A colleague who manages a small marketing team recently asked my opinion about some resources for improving his team’s writing skills. My mind flashed immediately to Cool Runnings, the 1993 movie about the Jamaican bobsled team that went to the Olympics. It’s a fish-out-of-water story that celebrates the success of a team driven by passion to succeed. If a Jamaican team that was unfamiliar with snow learned to bobsled and win, good writing can be learned!
It takes passion and dedication to become a great writer. Anyone who is driven to write can tell you sometimes the words flow through you onto the page or screen with ease—and other times when you feel like banging your head on the desk because nothing comes out right. I cannot profess to be a great writer, but I enjoy it even on the most dreadful days when I read my own work and am shocked at my clumsiness. The thing is, I am dedicated to doing it correctly next time. I am passionate about writing stories that are accessible and engaging.
Does everyone who writes as part of their job have to be passionate about it? It helps, but the reality is that their passion is probably around some other aspect of their work and they are darned eager to get the writing over with, fast. In order to get the writing done—and not have to redo it—just dedicate yourself to several best practices. These are my recommendations for resources to help you learn how to write.
One Basic Premise
No writer will succeed—no matter how many books they study or classes they attend—unless they follow one basic principle: know and respect your audience! The reader’s time is valuable and their attention is likely short, so it is to your advantage to be clear, concise, and authentic.
If you write with your audience in mind, you will hear what you have to say to them. Who are you talking to? What are they interested in? Why would they care about anything that you have to say? How much time do they have to read what you wrote? What action should they take or feeling should they have because of reading what you wrote? How much technical knowledge do they have, or lack? How much do they really have to know in order to buy in to what you are telling them?
Tell a Story
If the idea of writing gives you a little shiver of dread, try instead to think of it as telling a story, or chatting with a colleague. What would you say if you wanted someone to listen, believe, and act on what you are telling them? Engage them with a story! Make them care!
If you have used the elevator pitch technique to sell your idea/product/service/whatever, then you already understand that your writing has to grab your audience’s attention, get to the point without hyperbole or wordiness, and clearly state an action they can take to buy in. You can use the elements of an elevator pitch to guide you in writing good business communication—whether you are creating a newsletter, a press release, an executive memo, an intranet page, or an e-mail alert.
If the idea of storytelling is especially fascinating to you, you might want to dig into Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces. Star Wars fans, who seem to be legion in the technology world, might be interested to know that this book inspired George Lucas. In it, Campbell asserts that every story has already been told but that, culturally, we must continue to retell and enliven the old stories.
May the force be with you, fledgling writers!
Although you likely won’t insert heroes and valiant quests into all of your business writing, it is fun to think how those concepts can be used to inspire every reader.
Getting Down to Business
While I believe that excellent business communication is infused with good storytelling practices, I recognize that getting a lot done—being productive, as we like to spin it—can drive us to mediocrity. So, how do we handle our day-to-day communication workload effectively? I suggest looking to resources that help us understand the nuances of distinct communication vehicles. Here are three examples.
E-mail
“A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history—with the possible exception of handguns and tequila.”
– Mitch Ratcliffe, “Technology Review” (1992)
Whenever I see a mangled e-mail—where the author is emotional, incoherent, grandiose, and/or off-target—I can’t help but think of the above quote. E-mail is a daily communication tool that can get us in a lot of trouble, very quickly.
There is a fun and refreshing book about e-mail communication etiquette and writing techniques, Send. Who knew a book about e-mail would make me chuckle and think twice before I hit Send?
Presentations
A useful book, whether you are creating presentations or not, is Beyond Bullet Points from Microsoft Press. This book takes too many pages to communicate some simple concepts, but you can easily jump around through the chapters and use it as a quick reference whenever you are concerned that your writing is getting off track. The book is organized to help walk you through creating a presentation—or any communication, really—by taking these steps: Distill Your Ideas, Structure Your Story, Visualize Your Message, Create a Conversation, and Maintain Engagement.
Blogging
Blogging seems like the wild cousin of formal business writing—personal, opinionated, flamboyant, untamed—but the fact is that blogs should still conform to most of the rules of good writing. For a comprehensive primer on blogs, blogging, and some best practices, read The Rough Guide to Blogging.
What are your favorite writing guides? What’s the single most important thing you’ve learned to improve your writing?
Suzi Beerman 