There comes a point in any writing project when you need to follow Ernest Hemingway’s rule for writers: Apply the seat of your pants to the seat of a chair.

That is, you have to write. That’s the second step of the writing process: freewriting.

Only forget that kind of writing where you:

• Hunt for the right word.
• Peck it out.
• Shuffle through notes looking for a quote.
• Head to the vending machines for the third time in 15 minutes, hoping that when you come back you might — just might — think of something to say.

Nothing gets words on paper faster or gives your writing more personality than freewriting.

Freewriting is based on the idea that our brains are divided into two parts:

• The logical left side. It thinks analytically, making sure you don’t end your sentences in prepositions or use a colon when only a semicolon will do.
• The creative right side. It’s impulsive and unconventional and gives your copy interest and energy.

Problem is, we weren’t taught how to use the right side of our brains to write. Instead, we focus on AP style, punctuation and spelling — editing.

Freewriting momentarily gets rid of the brain’s logical left side so you can tap its creative right side.

How a writer writes

So after you prewrite and take a break:

1. Divide and conquer.

Freewriting is intense, high-energy work. You’ll only be able to tackle a small portion at a time.

So break your project up. Instead of challenging yourself to write a whole piece, think sections, paragraphs or sentences:

• Don’t write a press release; write the headline, deck and lead.
• Don’t write a speech; write the introduction.
• Don’t write a blog post; write the first three tips.

For this article, for instance, I divided the project into five sections:

1. Freewrite your copy.
2. Divide and conquer (this section).
3. Write quickly, without stopping.
4. Banish the grammar police.
5. Take a break.

Once I finish each section, I get to take a break.

Which is … now. Please excuse me while I go check my email.

2. Write quickly, without stopping.

When you’re writing, write. Don’t edit.

That’s the purpose of freewriting: to get words on paper (or pixels).

The problem is, if you write down a few words and then stare at them, you’ll edit. You won’t be able to help it. But if you force yourself to write continuously and quickly, you’ll push through that conditioned impulse to fix your copy and actually get some writing done.

When you freewrite, you want to achieve what the folks who study creativity call “flow.” In flow, you feel as if the words are flowing from your fingers — as if you can hardly keep your hands moving fast enough to keep up with your ideas.

Because of all the work you did in the prewriting step of the process — and because you’ve selected a discrete section of your piece to write — you should never have to stop to ponder where your piece is going next or how you’re going to get there.

You want to think through writing rather than thinking before you write. It’s stream of consciousness.

So get your nose out of your notebook. The story isn’t there; it’s in your head. (You’re not writing a research paper, after all. You’re not writing a report.)

Let the momentum of writing carry you along.

That’s flow.

3. Banish the grammar police.

“The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time,” said American author Robert Cormier, “unlike, say, a brain surgeon.”

Agreed.

When I started writing this piece, I wasn’t sure how to spell Cormier’s name. But if I’d stopped writing long enough to confirm that Cormier isn’t spelled with a “U,” I would have made the transition from writer to editor.

When you’re freewriting, the minute you stop to correct something, the left side of the brain wins out, and you have to start all over again the process of getting into writing mode.

Instead, lock the editor out and let the writer create. Keep the good ideas and fresh prose flowing.

It’s the writing strategy of experienced writers: Don’t worry about mistakes when you’re writing. Use a dash instead of a semicolon, write “you’re” when you mean “your” — even misspell the CEO’s name. You can always go back and fix your mistakes later, during rewriting.

What you can’t do is go back and breathe life into a stillborn draft — a draft that never really got written in the first place

4. Take breaks.

Freewriting is intense. Your creativity and energy will flag if you stay at it for too long.

So give yourself a time limit. So set your timer or internal clock for no less than five minutes, no more than 15.

When your time’s up, take a break. Make a Diet Coke run. Check your email. File your notes.

Then get back to the job. That minute or two away from the page will leave you refreshed, refueled — and ready to go again.

