Ten words to tell it: my best confident writing tip

by Joanna @ Confident Writing

One of the things I enjoy most about blog writing is the comments, connections, conversations and questions that flow from it. It’s an open rather than a closed form of a writing. And some of the best comments and questions come back to prompt, challenge, inspire – and sometimes even haunt – you. I got one of those haunting questions from Dawud Miracle last week. The comment was on a link to a piece he’d written on his best copywriting tip. The question was a big one, contained in a small number of words.

What would be your best copywriting tip?

There’s no way I could leave that one hanging – and I’ve been turning the answer around in my head all week. Two caveats. First, I’m not pretending to be a copywriting expert so I’m defining the question in relation to my overall aim: confident writing. Second, I really can’t decide if this is my best all time confident writing tip – so I’m reserving the right to make it part of a “top five” later if other contenders demand to make themselves heard…

My best confident writing tip

One of the biggest problems that people have with writing is being unclear about what they’re trying to say. They have too much they want to write down all at once, so the words flood out and overwhelm them (and their readers). Or they have a whole series of points that they want to put across but the overall meaning gets lost in the noise and chatter of unnecessary words. Losing sight of your overall point is also bad for your confidence: it makes it more likely that doubts will creep in, telling you not to bother writing at all. ‘Who cares what you think?’

Well, we do care, but when you write it we’d love to be able to hear the message loud and clear, for you to tell your story with strength, clarity and confidence.

The trick is to be clear what you’re trying to say.

Stand back from your writing and tell it in ten

When people get lost in their own words I encourage them to stand back from their writing and look at it again from a distance. It’s almost like ‘hovering over’ the text – or your notes, scribbles, ideas – until your perspective shifts and you can see a different pattern emerge. What you are looking for is the essence of the story you’re trying to tell.

Ask yourself “what is it that I want to say here?” and answer the question in no more than 10 words. Closer to 5 words if you can, but make 10 the limit – the size limit forces you to keep boiling it down until you get to the essence of what you want to say.

You might be wondering how to discover the overall point. Well it will depend on the context of course – business writing, a student essay, a chapter of a novel, a blog post, your personal journal – but the questions work the same way. “What is the main point that I want to make here?” or “What message do I want my reader to take away?”

If you can’t answer those questions in 10 words – step back again. How does it look when you get more distance and your perspective changes?

Let the message tell the story

Once you have your ten-word message everything else will follow: the words, the tone, the structure… it will all start to fall into place (honest!). Hold on to this message – the essence of your story – as you start to write, and allow the words to write themselves. This is similar to the tip from Dawud and Andrea – that is, to trust the power of your unconscious mind. The ten-word challenge is you setting the overall direction. Once you have that, step back, get out of your own way, and allow the words to flow.

If you get stuck again repeat the technique: step back and ask yourself what you’re trying to say… in no more than ten words. Keep practicing this and you’ll soon be writing with clarity and confidence.

Do you have a version of the “ten words to tell it” tip? Or your own “best ever” writing tip that you’d like to share?