Assume no one cares

Writing advice from Neil Strauss:

Assume no one cares about you, about what you’re writing about, about what you have to say, about what you care about. If you go from the premise that nobody cares, it’ll be clear that your question is “how do I make them care?”

The job of the first sentence is to get the reader to care enough to read the second. The job of the first paragraph is to get them to read the second. The job of one chapter is to get them to read the next.