LET ME READ YOUR STORY
A Tangle of Good Intentions
Feedback on: “Getting Started- Why the First Step is the Hardest AND the Most Rewarding…”
In these articles, feedback is provided on stories submitted by brave writers looking to learn and grow. Comments will be provided on anything from title and pictures, to grammar, language, and cohesion. All feedback is meant to help both the original author and anyone else reading this, and general writing tips will be highlighted.
The story we look at today is by Nebulla Media, who writes about self-development and doing what you love. The story here is the very first published by Nebulla:
Let’s get right into it. The very first impression on the reader is made by the combination of the title, subtitle, and the featured image, closely followed by the intro. While a subtitle is largely optional it is a great way to provide a very short teaser to entice the reader to click the story and learn more. However, this story has a rather descriptive title, so I don’t think it’s a problem that no subtitle was added.
A featured image on the other hand is a must if you ask me! When scrolling through a Medium feed and you see a title without an image, it feels naked, cold, and uninteresting.
Without an image, we will focus on the written first impression. I think the title itself is fine, however, the punctuation is a little erratic. I would change from
“Getting Started- Why the First Step is the Hardest AND the Most Rewarding…”
To
“Getting Started — Why the First Step is the Hardest AND the Most Rewarding”
So making sure to add a space before the dash and remove the triple dots at the end. You could also shorten it to simply say
“Why the First Step is the Hardest — And the Most Rewarding”
The larger issue I have with this title (or maybe the story, but we’ll come back to that) is the lack of delivering the promise made.
The intro strikes an excellent and well-known chord, that will be recognizable to most readers. This is well crafted to spark interest. However, it ends on a strange and slightly accusatory note: “Do you have a debilitating psychiatric disorder?” While the sentence could have been fine with different framing, the text moves from a generalized “we” to suddenly mentioning “you”. The joking tone is lost in the sudden shift to “you”.
Tip 1: It is great to add jokes in your writing to make the reading experience better. Even jokes at the reader's expense can work if delivered tongue in cheek and in a way that makes it abundantly clear that it is a joke. But make sure it is VERY clear that it is a joke or you risk sending the wrong message.
After the intro, Nebulla uses the old trick of initiating the actual story with a personal anecdote. This is a great way to make the story more personal. The anecdote is relevant to the topic but seems a bit flat or rushed. Just a few more sentences could have been spent fleshing out the story and ensuring a clear message for the reader.
The segue to the next section is pretty rough. We shift suddenly to hearing about a model for personality profiles. This shift in topic is made even more abrupt by the fact that we are taken directly into how the model was created. These are details that are better left till after it has been established why we should care about the model at all.
Tip 2: Facts are great! Details are great! But make sure you ease your reader into it. You might like spicy food, but likely you don’t want to be woken up by having hot sauce poured into your mouth.
Also, the level of detail hits a strange level that is too detailed for a simple quick intro, but too shallow to really provide any meaningful treatment of the subject. A few more sentences on how they arrived at their model would have been great — OR removing a few details like the number of terms.
The Five Factor Model is mentioned and the factors are listed. But without an explanation of the terms, the list again hits this strange place between providing too much and too little detail. As a reader, I don’t know what to do with this list of words.
Now, Nebulla comes back to the more dialectic style of writing directly to the reader. This is where the section of the personality model should be tied back to the overall topic of how it is hard to take the first step and how the first step is the most rewarding. What happens instead is that things start to unravel. The focus seems to be lost, and from here on out, the story resembles nothing short of motivational buzzword ramblings. There is very little cohesion and no clear key message. It’s not that what is being said is not relevant or good advice — it just doesn’t really get through to me as a reader because I'm too wrapped up in trying to figure out what this all has to do with what the title promised. Am I to take a personality test every time I need to kick myself into gear to start something new or simply to stop procrastinating?
Tip 3: Keep your eyes on the prize! Make sure to stay on — or at least come back to — the key message of the story. While it might take a long time to write a story, it doesn’t take nearly as long to read it, and the reader hasn’t forgotten the promise made in the title and intro.
Next up is a link, supposedly for a personality test. However, this turns out to be a silly joke website instead. Again, I enjoy a good joke, and this one could actually have been quite funny, but it is taken way too far. I’m still suffering from the impression that the author has forgotten the topic of this story and has gone fully down a different tangent, and now my confusion is compounded by the “erroneous” link. I keep reading to figure out if it’s a joke or if there is some other explanation so I’m not really taking in what I read. I just look for that explanation. When it finally comes a long way further down (yes it is indeed a joke), I realize I have not taken in anything I read since the link. And to add insult to injury (almost literary), Nebulla states:
Actually, I don’t care if you take offense that’s not my problem — Nebulla Media
This might be an attempt to sound edgy or strong or… I don’t know. All it does is come off very unsympathetic and it makes the author sound like a bit of an a**hole. I highly discouraged this type of statement.
Tip 4: Your reader is not your enemy. You are not in a verbal or written fight with your reader, and neither should you try and pick a fight.
I appreciate the multiple different pieces of advice that is meant to be conveyed by this story. I truly respect the attempt at kicking the reader into gear with some highly energetic segments. The very end is inspirational: “Just do it. NOW.” And had it come after a structured, cohesive story with a clear key message, I would have been blown away. The lack of focus and the failure to deliver on the promise of how to get started on something new (except for always taking a personality test), leaves me disappointed. Not because the story is bad, but because the author manages to trip over the many pieces of advice that are fighting to get out onto the paper.
Summary
Title
Good descriptive title — IF the story had indeed kept that focus.
Pictures
None. I think this is a mistake. You should never pass on the option to add an image to your piece.
Formatting
The sections are a little long and could have benefitted from a few more breaks. You should experiment with cutting your sections into 2–3 smaller parts. And consider headers to keep yourself structured.
Grammar
The grammar and sentence construction was fine. At least, that was not where my focus was while reading your story.
Links and Citations
The reference to the history of the 5-factor model, and the list of the model factors themselves, could have been supported by links. Adding citations will do two things for you: Increase your credibility AND increase your SEO value (search engines like links to credible sources)
Language
Your energetic language serves to inject some of that energy into your reader. I like that! You have a tendency to use somewhat confrontational language in some sections, which I very much dislike.
Cohesion and Cadence
The main message or topic seems to be lost and completely out of reach from somewhere around the middle of the story. As a reader I’m completely lost in your stream of consciousness, barely hanging on by a fingertip on your train of thought. You have many good intentions but you are your own worst enemy here. I believe you can really make an impact on some readers, as your energetic and raw style will definitely resonate with a lot of people. If you just make sure to hold the hand of the reader a little more, I’m certain you can lead your readers down many exciting paths!
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