Reader's draft vs. writer's draft

Most writers build gradually to the point they want to make. This is true at both the paragraph and article level. This has the undesirable effect of burying the article’s most interesting ideas and concepts deep within an article, requiring the reader to wade through mental throat-clearing to reach the pay-off. Few readers will persevere.

Good writing achieves the opposite, opening with the clearest possible articulation of an idea and relegating the nice-to-haves, the elaboration and examples, to the latter sections of the article.

It may be that this mental scaffolding is required for the author to reach the best articulation of their idea. But it is rarely necessary for the reader. You will be surprised at how much of this scaffolding can be removed without hindering the article. Taking a lesson from fiction writing:

“Novels that move too slowly outnumber those that move too fast by a margin of about ten to one.”

—Scene & Structure

For more on this idea, see The Difference Between a First Draft and Second Draft by my friend and former manager Jimmy Daly, and The Problem with “Writing is Thinking”.

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