Stuck at the Edit step

The Edit step does one thing, which is cutting:

• Compress the opening
• Cut the draft
• Switch to the customer’s words

This page gathers three common places to get stuck in this step, each with the same layout: symptom, cause, fix, check. The table of all thirteen places across the three steps is in Fix a stuck step.

After editing, the post is too short and missing ideas

Cuong’s rule: to make a post longer, add ideas, not words. A post with ten ideas is naturally long, and a post with three ideas stretched to a word count turns thin. Edit does not lengthen a post, so a short post means the draft or the outline was already short before.

Symptom: after cutting, the post is thin and does not get enough across, and you want to add words.

Cause: the draft is too thin to compress, or the outline has too few ideas.

Fix: do not add words at the Edit step. If the draft is thin, go back to Write and speak deeper. If the outline has too few ideas, go back to Idea and add ideas.

Check: the draft is clearly longer than the post you plan to publish. Cuong’s example: a 17,000-word recording, published at 5,400 words.

The titles and the content no longer match

Cuong explains: wording always carries a fixed idea. Change a title a little and its meaning changes, while the part below is still written for the old meaning, so the post is off tone. That is why Edit changes only the content.

Symptom: the title says one thing and the part below says another, and the message seems to have drifted away.

Cause: off tone: you changed the wording of a title while editing, and the content is still written for the old title.

Fix: put the titles back exactly as in the locked outline, then edit only the content below.

Check: compare the titles in the post with the outline, word for word the same.

You edit over and over and the post never comes out

Cuong calls this the writing loop: you write before the outline is locked, see that the post is choppy, and go back to redo the outline. About three loops make the time triple.

Symptom: you write, edit, redo the outline, write in more, change the titles, then fix the ideas again. One post drags on for days.

Cause: the outline is not locked, so every step pulls you back to the Idea step. Perfectionism makes the loop spin faster, and a plan for ten posts falls like dominoes.

Fix: stop writing, go back to the Idea step, lock the outline with Outline a post from a one-line topic, then go through once in order: Write, then Edit.

Check: the post goes through the three steps once each, and the big idea titles in the final post are exactly as in the outline.

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