People read nonfiction to learn and to feel. My framework for ensuring a blog post accomplishes both is to start with a first draft that focuses on "novel" ideas.A novel idea is one that's not just new to the reader, but also significant and not easily intuited. Think of it as new and worthwhile. I've identified five categories:Counter-intuitive — "Oh, I never realized the world worked that way."Counter-narrative — "Wow, that's not how I was told the world worked!"Shock and awe — "That's crazy. I would have never believed it."Elegant articulations — "Beautiful. I couldn't have said it better myself."Make someone feel seen — "Yes! That's exactly how I feel!"Novelty is what gives readers dopamine hits. You find novel ideas by pursuing your curiosity and noting what interests and surprises you along the way. If it intrigues you, it'll likely intrigue your readers too.

Counter-intuitive — "Oh, I never realized the world worked that way."

Counter-narrative — "Wow, that's not how I was told the world worked!"

Shock and awe — "That's crazy. I would have never believed it."

Elegant articulations — "Beautiful. I couldn't have said it better myself."

Make someone feel seen — "Yes! That's exactly how I feel!"

Novelty is what gives readers dopamine hits. You find novel ideas by pursuing your curiosity and noting what interests and surprises you along the way. If it intrigues you, it'll likely intrigue your readers too.

What to Write About

Saved by Vince DeSantis and

RelatedCollectionsNotes

Ideas become insights when they meet the following criteria:

Novel—is this idea new or is it at least a fresh take on an existing idea
Actionable—can my audience immediately act on the idea?
High-leverage—when my audience acts on the idea, can it meaningfully change their work or their lives?

[Julian Shapiro]

How to Write Usefully

Paul Graham paulgraham.com

The way to get novelty is to write about topics you've thought about a lot. Then you can use yourself as a proxy for the reader in this department too. Anything you notice that surprises you, who've thought about the topic a lot, will probably also surprise a significant number of readers. And here, as with correctness and importance, you can use t... See more

Matter

1) Don't let AI smooth out your idiosyncrasies. Let your writing stay weird and uniquely yours.

2) Generic content is dying and the burden is on you as the writer to be distinctive.

3) The more personal your writing becomes, the more future-proof it is. Nobody wants to read memoirs from AI, even if they're technically "better."

David Perell • Tweet

The more general point, then, is: interestingness, the compulsion to know, is not a property of an idea; it is a cluster of emotions. You can’t go looking for interesting ideas, not directly. You have to look for that thing that surges up in you—surges like rage, like laughter, like sadness—when you encounter clues.

Henrik Karlsson • A funny thing about curiosity

The key to finding inner remarkability is to think about what makes something interesting, surprising, or novel.

Jonah Berger • Contagious: Why Things Catch On

in praise of writing on the internet

Celine Nguyen personalcanon.com