A problem is a condition and a cost

You have told the reader something is happening: remote work is spreading, people are passive, tuition keeps climbing. So what? A bare condition earns a shrug. It becomes a problem — something the reader wants solved — only when you show the cost it imposes, the price they don't want to pay.

How it works

Split every problem into two parts. The condition is the unstable situation: "people avoid taking action even when they could easily solve their own problems." The cost is what that condition does to the reader: "missed opportunities, stalled careers, and later regret — and it slows whole organizations down." To find the cost, state the condition and then interrogate it — So what? Whatever answers that question is the cost, and the cost is the part that motivates. State them together, condition first and cost second, because the reader has to see both before they see a problem at all.

Why it matters

A problem is only a problem when the reader cares about it, and they care because of the cost, not the condition. This is also why the same condition makes a different problem for different readers: passivity costs an employee a promotion and costs a business owner a whole team's output, so you frame the cost toward the reader you actually have. Miss the cost and even a true, well-described condition reads as trivia the reader is free to ignore.

Try it

1. Write the condition in one or two plain sentences — the situation that is unstable or wrong.
2. Ask "So what?" until you reach a consequence your specific reader genuinely doesn't want. That is your cost.
3. Set condition and cost side by side, and make the cost concrete — vague harm ("things get worse") moves no one; "stalled careers" does.

Common pitfalls

Naming a condition and assuming the cost is obvious. It rarely is to the reader — a callous "So what if some people are passive?" is always available to them, and it is your job to close it off. The opposite failure is a cost with no clear condition: dread with nothing underneath it, which just feels like manipulation.

Without that cost, your reader can just shrug and say, "So what?" A problem is only a problem when the reader cares about it.

WILLIAM · I ANALYSED 100 OPENING PARAGRAPHS · 2026

A condition is a fact. A cost is a reason to keep reading.

Drawn from

• William, I Analysed 100 Opening Paragraphs. Here's What Makes Readers Obsessed. (Writer Science, 2026).
• The condition-and-cost account of problems in Wayne Booth, Gregory Colomb & Joseph Williams, The Craft of Research.
• Related: Sell the problem, not the topic, The five-part introduction, Make something change: kairos, stakes, and the live wire.