Writing secrets for non-writers

Why does your coworker book a meeting when she could have written a short memo? Why do your consultants bury their presentations with fancy graphics?

Because writing is hard. A well-written document is no accident. You can hide your understanding behind chit chat or PowerPoint. But when you write, your understanding is left naked in the open.

Your first job as a documenter is to get more into writing. Getting more into writing will put you head and shoulders above the rest. Next, apply these dynamic writing secrets to turbocharge what you have on the page.

These tips are not for writers. But they steal their secrets.

Start with too much

You may be surprised to learn that professional writers are comfortable throwing away large portions of their work. Some throw away complete novels.

In the business world, we are too concerned about getting anything down on paper, so we just don’t get started. Or we agonize over each word. Or worse, we have a meeting to discuss putting down the first word.

To build a great document – be it a memo, a business case, article, even spreadsheet – you need to start with too much. Firstly, this will give you more ideas to work with. Secondly, you will become a better and faster writer.

Strive for simplicity

Have you ever had to reread an email ten times to figure out what it said? Have you ever wondered what your solution-oriented, people-person candidate actually did in her last job? Have you ever found your mind drifting to Instagram when you were supposed to be reading a (snooze…) report?

Our business writing is brimming with words making things more complex (and more boring) than they really are. Professionals and management consultants are the worst offenders for inflating their writing to sound important. Let me bifurcate this for you (just kidding...).

The secret of dynamic writing is to strip your writing down to the core message. Words, sentences, paragraphs, sections – or even documents – that have no purpose should be cut.

Strip your writing down first and let your message stand out.

Chop out deadwood

“Hence, we will furthermore proceed with the proposal”. Do you need to sound like you’re in court? (Unless you are a lawyer.) Drop the hence. And the furthermore.

Is he your personal friend or your friend? Drop the personal. He’s your friend.

Any word that doesn’t add value lessens the impact of your document. Take it out. 

Punt the passive voice

The passive voice is a plague on business writing. It reduces its clarity, efficiency, and tightness. The passive voice is writing where the subject is the recipient of the action, not the doer.

 For example:

• Passive voice: “The wedding dress was tried on.”
• Active voice: “Cindy tried on the wedding dress.”

The passive voice is an easier way of writing, so it can be tempting. But it’s also sloppier.

Don’t fall into the trap of letting the passive voice infest your documents. The passive voice will kill the readability of your document, especially for processes and procedures.

But you need the passive voice when you have to.

1. When the actor is unknown (e.g., My car was broken into.)
2. When the actor is irrelevant (e.g., The Board was appointed.)
3. When you are talking about a general truth (e.g., Shit happens.)
4. When you want to emphasize the person or thing acted on. (e.g., Tiger Woods was injured in a car accident.)

Rejig your sentences

They say that writing is rewriting. This may be daunting, especially if you’re thinking “I just want to document, not be the next Malcolm Gladwell!”.

One of the best ways to rewrite your document is to move your sentences around. Play around with the order. The eloquence of what you want to say may be a couple moves away.

Try different pyramids. Start with a specific point and then bring it out wider. “Accounts Payable has a been a challenge for ABC company for the past ten years”.

Or you can start narrow with your conclusion. “As a result of this analysis, we have concluded that we do not want to go ahead with the point-of-sale system”.

Replace jargonese, bloated, and long words with power words

You don’t have to sound like a Management consultant or a lawyer – even if you are one.

Write like you are writing for children. Hemingway wrote at a grade 3 level, and so can you.

I was reading a book about copywriting one morning when my 3-year-old came downstairs at 6 am wanted to read his book “The Couch Potato”. I realized then that the best place for inspiration for clean, clear language is with children’s books.

Buzz words, acronyms, and insider terms do not make you sound smarter. They annoy your reader. Dynamic writing may mean unlearning what you learned at college, law school, your CPA training, or (God forbid) your MBA.

Replace adjectives and adverbs with verbs or nouns

Does this activity incredibly improve your sales, or boost your sales? Is it a cutting-edge technology or a game changer?

Verbs and nouns are power words. Adjectives and adverbs are lazy words.

Find strong verbs and nouns. Use them to take over from adjectives and adverbs.

Go long and go short

Experiment sentence length. A short sentence packs punch. A long sentence can be beautiful.

The first line of Moby Dick:

“Call m Ishmael”.

The first line of Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Both are masterpieces, but they use dramatically different lengths for the first line.

Steal the sizzle from copywriters

I didn’t even know what copywriting is until a writer mentioned to me recently that my writing “needs copywriting”. I had to google it.

One Udemy course later chased by a bunch of reading on the topic, I realized that copywriting was something I had been sorely missing for too much of my career.

Write using “you” language. Not “XYZ company wants to collect your ideas”, “do you have an idea to share?”.

The copywriter’s secret language is WIIFM (what’s in it for me?). You reader doesn’t really care about your memo, report, or business case, or your product or idea for that matter. They care about themselves. Their job, b advancement, looking good, and their rewards.

Grab your reader by the ego. Write in WIIFM.

Looking for more tips on documentation? I’d love to speak with you! Contact me at adrienne@riskoversight.ca.