✂️Noor's three comments

Noor Haddad edits non-fiction for a living and her friends for nothing. Every draft I have sent her since issue 1 has come back with exactly three comments. I wrote the format down on 8 January, when issue 31 came back, because it is a method and she would deny it.

1. One cut. The paragraph the piece is better without. Usually the first.
2. One question. The thing a reader will want to ask and the draft avoids.
3. One line to keep. The sentence she liked. Not for encouragement: so that I do not cut it by accident while fixing the other two.

What to do with them

• Make the cut. Do not argue for the paragraph.
• Answer the question in the text, not in a reply to her.
• Leave the line alone.

Why three: twelve comments are a second draft written by someone else. Three can be acted on the same evening.

Use when: a draft is finished enough to be embarrassed by. Also when I am the editor of somebody else's page: three, and then stop.

It is the working half of ♦️ Writing clearly, and the reason 🎓 Noor Haddad exists as a note.

When not to use it

• On a draft that is not a draft yet. Three comments on notes is unkind to both of us.
• When I want praise. The third comment is not that, and she can tell when I am fishing.
• With a model, if the issue matters. Three-comment editor prompt is the spare tyre for the weeks she is away. Its question is polite. Hers is the one I was avoiding.

She moved to Copenhagen on 12 October. The comments still arrive, and there are still three.

Where I use it: every issue in 📂 Slack in the System - 2025 issues goes through it before the Newsletter send checklist starts.