My Writing Secrets, Secret No More

Across 30 years of work, writing has been my faithful friend.

On the one hand, it's because I've always been able to do it relatively well. On the other hand, it's likely because so many of my colleagues have struggled with it, which has made me seem valuable to them, if a little weird, not to mention cocky. (Or so I've heard.)

I'll take it.

Recently, a young colleague/friend of mine asked me for "my secrets." Of course I quickly realized I don't have many. But I do have a few. I shared them with her, and now I share them with you.

Start in the middle. Just write, baby.

Most people struggle to start. That's because they try to start at the beginning! How silly. What I do is write down the first thing that comes to mind, something that I know for sure, and that I know needs to be in the piece someplace. Then I write some stuff before it and after it. I just write and keep writing, cutting and pasting and embellishing along the way. Before I know it, I have more than enough words, not to mention the building blocks of an opening (usually the most exciting, charged thing I've written) and a closing (usually the 'graph that calls back to my opening, but does so in a more wistful, quiet way). Here's the thing about writing: you have to write. Don't sit there and think and plan forever. Just start writing. You can cut the crap and polish the good stuff later. For now, more is more.

Write as if you're transcribing your narrator-voice. Writing is just speech, in statue form.

A lot of people think of writing as a formal thing, like inscribing timeless thoughts on stone tablets. No way. The best writing is just speech, transcribed. I try to listen to my own internal narrator-voice, the informal, colloquial Everyman that lives in my head and won't shut up. I let him start talking, and then I just type up what he says. Writing is just voice-over in static form. It's word statues. And just like statues are made from the likeness of real people, writing is forged from real words that you'd actually say out loud. Quit trying to be a "writer." Just be a transcriber. It's way easier.

Use the rule of three.

So often after I've written something musical and smart, I notice: holy crap, I'm doing that three-thing again! I'll be like, "We need to create a corporate culture that arises from the bottom up; that honors our people's personal and professional identities at once; and that helps us become a magnet for the best talent in the markets we operate in." Three phrases, strung together by semicolons. Or I'll be like: "Today's best brands are authentic, open, and dynamic." Boom, boom, and boom. And always with the serial comma, for goshsakes, for clarity's sake. The brain and the ear agree: three is pleasing. Seriously, try it.

Make yourself smile or cry or nod as you're writing. If you can feel it, others will be able to, too.

When I'm writing something that's meant to move or amuse my audience, I surely better feel moved or amused myself. That's how I know I've nailed it. When I wrote my friend's wedding ceremony, I cried. When I wrote roast jokes for another friend, I busted my gut laughing. And as I'm writing this piece, I'm nodding along, as in, "Damn right that's good advice." Let yourself feel the emotions you're aiming to elicit in your readers. It's a solid sign you're on the right track.

Once you think you're done, go back and cut as much as you can. Less is usually more.

Whenever I have to write to a tight word limit, I get all worried. I always write too much, then have to cut. But what really makes me mad is that almost always the piece is markedly better after I've made the cuts. It's our nature to want to write more, in service of better. The reality is...well, you get it.

Read it aloud.

As goofy as you're going to feel reading your own words aloud, like some kind of minister preaching a sermon or some politician greasing the wheels of government, do it. There's no greater test of whether you've gotten it right than having to listen to yourself make your own case.

In fact, I just read this aloud!

So they're not really secrets anymore, now are they?