what you can do to make reader stick
- Say the same thing twice. A lot of writers will tell you to vary your words. Don’t use the same descriptor twice. But sometimes there’s a need, and an obvious benefit, to saying the same thing twice. The benefit is getting people to pay attention and showing them that whatyou’resayingrighthere is important.
- Be wrong. Take a contrarian point of view. Reject the popular opinion. But don’t be wrong just for the sake of being wrong. Be “wrong” because you know that being wrong is really right.
- Be true. It’s easy to get caught up in writing things for the sake of popularity. We want 10,000 people to read our article. Then we reach 10,000 and we want 50,000. We start to shape our writing based on popularity and then what happens? People lose interest. Remember that people started to read your writing because you are passionate about it. Sometimes you need to give yourself a reality check, especially before you sell out.
- Show them you care. Tell them your story. Give them reasons why their problem is the same problem you’ve dealt with before. Let them know that you’ve been there. You haven’t just read the map, you’ve traversed the terrain.
- Make it real. Have you ever noticed that most blogs you frequent, most ideas you’ve remembered, and most of the things you care about, have a story related to them? Find a way to tell a story about the idea you’re trying to convey. If you don’t have a story of your own, borrow one from someone else.
- Tell them to pay attention. Sometimes being direct is the best way to get people to pay attention. Sometimes you just have to tell people that this-is-important.
- Be obvious. Don’t make them search for the meaning. Make them think, and they’ll love you. Make them confused and they’ll want their money back. It’s not a bad thing to make your readers curious, but at some point you have to satisfy that curiosity.
- Alarm them. Shock and amaze your readers with a dazzling story of immense proportions. Surprise them with a twist they never could have seen coming. Swerve, u-turn, hover, and flip. But make it relevant. Special effects can be stunning, but are nothing without good content to back it up.
- http://writetodone.com/2008/09/30/how-to-make-readers-stick-like-velcro/
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