The Art of Skimming

How I Quickly Stop The Readers’ Eyes From Skimming.

Spoiler alert: Everyone Skims

Welcome, Mr. Writer,

Everyone wants a piece of the reader’s attention.

YouTube shorts and Tik-for-Tak latest trends are your enemies.

Your task, writer, if you choose to accept it, is to capture the reader’s attention to read your story.

This story will self-destroy in two days when Mr. Algo decides not to push it.

Are you ready?

Two Seconds: The reader decides whether to engage or not.

Is this story worth my time? Why should I even bother with it?

The first thing that your reader will look at your story on their Medium page is your Headline and Image.

I’m biased on occasion. If I know the author already, I click to read it.

What will you do with other threats? You need to get through hoards of enemies, a.k.a. competition.

Load your headline with these shells:

• Who the story is for. Always think of your readers. If you don’t know who your readers are, write to my MIA friend who “died” in a car crash.
• What the story is about. NPC’s are using Tik-for-Tok to capture your reader’s attention. Leaving you with crickets.
• Why should you care or even bother with it. It’s the reader’s attention span and you have crickets for lunch if you don’t act. Bury yourself six feet under because your writing career is over.

Don’t miss the target by adding a guiding image.

• One point of focus. The image as text should be clear. This is not a stealth mission writer. Don’t use those repetitive Unsplash images.
• Expressive. The more expressive the image is the attention will get. Go for an emotional or a close-up one. Use pepper spray if they get too close.

If the weather is clear, I mean your writing, the more likely others will engage. Make the Title and subtitle clear with short sentences. It will take less time to decipher what your intentions are.

Six Seconds: Readers decided to engage. The question is when.

Ok, Mr. Writer, you got the reader’s attention. Show them what you got.

Introduce your story. Make it short. Maximum 20 words or less. Joking, but I like you more if you understand this reference.

This is how you do it.

Shake the reader. Throw an Introduction at him. When — or If — he wakes up, make sure he understands:

• What is this about? This is your chance to dive deeper into your persuasion skills, to make your reader do your bidding.
• Why me? Teletubbies kind of content captures the remaining attention span you have, reader.
• Why should I read this? Why should I care? Well, you will learn something useful for a change.

The reader takes a couple of seconds now to decide if they are willing to continue reading from you. They will escape if they can avoid content that appears long and time-consuming.

Twelve Seconds: The reader decides how much time and attention will spare you.

Ok, you convinced me, Mr. Writer — says the reader. — Let’s see what you’ve got.

That’s your next challenge. You lure the reader to engage, you have convinced him to stay, and now you have kept him reading to the end.

This is the moment of truth. Here is where your skills as a writer will make a difference. The readers will aim to get the most value from your content. They will do it with the least time and attention possible.

You are in a minefield Mr. Writer. As seconds pass, the reader evaluates the value of your words. Every second that passes, Tik-for-Tak gets more tempting.

They will question your authority.

They lay out the cards and question if there is a benefit in reading your story to the end.

Here’s the catch. What you have to give is more valuable on its whole than the sum of short sentences.

That doesn’t matter to the reader. They will skim the shit out of your article at the start of those initial seconds.

That involves skipping words, sentences, and even paragraphs. It also involves jumping, rolling, and diving forward in anticipation. They will jump back if something catches their eyes when snooping around.

The reader will then review, and often find something they missed. This leaves them vulnerable to missing information or misinterpreting the text.

That sounds more like a double-agent to me Mr. Writer. The reader says he’s reading your story but not the full story.

What can we do to prevent this from happening?

The reader will skip large piles of text. By only landing on the anchor points. You can use the following arsenal at your disposal:

• Sub-headings. Those are the checkpoints to reload.
• First sentences of paragraphs. It’s like a hand grenade, Let it go for a bang.
• Images. Vertical ones will take time to scroll. Use at your own peril!
• Bold and Italics. Be bold and tell him that you mean business.
• Listicles. Effective when done right. Some circles of writers might not approve of this method.

Write in a way that helps them grasp key information. Write in a way that forces them to stop skimming.

More than 30 seconds: Reader’s next step. Respond or react.

We tested your skills, Mr. Writer. Let’s see how well you performed.

Reader, tell us how Mr. Writer performed.

Wait, What?! Is this all a test?

Mr. Writer performed well. I’ll leave him the highest form of commendation: 50 claps.

The Reader will react and respond if your message is clear and understood. If the reader takes value from reading it, he will take action.

That should be your focus. The clarity of the message that you want to convey.

Don’t keep the reader guessing, he will walk away.

Be short and brief on what you want the reader to do next. If they value your contribution, they’ll follow, subscribe, or tag along on a new adventure.

If you want to know how to use tags in your stories, check out this piece right here:

Thank you for reading, if you like what you’re reading don’t forget to follow and subscribe to read more of my writing.

I’ll see you in the next one.