Write Better At Work

Three Tech Tools for Writers

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Forgotten passwords, mangled links, corrupted files, and spinning beachballs of death—misbehaving technology can drive the mildest-mannered writer to fury. Tempting as it may be to pound your computer into its component atoms, resist. Technology can also lighten the burden of a writer’s most onerous tasks.

Write or Die
Many writers find that motivation is their greatest challenge. Anyone who has expressed a desire to be a writer has received the standard counsel: ” The best advice I can offer if you want to be a writer is … write.  A lot.” That’s easy for Stan Nicholls to say. But how do you make yourself write when you don’t feel like it or  you can find dozens of more entertaining or more pressing things to do? Let Dr. Wicked motivate you.

Dr. Wicked, also known as Jeff Printy, understands how easy it is to put off writing because any negative effects of delay seem far in the future. His application makes sluggards feel the negative consequences of procrastination as soon as they stop typing. Users set a goal and choose their level of consequences. Gentle mode delivers a “mom-like reminder”; kamikaze mode eats your words as soon as you stop typing. Sounds harsh? You should have been warned by the name: Write or Die.

Readability Calculators
Write or Die is designed to spur writers to create drafts. A readability checker helps writers revise drafts to make them easier for readers to understand. If you use Microsoft Word, you can get a readability score each time you check spelling or grammar. Several checkers are available online. I prefer the calculator available at Online-Utility.org. It applies several formulas to calculate the difficulty of a writing sample. The Flesch-Kincaid score indicates how many months and years of education a person would need to read a sample easily. For example, understanding a passage with a Flesch-Kincaid score of 7.2 would require 7 years and 2 months of schooling. Many newspapers and popular novels are written at  about a seventh-grade reading level. Less commonly used, the Coleman-Liau index is a good choice for analyzing technical materials.

Although readability scores seem precise, they are based on algorithms that calculate sentence and word length. One formula scores E = MC^2 at a fifth-grade reading level, which ignores the complexity of Einstein’s theory of mass-energy equivalence. However, if your document scores higher than 10.0, readers will probably find it easier to understand if you shorten some sentences and prefer simple words to polysyllables. Online-Utility.org’s calculator suggests ways to make your writing simpler and more understandable.

Writer’sDiet Test
Another way to make your writing understandable is to avoid unnecessary words. However, once you’ve labored to create a draft, stripping out nonessentials can be painful. Experienced writers have developed strategies such as targeting sentences beginning with It is or tightening redundant phrases such as now at this present time. Beginners may have no clue about how they could tighten their writing. Writers at any level of experience can find out whether their writing is fit or flabby by taking the Writer’sDiet Test, developed by Helen Sword. Enter a sample of 100 to 1,000 words, run the test, and get writing results based on your “diagnosis.”

This entry scored “lean,” as shown below. After submitting a sample,  you can get editing suggestions by selecting How can the Writers’Diet Test help me improve my writing?

 

Notes

Stan Nicholls’ advice is found on his home page, stannicholls.com

Write or Die, available for several platforms, can be found at writeordie.com. Printy explains how he puts the “prod” in productivity in this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdLLo08cJKY

To check readability in Microsoft Word, choose your version’s Help menu or visit http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/test-your-document-s-readability-HP010148506.aspx

Online-Utility.org’s readability calculator is available at http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp

The use and limits of using readability formulas are well explained in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Toolkit for Making Written Material Clear and Effective: https://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Outreach/WrittenMaterialsToolkit/Downloads/ToolkitPart07.pdf

Take the Writer’sDiet Test at http://writersdiet.com/WT.php?home

Becoming a better leader using an authentic voice

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Singers and writers are often urged to find their authentic voice, but leaders?

Kouzes and Posner believe that as a leader, you must speak in an authentic voice: “If the words you speak are not your words but someone else’s, you will not, in the long term, be … credible. ”

In The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner offer several long-term strategies for developing an authentic voice, including imitating other leaders and clarifying your values.

But what can you do when you have a short-term deadline—two hours to compose a memo preparing employees for bad news or two days to write a speech inspiring your whole organization to change?

Here are some ways to find your words in challenging situations.

1. Ask yourself, “What do I need people to know or do?”

2. Find a simple way to tell people what you want them to know or do. One way to pare your message down to essentials is to ask,”If I had only 30 words or 30 seconds to share this idea, what would I say?”

