The six pager - some extracted thoughts on writing

The outline

Stories begin with some central issue which we wish to discuss or resolve. You’re going to point out why something is an issue and then briefly outline a solution or some path to a solution. This is getting you the quick hook into the rest of the writing.

The problem.

The narrative form of the essay takes the form of the everyday experience of this problem. When you set out to write an essay, you first start by outlining the way that the problem occurs. The narrative form of this problem is that you are only really trying to show it in the abstract sense. But when writing abstractly you don’t want to write in a way that is too far removed. The reader should be able to sense the reason why this is a problem. If not to them, then to someone else. They are trying to conceptualise the problem in some abstract space. But you can aid in their understanding. You can aid in this understanding by showing how the problem manifests itself. They might not even believe that what they are dealing with is in fact a problem. However this is seperate from the act of showing that the problem is in fact a problem. It’s an outline of some of the basic ideas about the problems manifest in the world. But you will allude to the actual argument of the problems throughout your ideas.

The identification of problem

You can see the narrative sense of this technique quite easily. In the previous section you just outlined the basics of your problem. The problem is that at that stage the problem is still highly conceptual. The human mind might have some experience to draw upon. But perhaps this is where you divorce it from rhetoric. The rhetoric is something where you perhaps rely on the already conceptualised ideas. But the idea may not have properly been conceptualised in the reader's brain, or in the brain of any other human.

The historical identification of the problem is almost giving life to the problem. The idea is embedded in some story, and that story has some beginning. So your explanation of the beginning of this problem is showing that the problem took place at one point. You outline its origin. The narrative you are writing about the problem could be novel and the best narratives will be novel. Yet at the same time the person will be familiar with the more general idea of narratives. You can once again give facts and dates about the origin of some problem. All of this is to give credence to the narrative idea’s ability to legitimately exist.

The further identification of the problem and the birth of the solution

A person could legitimately be novel just in their formulation of a problem. This can be good enough. Because just to be the first to call attention to something as a problem is an expansion of our knowledge.

You should take some time to express this idea. While also keeping within the framework of the 6 page limit. After sufficient expression of the problem’s history and how you encountered it, you might begin to introduce a solution to the problem. This can be its own section. But you might also begin to tease the relations of the problem to some solution here too.

The solution

This part of the narrative exists in both present, past and future state depending on where you’re at. Clarifying the problem you should have perhaps started to make a link to the new solution. You can again show the beginning of the search for a solution. However this is also linked with the problem too. There might be something you bring up that is not in your solution space. This is distinct from the original problem and distinct from the solution. But it is also part of an original problem at some different time step. If someone came along with the original problem and some solution that failed to solve the problem, the results of the failed solution are part of some new problem. And so you begin. In this way, the solution is to be understood as embedded in some time domain. Later problems may come, and you can discuss those later. But for now, at this time, you are presenting your own solution.

You are connecting the solution to the original inspiration. It answers the question of the original problem in some novel and tangible manner.

The problem will naturally have some relation to actors in the real world. The narrative part of this should have been made clear. It is both abstract and something that you can easily bring into your own life. The solution then is trying to demonstrate the applicability of itself into the future lives of the actors in the story. If you’re some writer, you are showing that your solution is uniquely suited to the original problem stricken actors. Solutions are to be related to entities and actors. They don’t need to be related to some specific person, it could be a company, a machine or some animal. You should have chosen your actor or character in the narrative previously. But it might also be worthwhile to revise the characters in light of the solution. You might have had some set of people in mind in the past, tried to solve their problem and found that your solution was better suited to a company. This should cause some revision and changing of your narrative as needed.

The introduction of actionability.

By this point we are firmly in the future. You have shown that what you have is some significant problem and outlined your solution in the context of the stated actors. However, how it is used does not fully tell us how it works. From here you have to bring some actionable item to the reader. They can see the context and the ways in which this might be useful. But if it means doing something they are not willing to do, they may reject the solution because the implementation is not feasible.

At this point you introduce some actionable items for the reader to consider taking. In some ways this is a command, and in other ways it is an ask. You should put out some steps or things to do from now on that implement the solution. You have shown hopefully that the implementation will mean the problem will be addressed. But the implementation still has to be considered. Ultimately it is an ask. You may be able to implement some tyrannical control over implementation. But in the end you are reliant on some other person's willingness to do the implementation. The task nature of the implementation is where you are trying to convince. This is wholly seperate from the point of proving the worth of your solution. It could be that you are asking others to verify your numbers or that you are asking others to follow some action plan.

In this actionability section, you can help the reader by focussing on some of their concerns. The limited scope of the 6 pager will mean that you have to present and answer the most important questions. You can answer questions in an appendix if needs be. You can make some calls between answering the most likely question to be asked or the most important question to be asked. Answering the most important question (that you know of) will show that you have considered things relatively deeply. Omitting the most common question might lead others to believe that you haven't considered it. But this is a call that you the writer have to make.

The end

This is much the same as your original outline. You have shown the development of the idea from beginning to end. You have outlined the characters and the moving parts of this narrative. You have shown a solution and how it relates to the important people in the story. Then you have made some important questions for the reader. In this task you tried to convince them to go along with your idea. Using whatever you think will be needed to do this. You are moving from the past of problem space, into the present of solution space, to the imagined future of the solutions implementation. You might have also shown that some futures are more likely or less likely, which is used as a device to get the reader to accept your plan of action willingly. Ideally you do this without coercion.

Additional FAQ

This can serve the place of extra things that might be there to convince the reader. Concerns they may have. Things they may think you have not considered. You should perhaps assume that they will assume your entire document is incorrect. So it’s your job to try and convince them as best as possible. What’s important here is the adversarial testing. You could put forward an idea and then write to convince your mother. Avoid this familial testing. Adversarial testing of your ideas is to assume that they worst possible stress will be placed on your idea. Your job is to survive while also trying to make some great leap in knowledge. The scientific community will usually play the role of adversarial testing. They have some cultural incentives to behave in a way that tries to maximise the stress placed on some idea.

The reader may not always be adversarial however. There is some strand of thinking which seeks to find the best case for your argument. They will seek out the best possible explanation for some idea. Building the greatest case for it. There is something difficult here though. Because too narrow of an idea can constrict the development of newer ideas. Your ideas may also be well springs. Perhaps in as much as the FAQ’s are adversarial testing, they can also be used as a way for the reader to expand and imagine your idea in new and novel ways. Defence against death, while containing in it the seeds of new life. Your FAQ’s can outline the paths that are closed, and the paths that are open.