How to Write Clearly

Write with purpose, reach your reader and make your meaning crystal clear

Tom Albrighton

ABC Business Communications Ltd

Copyright © 2021 ABC Business Communications Ltd

Written by Tom Albrighton (www.tomalbrighton.com)
Foreword by Doug Kessler
Cover design and illustrations by Andy Carolan (andycarolan.co.uk)
Two-dimensional house illustration in chapter 18 by William Carolan
Editorial support by Liz Jones (responsiveediting.com)

Text, design and illustrations © ABC Business Communications Ltd 2021.

All rights reserved. The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

1. Let’s be clear

2. Know your reader

3. Planning

4. Research

5. Length

6. Structure

7. Titles

8. Plain language

9. Clear sentences

10. Clear paragraphs

11. Talking to your reader

12. Ten writing traps

13. Metaphors

14. Building knowledge

15. Four pathways to understanding

16. Empathy

17. Changing the reader’s mind

18. Making your message stick

19. User experience (UX) writing

20. Design and format

21. Beating the blank page

22. Editing and rewriting

23. Getting feedback

24. Over to you

About The Author

Books By This Author

Foreword

You’re about to become a better writer.

I’ve been a writer for almost 40 years and this book gave me new insight into what writing is all about. It also gave me practical ways to improve my writing and to edit my early drafts more effectively.

To be honest, I didn’t expect that. Tom’s one of the best writers I know, but surely this topic has been covered by now. Isn’t The Elements of Style still in print?

Well, yes.

But William Strunk wrote The Elements of Style in 1918 and E.B. White (yes, that E.B. White) expanded and modernised it in 1959. A lot of its advice still applies – but a fair amount is dated.

More to the point, Strunk & White is primarily a style guide. Albrighton (that’s what I’m calling this book from now on) is much more than that. It’s a book about how to think – and what to think about – before you write. Then how to turn that clear thinking into clear writing. Then how to make that writing better.

I won’t tell you why all of this is so important – Tom does that in the first chapter. But I will assure you that you’re in the best of hands. At our marketing agency, Velocity, we’ve hired dozens of writers over the years and commissioned maybe a hundred freelancers. Tom is in the elite tier (if ‘tier’ is the right noun for a vanishingly small collective). Account directors fight over him like cats fight over kibbles.

He’s so good for the same reasons this book is so good: he knows that writing is work and he puts in that work. Before starting, he makes sure he understands who he’s trying to move and where he wants them to go. And he keeps both of these in mind as he writes every sentence.  The result is always clear, well structured and on-brief. A pleasure to read.

Above all, Tom’s work is based on respect for the reader. In this book, he doesn’t just preach that, he demonstrates it by respecting you and what you’re trying to achieve right now.

Because of this, I predict that dog-eared copies of Albrighton will be read, shared, recommended and re-read for decades – just as copies of Strunk & White were.

Frankly, bitterly, I wish I’d written it.

If I had, I know who I’d ask to write the foreword.  

Doug Kessler

Co-founder, Velocity Partners (Content Marketing Agency of the Year, 2016)

Board member, CLEAR Global

1. Let’s be clear

What clear writing is, what it does and how this book will help you do it.

What is clear writing?

Anything that can be said can be said clearly.

Ludwig Wittgenstein[1]

What do you need to write?

If you’re at work, it might be an email, a presentation or a plan to explain what’s happening, or what you think should happen.

If you run a company, it might be a business plan or a strategy to shape your future.

If you’re a marketer, it might be an article or a white paper to showcase a company’s knowledge, or a marketing brochure to sell its products.

If you’re a teacher, it might be a worksheet, lesson plan or case study to get across some new facts and ideas.

If you’re a student, it might be an essay to show that you understand what you’ve learned.

If you’re an academic, it might be a paper presenting your findings for publication in a journal.

And in everyday life, it might be an important email or letter to a friend, a relative or a company, or just a social media post about your life or the lives of those close to you.

So much for the things you want to do. But they are only one side of the story. The other side is the person you’re writing for: your reader.

When we talk about ‘writing’, we think about the act of choosing words and putting them on to a page or a screen. That puts the focus on ourselves – our ideas, our decisions and our goals.

In reality, writing is a story with two sides. It’s a conversation, not a monologue. It involves both the writer and the reader. The words and ideas are what the writer puts in, but understanding and knowledge are what the reader gets out.

Writing clearly is about getting ideas out of your head and into someone else’s. The words and the page are just the tools you use to make that happen. In other words, it’s a process of communication, including both writing and reading, where two people are connected through language. It’s shown in the illustration.

To make this process work, the first step is to decide what you want to say. Clear writing depends on clear thinking. If your message isn’t clear to you, it won’t be clear to anyone else.