You might try taking your break in the middle of a thought — even the middle of a sentence. You’ll eliminate re-entry problems and be itching to start again.

“I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next,” Hemingway wrote. “That way I could be sure of going on the next day.”

Don’t let your Red Bull run turn into a couple of hours on Google, a Facebook binge or a major filing system reconstruction. At some point, you need to get back to the keyboard and write.

___

Source: Peter Elbow, “Freewriting,” excerpted from Writing Without Teachers, Oxford University Press, 1973

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When Don Murray arrived in the newsroom for his first day on the job as writing coach for the Boston Globe, he turned to his new boss and said: “I can tell you who your three best writers are.”

Then the Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work proceeded to do just that.

“How did you know?” the editor asked.

“Their lips move when they write,” Murray said.

Reading your copy aloud — hearing your words instead of just staring at them — is one of the techniques that separates master writers from the might-have-beens.

“The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader,” said poet Robert Frost.

Do your lips move when you write?

Why a conversational voice?

You learned formal writing in high school. But to get your target audience to pay attention, your content marketing pieces, social media and blog posts, and other business writing should use a conversational style, instead. To write conversationally, worry less about being grammatically correct and more about how the writing makes your readers feel.

What goes into a conversational tone in writing? Everything from the way you start a sentence to whether you write in passive or active voice. (The Hemingway App can help with that, by the way.)

Benefits of reading aloud

Specifically, it will help you:

1. Reduce errors.

Your eyes are such good editors, they can “fix” your copy as they view it. Your ears will catch what your eyes miss.

Students taking remedial writing courses at the City University of New York, for instance, eliminated 60% of their grammatical errors by reading their copy aloud, according to Richard Andersen, author of Writing That Works.

2. Make your copy conversational.

“Effective writing has the illusion of speech without its bad habits. The reader hears a writer speaking to a reader. The writing should flow with grace, pace and clarity — not the way we speak but, better than that, the way we should speak.”

— Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Writing to Deadline

We want our copy to sound the way we do when we speak — not like some computer spit it out. Take this sounds-the-way-you-speak passage by Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, calling attention to a great bottom line in this letter to shareholders:

“Below is the tally on our underwriting and float for each major sector of insurance. Enjoy the view, because you won’t soon see another like it.”

3. Make your copy sound better.

Reading aloud can smooth out rough passages, reduce fits and starts, and otherwise make your copy flow instead of stutter. It can help you find a voice and tone for your piece.

“Effective writing has the illusion of speech without its bad habits,” Murray writes. “The reader hears a writer speaking to a reader. The writing should flow with grace, pace and clarity — not the way we speak but, better than that, the way we should speak.”

4. Cut Through the Clutter.

When you read your copy aloud, your tongue will trip over nine-syllable words; you’ll run out of breath before the ends of long sentences; you’ll stumble over redundancies, jargon and passive voice.

In short, you’ll find all the things you’ve been looking for — but missed — thus far in your editing process.

Run the ‘Hey, did you hear?’ test.

Having trouble nailing that “business casual” tone you’re aiming for? Try reading your message aloud — after a friendly greeting or phrase:

I call this the “Hey, did you hear?” test. If your business writing sounds like the adults in a Charlie Brown special — “Wah Wah Wah Wah” — after a simple greeting or phrase, chances are, your copy is too stiff, bureaucratic and jargon-filled.

Plus: Your tongue will trip over stuffy, overblown phrases. You’ll stumble over stiff, bureaucratic words. You’ll catch other issues that reduce readability.

You might also run the Elevator Test on your copy: Imagine riding from the first floor to the third floor with your favorite colleague. What, she asks, have you been doing? What do you say? That’s your lead. Corollary: If you can’t imagine saying this in an elevator, don’t put it on the page.

Then there’s the Bar Test. You ever gonna say this on a bar stool? No? Fix it.

Still having trouble? Try leaving yourself a voice message. That will help you capture your conversational voice.

Now ear this.

