Write Scribe

Today I’m sharing a post I read that helps you to rescue a piece of writing that seems lost. You’ve surely heard the saying “all writing is rewriting”. I’m not sure if that’s really true, but rewriting certainly takes up far more of my time than writing.

Rewriting usually takes up far more time than I’d like. Even when I plan and outline once I get into drafting the piece often just takes a life of its own. Before I know it I’ve got two or three times as many words as I need, and not always the right ones for the purpose I planned.

That’s why I’m always on the look out for techniques or tools to help make rewriting and editing an easier job. The post How to Rescue a Piece When You Write a Frankenstein recently posted on Write To Done is exactly the kind of help I can use. It starts with some reassuring words that let me know I am not alone:

“Sometimes I write a Frankenstein piece. It looks fine until I notice that arms sprout where the legs should be - and unfortunately I forgot to attach a neck.”

Hey, I can do that, too. But how do I go about rescuing this deformed monster I have created? The solution proposed is…

“… structural editing, or, how to reverse engineer a piece. Structural editing makes sure that all the bones of a piece are in the right place.”

If you want to learn the four steps of structural editing, read the rest of the post over at Write To Done…

I’d love to hear about your rewriting experiences and any good tips you have. Leave a comment below to tell me about them.

This post shares two writing tips that combined to show me how to make my writing clearer for the reader and easier for me to do. Clearer writing helps you by giving more value to your readers, and satisfied readers are what will make your success at writing.

It might be a hard thing for many writers to accept but readers are mostly not interested in our writing. No, readers are interested in what they can get out of the writing, so make this obvious with a clear message. The better you are at delivering messages clearly the more you will please readers.

This post is going to show three keys to delivering clear messages to your readers:

1. The importance of one single purpose.
2. It all starts with one clear sentence.
3. Tips on creating one clear sentence.

We’re talking about clarity and snappiness here today, so let’s get right to the point…

The Importance of One Single Purpose

The power of a clear purpose for a piece of writing is illustrated by a post from Remarkablogger Michael Martine entitled Seven Steps to More Coherent Blog Posts, More Readers, and More Subscribers. The first step is to “Figure out the one thing you want to accomplish with the post.” As Michael explains:

“The post should be about or should accomplish one thing, and one thing only. Have you ever read (or written) a post that seemed to be about several topics at once? It really ended up not being about much of anything.”

Well, I know I had both read and written pieces like that. At the time I had a few pieces that I was struggling to finish. I couldn’t decide what to leave in and what to take out and this idea of a single accomplishment helped me to clarify and finish them.

But it was another post I happened across the next day that really showed me how to ensure this laser-sharp focus of purpose in my writing going forward.

It All Starts With One Short Sentence

The “one thing” message was reinforced by a post that also showed me a great way to ensure it. The post Obstacles to Clear and Concise Writing described obstacle number two, not being clear about the message, like this:

“Many writers have a general idea of what they want to say, but they don’t crystallize it in one short, snappy sentence. Thus, they start out writing, touching on their topic from different angles, and including every bit of information they think is relevant.

The writing may end up readable and professional sounding, but the readers will come away thinking that, while they understood the gist of the author’s intent, they can’t precisely say what the take-home point was. This is usually because the writer never really knew what it was either.”

I immediately understood how powerful it would be to “crystallize it in one short, snappy sentence“.

I had been writing short paragraphs, three or four sentence, to describe the pieces I planned to write. This left room for too many ideas and angles, and this showed through in the writing I produced from them. So I resolved to edit down my paragraphs to only one short sentence.

Writing a Short, Focused Purpose

For each piece of writing I do now I start with one short, clear sentence stating its purpose. This format leaves no room for confused or multiple ideas, so is an excellent way to judge the clarity of your idea before you write.

But it is not always easy to write one short, clear sentence at the first attempt. This is why I start to edit my piece before I’ve even written it by editing the description.

I write down an initial description of the idea, this might be several sentences. Then I edit it down until only one short, snappy sentence remains.

Here are a few tips on how to do this:

1. Get very clear on one purpose, “learn how to make origami tigers and sign up for my new e-course” is two purposes, not one.

2. Get very specific about the reader and fit the idea to this audience. Here are some easy criteria to narrow your audience: age, experience, skill level, location, job, industry. I’m sure you can think of more in your topic.

3. Focus on only one problem, or one solution. You don’t have to give ten ways to solve a problem in one article.

In all cases you can save the other ideas for other pieces. It’s better to write ten focused articles than one confused one.