Then you need to think carefully about your reader, and what they need from what you write. Otherwise, your writing won’t mean that much to them – if they read it at all. That’s why you have to consider the reader before you start to write.

Now, with your reader in mind, you begin to write. That means choosing the words to get your message across, as well as thinking about how much to write and how to structure it. It also means taking the time to work on your writing until it’s as clear as you can make it. And it means thinking about how your words will appear on the page or the screen.

If you want the reader to learn, you’ll need to explain the new ideas. If you want them to remember, you’ll have to make your message stick. And if you want them to do something new or different, you’ll have to make a convincing case.

Clarity is in the mind of the reader

When you write, the reader’s response is just as important as the choices you make. The reader can only understand if you communicate, and you can only communicate if they understand. A writer who neglects their reader is like one hand clapping.

In other words, you can’t make yourself clear in isolation. You can only be clear to your reader. The measure of clarity is the reader’s understanding.

If someone doesn’t understand you, you can’t say, ‘But I explained it very clearly!’ If your message had been truly clear, they would have understood. The meaning of your communication is the response that you get.[2]

Clarity is your responsibility, not your reader’s. You are talking, and they are listening. You’re the one who wants to get this message across, so you must put in the effort to make yourself clear. And the more thought and effort you put into your writing, the clearer your message will be in the reader’s mind.

Clear writing means easy reading

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

With most non-fiction writing, the reader has something they need to do, or find out, and your writing will allow them to do it. So they’re probably not reading for fun. In fact, reading your text is just another job on their to-do list.

By writing clearly, you make that job easier. You work hard so the reader doesn’t have to. As they read, nothing trips them up or gets in the way; the ideas just seem to flow from the page or screen into their mind.[3] And because their reading experience is a positive one, they’re far more likely to learn new things, accept new ideas or change the way they act.

On the other hand, if your writing is hard to understand, your reader will wind up confused, irritated or just plain bored. Reading your words will be harder and take longer, and there’s a good chance that the reader will just give up. And whatever you wanted them to do, they probably won’t do it.

If that happens, you won’t just miss the target. You’ll actually make things worse. Before, the reader simply lacked knowledge – but now they’re actively irritated. Worst of all, you may have blown your one and only chance to reach them. That’s why clear writing is so vital: it helps you get communication right first time.

Content and context

When you write, you want to communicate something to the reader. But they’re not just a blank slate that you can write your message on. They bring something to the party too. They have knowledge, beliefs and emotions of their own, and those things will affect how your message comes across. So a big part of writing clearly is to start where the reader is now, and talk to them – not just at them.

You can think of this as content vs. context. The content of your writing is the words you put on the page. But just as important is the context in which those words are read – who the reader is, what they know, how they feel and what’s going on for them at the time they read your message. Content is what you say, but context determines what the reader hears.

The best writing works with its context, not against it, so it has the best chance of being understood. And content that works in one context might fail in another.

For example, most young teens would have a hard time understanding an academic article on particle physics. But on the other hand, a middle-aged particle physicist might be baffled by a teenager’s Instagram feed. If you don’t know who your reader is, you can’t write clearly for them.

Context has different levels. It can include a here-and-now situation, like reading on the bus, or a broader life situation, like looking for a job. But whatever the reader has going on, in any sense, your writing needs to take account of it.

Another important part of the context is what the reader thinks about you. Their view could be based on what they think already, but it also depends on what you write. And you might need to give yourself some credibility in the reader’s eyes before they’ll listen to what you have to say.

What clear writing can do

Clear writing is a powerful tool, in work and in life. For example, you can use it to…

Help people learn new things

Show people how to do a task, or get a job done

Offer advice and support to people in a new or difficult situation

Keep people safe, or explain how they can look after themselves or others

Help people see things differently by introducing them to new ideas and perspectives

Express your own views or opinions so other people appreciate them

Explain new or complex ideas, so people can get to grips with them more easily

Make services easier to access for the people who need them most

Introduce a product or a service to those who might be interested in it

Improve the user experience of digital products, so people can use them without getting frustrated.

Clear writing is always useful in one-to-many forms of writing, like websites and articles. By writing clearly, you can make sure that as many people as possible understand your message.

However, clarity can still make a big difference when you’re writing one-to-one. For example, you might be writing a job application, or an email to try and patch up a friendship. In fact, within the context of your own life, this might be some of the most important writing you ever do.

You might not even be writing at all. For example, you could just be answering the questions of a curious child, or discussing a tricky subject with a partner or your boss. If you can get them to clearly understand your thoughts, you’re halfway home already.

As you can see, clear writing isn’t just about communicating ideas. It can be a powerful tool for growth and change. No matter what you’re doing, the clearer your message is, the easier your life will be.