3. Experiment with different wordings until you find one that feels right. You might sense, “That’s it!’ You might notice a shift in your body, such as a feeling that your head is clearing or your gut is relaxing.

4. Once you have a basic message that feels authentic, test your wording. Consider how your audience might react to your message. One strategy is to imagine yourself speaking your message in front of an audience. What reactions might you expect? Would your audience be likely to be enthusiastic? confused? offended? You can also ask for feedback from trusted associates or typical members of your audience.

5. If your message resonates well with you but not so well with your audience, go back to Step 2. Ask yourself, “If I had only 30 words or 30 seconds to share this idea with this audience, what would I say?”

6. Continue refining your message until it feels right to you and for your audience. If you start to feel that you’re just looping through the steps without gaining additional clarity, take a break or start to develop a rough draft. Either strategy will give you a fresh perspective. You can also switch modalities. If you’ve been speaking, try writing. If you’re stuck writing, try speaking aloud or creating a presentation. If your ideas refuse to come together, talk them through with a sympathetic listener. If you need ideas, try reading or consulting a colleague.

7. Read your final draft aloud. Revise any wording that causes you to stumble. Notice whether your words sit comfortably in your voice, or whether they feel stiff and too formal or lightweight and too casual.

The end result will be a unique combination of your message, your personality, and your relationship to your audience: your authentic voice.

Notes:

The quotation from Kouzes and Posner is from The Leadership Challenge (Jossey-Bass , 2002), p. 44.

For more on noticing bodily shifts, see “An Introduction to Focusing: Six Steps”: http://www.focusing.org/sixsteps.html

 

Separate deciding from doing: how Natalie Houston's Rule#1 makes writers more productive

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Natalie Houston, who teaches English at the University of Houston, likes productivity systems so much that she has to discipline herself to stop building systems and start doing the work.

Her first rule is “separate deciding from doing.” Houston identifies her priorities before she schedules her time. Then, when she’s ready to start working on her task list, she can plunge right in.

The principle of separation benefits writers as well. Productive writers plan before they draft and draft before they edit. An efficient allocation of 60 minutes of writing time, according to Kenneth W. Davis, would be up to 20 minutes planning, about 5 minutes for a “quick and dirty” draft, and 25 minutes for a revision. Davis also suggests that writers take  a 5-minute break before they revise so they can make changes from the reader’s point of view.

Davis’s numbers have no inherent magic. They illustrate a principle: expert writers draft quickly and invest most of their time in planning and revising.

Writers who use the time management practices recommended by Houston and Davis are more productive when time is scarce or tasks are routine. However, no rule covers every circumstance, and in one situation writers can productively ignore the advice to separate planning and drafting.

Sometimes writing is not a task, but a discovery. William Zinsser, author of Writing to Learn, says that “writing is thinking on paper.” When you’re writing to explore an idea, plunge right in and follow the flow of thoughts and images wherever it takes you.

Does this take longer? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes, if you want to develop new ideas or find a fresh approach to a problem. Going with the flow is also worth it if you want to indulge in the fun of bringing order out of chaos.

I remember a paper written for my introductory literary criticism class, several decades ago. The name of the story we were assigned to critique escapes me, but the experience of writing the paper is still vivid. I had drafted five pages proving that the way a character treated his ward showed him to be a detestable, egotistical, insensitive jerk, despite his gentlemanly airs. As a final flourish, I typed, “It could be argued that this treatment was inspired, not by a defect of character, but by the guardian’s desire to cure his ward’s indolence and self-centeredness.” A few more sentences about why that argument was mistaken would have finished the paper. But suddenly I knew that this sentence was more true than anything else I had written.

My draft was no longer an almost-completed assignment; it was now a candidate for a major rewrite. I revised the assignment, turning every piece of evidence on its head to support the new thesis. The revision cost me some sleep, but I’ve seldom enjoyed writing more. As the new argument took shape, I had the exhilarating feeling that a new idea was being born from my wrestling with words.

When you’re writing to do, be disciplined in the way you use your time. When you’re writing to learn, let your words go and see where they take you.

Notes:

Natalie Houston’s post on “My Productivity Rules” is available on GradHacker: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker/my-productivity-rules She also blogs at nmhouston.com

Kenneth W. Davis shares his advice on writing productivity in Manage Your Writing 3.0, available at prosperosbooks.typepad.com/manageyourwriting/ManageYourWriting3_0.pdf and his blog: http://www.manageyourwriting.com

Browse inside William Zinsser’s Writing to Learn at http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780062720405

Read more about why writers should befriend chaos in this excerpt from Write More, Stress Less: https://writebetteratwork.com/downloads/Write_More_Stress_Less_excerpt.pdf

Steve Berry: “Writing is an acquired skill.”

