Lesson 2
Leading with the Useful Point
Open with the answer to the reader’s question, in a subject line and first line they can act on.
Builds on
Give the reader a starting point
A newspaper puts the headline first and the history last. A reader who stops after one paragraph still has the news; one who reads on gets the detail in order of importance. Journalists call this the inverted pyramid.
Most emails are written the other way up: the history first, because that’s the order things happened in, and the point last, because that’s when the writer reached it. Turn it over. Some messages need one sentence of context before the request makes sense, and that’s fine. What doesn’t work is a story the reader has to finish before they know why they’re reading it.