Good writing requires rewriting
The first word that comes to mind is always a familiar choice but not necessarily the best one. This is how clichés and trite phrases slip into our prose. To avoid this, good writers depend on a dictionary and a thesaurus. For example, I know I overuse the word "effective." My fingers mindlessly plop it on the screen as my mind races ahead to the next thought. By looking the word up each time I try to use it, I force myself to consider alternatives: efficient, operational, effectual, efficacious. In the end, I might indeed settle on "effective," but not before I've had a chance to think about it.
What's more, I often dribble around an idea before I take a shot at what I really want to say. My drafting strategy is simple: "Get it down quickly, get it right later." This only works if you're willing to rewrite your first draft.
To prove the point, consider this: Have you ever written something, only to lose it all when your computer crashed? Now here's a bet: When you tried to recreate the original, your second version, in spite of your annoyance at the extra effort, was better as well as shorter.
And that's the secret: Rewriting always improves word selection, cuts down on length and adds flavor. In short, it's effective.
Writing shorter is tougher
Blaise Pascal, a 17th Century philosopher and mathematician, once apologized for writing a long letter. He said he didn’t have time to write a short one.
Most business writing is too long. E-mails and memos drone as the author struggles to find a central theme, drops in extraneous material and distracts the reader with fuzzy logic and superfluous comments. We all know people who talk this way, who start a sentence on an inspiration, detour into excursions irrelevant to the main point (which, of course, we haven’t come to yet) drag us back to an entirely different idea, and finally find their way somewhere along the way, by which time we’re looking over their shoulder for a quick escape from the conversation.
A lot of business writing follows the same model. Why the overload? Some people feel compelled to dump in everything they know for fear of overlooking something important. Others are concerned with covering their flanks (or some other part of their anatomy) with a political agenda that stretches out the writing. Both strategies dilute the focus of the piece and fatigue the reader. Shorter is not better or worse, but it is different and can be more difficult. Here’s a checklist of how to write shorter and better:
Who’s the audience? Keeping in mind whom you’re writing for will focus your objective and discipline your style and length.
What’s your objective? What do you want the piece to accomplish? This is the theme. Here are some examples:
- Inform the boss about progress on computer installation.
- Prod the team’s members to finish assignments on deadline.
- Persuade the sales department to adopt new customer-service guidelines.
- Review the procedures for upcoming fire-safety exercise for all employees.
Notice the verbs. They describe the work of the memo (inform, prod, persuade, review). The theme sentence also mentions the audience (bosses, team members, sales department, employees) and desired actions (understand progress on installation, finish assignments, adopt new guidelines, prepare for fire-safety exercise). The theme sentence may never appear in your essay, but it will guide decisions about what to include and exclude.
What are your key points? These will depend on the mission of the memo, but all key points will have two characteristics. Each must be necessary (if not, don’t include them) and sufficient to make the case (if they are insufficient, you haven’t completed the mission).
Learning to write short is important. No reader wants to waste time struggling through a poorly organized e-mail, memo or report. Writers who think before they write are more likely to close the gap between their intentions and the readers’ comprehension.
Put rhythm into your writing
Frank Sinatra is admired by professional singers because he was a master of phrasing. In music, phrasing divides lyrics into natural segments, creates connections and a natural flow and conveys meaning through emphasis and pauses.
In writing, phrasing has a counterpart called rhythm. It helps create a unique voice, a melody and a flow of meaning. Why is it important? Understanding rhythm will improve your writing overnight. Guaranteed.
In a 1985 book, writing coach Gary Provost created this tour de force to demonstrate what happens when the writer experiments with sentences of different lengths.
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It's like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.
Did you feel yourself getting tired? How closely does it resemble writing you see every day? Here's the next paragraph. Listen for the rhythm:
Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length.
Can you hear the difference? Can you hear a melody, a rhythm?
And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals –– sounds that say listen to this, it is important.
That was one sentence, far more compelling than "This sentence has five words." The passage ends with Gary's advice to writers
So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences.
Create a sound that pleases the reader's ear.
Don't just write words.
Write music.
The formula for better writing
Psychologists have a formula for motivation: E1 = E2 + E3, a simple expression revealing a powerful relationship. E1 is the energy someone has for a task. “Energy” in this case is “motivation” or “drive.” Following the formula, motivation is the sum of two factors: experiences of success (E2) and expectation for continued success (E3).
It makes sense. Your enthusiasm for a task increases if your previous experiences were positive. Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight will tell you that the motivation to continue (E1) is dependent on multiple experiences (E2) of success. If the diet is working, it's likely to be sustained. What's more, after a few positive experiences (losing a pound a week for five consecutive weeks), people come to expect continued success (E3). These expectations, formed by experience, generate long-term motivation.