Why clear writing can be hard

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

William H. Whyte

Clear writing sounds like it should be straightforward. You could sum it up as ‘Just say what you mean’, or ‘Keep it simple, stupid.’ But stating the aim is one thing. Actually achieving it is something else.

First, the more complex your message, the harder it is to express it clearly. If I want you to think of an apple, I just write the word ‘apple’. But to explain how to write clearly, I had to write this whole book.

Second, language is big, messy and hard to handle. There are half a million words in the English language,[5] and while most people only know around a tenth of those,[6] the number of possible sentences is still effectively infinite.[7] So whatever you want to say, there will always be a lot of ways to say it.

On top of that, language never stands still. It evolves all the time as people use it, so the same words can mean different things to different people at different times, or in different situations.[8]

That’s why clear writing can never be an exact science – not even for the most neutral or factual message. It’s not like maths, where you can work out the one correct answer. You’ll always have to make choices, judgements and compromises, and you can never be 100% sure that your writing will work the way you want. All you can do is learn what generally works, get feedback when you can, read widely and keep working on your writing skills.

About this book

I wrote this book to do exactly what it says on the cover. My aim is to help you express yourself clearly in writing, so your reader understands exactly what you mean.

This book is meant for businesspeople, marketers, journalists, educators, students and anyone else who needs to communicate facts or ideas in writing.

When I first had the idea, I imagined that UFOs had beamed up every freelance writer in the world, including me. From now on, my clients would have to write their own stuff – but I had one shot at helping them out, by writing this book. What would I tell them?

I’ve aimed to make this book as accessible as I can. You don’t have to be a professional writer, a word nerd, a grammar guru or a bookworm. As far as I’m concerned, your writing is a job you need to do, and I’m here to help you do it.

The chapters of the book will lead you through the writing process, from planning and writing through to editing, getting feedback and design. Along the way, we’ll be looking at many ways to make your writing clear, from choosing words and crafting sentences to being more persuasive and memorable.

Throughout the book, I use the word ‘subject’ to mean the thing you’re writing about, and ‘message’ to mean whatever you want to say. I use ‘writing’ or ‘text’ to mean the actual words you choose, and ‘reader’ to mean the person or people you’re writing for.

You’ve probably already noticed that I talk about the reader a lot. Get used to it. Throughout this book, we’re going to be all over the reader like a cheap suit. We’ll be using concepts and findings from linguistics, education and psychology to get inside the reader’s head and understand how and why they might respond to what you write.

Crucially, we’ll be treating the reader with respect. We won’t think of them as a passive receiver of our message, but as a real, living person with thoughts and feelings of their own. We’ll always remember that they have a choice over how, and whether, they read our words. And we won’t assume that they will act or react in ways that we never would ourselves.

Clarity vs. poetry

At some points, you might read my advice and think, ‘But my favourite writer never does that!’ If so, please bear in mind that this book is not about creative writing. It’s only about making your message absolutely clear to your reader.

Now, fiction and poetry can do more than that. Much more. They can make words do things we don’t expect. They can evoke deep and mysterious emotions. They can take us to unknown places. They can be subtle, allusive and deliberately ambiguous.[9] As a result, they can mean many different things to different readers.

All those things are wonderful in their place. But they are not what this book is about.

Ideas, not rules

Since every writing project is different, there’s no magic formula for clear writing that will work in every situation.

So although I’ll be sharing plenty of practical advice, you won’t find any tips, tricks, hacks, secrets, formulas or shortcuts that promise to make you a superb writer with zero effort. For me, that sort of cutting and pasting is the very opposite of learning to write.

Instead, I want you to think deeply about what writing clearly really means – in your mind, on your project, for your reader. On that foundation, you can build your own clear writing ability, which will serve you well in everything you write.

That’s why this book is more about ideas than rules. We’ll be spending just as much time on our aims, our message and our reader as on the actual hands-on writing.

Ready to get started? Then let’s dive in.

Takeaways from this chapter

Clear writing is a process of communication between writer and reader.

Through clear writing, you can help the reader learn and understand new things, or think and act in new ways.

Clarity is measured in the reader’s understanding. Being clear means being clear to your reader in context.

Clear writing can be hard work, because there’s no single right answer you can find.

The harder you work on your writing, the easier it is for your reader to read and understand it.

2. Know your reader

Before you can write for your reader, you need to know who they are, what they want and what they already know.

Who is your reader?

Bad writing is almost always a love poem addressed by the self to the self.

Toby Litt[10]

As we saw in the last chapter, writing starts with something you want to say. But even more important is who you want to say it to. You need to know who your reader is before you can write for them, because how they see your message will depend on where they’re looking from.

This is obvious when you think about one-to-one writing. You can’t just write a job application, or a love letter, in isolation. You need to know who you’re writing to, so you can say the right things in the right way. (Imagine using the exact same approach for both the job application and the love letter.)