Let’s recap on what we’ve discussed.

1. The importance of one single purpose, without it you will lose the reader.
2. It all starts with one clear sentence, without this you might lose yourself.
3. Tips on creating one clear sentence, you don’t have to do it in one go.

Remember, your reader is interested in the message, not your writing. A single, crystal clear sentence describing each piece has helped me to write more clearly. As a bonus the clarity makes writing the piece easier, too.

If you’re serious about clear writing then here’s an exercise you can try now. Review five or ten pieces you wrote recently and write down one single, clear sentence that describes one thing accomplished. How easy is it to do? Can you fit the idea into just one sentence or is it hard? If you have trouble then maybe your message is not as clear as it could be.

Now write and edit down to one sentence the purpose of your next ten pieces before you write them. I’d love to hear about your results. Why not share them by leaving a comment below?

Here’s how I connected to the 25 Words that Connect Us Project.

How are we connected? Surely not by wires and photons and beams. No, the things that unite us are ideas and feelings and beautiful dreams.

These words here are almost exactly the first I came up with. I rewrote, tweaked and tried other approaches but this one remains my favourite.

Are ideas killing your projects? Many writers worry that they won’t have enough ideas, or have good ideas, or have the right ideas. I worried about this, too, until I realised that my projects were dying while I made up too many ideas. Here’s the story of my ideas, and why I’m trying to have less of them.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this post.

1. Why ideas can drown projects.
2. When is an idea valuable?
3. How ideas harm your writing.

Why ideas can drown projects

Surely good ideas are the life blood of a project, especially in creative activities like writing? I thought so, until I realised that my projects were dying from too many ideas, rather than not enough.

When you embark on a new project ideas are usually scrambling over each other for your attention. You might try to manage them by writing them down as a plan, an action list, a vision, whatever.

But in creative projects, or at least that’s what I thought, you must keep searching for and capturing new ideas all the time. They are the substance of your project, so you better make sure you’re noting lots of them down, right?

But the trouble is all these ideas fill your head and don’t leave you time to develop the ideas that inspired your project in the first place. I have since learned that only certain kinds of idea are valuable…

When is an idea valuable?

When is an idea valuable to your writing? The answer is when it is finished.

I created stock piles of post and article ideas, but as long as no one was seeing them what good were they? Sitting on my hard disk they don’t create any value. A finished idea posted to a web site, in a book, or sent to someone is worth hundreds of times more.

Only finished ideas that are out in the field can work for you. They sit there on your blog or web site and attract readers and search engines, they can float around the Internet as part of ezines and interest readers, and they can attract the eyes of the people you want to work with.

And the great thing is that even ideas you don’t find extraordinarily brilliant work for you. There will be plenty of people who find your idea, lots who even like it, or maybe even some who don’t. But whatever the reaction to the idea your name gets known to people and becomes associated with the activity of writing.

How ideas can harm your writing

Too many ideas harm your writing by confusing you and by confusing your readers.

If you are confused by too many ideas you find it hard to finish what you start. Your post or article wanders off in all directions trying to cover all the ideas claiming attention in your head.

I often thought my revision process was what prevented me getting pieces finishing. I researched editing ideas, I set time limits, I limited the number of edits, but I still wasn’t satisfied with the result. But the problem wasn’t my editing, the problem was at the other end of the writing process when I planned posts.

I learned that the most important thing is to get very, very, clear on XXX one thing the piece of writing is to accomplish. With a crystal clear idea of the desired outcome you can decide when you are finished. As long as you are unclear about the goal of the piece, you are unable to determine when you are done.

Now you know the dangers of ideas for your projects. You also know that ideas are most valuable to a writer when they are carried through to completion. You also know how to avoid the confusion ideas can create in your writing by getting clear on your message.

Do you feel like you have too many or too few ideas? Could they be drowning your projects? How do you manage them? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

I’m going to show you seven easy methods to retain ideas for your writing. Ideas are important to writers but they have a habit of popping up in inconvenient times and places.

Many writers encourage use of a notebook to capture ideas so you don’t lose them, but this is not always practical. How many of your ideas occur in the shower? Or just when you’ve left your notebook at home?

That’s where these handy memory methods come in. They’ll help you capture and store your ideas in one place you are sure to always have handy. Your mind can remember ideas far better than you think, if you know how.

Time for the methods.

Here is a list of seven ways you can fix and retain ideas in your memory. The methods I’m sharing are by no means the only ones, but they work well for me. Experiment and adapt them to find what works best for you.