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I once thought Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone novels captivate me because they have a dashing, but ethical, super agent hero and intriguing historical puzzles. Now I know the real secret of their appeal: Berry writes Hardy Boys mysteries for grownups.

Berry’s love for thrillers began when he read the adventures of Frank and Joe Hardy, youthful detectives. When he first tried to write a novel, legal thrillers were popular. Despite his law degree, Berry had trouble bringing Grisham-type plots to life. Finally he began writing the type of novels he wanted to read, even though the market for international spy thrillers was dead. Before his first book was published, Berry had drafted eight novels and gathered an impressive collection of rejection slips. Then the success of The DaVinci Code encouraged a publisher to accept his 86th submission. The Amber Room became a national bestseller.

Aspiring authors can take heart from Berry’s long road to publication. “I’m just sort of the living, breathing poster child for it-can-be-done,” he told The Oklahoman. Even more heartening is Berry’s hard-won wisdom about his craft. While writing is difficult,  “it’s not impossible; it’s an acquired skill and if you want to acquire it and you stick with it … you can teach yourself the craft of writing.”

Key elements of Berry’s craft are creating suspense and using background from hundreds of historical sources without slowing the plot. To develop these skills,  he read thrillers by authors he admired and sought feedback from his writers’ group. He indulges in no mystique about the writing process. Instead, he says he learned to write in much the same way he learned to practice law: he identified key skills, such as talking to juries, and practiced them.

Not everyone is willing to practice as much as Berry. But he’s living proof that writing skill isn’t a magical gift or a mysterious talent. It’s a craft, and it can be learned.

Notes:

“Best-selling author Steve Berry to speak at Oklahoma writers conference, publish new Cotton Malone book ‘The Jefferson Key'”: http://blog.newsok.com/bamsblog/2011/05/06/best-selling-author-steve-berry-to-speak-at-oklahoma-writers-conference-publish-new-cotton-malone-book-the-jefferson-key/
FAQ: http://www.steveberry.org/berry-faq.htm
Interview with Steve Berry (December 14, 2007): http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/steve-berry/news/interview-121407

The Art of Meatball Writing

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People often tell me, “I’m not a writer.” Even though I write for a living, my response is usually “Neither am I.”

If your idea of being a writer is publishing thrillers or romances, I’m not a writer. Poetry isn’t my strength, although I’ve composed verses for textbooks and tests. Do I produce deathless prose? That’s not my ambition. My goal is to give readers information that’s easy to understand and to use. That doesn’t take a masterpiece.

Even Ernest Hemingway, who won both the Pulitzer and a Nobel prize for fiction, didn’t consider himself a “writer.” He said, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

Did Hemingway let this insight discourage him? He didn’t sit around moaning “I’ll never be a master.” He kept right on apprenticing.

Imagine what would happen if people thought about talking the way they often think about writing. “I’ll never give a speech as good as Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream.’ I’m not a speaker, so I’ll just stop talking.”

Stop greeting people, sharing news, making jokes, asking for directions? You don’t need to be a great orator to do all that. In the same way, you don’t need to be a great author to put ideas into words.

What if writer approached writing the same way the doctors on M*A*S*H approached surgery?

Before serving in Korea, Dr. Charles Emerson Winchester had only contempt for meatball surgeons. He prided himself on his meticulous incisions and sutures. Under battlefield conditions, he learned that taking time to make small, neat stitches on one soldier’s wound might cost a critically wounded patient his life. Winchester swallowed his pride and became a meatball surgeon.

I don’t know that M*A*S*H writer Larry Gelbart ever used the phrase meatball writing. However, he did say, “You have to allow yourself the liberty of writing poorly…. You have to put down less than marvelous material just to keep going to whatever you think the end is going to be—which may be something else altogether by the time you get there.”

Like meatball surgeons, experienced writers learn to prioritize. They ignore refinements as they focus on drafting. They abandon dreams of perfection. Instead, they “put down less than marvelous material” and keep writing. They write something—anything—rather than indulge the delusion that every piece should be the best they can produce. Meatball writing? Maybe. But their words keep flowing and their job gets done.