Great ideas feel like they blossom.
The initial seed of the idea is a discontinuity: a surprise.
But then every follow-on thought feels natural; obvious in retrospect.
Even if it's initially surprising, after a moment's thought it snaps into place with an "of course!".
It expands and unfurls almost on its own.
Bad ideas have lots of discontinuities, lots of points where the listener goes, "wait, what?" or even "wait, that doesn't make any sense."
Sometimes you lose the listener completely.
They are game over on the argument.
They give up and go elsewhere.
Sometimes you can win them back, with some effort.
It's a friction point.
So great ideas have one discontinuity at the beginning, one sacred seed of an idea, and then blossom almost under their own power from that point.
A few implications of this obsevation.
First, the order of an argument matters.
Second, arguments that have more exposition can sometimes be better than ones with too little exposition.
Every bit of exposition, even if it follows naturally, has a chance of losing people just because they get bored.
Things that make people more likely to stick with an argument:
1) they are intrinsically motivated, or
2) the argument is enjoyable on its own (clever writing, evocative metaphors)