Manage Your Writing

This week: Use your eraser

Once we've drafted a piece of writing, we've invested quite a bit of time and effort in it. Thus, as Rabbi Israel Salanter has said, "Writing is one of the easiest things; erasing is one of the hardest." We're reluctant to admit, even to ourselves, that something we've drafted might benefit from being changed.

This week, erase (on paper or on computer screen) at least three words from everything you write. When you see the improvement, I bet you'll erase more.

This week: The last shall be first

Famed sports agent Mark H. McCormack, who has been credited for inspiring the film Jerry McGuire, once wrote, "A lot of memos would be more persuasive if their first and last paragraphs were switched."

This week, when you've finished drafting each piece of writing, ask yourself whether you could  make it more effective by taking McCormack's advice. Even if you decide not to literally switch the beginning and ending paragraphs, just asking the question may alert you to ways to improve how your message ends and begins.

This week: Pick any one of a hundred ways to improve your writing

The Online Colleges site has published a terrific list of "100 Little Ways You Can Dramatically Improve Your Writing."

This week, scan the list, pick one, follow its link, and try it.

This week: Remember that Brazilian butterfly

Almost everyone has heard of that butterfly whose flapping wings can affect distant weather. It's often labeled as Chinese, though Edward Lorenz's 1972 introduction of the concept was titled "Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?"

The point: in a complex system, tiny causes can have huge effects.

Remember that as you revise your drafts. A small difference in how your readers respond to your first sentence can make a somewhat bigger difference in how they respond to your second sentence. And so on. So make sure your first sentence is absolutely clear, economical, and compelling.

This week: Cut when you revise, not while you draft

In the early nineteenth century, British author C. C. Colton wrote, "That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time."

Most of us know that in theory. We know that we should make our writing as economical as possible. But we may be paying attention to conciseness too soon, while we're drafting.

This week, don't interrupt the flow of a draft to worry about whether you're using too many words. Just write the words as they come, even if you know you're going to cut some out later. When you revise, you'll find that cutting words is easier than adding new ones.

This week: Speak your reader's language

According to a story I once heard, when the United States and the USSR were planning their first joint space mession, planners thought hard about how the language barrier would be crossed, especially in the perilous situations that could occur in space flight. Naturally, the American astronauts were taught Russian, and the Soviet cosmonauts were taught English. But which language should be used when, and by whom?

The answer may surprise you. After extensive study, NASA announced that the U.S. crew would always speak Russian, and the Soviet crew would always speak English. Why? Because the speaker, who knew what he wanted to say, could more easily do the work of mental translation. With lives at stake, the listener should not have to both mentally translate and absorb new information.

This principle applies to everything we write, even to speakers of our own language. We know what we want to say, so we bear the burden of making our message as easy as possible for our reader to understand.

This week, as you revise, pretend that your reader speaks a langauge different from yours.  Write as clearly as you can, so your reader cannot misunderstand.

This week: Beware the dreaded "it is"

In his book Claw Your Way to the Top, humorist Dave Barry writes:

State that something is your understanding. This statement should be firm, vaguely disapproving, and virtually impossible to understand. A good standard one is: "It is my understanding that this was to be ascertained in advance of any further action, pending review."

Although that sentence has several problems, its fundamental one is that it starts with "It is," an absolutely empty subject-verb combination. 

This week, as you revise, look for sentences like this:

It is not until Wednesday that the parts will arrive.

Change them to sentences like these:

The parts won't arrive until Wednesday.
The parts will arrive Wednesday.

(Which you choose depends, of course, on whether you're the buyer, complaining, or the supplier, promising.)

This week: Read it out loud

Dan Santow, at Word Wise, a blog for public relations professionals, reminds us of a powerful tool for revising your writing: read it aloud. He concludes:

. . . by reading out loud you’ll hear when sentences are meaningless and empty. How many times, after all, have you read a sentence like "We will utilize proprietary methodologies and best practices in order to leverage messaging that breaks through the clutter" and literally not even noticed it? Eyes gloss over (not to mention glaze over) sentences like that. Read it out loud and you’ll notice it, all right, and cringe that you were its author.

This week, after you've drafted something, read it aloud, then start revising.

This week: Avoid thundershower activity

In his book Claw Your Way to the Top, humorist Dave Barry provides a helpful question and answer:

Q. What do they mean on the TV weather forecast when they say we are going to have "thundershower activity"?

A. They mean we are not going to have an actual thunderstorm, per se, but we are going to have thundershower activity, which looks very similar to the untrained eye.

This week, as you revise, look for places where your writing includes the equivalent of "thundershower activity." Go for "thunderstorms" instead.

This week: Don't waste your readers' time

Recently, one of the strongest champions of good writing has been best-selling marketing guru Harry Beckwith. In his book Selling the Invisible he wrote that vague empty pieces of writing "tell your prospects one thing: They say you are willing to waste that person's time. No message can hurt you more."

This week, after you draft each piece of writing, ask yourself, "In what ways am I wasting my readers' time?" Use your answer to help you revise.