This explains why so many people don't like to write. Too often their experiences have been negative. Miss Periwinkle may have chastised them in the sixth grade for a dangling participle. Prof. Framis in freshman English may have called their essay "incoherent." To many people, the writing experiences have included fumbling about with sentence construction and syntax (whatever that is), laboring to connect pieces that didn't quite fit and then enduring criticism and humiliation when their work was rejected by some authority figure as "wordy and unfocused." This is hardly the experience that will stimulate a lot of energy to do it again.
In my writing coaching, I don't teach people how to write. I teach them how to organize data and thoughts before they write. The objective –– to introduce competence and confidence into the writing experience –– would please any formula-drafting psychologist. The strategy is simple: Help people experience success a few times and they begin to expect more success. At that point, motivation rises to overcome resistance.
Getting organized
To take Pooh's advice to get organized, the first question to ask is, "For whom am I writing?" Every piece of writing has an audience, the nature of which will determine how the piece is written. Who are likely audiences in business?
• Peers you are trying to inform or persuade
• Bosses to whom you need to make a case
• Colleagues who need information and directives
• Customers to whom you are marketing goods and services
Here are the first two important questions for writers to consider as they sort through their data and thoughts:
• Who is my audience?
• What do I want my audience to learn or do?
Unlike fiction or journalism,business communications are linked to action. A writer wants someone to do something, so she must consider the reasons, means and direction that will move the reader to action.
If it sounds simple, it is,but first it requires knowing exactly who the audience is and what you want that audience to learn or do. Otherwise, like Pooh, the writing will be all mixed up.
Want to improve writing in your company? If you'd like to learn more about how better writing can improve your company's performance, send me an e-mail. I'd love to talk about how I can help.
What the readers need from a writer
So it is for writing in the business world. Writing coaching tends to focus on writers’ capabilities, habits and style. Nothing wrong with this, but I think it’s backwards. Writing coaching should help writers focus on the “reads” of the “needers” for whom they are writing.
What do readers need from writers? To begin:
Information: What’s new? How does it work? How can I get involved?
Meaning: I know the facts, but what do they mean to me in my business?
Inspiration: How does this motivate me to do something?
Beyond those basics, however, is a more urgent purpose. Unlike fiction or journalism, business communications are linked to action. We write because we want our audience to do something, so our writing must consider the reasons, means and direction for action. That’s why I coach writers in business to ask two questions before they draft anything:
• Who is the audience I’m writing for?
• What do I want that audience to learn or do?
Focus on the readers and what you want them to learn or do and your writing will be more successful.
Want to improve writing in your company? If you'd like to learn more about how better writing can improve your company's performance, send me an e-mail. I'd love to talk about how I can help.
Overcoming the fear of writing
Confidence comes from competence, easy to say and almost as easy to accomplish. The secret is thinking before you write, which when done well, makes the writing so much easier.
Here’s a sequence that will help, whether you’re writing a short e-mail to update your supervisor on a project or a long proposal to adopt new software
Audience: Who is your audience, and what do you want that audience to learn or do? In the business world good writing is governed by the readers. An e-mail to the boss will have a different tone than an update memo to your team members.
Theme: What is it you want to say in your e-mail or memo? Can your reduce it to fewer than ten words? If you can’t that’s a reliable predictor that the piece is likely to be unfocused, disorganized and confusing, not exactly the result you set out to achieve. This sentence is called the “theme.” It may not actually appear in the document, but it sets the tone and direction.
For the supervisor’s e-mail, the theme might be: “The project is on budget, but not on time.”
For the software proposal, the theme might be: “We have three choices, all of them flawed.”
Key Points: With a well-focused theme in hand, you then use the storytelling model to list your key points. What do you need to say to begin the essay beyond a “once-upon-a-time” setting of the scene? Perhaps not much. Key points tend to cluster in the next two stages of storytelling: “Suddenly” and “Fortunately.”
“Suddenly” is the twist that creates the tension, the problem to be solved:
“Just when we thought we had chosen a system, we discovered a hidden shortcoming.”
“Fortunately” moves the story toward resolution:
“After weeks or research, we we’re able to rewrite the code to make the system function effectively.”
Each stage of the storytelling will usually have two or three key points that must be made in that stage. Now you can begin writing. You have identified your audience and what you want that audience to do or learn. You have settled on a theme, which also means you’ve eliminated other possibilities that would distract the reader from your purposeful focus. And you have lined up your key points within the storytelling model.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? It is easy. Understanding your audience, theme and key points makes the writing flow and reduces the reluctance and fear that inhibit good writing.
Want to improve writing in your company? If you'd like to learn more about how better writing can improve your company's performance, send me an e-mail. I'd love to talk about how I can help.
