Cool Writing Condensates

Today’s tip for awesome writing: always presume the intelligence of the reader.

Reader-centric writing can help your narrative in three palpable ways. It gives a name to your reader. It makes you stretch a little farther to see what your audience sees. And it hones your writing skills. Let me show you what I mean.

1. Picture your audience. When you write for yourself, you are living inside your head. I find the dialogue is always perfect up there, where I control it. Trouble is, others don’t always catch my quirky humor. In real life, your line of logic can get seriously upended by the person you’re talking to.

The art of communicating is in reaching the other side with your message intact. If you’ve been gazing into the bathroom mirror lately, talking to yourself, I’m guessing it’s because you are rehearsing something that needs to be said … to your best friend or your boyfriend or your boss. That’s half the battle. You need to know what you want to say, what it is that drives you. But not unlike prime-time drama, the soapbox tirade can be agonizingly dull for the hearer. My point? Clearing out the clutter in your brain does not always guarantee a rapt audience. So get it out. By all means. But don’t stop there. This is what our noble profession calls throwing up on the page.

2.  Let it go. Once you’ve said what you need to say and your heartbeat has returned to normal, go back and find the nugget that makes this message hum. The universal truth behind the experience will ultimately move your reader along the same trajectory. This is what we call an epic theme. In a nutshell, can the problem be reduced to (wo)man against her(him)self, against nature, against others?

What’s Your Content Strategy?

Take a step back. No, I mean way back… like out to the sidewalk.

To really understand how your users see your site, you may need to let down your defenses and be willing to take some constructive criticism.

I know – you spent like forever on those product descriptions. And nobody’s asking you to rewrite them. But it may be helpful to look up from what you’re doing and ask why you’re doing it.

Content strategy builds a dialogue about the values we hold close. Several notches down the ladder, you may find someone who bought a Volvo because they value safety. And they’re not alone; many people do. But if you sell Volvos, it’s important to realize that you’re going to reach a lot more customers by teaching them about safety than if you simply talk about cars. In the digital age, where knowledge is instant, customers are no longer satisfied with a sales pitch; you must demonstrate the advantages of your product or service and let them make their own informed decisions.