“When I started reading my stories aloud for a living and I’d hear myself, I would think, ‘Good heavens, that needs to be pointed up,’ or ‘That should be out.’ Now, as I go to colleges to do readings, I have revised a lot of my early stories so that they read more succinctly. I wish I had learned early on what a good test reading aloud was.”

— Eudora Welty, American author

Find a private place and read your copy aloud. When you identify passages that need help, talk them out until you hear something that works better.

Your readers will thank you for it.

Learn more about conversational tone in writing.

Do you read your copy aloud? If so, how does that help?

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Call her a preditor.

Elisa Lagos was an Edward R. Murrow and Peabody award-winning TV producer for ABC News.

Make that editor.

Make that both.

Elisa, now a communications associate at World Education Services, wasn’t alone doing double duty at ABC. In fact, many broadcasters now have two, two, TWO jobs in one.

Here’s how reporters’ lives have changed in the last few years:

• Three in 10 journalists are gone. Employment has sunk 30% since 2002, according to Pew’s “State of the News Media” study. Now journalists look to their left, and there’s nobody there. Fewer hands means more work for the remaining staff.
• Their jobs are expanding. Nearly six in 10 journalists surveyed by PWR New Media have added web work to their existing responsibilities. They’re not just reporting, they’re also writing social media posts, producing the infographic and making the video.
• There’s no letting up. The news cycle? 24/7. The news hole? Infinite.
• It’s tough out there. No wonder nearly seven out of 10 journalists believe their jobs have gotten harder over the past five years, according to a survey by media platform ISEBOX.

This problem will only grow worse. I had lunch recently with a friend from The New York Times. Every day, he told me, he looks around at his colleagues and asks, “How can the Times afford to keep paying all of these salaries?”

How can you help?

How can public relations professionals take advantage of — wait, I mean help — given this sad situation? (Hey, we can be preditory, too, right?)

1. Write releases that are ready to be read.

Half of the journalists in the ISEBOX study produce at least five articles a week. One in five produce more than 11 articles a week. A well-written press release can help these tired, busy professionals do their jobs better and more easily.

But instead of the hierarchical blurtation of facts that makes up most releases, why not write a story? A real story, that’s ready for publication. It takes great writing skills to write something your target audience wants to read, but it can be worth it.

Best-case scenario: You’ll convince a reporter that there’s a story here, worthy of pursuing. Worst case: A busy journalist publishes the release as is.

“We found official press releases often appear word for word in first accounts of events, though often not noted as such,” according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

2. Make it easy on the journalist (and the reader).

Write a one-minute release. Make it easy to scan with display copy, such as subheads, bullets and bold-faced lead-ins. Produce finished, publication-worthy written communications.

3. Deliver the goods.

Include the infographics, images, videos and other news assets journalists need to do all of their jobs.

In other words, become a preditor yourself.

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Humor is one of the Top 3 reasons people share information, according to a study by Chadwick Martin Bailey:

• Because I find it interesting/entertaining (72%)
• To get a laugh (58%)
• Because I think it will be helpful to recipients (58%)

So how can content writers and others add humor to your content marketing, blog posts and other communication campaigns? You don’t need a class in comedy writing to write funnier. You don’t even need to be a funny person, though a sense of humor may help you find funny material.

Here are three ways to get your target audience to click, read, like and share your message by adding humor to your content:

1. Try self-deprecating humor.

When executives at the San Francisco sewer department needed to call attention to the system’s crumbling infrastructure, PR pros at Davis & Associates knew just what was needed.

Poop jokes.

Traditionally, outreach for public agencies has been formulaic, sober and dull. But blah-blahing about upgrading failing infrastructure to ensure the reliability and performance now and into the future wasn’t going to cut it.

So D&A PR professionals stole a line from critics of the deteriorating sewer system, who sized up the situation, tongue in cheek, as “a bunch of crap.”

D&A pros pushed their client to “walk the fine line between attention getting and off-putting” (PDF, PRSA members only).