1. Put Your Idea In a Safe Place
2. Put Your Idea In a Crazy Place
3. Put Your Idea In Rhyme
4. Put Your Idea In Song
5. Hook Your Idea to Your Senses
6. Make Your Idea Famous
7. Defend Your Idea

Put Your Idea In a Safe Place

The first thing to do is make a place in your mind to put your ideas. Create an image of a safe and welcoming place where your ideas will feel right at home. Make your image as real as possible, use lots of vivid details.

Maybe you’ll put your ideas in a treasure chest? Maybe you prefer to stick them to the trees in your secret clearing in the woods?

When your idea comes take a couple of moments to fix it clearly. You might like to picture it in writing. Then, visualize yourself putting it safely into your storage area. All you have to do to get it back is return to the clearing and pick your idea off the tree.

Put Your Idea In a Crazy Place

Stashing your idea away in a safe place is one solution, but you can have a lot more fun if you put it in a crazy place. And when I say crazy, I mean really crazy, the crazier the better. Here’s one suggestion, picture yourself eating in a restaurant with a penguin. Over dessert (ice cream, naturally) the penguin starts telling you about a great idea for that ACME widget brochure you’re working on.

Now, you might not be good at remembering things about ACME widgets, but you sure will remember conversing over ice cream with the penguin.

Put Your Idea In Rhyme

An idea in rhyme
Sticks around a long time

Keep your idea by putting it into rhyming phrases. Play it romantic poet or New York rapper, just remember, this tip’s a cracker.

Put Your Idea In Song

You know how you hear those catchy song choruses on the radio and can’t get them out of your head? Well, put your idea to some music you know well and you’ll be humming it all day long. Combine this with a rhyme and your idea is there for all time.

I love blues music and it works wonderfully for this.

Woke up this mornin’,
Ideas fillin’ my head,
Crawlin’ on the ceiling,
And hoppin’ on my bed…

Hook Ideas to Your Senses

Hand over your idea to a part of your body. Maybe your elbow is good at this? Touch your elbow while you think or talk about your idea. Now when you touch your elbow again the idea will be there for you.

You can make this even more effective by giving your idea a smell, a taste or a sound as well.

Put Your Idea In the News

Put your idea in the spotlights and you won’t be able to get away from it. For example, imagine your idea in a TV news item. Make it dramatic and give it the whole works with live from the scene reports and interviews with bewildered eye witnesses.

A variation I like is to imagine a newspaper headline carrying the idea, “Writer Recalls 20 Lost Ideas”. Imagine yourself walking past a newsstand where your headline is displayed in big bold letters on the day’s newspaper.

Give Your Idea an Award

Your idea is good enough to win an award, right? So imagine that it has. Give it an Oscar, the Nobel prize, or best widget writing of the year award.

See yourself as you step up amidst thundering applause to receive the award. Then, in your acceptance speech, tearfully thank this great idea that made it all possible…

Defend Your Idea

Ever been in a meeting or a conversation where someone attacks your idea or view? What happens? Unless you’re a Zen master you probably get all worked up and emotional about defending your point of view. That emotion can help you remember your ideas, too.

Have an imaginary person debunk your idea. Feel how worked up that makes you and defend your idea as vigorously as you can.

The important thing with all these methods is to treat your idea well. Welcome it, give it some attention, spend a little time having fun with it. Your idea will be happy and stick around. Let’s review the methods now, choose one that appeals to you most, you’ll need it in just a minute:

1. Put your idea in a safe place, create your own ideas drawer
2. Put your idea in a crazy place, the crazier the better for recall. Have fun with this one.
3. Put your idea in rhyme, works all the time!
4. Put your idea in song and you’ll never be blue again.
5. Hook your idea to your senses. I recommend you use this with any of the other methods to give your idea a physical existence.
6. Make your idea famous, put it in the newspaper or on TV.
7. Defend your idea. Dammit, you believe in it don’t you?

These seven methods will help you hang on to those valuable ideas in any circumstance. Even better, ideas will enjoy coming to visit you, they’ll tell their friends and you’ll get lots of repeat business. The best part is it’s easy and lots of fun.

If you really want to remember your ideas, put the favourite you chose into practice right now. Use your favourite method on itself so you’ll remember it when you next have an idea to keep. Consider describing your “idea memory” in the comments, I’d love to hear any blues songs, crazy situations or other scenes you come up with.