Structure an explainer: situation, complication, resolution

Situation, Complication, Resolution

Three short moves that take the reader from something they already accept to the answer you are giving. It comes from Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principle and is common in consulting writing. It works as the introduction of almost any explainer, and as the whole shape of a short one. If you have not chosen a format yet, start with the explainer skill.

The three moves

1. Situation. The stable context the reader already agrees with. One to three sentences. If the reader could disagree, it is not a situation, it is a claim.
2. Complication. What changed or what is wrong, which makes the situation a problem. It must raise a question in the reader's mind. This is the part that earns attention.
3. Resolution. Your answer to that question. State it plainly, then support it.

A fourth move can sit between the second and third when the question is not obvious: the Question itself (SCQA). Write it out only if the complication does not already make it clear.

Template

Situation:    <What the reader already knows or accepts.>
Complication: <What changed, or what does not work, so that the situation is no longer enough.>
(Question:    <The question that follows.>)
Resolution:   <The answer, in one sentence. Then the body supports it.>

Example, for a post about moving a small shop to online sales:

• Situation: The shop sells well to the neighbourhood and has for ten years.
• Complication: Three of its five biggest customers have moved away, and sales to them fell by half.
• Resolution: Selling the same range online to those customers costs less than opening a second shop, and can start within a month.

After the resolution, support it in the order of the body structure you chose (see below).

How to write it

1. Write the resolution first. If you cannot say it in one sentence, the explainer is not ready.
2. Find the complication: what would make the reader need that answer? Use a fact, a number or an event, not an adjective.
3. Write the situation last, as the shortest set of facts that makes the complication understandable.
4. Keep the three moves together, in the first one or two paragraphs. Do not let the situation grow into a background section.
5. Check that the complication leads to the resolution and not to a different answer.

Pair it with a body structure and a format

• Answer in the opening, then the support, in an answer-first body.
• A time-ordered body for a story: And, But, Therefore is the same idea in three beats and works better when the piece is a narrative.
• A process or mechanism body: How it works.
• Formats: the three moves become the opening paragraphs before a scrollytelling block; a key callout from page furniture can hold the resolution; an annotated walkthrough can follow once the reader knows why the thing matters.

Mistakes

• A situation that is a history lesson. Cut it to what the complication needs.
• A complication that is vague ("things are changing"). Name what changed.
• Hiding the resolution until the end. The point of this structure is to let the reader know where you are going.
• A resolution that does not answer the complication. Re-read the two together.