What writers can learn from Lincoln
Lincoln was a master storyteller. As a young lawyer he used entertaining stories and jokes to support a point of law. As president he used carefully chosen narratives to instruct, prod, guide and lead. So it's no surprise that when it came time to draft the Gettysburg Address, he followed an ancient four-part model of storytelling:
- An opener ("Once upon a time")
- A dramatic turn in the narrative ("Suddenly")
- A resolution to the conflict ("Fortunately")
- An ending ("Happily ever after)
His tale begins in 1776 with the founding of a nation. He began with an elegantly compact "once upon a time."
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
But "suddenly," something happened to the promises of 1776:
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." He didn't need to overstate the drama of a civil war. He had only to remind listeners that the tragedy put the nation's very existence in doubt.
Lincoln resists despair. "Fortunately," he instead offers determination: "...we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ..."
Can a civil war have a "happily ever after" ending? Lincoln offered that hope:
"... that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Two things are certain about this speech:
• He probably didn't consciously have "once upon a time, suddenly, fortunately, and happily ever after" in his head as he drafted the text.
• Still, he understood the powerful sequence underlying all stories, from the scene setter to the sudden change of circumstances, to the resolution leading to the transformation.
Business writing is so often inadequate not because people can't write, but because many people don't see the power of storytelling as a simple organizing model for writing. Fortunately, Lincoln did.
Want to improve writing in your company? If you'd like to learn more about how better writing can improve your company's performance, send me an e-mail. I'd love to talk about how I can help.
Why storytelling is important
Stories are how we assemble and pass along knowledge:
- "Let me tell you what happened when we launched this new software."
- "Here's what I learned this weekend about camping without the proper equipment."
- "Let me tell you what happened as I was driving to work this morning."
Stories become the foundation of our individual and collective memories:
- "We tried that years ago, and here's why it didn't work."
- "Next time let's remember what we learned from this experiment."
Stories help us make sense of our lives:
- "The doctor told me about another of his patients who faced the same diagnosis."
Stories are our primary tools of learning and teaching, the repositories of our lore and legends. They bring order into our confusing world. Think about how many times a day you use stories to pass along data, insights, memories or common-sense advice.
Over time stories become the mile markers of our lives. High school, our first job? We all can tell tales of what we learned, and didn't. Tragedy, illness, death? Stories archive the memories and lessons.
Stories are more than a sequence of words; they are moving images we can see and feel, transforming us from passive listeners to active characters in the narrative.
What's more, because we've been telling stories all our lives, we're very good at it, even when we're a bit windy.
After decades of coaching writers and editors, I hold onto one simple truth: Good writing, especially in businesses, is nothing more than telling stories well. That's why teaching people in business how to write well is so easy. Everyone knows how to tell a good story, so it's not a big step to help them learn to write that story.
Want to improve writing in your company? If you'd like to learn more about how better writing can improve your company's performance, send me an e-mail. I'd love to talk about how I can help.
The Storytelling Model
The trouble with this tidy description, however, is that it's too abstract: setting, conflict, resolution, ending. Nor is it immediately evident how to put the four-part model to work. Let's try another version:
"Once upon a time ..." This set-up for storytelling has been used since ancient Greece to create the scene and circumstances in novels, fables and oratory.
Homer used the device in The Iliad: "The Greek army is led by Agamemnon. It is besieging Ilium, a town in the region of Troy whose ruler is Priam; it is the tenth year of the war."
The first line of the Bible begins with the ultimate once upon a time: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth."
Abraham Lincoln used it at Gettysburg: "Four score and seven years ago ..."
Dickens used it to set the scene for A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
And Hemingway used it to open The Old Man and the Sea: He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."
"Once upon a time" and its many siblings say to the reader, "Let me get you started." It works in fiction, nonfiction and all business writing.
"Suddenly!" This is the conflict, the twist that provides purpose and direction. No story can remain stalled in "once upon a time;" there would be no story, and readers would soon flee. They stay because suddenly, something creates interest, suspense, confusion, anxiety, disbelief, and inevitably, questions about why? and what's next?
Eventually, the Old Man at sea hooks a fish. That's "Suddenly!"
Fortunately (or not). In some stories, Superman, moving faster than a speeding bullet, swoops in and sweeps Lois Lane from the ledge. In others, something goes wrong that unfortunately stays wrong, defies fixing and plagues the characters until the end of the story. Either way, there comes a resolution (successful or not) to the conflict of "Suddenly." In Hemingway's little tale, the Old Man catches the fish, but unfortunately, the fates have been cruelly generous. The fish is too big to bring aboard his small boat and is consumed by sharks.
Happily ever after. All written stories end, some well, some badly. In business writing (e-mails, memos, reports) the ending is especially important because it must lead to one of two results -- learning or action.
In business, using the storytelling model to guide the planning that precedes writing is the single most valuable first step toward improvement.
I CAN HELP: If you'd like to learn more about how your company can improve its writing and thereby its overall performance, send me an e-mail. I'd love to help in your quest for quality.
