Write Your Highlightables

Make it easy for readers to highlight your stuff.

One of the items I list in the Eye Rests piece is short paragraphs.

Short paragraphs make it easy for readers to highlight just a sentence.

I sometimes call these highlight-ables “money quotes” or “t-shirtables.”

A money quote is a line that’s bankable (or highlightable). They might also be known (to us) as t-shirt-ables — you know, they can be on a t-shirt.

I’m not a big fan of highlighting a big whopper of a paragraph. I’m not even a fan of reading a big whopper of a paragraph.

Make your money quotes by letting them stand alone.

They can carry your whole article when you format your story this way.

Look, if you write an article that includes paragraphs one after the other with four to five lines, readers will skim and scan like they’re driving too fast on the freeway with black ice under their car. Pretty soon, they just fly down the road, if not off the road altogether. Dangerous for them, but costly to you for not slowing them down. Rather than highlighting, they slide to the bottom to clap and run.

Phew! Much like the paragraph above. The reader moves too fast with no treatment. What’s worse is these same long paragraphs on a mobile app. Four lines become ten.

Make your writing easy to read and easy to highlight. Please.

Thank you for reading, though I don’t blame you if you skipped that enormous whopper paragraph above. Clap if you liked it. Feedback is always welcome with a response.

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