However, the same point applies when you’re writing for a group of people. Of course, you can’t know all your readers individually. But you can get some idea of what they’re like, or what they have in common. And the clearer the picture you have of your readers, the clearer your writing will be.

For example, you could identify your reader by their:

Age and gender

Race, religion or culture

Home and family

Location

Work, employment or career

Finances

Hobbies and interests

Tastes and opinions

Problems and priorities

Hopes and aspirations.

If your reader is at work, you might also want to think about:

Their role and responsibilities

‘Pain points’, or problems they need to solve

What their boss wants from them

Their personal priorities or career ambitions

What their own users or customers need from them.

You probably won’t know all of these things about your reader. You may only know one or two. But whatever you do know, you need to keep it in mind as you write, so you can stay focused on the things your reader is most interested in or concerned about.

Personas

A persona is a written profile of an individual reader, covering details like their work, home, family, beliefs, consumer choices and so on.

Here’s an example for an online guide about tax:

Our reader is Marcus, the owner/manager of a pizza takeaway in the suburbs that employs two other people. Business is steady, but recently cash flow has been a little tight. Marcus is a 30-something father of two. He wants to know how the new tax regulations for part-time workers will affect his business, and what changes he might need to make.

The best personas are based on research, not guesswork. Qualitative research (words) can include findings from customer surveys and client interviews, while quantitative research (numbers) can bring in things like demographic data, online behaviour, user numbers, sales figures and so on. Combine everything you find out to create an accurate, fact-based picture of your typical reader.[11]

To give your personas more character, you can give the person a name, or find a photo to represent them. You can also use multiple personas to represent different types of reader – for example, different groups of customers or service users.

Personas are helpful because they make your reader human, and that gives you a way to speak to them. We’ll come back to this in chapter 11.

The problem with personas is that they reduce your whole readership to a single person. If you rely too heavily on them, you could focus too much on writing for a certain profile, when in fact your readers are all different. And you need to be clear to everyone who might be reading, not just your single imaginary reader.

What does your reader want or need?

For some projects, it might be more useful to think about what your reader wants or needs, as opposed to who they are.

For example, if you’re writing about using painkillers, or choosing a TV, you’re writing about subjects that almost any adult reader might be interested in. So a user profile or persona won’t tell you very much.

Instead, you can write a user story. This is a brief sentence, written from the reader’s own perspective, that sums up what they want and need. It takes the form:

When [A], I need to [B] so I can [C].

Where A is the reader’s situation, B is the task they need to do, and C is the goal they want to achieve.

For example, let’s say you’re writing a web page giving people information about measles. One of your user stories might be:

When a child is sick, I need to learn about symptoms so I can decide whether to take them to the doctor’s.

Notice how this user story cuts across the reader’s personal profile to focus on needs. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing for a parent, a childminder or a teacher. What matters is that they urgently need to care for a sick child.

When you think about that, your job as a writer becomes crystal clear. First, you need to make sure readers realise that your web page is aimed at them, and will help them with their problem. Then, you need to explain measles symptoms and when medical help is needed as clearly as you can. And you need to do it quickly, because the reader is in a hurry – yet also sympathetically, because they may be worried and upset.

If you’re writing for different groups at once, you could create a user story for each one – although if they turn out very different, that might suggest that you need to write different things for each group of users.

Next time you’re reading about a subject that’s new to you, take a minute to think about your own user story. What’s your situation right now? What do you need to find out? And once you know, what will you be able to do?

What does your reader know?

Whatever new information you give your reader, it has to fit with their existing knowledge, or it will be harder for them to understand. At the same time, you don’t want to waste their time by telling them too many things that they already know.

Ask yourself:

What does my reader already know about my message?

What do I want them to learn from my writing?

How can I use what they already know to explain the things I want to say?

The answers will feed into many of the decisions you need to make about your writing: how to structure it, which topics to cover and how much to write overall.

We’ll take a closer look at how to build on the reader’s existing knowledge in chapter 14.

How does your reader feel?

As we saw in chapter 1, your reader comes to your writing with their own emotions, and that will affect how they respond to what you write.

Some readers will be actively interested in your message, and eager to learn about it. Obviously, that makes your job a whole lot easier. You can use their enthusiasm and curiosity as a springboard to get your message across, by answering their questions and guiding them in new directions.

Other readers will be neutral, with no strong feelings either way. They don’t know much about you, or your topic, and they’re waiting to see what you have to say. They might need your message to help them complete a task. So while they do have a reason to read, they might still feel reluctant or impatient about actually doing it.

This is the realm of written instructions like product manuals and how-to guides, and work-related correspondence like emails. Here, your job is to make the reader’s experience as simple and pain-free as possible, so they get the information they need with minimum effort.

