No Waiting!
I’ve waited in line for strawberry cheesecake ice cream on a sweltering July afternoon. And I recently endured a bummer of a warm-up band so I could enjoy Yola singing “I Don’t Wanna Lie” live at First Avenue in Minneapolis. I waited because I knew I’d be rewarded. But I’m not waiting for your content to become interesting just because you implored me to “Wait for it!”
No, don’t do it. Do not tell your audience to wait for it. You need to make them wait. No, hold on, strike that. Create content interesting enough that they’re not waiting at all.
I grabbed a handful of books off my bookshelf to help illustrate. I’m not saying you need to be an award-winning novelist to write enticing copy. You just need to be interesting. Four examples of openers that hooked me:
“I have an unfortunate tendency to falter at crucial moments. ”
“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.”
“The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another his mother called him ‘Wild Thing!’ and Max said ‘I’ll eat you up!’ so he was sent to bed without eating anything.”
“He’s the kind of man who points at people he doesn’t like the look of, as if they were burglars and his forefinger a policeman’s flashlight. He stands at the counter of a shop where owners of Japanese cars come to purchase white cables.”
Meanwhile …
… here are the first sentences of a few emails I’ve received recently (Sender’s name removed, you’re welcome):
“Last time we emailed you we walked through the …”
“It’s that time of year – post-Labor Day, the vacation sunburn starting to fade, and of course, back to school.”
“I'm really excited to be hosting my mini-workshop tomorrow …”
You might imagine a “Wait For It” somewhere near the top of those three emails. What’s wrong with these opening lines? They don’t say anything, are kinda cliché, and are self-promotional without any value for the reader.
How do you keep a reader’s attention even if you’re not Pulitzer-prize winner John Steinbeck, or Caldecott Medal winner Maurice Sendak? You follow these eight simple steps. I thought about calling them rules, but I edited that (see Step 2).
Writing One Step At A Time
1. Writing is connection.
You’re writing to someone. Even your diary or journal is written to a person (it’s written to you, in the future). Speak to that reader as you write. And give them a reason to keep reading. The audience is always Step No. 1.
2. Writing is work, not art.
Like playing the piano, or golf, or baking bread, good writing comes through practice and revision and trial and error. Again and again. Even poetry is edited and rewritten. And your first draft is bad. Complete the first draft only as a step toward a second and third draft.
3. Writing is simple.
No, that’s not a contradiction to Step No. 2. Simple words and sentences are nearly always better than complex ones. You might want to show your industry expertise by using complicated words and jargon. That’s a mistake. Simplify your phrases and, while editing, replace big words with small ones.
4. Writing demands clarity.
In “The Writer’s Art,” James J. Kilpatrick describes a writer as a forest guide, whose “duty is to escort the tenderfoot along an unfamiliar trail” so they can enjoy the forest without trips and stumbles that will make them want to leave. Write clearly so your readers never need to reread a sentence for understanding.
5. Writing deserves style.
Be yourself. Not Steinbeck or Sendak. Write with your personality, in the way you speak. But do it with better grammar.
6. Writing shows, it doesn’t “tell.”
“So the salesman jangle and clanged his huge leather kit in which oversized puzzles of ironmongery lay unseen but which his tongue conjured from door to door until he came at last to a lawn which was cut all wrong.” Ray Bradbury, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”
7. Writing should be heard.
When you think you’re finished writing, read out loud what you wrote. You’re very likely to hear something odd.
8. Writing is personal, but ...
Write to share your feelings and beliefs. Your readers want to know who you are, that’s why memoirs and books like Stossel’s are so popular. But if your writing is solely self-promotional, your audience will no wait around.
Good writing shows you things. And I’ll keep reading, not just waiting.