Meeting readers at their point of need has never mattered more. How do you get people to care about what you’re writing?

Here are three trends in writing I am seeing. Use them how you wish.

One, Show the Reader What Happens Next

What are you trying to say, and how do you walk your readers forward? I love the advice from editor Tim Grahl:

Always ask, “What Happens Next?”

In a recent subscriber email, Grahl described a problem that plagues all communicators—including writers and preachers, especially in TLDR culture:

Too. Much. Information.

I am chief of sinners! As Grahl describes the tendency, “We get nervous our readers are going to get lost, so we frontload all the information they might possibly need to understand our story. Sometimes we do this because we're anxious. We don't want readers to get confused. Other times, we get so excited about all the research and world-building we've done that we just can't help but share it all. Here's the truth: Readers care about one thing more than anything else... What happens next?”

His advice for dealing with this problem is to focus on two core ideas, which are self-explanatory:

One, what is the minimum viable exposition the reader needs? Give them just enough information to understand what's happening right now, and nothing more.

Two, what is the just-in-time exposition? Don’t front load everything. Add relevant context into the action and reveal it right before readers need to know it.

As Grahl says, “next time you're writing a scene and feel tempted to explain everything, ask yourself: Do readers need this information right now to understand what happens next? If not, save it for later. Your readers will thank you!”

Grahl’s advice is for fiction writers, but considering that a strong narrative sensibility should now be present in all communication—as opposed to the old essay with supporting argumentation—perhaps the idea of propelling the listener forward is simply a better way to describe the call to simplify in a TLDR culture.

Name the reader’s problem, then walk them through the journey to solve it, and only give information as needed along the way.

I am trying this method out with my new More Like Jesus emails—only giving information out as it is necessary to propel the plot.

Takeaway: I recommend you write it once to know what you want to say, then write it again for reader consumption, using “just-in-time” content.

Two: Six Long Chapters or 30 Small Ones?

Supposedly, people don’t read whole books as often—long form consumption is down.

But is long form content really dead? If so, why does the most popular podcast in America regularly publish three hour episodes?

What people do now, thanks to shifts in our technology and consumption habits, is engage content in short segments.

There’s a psychology at play - people shy away from committing to a 2-hour film or even a 30 minute video, but will have no problem watching an endless set of 3 minute clips.

It’s one of the reasons television now beats film. People will commit to a 43-min episode on a weeknight, then watch another, then another; yet they would never have agreed to a 2-hour film.

Takeaway: Avoid long form chapters. Write multiple shorter ones. For example, consider turning what used to be your Heading 1s into separate chapters, married by sections.

Three: Arrange Bite-Sized Ideas that Build

Be careful, though - #2 isn’t an invitation to episodic thinking, and it doesn’t mean book length works are out. 

You can spot a book built around podcast episodes or individual sermons a mile away, because they lack a central thesis presented as a single plot.

It’s not an either/or, but a both/and. Think of it this way. You still want to maintain a narrative sensibility: drive people forward on a journey from a problem to a solution. So, create a set of individual short ideas that build over time toward answering a single core thesis.

Then, look at supplemental pieces. Add workbooks. Add resource lists. Add QnA. Add teaching videos to explain.

Takeaway: Consider your idea as a project, not a book. Look across a variety of media to communicate, not just a traditional full-length manuscript.

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