The 9 of 10 Floor

Most writing advice is about ceilings. How to make your best work better. How to win awards. How to be considered great. This worksheet is about floors. Specifically, the floor that a piece of writing has to clear before it leaves my desk and goes out under my name.

The floor I use is called the 9 of 10. The number is not arbitrary. It comes from a simple test: would this piece of writing help someone at 2 a.m. who is genuinely struggling, who has tried other things, who has very limited patience for performance, and who needs the writer to actually have something to say. If the piece would help that person, it scores a 9 or higher. If it would not, it does not publish, regardless of how clever it is, how well-crafted it is, how on-brand it is, or how good it would do in a feed.

The floor exists because the cost of publishing something below the floor is higher than the cost of not publishing it. Below-floor writing teaches the reader that you do not know the difference. The reader leaves. They do not tell you why. They just stop coming back.

The worksheet below is the 12-question check I run on every piece before I let it go. The questions are not in the order of priority. They are in the order of how I actually move through them. You can adapt them for your own writing. The number 9 is my floor. Yours may be higher or lower. The point is to have one.

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The 12 Questions

1. Would this help someone at 2 a.m.?

This is the central question. Not someone in a workshop. Not someone in a marketing meeting. Someone alone, at 2 a.m., who is struggling and who would not, normally, give a piece of writing the benefit of the doubt. If the piece does not earn the time of that reader, it does not earn anyone's.

What this is testing for: whether the piece is written from genuine care or from the desire to be admired. The 2 a.m. reader can tell the difference. So can the daytime reader. The 2 a.m. reader is more honest about it.

2. Is there a sentence in this piece that a reader will remember next week?

If you cannot identify the sentence, the piece does not have one. Pieces without a load-bearing sentence are forgettable. A forgettable piece is the same as no piece, from the reader's perspective. The work of writing is partly the work of producing memorable sentences. If you have not done that work, you have written a draft, not a piece.

What this is testing for: whether you have done the line-level work, or whether you have moved sentences around without sharpening any of them. Sharpening is slow. Sharpening is what separates draft from publishable.

3. Would I be okay if someone read only the first paragraph?

Most readers do. The first paragraph is, statistically, the whole essay for the majority of your audience. If the first paragraph is throat-clearing, the piece has failed before it began. The first paragraph has to do its own work, even if no other paragraph is read.

What this is testing for: whether you respect the reader's time enough to deliver value at the top, rather than burying the goods after a setup the reader does not need. Most setups can be cut. Most pieces would be improved by deleting the first three paragraphs and seeing if the fourth could be the opening.

4. Have I said this before, in a previous piece?

Repeating yourself is sometimes necessary. Repeating yourself accidentally is sloppy. If you cannot remember whether you have made this point before, your archive is doing more work than your memory. Search the archive. If you have made the point, you must either say it differently or not say it.

What this is testing for: whether you are aware of the body of work, or whether each piece is being written as if it were the first. Coherent bodies of work require coherent memory. The memory is partly automated, partly disciplined.

5. Is there a single original observation in this piece?

Aggregation is fine in moderation. A piece of writing that contains zero observations the reader could not have gotten from a search engine is not earning the slot. One original observation is the floor. The observation does not have to be earth-shattering. It has to be yours.

What this is testing for: whether you have done the thinking, or whether you have collected the thinking of others and arranged it. Arrangement has a place. Arrangement without contribution is content production, not writing.

6. Would I send this to a writer I respect?

Imagine sending the piece to the writer whose work most intimidates you. Not the writer who will be polite. The writer who will actually read it. Would you be embarrassed. If yes, the piece is not ready. If no, you are either ready or you have miscalibrated. Most miscalibration is in the direction of overconfidence.

What this is testing for: whether your standard for this piece is your real standard or a temporary lowered standard. The temporary lowered standard is the standard most pieces ship under. The respected writer is the corrective.

7. Have I cut everything that was easy to write?

The lines that came easily are the lines most likely to be filler. Real writing is mostly the lines that came hard. If your draft is full of easy lines, you are publishing the warm-up. Cut the warm-up. Keep the lines you almost did not write.

What this is testing for: whether you have done the second pass that separates the warm-up from the work. Most writers do the first pass and submit. The second pass is where the piece gets made.

8. Is there anything in this piece that is in here only because it sounded good?

Sounding good is not the same as being good. A sentence that sounded good but did not earn its place is decoration. Decoration is fine in moderation. A piece with more than one decorative sentence is decorative, not substantive. Most readers cannot articulate the difference. All readers can feel it.

What this is testing for: your willingness to kill the sentence you are proud of when the sentence is not load-bearing. This is the hardest cut. It is also the one that most distinguishes good writers from very good ones.

9. Is the title a promise the piece keeps?

If the title promises one thing and the piece delivers another, the reader feels misled, even if she does not name it. The title is a contract. The piece either honors it or breaks it. There is no middle ground.

What this is testing for: whether you have written the title last, after knowing what the piece is actually about. Titles written first usually misdescribe the finished piece. Rewrite the title after the piece is done. Often.

10. Have I read it out loud?

Reading out loud catches the sentences that look fine on the page but do not work in the mouth. The mouth is more honest than the eye. Pieces that have not been read out loud have a slight unevenness that the reader registers without knowing why.

What this is testing for: whether you have done the audiobook test, even on text-only pieces. The audiobook test is whether the sentences would land if spoken. The text-only piece is being read in the reader's head, which is functionally an audiobook. The mouth knows what the eye does not.

11. Would I be okay with the worst person in my industry reading this?

Not the best. The worst. The person who would screenshot it out of context. The person who would weaponize it. If the piece can survive a hostile read, it can survive a friendly one. If it cannot survive a hostile read, it is not built for the actual conditions of publishing.

What this is testing for: whether the piece has been pressure-tested against bad-faith reading. Most pieces are written assuming generous readers. A piece that requires generous readers will, eventually, meet a bad-faith one. Build for the worst case.

12. Am I publishing this because it is ready or because I am tired?

Tiredness is the most common reason pieces ship below the floor. The writer has been working on it for weeks. The writer wants to be done. The wanting to be done is not the same as the piece being done. If you cannot answer this question with "because it is ready," put the piece aside for 48 hours and ask again.

What this is testing for: your willingness to hold a piece longer than you want to. Holding is the discipline most writers do not have. The reader cannot tell that you held it. The reader can tell that you did not.

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After the worksheet

Run the worksheet. Score the piece. If it scores below the floor on any single question, the piece does not ship. One failed question is enough. The floor is the floor. The floor is what makes everything above it possible.

The worksheet is adapted from a longer editorial process described in When You're Ready, which contains the longer essays this practice produced. The worksheet is the gate. The essays are what passed through it.