How to Have a Major Disaster Between Your Legs

This is the greatest headline of all time

Take a tip on how to do something, couple it with disaster and add some obscure innuendo, and what do you get?

Obviously the most effective story title of all time.

I mean, just look at that headline above. It has all the components of a clickable headline because there’s something in there for everyone. As an added bonus, there’s a real story here, not just a clickbait title.

Fellow writer Linda Caroll shared a very well thought out piece with actual data regarding story headline strategies. She even went as far as to test out the top twenty headlines right here on our beloved platform, by running them through a headline analyzer.

She went on to add that these analyzers are skewed toward clickbaity titles. That makes sense because readers are also skewed toward clickbaity titles. That’s why writers use them so much.

So how did the “disaster between the legs” part come into play?

Yesterday I posted this status on my personal Facebook page:

It didn’t take long for Susan Brearley to pick up on it and say that this would be a fantastic story idea. I tend to agree, because everything is a story in my mind. Even a gaping hole between my legs (Get your mind out of the gutter already).

After reading Linda’s article above and taking note as she points out that “disaster” is a power word, I knew I’d have to include it in my title.

So I drafted the headline, “A major disaster between my legs.”

Linda further went on to point out that headlines with “How To” in them perform better.

I’m the one who came up with the brilliant idea of adding the innuendo because in my personal writing experience, everything that implies something sexual performs well. My stats tell me that.

Of course, now I have to throw in a listicle for good measure. No clickbait story is complete without one.

While you didn’t learn anything golden or even platinum here, you did learn a few things.

• How-To headlines will get clicks.
• Disaster headlines will get clicks.
• Your mind is probably in the gutter.
• Healthy thighs will eventually create enough friction to burst holes in the crotch of your pants.
• I have healthy thighs, obviously.
• Linda Caroll has a lot more patience for analyzing things than I do.

If you made it to this point in the story, I’ve succeeded in my headline experiment. You clicked it and you read the story to its completion.

All I want to know now is, what disaster were you hoping to read about between someone’s legs?

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