Hey, Homeslice!
A friend asked me to look at a few chapters of a book he's writing. It's a strong book with a strong premise. But he's struggling with making the writing equally buff.
So together let's live-edit a single paragraph right here, right now. Because the writing takeaway is a solid one you can apply to blog posts, emails, video scripts, landing pages... or any kind of writing.
Ready? Lezgo....
In a paragraph about a broken business model, my friend had written this:
So why is it that we cling to a model invented before the first flight? An idea conceived of before the age of the Internet? A framework designed before the invention of rockets, submarines, personal computers, television, and radio?
Very conversational, yes? I like that. But the list of modern inventions and conveniences (rockets, subs, and so on) is a little muddled, for two reasons.
One: The order is off. Chronologically, radio came before television. PCs came after both.
Two: My brain did this: "Wait when were rockets invented? Or submarines? World War II? World War I? Even before?"
I dunno. Do you? Unlike radio and TV and PCs, rockets and submarines are not strongly associated with any one period. (At least by most of us. Dear naval and ballistic-missile history buffs: chime in!) 😉
Here's the Everybody Writes takeaway:
👉 In a list of things, add obvious structure.👈
Each item in a list must relate to the others around it in an unmistakable way.
Why: Without structure, our brains scramble to create order from the disorder. The reader will have to work harder than he or she should—even if only subconsciously.
I also think my friend is missing an opportunity here. He could be choosing things that might be more personally relevant to digitally savvy business readers—the book's intended audience.
I'd also toss in a little playfulness, because why not?
A Better, Buffer Approach
A better way to convey the idea would be to
1. Make the list chronological, suggesting progress and progression.
2. Use more commonly known markers of time.
Then, go one step further:
3. Exchange the items listed for items that will resonate with the readers he's writing to, in the context of the story he's telling.
Here's our live-edit:
So why is it that we cling to a model conceived of before Henry Ford's Model T?
A framework designed before the invention of the airplane, television, the Apple IIe?
Before Al Gore and the Internet itself?
Those items (Model T, airplane, TV) aren't the only markers we might use, of course.
But here the items work in the broader context of the book and the audience who will read it—the kind of people who have a general idea of when the television was invented and who definitely remember the long, happy life of the Apple IIe.
Plus we added paragraph breaks to give the writing more air. More room on the landing strip to really bring the point home.
How does this matter to your writing?
Our brains crave order—structure, patterns, parallelism. Your job as a writer is to create that order.
Your job is to be a tour guide to ideas: self-assured, clear.
Your job is to light the path for your reader and kick debris and roadblocks out of the way.
You aren't a terrible tour guide, zigzagging a band of tourists through meandering, unexplained detours; highlighting irrelevant details; risking twisted ankles in potholed streets.
That kind of tour guide creates anxiety in tourists.
That kind of writer creates anxious readers.
The clearer the writer is, the more secure a reader feels. The more relaxed the readers, the more they're free to enjoy the journey, secure in the knowledge that the writer is capable, in control of the wheel.
Or the tour-guide flag.
Or whatever.
You know what I mean.
* * *
Here are 6 things worth sharing this week:
1
Funnel Vision
Ditch the Marketing Funnel. Marketing today is all about the Marketing Lifecycle, says Julia McCoy.
It looks like a child's drawing of a flower, but it's meant to convey a new model of how we all research, narrow choices, buy, recommend:
I like the way Julia maps consumer search intent and content ideas to the various stages.
Read her full piece here. (Free reg. required.)
2
Down the Habit Hole
A daily writing habit helps you generate ideas, not just record them. It also helps you develop traits and skills that spill over into other parts of your life—professional and otherwise. (It's true. Try it.)
His post echoes a few themes I explored on LinkedIn in
Why I Write.
3
Another One Bites the Just
"I have a bad habit of overusing exclamation points, emojis, and qualifiers like 'just' and 'possibly' to sound extra-friendly and non-threatening in emails. ('Just wondering / just confirming / just checking / just making sure / just wanted to let you know')," writes Omaha designer Dani Donovan.
She created this guide—in part crowdsourced on Twitter—to help us all be more conscious of how we sound in emails:
Words matter. You know this. I know this. But still I have a tendency to do these things, too. From Dani, again:
You are allowed to take up space. Your voice deserves to be heard. Your opinions matter. You don't need to apologize for existing or asking for what you need. You are not 'bossy' or 'bitchy' for not sounding like a pep-machine 24/7.
4
Pan Gram
Many of us in the U.S. are spending less time on both Facebook and Snapchat, says eMarketer. Meanwhile, we're spending
more time on Instagram.
5
Ann-otated Career Advice
I have a new column in LinkedIn's print magazine called Asking For A Friend in which I offer ANN-otated (get it?) career advice (with the occasional pun).
LinkedIn put my latest column online.
6
B2B on Broadway: The Marketing Musical
I saw this and I thought HOLD UP.... B2B musical theater? You bet your bottom dollar.
The documentary Bathtubs Over Broadway, now streaming on Netflix, is a weird + glorious glimpse into so-called "industrial musicals." The musicals are full-on Broadway-style productions (often featuring actual Broadway talent) created to promote products like bathtub fixtures, surgical supplies, late-model Fords, and John Deere tractors.
Thousands (thou! sands!) were written in the 1950s to the '70s to inspire/educate corporate sales teams and distributors. The graphic featured above is from the American Standard 1969 musical, The Bathtubs Are Coming.
What a time to be alive...! Imagine being the marketer commissioning a $3 million musical? With numbers like
Everything's Coming Up Citgo, an opera for Ragu sauce called
Ragu-letto, or dancing Miller Lite cans doing the (wait for it...)
cancan? Please please please go watch it. (h/t Jenn Gleckman, Ron Ploof)
🚨 🚨 🚨
One quibble: The documentary says brand musicals are from a bygone era. But
I thought: NOPE.
QUOTABLE ✍️
"There's something permanently charming about getting an envelope in the mail. It's as if somebody gift-wrapped their words for you." —Susan Shain
CONTENT (RULES) TOOLS
Two content tools I used this week.
⚙️
LinkChecker from GMass. Copy and paste your HTML into the field to be sure the URLs in your emails are unborked, unsullied, accurate.
What's to like: How the tool automatically generates screenshots so you can be sure the link points where you want it to.
⚙️
Transcip-O-Matic transcribes YouTube videos automatically. The script will be a bit of a mess, formatting-wise. But it's all there.
What's to like: Everything. Super handy.
FREE CONTENT MARKETING ONLINE EVENT
🆓 Stories for the Win: The Hidden Neuroscience of Content Marketing [with Joe Lazauskas, Contently]
🆓 The New Playbook for Personalizing Content Experiences at Scale [with Paige Gerber, Uberflip]
🆓
Measuring & Improving the Value of Your Content Marketing [with Jamie Schissler, Hero Digital]
👉👉👉 From MarketingProfs. Register here for zero dollars.
LOVE LETTERS
Shouts from around the internet.