Then there are those readers who have negative emotions about your message. They might be confused, doubtful or sceptical, or they might not trust you to speak on this subject. We’ll look at how you can show empathy with the reader’s feelings in chapter 16, and in chapter 17 we’ll explore how to overcome their objections.

Next time you read something, notice your feelings. How do you feel about this writing, and your experience of reading it? Why?

Researching your reader

Any time you spend thinking about your reader is well spent, and your own intuitions are a perfectly good place to start. However, knowing your reader doesn’t have to be guesswork. There are lots of ways to do some factual research.

The simplest approach is to talk to them. You could interview typical readers, carry out a survey or just chat to someone you know who is broadly similar to the reader. All these are excellent ways to discover what language people use around your subject, which you can then reflect in your own writing. This is sometimes called the ‘voice of the reader’.

However, bear in mind that interviews may raise a similar problem to personas. Your interviewees are real, but they’re not necessarily representative. Because interviews are such a vivid personal experience, and provide so much interesting detail, they could distort your sense of your readership as a whole.

So instead, you could talk to someone who knows people like your readers, or deals with them regularly. Someone like a teacher, receptionist, sales rep, bartender and so on. They might be able to tell you the sorts of things that people generally think or say about your subject, which could be more helpful than one person’s perspective.

In the digital realm, discussions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or Reddit could give you a window on the conversations people are having about your subject. You might be able to see the questions they ask, the things that preoccupy them and what they feel about your subject.

If you’re writing about a product, Amazon reviews might be useful. Even reviews of books about your subject can show you what sort of questions novices have, or the things they most want to know – or what they really don’t want or need. If you’re writing about a product, check out reviews of alternatives or substitutes. Positive reviews highlight preferences and desires; negative ones point to objections and pain points.

Google’s autocomplete function offers a quick and easy insight into the concerns of its users. Type a question word like ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘which’, ‘can’, ‘where’, ‘why’ and so on, followed by a relevant word. Then, without hitting Return, look at the popular searches that appear under the search field.

Let’s say I’m writing a beginner’s guide to looking after your lawn. When I go to Google and start typing ‘can lawn’, I see queries including:

can lawn mowers cut wet grass
can lawnmowers fly
can lawn mowers be stored outside
can lawn mowers explode

As these examples show, people’s questions may be very different from what you expect. I’m willing to bet that if you asked a garden expert to write a lawn-care guide, they would cover wet grass and outdoor storage, but probably not lawnmowers exploding or flying into the air. But however silly those ideas may seem, they may be precisely what some readers have in mind when they come to this subject for the first time. And you should always start where the reader is.

For something more precise, head over to quora.com or answers.com, where you can search real people’s questions and answers. At answerthepublic.com, you can see a wide range of questions and searches related to a keyword.

Here’s what to look for when researching your reader:

Words and phrases. What language do people use about your subject? What terms do they use? Are they different from the ‘official’ words that you use within your organisation or profession?

Knowledge and knowledge gaps. What do people know about your subject, and what do they need to find out? How can you bridge that gap?

Questions and answers. What questions do people ask about your subject? What are they curious about? Where do they look for answers, and whose answers do they trust?

Problems and unmet needs. What problems are people trying to solve? What are they worried about? Are they looking for help and not finding it?

Priorities and concerns. What are people most worried about? What’s their top priority?

Preconceptions. What are people already thinking when they come to your subject, and why?

Misconceptions. What mistaken ideas or false beliefs do people hold about your subject? Where do they come from?

Emotions. What do people feel about your subject? What makes them excited or joyful? What makes them fearful or anxious?

Takeaways from this chapter

Before you can write for your reader, you need to know who they are.

Consider your reader’s profile, as well as what they already know, think and feel about your subject.

Think about your reader’s problems and priorities. What are they trying to get done? How can your writing help?

Research your reader in person or online, to learn more about them before you start writing.

3. Planning

Plan your journey before you set off.

What are you aiming for?

Every writing project is different. Each time you sit down to write, you’ll have a reader you want to reach, a message you want to communicate and aims you want to achieve.

You can think of your aims as levels in a pyramid. Each level in the pyramid is something you might want the reader to do. Each level supports those above it, and you can only succeed at a higher level if you’ve achieved all the ones below.

Let’s climb the pyramid, from the foundations to the peak.

Your first job is to make sure the reader actually reads your words. If they don’t, all your effort goes to waste. That might sound obvious, but people forget it every day.

Next, you need to make sure the reader understands your message. Not understanding is effectively the same as not reading: if you don’t get your message across, it’s game over.

Writing can be easy to read, yet also easy to forget. On many projects, you’ll want the reader to learn and remember your message once they’ve read it.

Beyond that, you may want to change what the reader thinks and feels, so they’re more receptive to the ideas or principles behind your message.

Finally, you might want to persuade the reader to act on your message, by making a strong case for why they should do something different.

