Start from the Middle to Avoid “Top Heavy Content”
This post was written by Jack
Source: Little Silver
Unless you’re working on a typewriter, it makes almost no sense to start writing your article where your audience begins reading. Like other mediums, written texts benefit from being constructed either from an outline or from the inside out. Few good movies are shot in sequence (Wonder Boys is a rare exception) and even fewer news articles spring forth from a headline. That’s because introductions aren’t the meat of the content. They are meant to be distillations, whether they preface with summary or entice with mystery. It’s difficult to craft a digest or teaser when the source material doesn’t yet exist because the structure and the main alluring details aren’t there yet. It’s like trying to describe an invisible ghost.
In my years of editing and writing web copy, I’ve come across plenty of articles that attempt to do this anyway. Most often, this methodology results in what I call “top heavy content.” And like a potted plant, content that carries all its weight up top always feels wobbly and imbalanced. The introduction tends to overpromise while the body underdelivers or worse, meanders, and the readers are left with an unsatisfying mess.
So, here’s what I do to avoid this. Instead of beginning on line one of the first paragraph, I start from the middle. There are three main reasons why I do this:
Beat the Block
Everyone suffers from an occasional case of writer’s block and professional writers are no exception. This is especially true of perfectionists facing the lead of an article. There’s a lot riding on those first few words so they have to be absolutely flawless. In fact, they have to be better than that – they have to be intriguing and promising enough to draw the reader in to the rest of the piece. Because of this daunting (drink!) task, many writers find themselves staring at a blinking cursor, teetering on the precipice of a void of white space for hours, unable to produce the right words to get this article kicked off in earnest.
The thing is, though, that this time could’ve been spent out fleshing out the meat of the article. That way, instead of finally getting past the first paragraph and then only having a few moments left to bang out the main points of the article, the writer can go back and agonize over the perfect opening lines after the article is already 95 percent written.
Get What Matters on the Page
I had a writing instructor who introduced us on the ruthless, yet necessary concept of “killing your babies.” No, this has nothing to do with the last episode of M*A*S*H. It has more to do with the fact that, as writers, we love the words that we produce. And once they are on the page, it’s harder to snuff them out and send them to the recycling bin. We even fall in love with bad and superfluous writing. In fact, these are most often the passages that we cherish the most – those unnecessary, artistic flourishes and those whimsical jaunts down the imprudent halls of literary self-indulgence. In this way, the hardest part of being a writer isn’t writing – it’s unwriting.
I’m as bad as the next guy when it comes to killing my babies. Sometimes, I just can’t do it. It’s like when you get a piece of furniture home from IKEA, you put the whole thing together and realize that you have leftover parts. Rather than undoing your hours of handiwork and starting over to get things right, you feel tempted to leave it as it is, knowing it’s flawed and incomplete. That’s why I always start with the important ideas and concepts first. I get them on the page right away so I don’t wind up in a situation where I’m creeping up on the maximum word count and I haven’t even gotten to the point yet. This, I believe, is one of the most effective ways to increase the content to filler ratio.
Analyze, Distill and Deliver
Writers like me think by writing. To us, spending an hour or more writing about a topic is like enjoying a glass of wine in the proper, deliberately slow manner. By holding it to the light to examine the color, swirling the glass to release its aroma and then letting it linger on the palate before finally swallowing, we get a deeper understanding of the nuance and importance of the wine. It’s the same with writing content.
I am what Kurt Vonnegut calls a “basher” or someone who constructs one sentence at a time, painstakingly poring over each word until it’s exactly right. This is in contrast to a “swooper,” someone who just lays it out all “higgledy-piggledy” and then goes back to fix and refine later. Of course, I’m not a pure basher – I do re-read, revise and tweak each article that I, or another Anthrocopy writer produces before firing it off to the client. But for the most part, I do go slowly through the content, choosing my words carefully and ensuring that I fully understand a concept before I write about it.
Because of this, it makes even more sense for me – and other bashers – to begin in the middle. It gives me the opportunity to spend time with the subject and think about it critically before trying to craft a stirring and true introduction. The difference is on par with an M.C. introducing a speaker he’s never met versus that same M.C. welcoming him to the stage after having a drink with him at the bar prior to the event.
Conclusion
All in all, I guess you could say that I’m advocating for content with strong, healthy roots and an even stronger trunk to support the branches. The flowers may be what draw the eye, but it’s the living foundation that sustains those colorful flourishes. So this is my advice to you, O writers experienced and not: start from the middle. To hell with what those blasted von Trapp kids sing – wielders of the pen are best served by striking directly and immediately at the heart of the matter.