They plastered “No one deals with more crap than I do” and “You can’t live a day without me” ads on buses and Facebook feeds. They offered fun facts on their campaign website, hosted a quiz with prizes and even wrote a rap song. Because of course they did.

The results? Coverage by Inc. and Fast Company. In-depth stories on the local news. A double-digit increase in social media engagement.

And — oh, yes — a PRSA Silver Anvil for Davis & Associates PR pros.

Which means, of course, that they are hot, um, stuff.

Are you taking yourself, your organization and your offerings too seriously?

2. Tell a joke.

When I first joined the National Speakers Association, jokes had a terrible name:

Jokes are old-fashioned, simple and lame.

They sound like they came from a joke book.

You run the risk that your audience has heard them before, making you appear to be stealing old humor.

Only original observational humor, in the form of personal stories, will do.

But seriously, folks, jokes — even old jokes — can help you make a point.

So how can you use jokes without looking lame?

Hook and hinge, suggests Sam Horn, author of POP! Stand Out In Any Crowd. “The joke hooks people’s interest, and then you hinge the punch line onto how it’s relevant to your point,” she writes.

Here’s how it works, in a speech by former Sprint CEO William T. Esrey at a telecom conference:

1. Expected direction:

2. Unexpected turn/hook:

3. Hinge to the point:

4. State your point:

Because you’re using the joke to make a point and not just to entertain, readers and other audience members will forgive you for being more amusing than hilarious.

And if the joke has been around for awhile? Introduce it as an old joke. Then your readers will know you know. And you’ll all be in on the joke.

3. Twist a list.

A New Yorker cartoon shows pirates making three sailors walk the plank. “You’re right,” one of the pirates says. “Things are funnier in threes.”

Stuck for humor? Try a series of three or more items. Series allow you to surprise and amuse your reader by breaking the pattern.

1. Twist a list. One way to use a series for humor is to twist a list. That is:

• Set your list up with two or more serious items.
• Break the pattern with a funny final item — aka your punchline.

Stephen Colbert used this approach on a recent episode of “The Colbert Report” when he compared:

What funny thing could you add to a list of serious items to twist a list in your next piece?

2. Make a list. In “Three Things,” his copyediting e-zine for Entergy employees, Chris Smith always starts with a triad quote. One of my favorites:

“Irish coffee contains the three major food groups: alcohol, caffeine and sugar.”

— Michael Eck, on The Book of Threes website

Then Smith takes off from that triad to build a list of three tips:

3. Count off a list. In a restaurant, I once overheard a diner say:

“The six most beautiful words in the English language: ‘I’ll have the rack of lamb.’”

Yesterday I tweeted:

The five words you never want to hear your new yoga teacher say: ‘Plank is my favorite pose.”

What are the nicest (or worst) words in your organization?

Tax season is over?

Budgets are due Monday?

Use “the X most X words in the English language” setup to add a little humor to your next piece.

4. Extend a list. You can also find humor in a series by extending someone else’s list. In Eat the Rich, P.J. O’Rourke extended a quote by Winston Churchill:

“Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, tied in a hankie, rolled in a blanket and packed in a box full of little Styrofoam peanuts,” said Winston Churchill, or something like that.

Got a series? Just keep adding items … in escalating order of ridiculousness.

The post How to write funny content appeared first on Wylie Communications, Inc..

Start with the problem.

Communicators are often too eager to rush in with the solution — the product, service or idea. After all, that’s what we’re selling. But one powerful persuasive technique invites writers to focus on the problem first.

“When you advertise fire extinguishers, open with the flames.”

—  David Ogilvy, ad man

Call it “make ’em sick, make ’em well”: Persuade people by first showing your audience members how bad life can get without your product, service or idea. Here’s how it works in a financial services campaign:

“When you advertise fire extinguishers, open with the flames,” counseled ad man David Ogilvy. Remember: Fire first, fire extinguisher second.