The rest of this book will look at ways to achieve all these aims.

Reaching the top of the pyramid is no small feat – and the bigger the project, the harder it becomes. Think about all the things you’ve read in your life. Some you never finished; many you’ve forgotten. Writing that changes your beliefs is rare, and writing that changes what you do is rarer still.

Influencing the reader’s behaviour is the lofty ambition of writing like political rhetoric, self-help books and health messaging. However, you don’t always need the reader to make a major life change. For example, if you just want the reader to download a free ebook, you’re only persuading them to click on a link. However, you’ll still have to show them that you have value to offer, which will mean engaging with their thoughts and feelings.

For other types of project, just remembering or understanding is enough. Let’s say you’re writing a manual for a microwave. It would be ideal if people remembered the instructions after one reading. But as long as they understand, and can use the writing to get familiar with the product, your job is done.

Write a mission statement

What are the aims of your writing project? What do you need the reader to understand, remember, think, feel or do as a result of reading your words?

Thinking about your aims, write down your mission statement. This is a really simple summary of what you want to achieve with your writing.

For example:

We’re going to write a one-page letter telling parents about the new parking rules at school. We need to make sure they understand how the rules have changed, and why we decided to change them.

Notice how this links back to the pyramid of aims. The writing needs to be quick to read (just one page). Parents need to understand and remember the new rules. They also need to think about why they’re needed and feel that this change is the right thing to do. Finally, the letter needs to guide parents to act by parking in the right place.

Once you’ve nailed down your mission statement, it stays the same throughout your writing project, guiding your actions and reminding you of what really matters. Think of it as a distant landmark that you’re aiming to reach. Whatever route you take, and whatever may happen along the way, your destination stays the same.

Notice that the mission statement doesn’t say that much about the actual writing, apart from the format. It captures the what and the why of your project, but not the how. So you can use it as a guide to your decisions later on. Whenever you’re wondering what you should add in, leave out or change, you can refer back to your mission, and ask yourself what will help you achieve your aims.

Just by writing down your mission like this, you focus your thoughts and put your brain in gear. Your unconscious mind will start working on the problem while you do other things, and when you sit down to write, you may find you have some ideas already. This is called the incubation effect, and it’s particularly useful when you need to find a new approach to a problem (divergent thinking).[12]

Write a plan

The next step is to write a plan, or synopsis. It’s basically an ordered list of the points you’re going to cover in your writing.

If your mission statement is the destination, your plan is the route map. It gives you a sense of the places you want to visit along the way, and the best order to visit them.

Here’s an example for the school parking letter from the previous section:

Explain the subject of the letter (new parking rules)

Quick summary of the new rules (in case people only read this far)

The old parking rules and why we chose them three years ago

Problems that have come up with the old rules (tell someone’s story?)

The new rules in full

Explanation of the new rules

How they will help parents, teachers and pupils

Where to go for more help or information

You can already see how this plan will grow into the actual letter. Each point here will probably become a paragraph. The points are in both logical and chronological order – from old rules to new, and from past to present to future. That will make it easy to move from one idea to the next when it comes to the writing.

For longer projects, you might want to add one or more levels of headings to your plan, as well as bullet points for each paragraph. You can then use Word’s Document Map[13] to get an overview of your structure, which will stay in view as you develop the plan into the actual text.

Why bother to plan?

A plan helps you know your direction before you set off. You can get clear on what your project is all about and organise your thoughts, so you don’t waste time later on.

Unlike your mission statement, your plan isn’t set in stone. As we’ll see, writing is a great way to learn, and new ideas and insights often emerge over the course of a project. So if you discover a better way to reach your destination, take it. There’s no need to rule it out just because you didn’t foresee it in your plan.

If you’re working with other people, your plan and mission statement can help you avoid disagreements later on over what the writing is supposed to be doing, or who it’s aimed at. (As a copywriter, I’ve sat in plenty of ‘briefings’ where senior directors argued over my head about these very things.)

Another potential problem is people providing unhelpful feedback on your writing, like ‘I don’t like it’ or ‘It just isn’t working’. When you’ve agreed the mission up front, you can point to it to justify your choices – or ask others to justify theirs.

How wide and how deep?

As you create your plan, you need to consider two questions: how wide to roam, and how deep to dive. How many aspects of your subject are you going to cover, and how much detail will you provide for each one?

To answer these questions, you need to weigh the aims of your project against the needs of your reader (chapter 2). On the one hand, you have a message you want to get across. But on the other hand, the reader has their own priorities, and their time and attention are limited.

Coverage is reflected in the points of your plan. You want to cover all the relevant points, and you want to choose a structure that makes sense overall. We’ll look at some useful structures in chapter 6.

The second question is about detail. For each aspect of your subject, how much detail are you going to provide?

