¡Stop Scrolling! — How To Get Readers To…Stop Scrolling
How writers can survive the reader death scroll
I tell people that I’m a reader, but I’m a liar. Hi, I’m Robin — and I’m a habitual scroller. I’m addicted to the whir and buzz of words flying by.
When I envision myself as a ‘reader’ it’s curled up in a nook, with a cup of tea, with one of those cute ‘messy buns’ that chicks have in the movies, enveloped in one of the great works of our time. But the reality is, those cute lil movie messy buns are heavily styled affairs, full of hairspray and bobby pins. Illusion shattered. My ‘messy bun’ is just a birds-nest hot mess, with a jelly bean stuck in it from last night.
Also, I don’t have a ‘nook’.
I have a bed. Unmade.
The final lie is that I’m truly engrossed in great works. Well, I am — sometimes. But I spend at least as much time doom scrolling through content like a teenager swooshing through the ‘Tok or the ‘Gram.
I was on a Zoom today with other Medium writers and the event host Soul asked a question, ‘What do you consider good writing?’ My answer was a little flippant, but it was honest:
‘Something that I don’t get the urge to scroll through’.
I know I’m not the only scroller marauding as a reader. There’s a lot of us. A number of us on the Zoom agreed about the scrolling thing. Then we talked about what it takes to catch our attention as scrollers with shiny object syndrome.
To get my monkey-brained, drunk-gnat-brained minuscule attention span to focus, first of all, has to have a wowza title. Because the first scroll demon you have to beat in your writing quest is the feed scroll troll.
The second quest is the intro scroll. I’m reading those first few sentences in an embarrassing-to-admit fast fashion. In seconds.
Your title caught my eye, your first sentences bought you a ticket to me reading the next ones. And so on.
If that sounds harsh, it is. But it's honest.
I’m guessing that many of us picture ourselves as the engrossed-nook reader, but let’s cut the bullshit. I’m not the only microwave attention span reader. It’s sad that even knowing that an article is just 4 minutes, I’m not even ready to commit fully to that. But that is 4 minutes I could be reading something else.
‘Uhh, Thanks — But What Do I Do About It?’
This might not be a popular opinion, but as a writer, it’s your job to keep my (well, our) amoeba-sized attention span. Your words have to hit harder than a Mack truck continually to keep us.
It is your job to beat the scroll troll.
Every writer and niche has their own way of beating the doom scrollers. Mine? Thanks for asking. I cheat, I use jokes. People don’t want to miss a chuckle. For example, in my Is Your Vagina Weird Too? and Does Dick Size Really Matter? articles they’re peppered with funny synonyms, like panty hamster and beef whistle. People didn’t want to miss one by scrolling.
Those are two of my most successful articles.
For people who write personal-narrative or memoir-style articles, you need to keep the pace moving. If something doesn’t move the narrative forward, cut it quicker than a mohel late for his next bris.
When you’re editing your work pay attention to where you could lose people to scrolling. As I edit my own work, if I find myself scrolling past a section in editing — it’s gone quicker than pizza bites at a Weight Watchers meeting. After all, if I don’t even want to read and edit those words — why on earth should my reader?
Expert-level tip (for crazy people): autopsy your old posts with a fuckton of highlights and pay attention to the parts nobody highlighted.
Not every single sentence and every paragraph can be stickier than a strip club bathroom floor. There will be good sections, and sections that are shite.
Shite happens.
But you can’t have back-to-back shite. Nobody wants shit².
If you’re not great at identifying your own scroll shit words, ask a friend. A brutally honest one. Don’t have one? Join a writer's group. I have one you’re welcome to join. Ask them three questions:
- Would my title (and image) make you stop scrolling?
- Does my intro buy me 20 more seconds of your time?
- What part(s) of the piece are you most tempted to scroll through?
If their brutally honest answer to the first two questions was no, rework them. And get rid of the section they wanted to scroll through.
Ta-da.
To some, this might sound like no-brainer advice. But how many people actually do it? As an embarrassingly devout scroller, I can tell you — not enough. I promise, if you ask the three questions above you’ll get soup-strainer-attention-span people like me to stop scrolling.
And if you scrolled through this and landed here — you missed me using the terms ‘panty hamster’ and ‘beef whistle’ —, here’s the TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) version. Write down the three questions above and ask them to a friend reading your shiznit.
It might keep people from doing what you just did.
