Use Clean Sequence 476204 to help cut out fluff from a first draft and increase value-per-page
Here's a 420-word article...then I show you how it emerged from Clean Sequence 233466.
“Boost value-per-page and keep a reader reading” is good advice from Rob Fitzpatrick who is the author of ‘Write Useful Books’. Inspired by Rob, I’ve written Clean Sequence 476204 to help ‘us writers’ provide value in a more concentrated form.
When I use Clean Sequence 476204 myself, I’m looking to cut an early draft’s word count by half while leaving all the value. That would mean the audience would receive twice as much value per page.
Rob argues that, when the audience is disengaging from content, the problem is “nine times out of ten” low value-per-page. So using Clean Sequence 476204 could be a big deal.
Value
In order to cut out fluff and leave in the value, we need to know what ‘value’ actually is to the target audience. A useful definition is that ‘something has value in a section of writing if it moves the audience closer to what that section promises to the audience’ (I’ve written another article about promises to the audience).
As an example of high value-per-page, let’s look at the section in Rob’s book that talks about value-per-page:
Subheading = Increase value-per-page by deleting fluff
Sample paragraph #1: “Your early drafts are probably already full of value. The challenge isn’t to add more good stuff. It’s to delete all the fluff that’s delaying readers from getting to it.”
My comment: There’s no fluff here, Rob is practising what he preaches.
Sample paragraph #2: “Deleting whole chapters is mainly about scoping (“Oh, they don’t actually need this!”). Deleting anything smaller than that is about a mix of editing and reader experience design.”
My comment: Initially I wondered whether the made-up quote in brackets could count as fluff. It’s not strictly necessary for the sense of the paragraph. However it moves the reader towards the promise made in the subhead so it counts as ‘value’.
Sample paragraph #3: “Stephen King once said that, throughout the writing process, he ends up deleting twice as many words from each book as he leaves in. My experience has been similar.”
My comment: This gives readers an indication of the scale of ‘deleting fluff’ that might happen. That’s useful.
Do all three paragraphs move the audience closer to the promise? Yes. Any fluff? No. So Rob is doing a great job of delivering value.
Apply
My suggestion is that you try Clean Sequence 476204 on another section in Rob’s book (I recommend you, assuming you’ve already bought a copy. This can help you become accustomed to how it works. Then you can move on to using the Sequence as a means of editing your own content.
All this will make a huge difference if Rob is correct in his claim that a high value-per-page will keep readers reading. It will mean that your content is more likely to get read not wasted – which is one of the big aims of the Clean Sequence workflow.
To try Clean Sequence 476204 you can use the ‘Dyter’ mobile app for Android. The instructions are here.
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Resources:
1. Try the mobile app for Android:
2. I wrote the first draft for the article using the scaffold in Clean Sequence 233466. Here’s the first draft with the questions of the Clean Sequence in italics:
Thinking of the context of what you are creating...
My draft subheading is: ‘Use Clean Sequence 476204 to help cut out fluff from a first draft and increase value-per-page’.
And what is the idea you would like to communicate?
“Boost value-per-page and keep a reader reading” is good advice from Rob Fitzpatrick who is the author of ‘Write Useful Books’, an excellent resource which has a section entitled ‘increase value-per-page by deleting the fluff’. Inspired by Rob, I’ve written Clean Sequence 476204 to help ‘us writers’ to identify value and provide it in a more concentrated form.
And is there anything else about that?
It would fantastic if the Sequence could help cut the word count by 50 percent while leaving all the value. That would mean the audience would receive twice as many insights per minute of their time. “That’s a big deal,” says Rob. When the audience is disengaging from content, the problem is “nine times out of ten” low value-per-page, according to him.
And is there anything else about that?
In order to cut out fluff and leave in value, we need to know what ‘value’ actually is to the target audience. In Clean Sequence 476204 I define value in a section of writing as something that moves the audience closer to the promise made by that section.
And when that’s how it is, what could illustrate that?
As an example, let’s analyse Rob’s section entitled ‘increase value-per-page by deleting the fluff’. The promise of the section is, I believe, that readers will find out how to increase value-per-page.
Here are three sample sentences.
Sample sentence 1:
“Your early drafts are probably already full of value. The challenge isn’t to add more good stuff. It’s to delete all the fluff that’s delaying readers from getting to it.”
Does this move the audience closer to the promise? Yes.
Sample sentence 2:
“Deleting whole chapters is mainly about scoping (“Oh, they don’t actually need this!”). Deleting anything smaller than that is about a mix of editing and reader experience design.”
Does this move the audience closer to the promise? Yes.
Sample sentence 3:
“Stephen King once said that, throughout the writing process, he ends up deleting twice as many words from each book as he leaves in. My experience has been similar.”
Does this move the audience closer to the promise? Yes.
Great job Rob!
And when that’s how it is, then what could happen?
You can try Clean Sequence 476204 on a section that you have written. Or, assuming you have already bought Rob’s book, you could look through other sections that he has written.
And what difference... does knowing that... make?
All this could make a huge difference if Rob is correct in his claim that a high value-per-page will keep readers reading. It will mean that your content is more likely to get read not wasted – which is one of the big aims of the Clean Sequence workflow.