You’ll probably want to aim for a similar level of detail across all your paragraphs or sections, so the whole thing feels balanced and even. You can achieve this by adding or deleting text, but also by splitting up or combining sections.

Don’t worry if you can’t get the level of detail exactly right first time. As we’ll see later on, editing is just as important as writing, and you can fine-tune the balance of your text at that stage.

Too many aims

Imagine you’re asking someone to sit down with you for a talk. If you say, ‘Hey, can I chat to you about something?’ they’ll probably agree. But if you say, ‘Now, there are three things I really need to discuss’, they’ll run a mile.

In the parking letter above, everything serves one message. But sometimes, people try to do too many things with one project. They might be hoping to save time or money, or to ‘kill two birds with one stone’. But writing doesn’t really work that way.

For example:

We’re writing an email to tell customers about our new security audits and our change of address.

We want them to update their records and get in touch to book an audit.

It looks short and sweet. But it will be harder to pull off, because there are two unrelated themes: the audits and the address. That will make it much harder to write the email’s subject line, order the points in the text and decide what details to include.

When the email hits the reader’s inbox, they’ll be unclear about the purpose of the email, and probably forget about one of the themes (if not both). Readers want to know what you’re offering them before they start to read – and if it sounds complicated or confused, they’ll just switch off.

So if you find yourself looking at a brief like this, consider splitting it into two or more separate writing projects. The writing will be a whole lot easier, and each sub-project will be far more likely to achieve its aims.

Kitchen sink syndrome

With ‘kitchen sink syndrome’, you add so much content to a project that it collapses under the weight. It’s most likely to happen over the course of writing and editing, as you add more and more little bits here and there. Another problem is ‘writing by committee’, when everyone wants to make their own contribution – or feels that they have to, for the sake of appearances.

Your writing can only do so much. If you overload it, the reader will skim-read or just stop reading altogether. Then you will sacrifice your essential aims for the sake of some less important things that seemed ‘nice to have’ at the time, but don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Remember that you don’t have to say everything in this one project. There might be other resources you can link to, like web pages, that can pick up where this writing leaves off. Or, if they don’t exist, maybe you can create them.

To make the right call, think back to the aims you chose. What are you trying to communicate with this project specifically? What are the boundaries of the message? That will help you decide what to keep in, and what to leave out.

To counter the problem of ‘writing by committee’, try to get other people involved before the hands-on writing. Ask them to help with identifying the reader, deciding the mission statement or crafting the plan. That will give them a sense of involvement and ownership, and hopefully make them less likely to change things later on. People are less likely to criticise their own ideas than a finished solution that’s presented to them out of the blue.

Mind maps

One way to generate and capture a lot of ideas without worrying about writing is to draw a mind map, or concept map.

To create your map, you write down ideas on a big sheet of paper and draw lines to show the connections between them. You can also specify what sort of relationships the lines represent – for example, ‘needs’, ‘leads to’, ‘happens with’ and so on.

Mind maps are a good way to get the ideas flowing, because they allow you to free-associate and follow your thoughts wherever they lead. If there are a lot of ideas floating around in your head, drawing a map could help you straighten out your thinking.

They can also be a good way to involve other people in planning. For example, you could draw your mind map on a whiteboard during a meeting, and get everybody to chip in.

You might even want to include a version of your map as a diagram in your finished content, since the format suits readers who prefer scanning to sequential reading.

The only problem with mind maps is that while they’re very good at capturing connections, they’re not so great for priorities. You’ll still have to turn the map into a plan – and the ‘big idea’ you put at the centre isn’t necessarily the best place for your reader to start.

Takeaways from this chapter

Write a mission statement: a one-sentence summary of the message you want to get across.

Create a plan for your writing. Add headings to the plan for longer projects.

Decide on coverage (how wide) and detail (how deep).

Keep to one clear aim and prioritise your points so you don’t overload the project.

4. Research

Gather the information that will deepen your understanding and give your writing substance.

Do your research

On some writing projects, you may already know exactly what you want to say. But at other times, you may need to gather information to support your writing.

For example, you might need to find out:

Basic facts about your subject, which you need in order to explain your message to the reader

Background info like the history leading up to an event, the story of a company or the science behind an invention

Authoritative sources to back up your argument, like academic studies, high-profile surveys or government websites

Insights into your readers, like the sorts of questions they ask, the words they use or what they think about the subject

The consensus. What do most people think about your subject?

Alternative views. What have other people said about your subject? How are their views regarded by the mainstream?

Changing opinions. How are views of your subject evolving over time? Are older ideas still relevant, or have they been superseded?

Your main method of research is likely to be searching online, or working from books, articles and other documents. However, you might also do original research by carrying out surveys, interviews, questionnaires or direct observation.

Ponder or plunge?

