Orson Scott Card, bestselling science fiction writer, said your reader is looking for a reason to stop reading.<\/p>\n
In the world of fiction, if a manuscript is boring, the editor puts it back in the envelope and moves to the next one. In the world of copywriting, if your copy is vague, the reader closes the tab. The result is the same: you lose the sale.<\/p>\n
Every reader carries three “hostile questions” in their mind. They don’t ask them out loud; they ask them subconsciously. Your job isn’t to “convince” them, it is to answer these questions before they have the chance to walk away.<\/p>\n
1. The “So What?” (The Search for Stakes)<\/strong><\/p>\n The reader opens your page and immediately asks: Does this matter to me? If you spend three paragraphs talking about your company’s “commitment to excellence” or “innovative solutions,” you are failing. You are providing no stakes. You must give them a reason to care before they have a reason to leave.<\/p>\n 2. The “Oh Yeah?” (The Search for Truth)<\/strong><\/p>\n The moment you make a promise, “We double your revenue” or “This is the best tool on the market,” the reader\u2019s internal skeptic wakes up. They are looking for the crack in your armor. They are asking, “How do I know you aren’t lying?” If you don’t provide immediate, concrete proof, you haven’t just lost their interest; you’ve lost their trust.<\/p>\n 3. The “Huh?” (The Search for Understanding)<\/strong><\/p>\n Complexity is the silent killer of conversion. The moment a reader hits a sentence that requires a second read, a “Huh?” moment, the mental effort becomes too high. They don’t think, “I need to re-read that.” They think, “This is too much work,” and they close the tab.<\/p>\n Assume a hostile audience, edit from that perspective.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n RW Orson Scott Card, bestselling science fiction writer, said your reader is looking for a reason to stop reading. In the world of fiction, if a manuscript is boring, the editor puts it back in the envelope and moves to the next one. In the world of copywriting, if your copy is vague, the reader closes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":382,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions\/382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardwinser.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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