through the article), until they give up because it just keeps endlessly meandering on.
- Avalaxy 2y ago
  This is how I feel about a lot of books, such as The Lean Startup. Technically, there's a new topic with every chapter, but after the first 100 pages or so I feel like I get the gist, and I'm not really learning much new.
  - marginalia_nu 2y ago
    A lot of modern book publishing has turned into a bit of a bait and switch grift. You take 2 post-it notes worth of ideas and pad them out to 300 pages with tangentially related anecdotes, because on average people buy books online based on the title and the page count alone, and put them on a shelf for several years before they read them, meaning they can't return them by the time they find out.
    - skydhash 2y ago
      Which is why my first read is just skimming the book, marking important passages. Then I read just these passages, write notes down, and put the book away. But I often buy heavily discounted books.
- im3w1l 2y ago
  Separating level of detail Publications can avoid frustration from repetition related to the inverted pyramid structure by clearly splitting up the multiple levels of details they provide As you say the inverted pyramid structure can lead to repetition. If this isn't made clear to the reader it can be confusing and frustrating for the reader. One common solution to this is to use a convention that clearly separates the levels of detail. In newspapers a common way of doing this is to first have a headline with the key point, then for the second level, a short summary in a different font, say italics, and finally the full article at the third level. In scientific articles, there is the title and abstract with similar functions. Books can have many levels, with a title, subtitle, summary on the back, foreword, preface and introductory chapter.
- rendaw 2y ago
  Couldn't you do something like "I did X by YYYing after working around P by doing Z and Q by doing A. Here are some details about how I worked around P and Q and my strategy for YYY."? My technical writing course stressed that structure should be obvious. Better awkwardly obvious than so subtle people miss it.
  - layer8 2y ago
    You can do it in a way that works, but the typical journalistic way is not that.
pavon 2y ago
I despise the inverted pyramid structure, at least as it was practiced in most newspapers. Starting with the BLUF is good practice, but after that the article becomes a disjointed smattering of factual tidbits, quotes from random people, rehashing of previous information with no flow or continuity and the reader is left to piece together the story on their own. I much prefer writers who organize the information in an article according to what makes it easiest to understand and flows best. You still start with a brief summary, but then it diverges from inverted pyramid. Sometimes this means putting things in chronological order, which means mixing more important and less important information as you go. Other times it means giving background information early on which helps to understand later information, which inverse pyramid would would put at the very end. It means the article can't easily be edited by chopping off the end, and it puts the onus on the writer to decide what information to include and what to cut, what background to summarize and what to link, and how to organize the content. But the result is much more readable.

layer8 2y ago

One annoying feature of the inverted pyramid structure is that it often isn’t clear to the reader. The reader reads on and things keep getting rehashed in more and more (not necessarily interesting) detail, and to the reader it’s not clear that the article is effectively already done in its scope and no new point will be coming up (although they’re not even halfway through the article), until they give up because it just keeps endlessly meandering on.

Avalaxy 2y ago
This is how I feel about a lot of books, such as The Lean Startup. Technically, there's a new topic with every chapter, but after the first 100 pages or so I feel like I get the gist, and I'm not really learning much new.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  A lot of modern book publishing has turned into a bit of a bait and switch grift. You take 2 post-it notes worth of ideas and pad them out to 300 pages with tangentially related anecdotes, because on average people buy books online based on the title and the page count alone, and put them on a shelf for several years before they read them, meaning they can't return them by the time they find out.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    Which is why my first read is just skimming the book, marking important passages. Then I read just these passages, write notes down, and put the book away. But I often buy heavily discounted books.
im3w1l 2y ago
Separating level of detail Publications can avoid frustration from repetition related to the inverted pyramid structure by clearly splitting up the multiple levels of details they provide As you say the inverted pyramid structure can lead to repetition. If this isn't made clear to the reader it can be confusing and frustrating for the reader. One common solution to this is to use a convention that clearly separates the levels of detail. In newspapers a common way of doing this is to first have a headline with the key point, then for the second level, a short summary in a different font, say italics, and finally the full article at the third level. In scientific articles, there is the title and abstract with similar functions. Books can have many levels, with a title, subtitle, summary on the back, foreword, preface and introductory chapter.
rendaw 2y ago
Couldn't you do something like "I did X by YYYing after working around P by doing Z and Q by doing A. Here are some details about how I worked around P and Q and my strategy for YYY."? My technical writing course stressed that structure should be obvious. Better awkwardly obvious than so subtle people miss it.
- layer8 2y ago
  You can do it in a way that works, but the typical journalistic way is not that.

pavon 2y ago

I despise the inverted pyramid structure, at least as it was practiced in most newspapers. Starting with the BLUF is good practice, but after that the article becomes a disjointed smattering of factual tidbits, quotes from random people, rehashing of previous information with no flow or continuity and the reader is left to piece together the story on their own. I much prefer writers who organize the information in an article according to what makes it easiest to understand and flows best. You still start with a brief summary, but then it diverges from inverted pyramid. Sometimes this means putting things in chronological order, which means mixing more important and less important information as you go. Other times it means giving background information early on which helps to understand later information, which inverse pyramid would would put at the very end. It means the article can't easily be edited by chopping off the end, and it puts the onus on the writer to decide what information to include and what to cut, what background to summarize and what to link, and how to organize the content. But the result is much more readable.