WRITING
How To Make Your Stories Readable
Get more read time by making it scannable 🔎
People scan. They don’t read.
The study was done by Jakob Nielsen on human eye tracking on a computer screen, in 1997 still holds water — 79% of users scan the content, but they don’t read it word-by-word.
If we know this, why are we obsessed with writing longer stories? Does it equate to expressing more? Can we write concisely instead, but connect more? Can we at least format our long stories in a way that can have more read time?
Yes, we can!
One of my biggest online influencers has been Seth Godin. His stories are well-received and generously shared over social media.
Apart from the simple yet profound and thought-provoking topics he chooses, he’s a master of presenting them in the most digestible format. Seth’s pieces have a better chance of being read word-by-word.
I envy the skill of doing this with consistency — I wish I had it 😈.
Few Techniques To Achieve Higher Read Time
These are essentially reminders summarized as concise bullet points — apply these techniques and see your content read times go up! ✅
- Break into small paragraphs (not more than 3 lines)
- Have only one idea/takeaway per paragraph
- Highlight/emphasize with purpose using bold and italics
- Provide contextual references — using links and quotes
- Use headings and subheadings to group content
- Mix smart ornaments — images, gifs, emojis ❤️
We scan and seek information that’s useful or entertaining, and skip the rest. If we can’t produce useful or entertaining content, we should at least strive for mastering the structure and presentation.
As a reader, I like to know without spending much time — if I should continue reading or walk away. This is the reason I’m a fan of writers who employ the above techniques — it saves me time.
And if this applies to me, it must be true for other readers too. I am experiencing a definite rise in the read times from my viewers — I think the techniques are working.
Thanks for reading.
Please share the techniques you’ve used that have worked for you 🙏.
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