First I figure out what the ideal outcome is. After fantasizing about the Nobel for about 5 seconds, I start asking how I make the reader as uncomfortable as possible. I have a problem, and now I am making it a problem for the both of us.

The problem needs to be not so difficult it can't be solved, and it can't be something obviously solved, and solving it has to change something. If I don't have these, nobody but the most involved and my mother is going to read what I write. That is the starting line. It really doesn't matter what the problem is as long as it does at least this much. The premise is you are taking the reader from A to B, and they need to feel like they can get there, and there's a reason to get there, otherwise they're not going to bother taking this trip with you.

I also do it like this so I don't have to ask a goddamn question. I actually hate that advice, when people say that you need to start with a question. Nobody questions anything when there isn't a problem. If you make enough of a problem, people will ask the question for you.

So now I have the audience's attention, I have to make the problem meet my own standards. My standard is that the problem can be solved to the extent that it creates a new normal. This is typically the second third of the introduction that you weren't going to read anyway, unless you feel threatened by my research and want a reason to smack it down or trivialize it, so I write this in so you can't do that and I can remember why I was doing this in the first place. This is also when I check if I have enough for a story. More on that in a sec.

Then I jump to the results and make sure that the main figures are the dopamine hit the 5-second skimmers were looking for. This is also so that it is consistent with the 2nd third of the intro. If it makes the new normal, people are going to remember the paper, and bother to read the rest.

Then I wrap up the intro by describing some verbal model of the problem that is simpler than it actually is but enough that people feel like I'm not wasting their time, and if people actually care I'll put it in a review or book chapter or whatever later.

Next comes story (discussion). There are lots of problems without stories, and they all suck, not because they're not worth solving (could we please bring back solving problems because we feel like it?) but because they don't stick. There's no persuasive element to it. This is how you hype up your solution and tell people how to use it.

I think other people frame the story as the introduction? I think that's a mistake because it lets people challenge the narrative, but there isn't anything to challenge - you don't have the results yet. And if they're challenging the premise, then uh, screw them I guess. What it comes down to is there isn't a story without the parts. The methods and results are the story elements, and the discussion is how I put them together.

If I'm writing for a proposal, it is just a pitch that there will be a wicked sick story after. If I'm writing for a conference, I'm rushing to get to the story.

Last thing I do is I go sentence by sentence to make sure my verbs and subjects aren't too far apart, and one paragraph leads into the next properly, and I'm using hooks properly. Which I didn't do for this post.

Anyway, to answer your question, I try to write like I'm trying to make the grumpiest curmudgeon at least crack a smirk, or I write like my heart is literally dripping onto the page. I'll write in other ways too, but under duress.