"Rambling Old Man Syndrome"
A lot of writing is bad because of "Rambling Old Man Syndrome."
Watch the video here:
Listen here:
A lot of writing is bad because of "Rambling Old Man Syndrome."
That's when it feels like you're listening to a rambling old man who never finishes a specific story:
It looks like this:
These kinds of posts are built on bad outlines that look like this:
- Intro
-
Point 1
-
Sub point 1.1
- Sub sub point 1.1.1
- Sub sub point 1.1.2
-
Sub point 1.2
-
Sub sub point 1.2.1
- Sub sub sub point 1.2.1.1
-
Sub sub point 1.2.1
- Sub point 1.3
- Sub point 1.4
-
Sub point 1.1
-
Point 2
- Sub point 2.1
- Point 3
-
Point 4
-
Sub point 4.1
-
Sub sub point
- Sub sub sub point
-
Sub sub point
-
Sub point 4.1
-
Point 5
- Sub point 5.1
-
Sub point 5.2
That hurts to look at, right? 😬
Nested ideas look cool when taking notes, but are terrible for writing.
The way you solve "Rambling Old Man Syndrome" is by answering this question before writing:
"The point of this article is..."
For example:
The point of this article is...to show people how to write a cold email.
The point of this email is...to get them to call my phone number.
The point of this Tweet is...to show that you should avoid "Rambling Old Man Syndrome"
By knowing what your article is about FIRST, you can keep your story structure easy to read, like this:
We'll end this email here 🙂
Written by Neville Medhora and Dan McDermott
P.S. So before you write anything, answer this question:
The point of this article is..."
P.P.S. This will make your content much simpler to read:
P.P.P.S. "Rambling Old Man Syndrome" is a really common issue we
help people treat in our Members Area, check it out!
(You can see the full edit process and the different drafts in this thread)
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