Here are 6 more writing techniques for bringing people around to your point of view:

1. Reframe statistics for persuasion.

Which is more dangerous? A disease that kills 1,286 out of every 10,000 people it strikes? Or one that kills 12.86% of its victims?

The former is about 20% more dangerous, said a group of college students, according to Paul Slivic, University of Oregon psychologist. In fact, 1,286 out of 10,000 is just a different expression of 12.86%.

“If you tell someone that something will happen to one out of 10 people,” Slivic told Money, “they think, ‘Well, who’s the one?’”

Writing to persuade? To make statistics more compelling, make them more emotional. When writing about people, use whole numbers instead of percentages.

2. Narrow their options.

• Would you rather meet on Thursday or Friday?
• Would you like the premium or the deluxe model?
• Do you prefer package A, B or C?

The best persuasive writers frame their messages to include a limited number of options. That way, the communicator, and not the audience member, selects the options. “A or B,” for example, reframes the usual buying decision from “yes or no” to “this or that.”

Limit options to a handful: In one study, researcher Sheena Iyengar set up a tasting booth of gourmet jams. When six flavors were offered, 30% of folks who stopped by the booth bought some jam. When there were 24 options, only 3% made a purchase.

Too many options can paralyze readers. Don’t cause your audience members to opt out altogether. To persuade people, offer this or that.

3. Have a great IDEA.

Whether you’re selling products, services or your company’s new casual dress program, you’ll want to start with getting your readers’ attention and close with a call to action.

This IDEA approach is a great persuasive writing technique:

• Start with an interesting fact, anecdote or quote to get audience attention.
• Make your defining statement, your key message point.
• Use examples to illustrate and support your message.
• Request their immediate action. Let readers know what to do with the information you’ve given them.

4. Don’t We-we on your readers.

To make sure you’re writing to persuade readers — and not about your own organization and its stuff — try John Sweeney’s N-I-C model. Write persuasive copy that focuses on the readers’:

• Need. What “go and do” information do they need? Contact information, URLs, maps? Those become your calls to action.
• Interest. What information do these particular readers want? Consider their demographics and psychographics. Are they mostly .coms, .orgs or .edus?
• Curiosity. Human interest, narrative drama, suspense and other creative elements appeal to all readers and make even the most boring topics more interesting.

5. Think ‘who’ and ‘ooh.’

Michael Sheehan has coached more presidents, vice presidents, cabinet secretaries, governors and members of Congress than anyone in the country. Here’s his two-step approach to helping these power brokers frame their messages:

• Ask “who?” Who’s your target audience? Who will be reading, watching or listening to this message?
• Ask “ooh?” What can you do to make them say, “Ooh, that’s interesting!”

6. Pull the trigger.

When my bookkeeper asked me recently to bring a bag full of business documents over, I put the bag on the bench by my front door so I’d see it on my way out. After forgetting the bag twice, I laced my purse straps through the bag handles. The act of untangling my purse finally reminded me to carry the bag to the car.

That’s called an environmental trigger — a visual cue in the right place to remind you to act in a certain way. You use environmental triggers all the time:

• That’s why your vitamins are on the shelf in front of your cereal box.
• It’s why your take-at-bedtime prescription is on your bedside table next to your reading glasses.
• It’s why the first thing I see when I open my refrigerator is a party-sized tray of crudités from Costco. (Which, sadly, doesn’t keep me from reaching around the tray to grab the sour cream dip.)

Environmental triggers move you to act. You can also use them to move audience members to act.

AT&T’s used a persuasive trigger for its “It Can Wait” pledge:

Take out your phone right now and look at the last text message you got. Read it out loud. Is that text worth causing an accident?

Texting and driving, it can wait. Please take the pledge not to text while driving. …

Why not “Think of the last text message you got?” Because your phone’s the trigger. Next time you pull it out while you’re behind the wheel, AT&T communicators hope, you’ll think “It can wait.”

What persuasive writing techniques do you use to bring readers around to your point of view? Please share in the comments section below.

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