Sydney Writers’ Festival, 20-26 May 2013

Don’t miss the Sydney Writers’ Festival, 20-26 May 2013.

Even if you’re only ‘into’ writing a little, it won’t disappoint.

Expect amazing brain food: http://www.swf.org.au/

Ya gotta wanna

Reading and loving ‘On Writing Well,’ by William Zinsser.

Great quote: ‘Can such principles [of writing with humanity and warmth, clarity and strength] be taught? Maybe not. But most of them can be learned.’

You can lead a horse to water…

Write emails they simply can’t ignore

Having to chase people to reply to your emails is annoying.

And it’s doubly annoying when they reply, asking you a question you already answered in your first email!

You could get ‘in their face’ to get attention, but there’s a better way. When I saw this short Harvard Business Review blog post on writing emails that get read, I knew it would help you. It’s a two-minute read. Fix your gaze here:

Write Emails That People Won’t Ignore (HBR blog post)

Enjoy,

Paul & the Magneto team

P.S. ‘Like’ Magneto’s Facebook page for extra tips, links, pictures and resources. 

 

Doctor’s orders: Less waffle. More cream.

Bad advice for your body.

Good advice for your body copy.

Do you sometimes ‘waffle‘ on? Where did you learn to do that? I’ll tell you: school and university.

With every assignment, you were given a word limit; e.g., it had to be 5000 words long.

How often did you have so many good ideas that you had to cull them to stay within your word limit? Or (like me), did you have to fluff them out to fill up your word limit?

Many (most?) have taken this habit to work. Unfortunately, busy people hate it. Wordy, unfocused writing wastes readers’ valuable time. People also make snap judgements about waffley writers: They must be muddled thinkers.

So give them less waffle, and more cream.

Less waffle

• Maybe how you think it isn’t how you should write it. Writing is a great way to figure out stuff (EM Forster: ‘How do I know what I think until I see what I write?’). But think twice before you present your thinking process to your reader. Perhaps where you ended up (e.g., the conclusion/ recommendation) is where your document should begin. So start with an outline of headings and bullets (instead of fully-fledged sentences), and get your structure right first.
• Stay on task. Write your objective down, and stick to it. A common reason for waffling is being unclear on what you’re trying to achieve in the first place — you have words looking for ideas. Clarify your ideas first.
• Write as you talk. One of our course attendees recently said he’d emailed his report to his boss, who replied, ‘Please have another go; I couldn’t crack the code.’ Don’t be that guy. Use plain English. Once you get your key points down, try to write it as you’d say it if the reader was sitting in front of you. Conversational writing is engaging.

More cream

• Cut to the chase. They’re looking for the most interesting bits, so try to put them first. You don’t always have to tell a ‘story,’ leaving your ‘big news’ until the end.
• Make it about them. Writing a proposal? Lead with their need, not a hymn of praise to your company. Writing an email? Tell them how it’s relevant to them, why they should care. And tell them the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) if you can.
• Make your subheads tell the story. Accept it: They won’t read every word; they’ll skim-read (like you do). So catch their eye with subheads throughout, and make them ‘newsy.’ Not ‘Recommendation,’ but ‘Recommendation: Give chocolate to staff.’

Less waffle. More cream. And chocolate. Nirvana! 

Got a question about cutting your waffle? Leave a trail of crumbs as a comment below.

Paul & the Magneto team 

P.S. ‘Like’ Magneto’s Facebook page for extra tips, links, pictures and resources.

Public writing masterclasses – Sydney and Brisbane

Interested in writing training but don’t have enough people for an in-house course?

You need our public masterclass! Our last ones for the year:

• Brisbane: 18 April 2013
• Sydney: 2 May 2013

More information here:

http://www.magneto.net.au/professional_writing_training_courses_Sydney.html

Hope you can make it. (These always sell out, so if you’re keen, ask us to hold a seat for you.)

Paul

At last, the serial comma explained!

When to use — and not use — the serial (or Oxford) comma.

Pedantic? Only if your meaning is unclear.

For example, you definitely need the serial comma here:

“I’d like to thank my parents, Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey.”

Without the serial comma after Clinton above, it sounds like Bill and Oprah are your parents!

 

 

Tell ‘em again. And again.

The latest research from Edelman shows that almost two-thirds of people won’t believe a message until they’ve heard it 3-5 times.

Bottom line: Don’t just say it once. Say it several times, in different ways, via different mediums.