Different writers like to approach the task of doing research in different ways.

Some like to read all the information first, then think it over until it’s time to start writing. By doing that, you get your subconscious mind on the job, making connections while you carry on learning (or even sleeping) – the incubation effect we saw in chapter 3.

Other writers – like me – find it easier to get to grips with new information by diving straight into the writing.

For me, the downside of incubation without writing is the risk of forgetting useful stuff, when I already know I want to use it. Also, when I spot a good idea, I often get a vague sense of how to phrase it right away, which I’m anxious to capture. So I do my research and my writing in parallel, writing odds and ends as I go along, or even attempting a first draft as I work through the source material.

The downside of this approach is that it’s not very efficient. I’ll often end up writing things that don’t get used, or getting the structure wrong at first. But personally, I would rather have that problem than fret about cool facts or phrases ‘getting away’. Better too much stuff than too little.

Interviewing subject experts

Sometimes, you’ll be working with an expert who knows a lot about the subject. If so, you need to find a way for them to pass that knowledge on to you.

My approach is to let the expert themselves choose the way they want to work. If they want to write some bullet points, or even a rough draft, that’s fine. Or, if they prefer, I can interview them to talk through the subject and transcribe what they say. As far as I’m concerned, these are all alternative routes to the same goal: a reservoir of written information that I can use to develop my draft.

The key to a good interview is preparation. Before you start, think about the questions that you – and your reader – need answers to, working from your mission statement and plan (chapter 3). Send the questions in advance, at the time you arrange the interview, so your expert knows just what to expect, and can get hold of additional information if they need to.

During the interview, your expert may use informal phrases that sum up important points, or drop in an intriguing metaphor, story or perspective (chapters 13 and 18). They might hesitate to use these in writing themselves – perhaps because they think they’re too frivolous. But they could be ideal for making your writing more colourful, engaging or memorable. So don’t be afraid to follow these leads if they come up. Sometimes, people just need permission to use the words they already have – and the writer’s job is to grant it.

Actually, this flexibility in the moment is one of the great advantages of conversational interviews over written responses. If you’re not getting what you need, you should be able to push for more detail or try a different angle, right then and there. But if you request written information and your expert faffs about for two months before emailing you a single page of sketchy notes, you’re in a worse hole than before – with less time to climb out.

These days, I usually interview people with an online platform like Skype, Zoom or Microsoft Teams, which makes it easy to obtain a recording of the call. If you’re speaking in person, just get a voice-recording app on your phone. Make sure your subject knows you’re recording, and agrees to it.

Once you have a digital file of your interview, you can upload it to an automatic transcription service like Otter.ai. The algorithm isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s a lot quicker than manual transcription – and you can easily compare the text to the audio to correct any mistakes.

Don’t feel you have to use all your interview material just because it’s there. The availability heuristic means we sometimes over-rely on information that comes to mind easily or is readily available.[14] Recent interviews are both. Or, if the interview went really well, you may feel so proud of it that you become over-attached to the resulting material.[15]

No interviewee knows everything. Even experts are only human, with their own knowledge gaps, memory lapses, biases and preoccupations. What they say isn’t necessarily comprehensive or balanced, however convincing it may seem to you as a layperson. So you might also need to supplement your interview with research, or check what the interviewee says. Multiple interviews on the same subject will help you work out which views are generally accepted, and which may be individual opinions.

Write to research

Writing can be a good way to draw out experts’ knowledge if you already know a little bit about the subject.

Instead of asking for notes or an interview, you simply write whatever you can, and add comments where there are gaps in your knowledge. Then your expert can just go through the document and provide notes or links to help out, or draft the text themselves, as they prefer.

It’s far easier for your expert to respond to your writing than write something themselves. So you may find that this is a better way to motivate them than requesting info up front. It doesn’t really matter how weak or patchy your working version is, as long as they’re willing to put it right.

This can be a time-efficient way to work, because you don’t gather tons of information that never gets used. It also gives you a good sense of making progress, even if your first draft is full of holes.

On the downside, you may miss important ideas simply because they never occurred to you, and you never had the chance to discover them in an interview. So a rough draft followed by an interview might be the way to go.

The curse of knowledge

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Attributed to Albert Einstein

Great quote, right? But with all due respect to Einstein, explaining things simply is still pretty tough even when you do understand them through and through.

What’s more, while you obviously need knowledge to write, knowledge doesn’t necessarily make you a good writer. In fact, it can even make things worse, by distracting you from the very things that general readers most need to know.

This is called the curse of knowledge. It’s almost impossible to imagine not knowing what you know. Therefore, it’s a challenge to put yourself in the same position as your reader.

Experts are sharp on details, but sometimes miss the big picture. This is known as déformation professionnelle (French for ‘professional distortion’) or simply ‘nerdview’. Once people are deep inside their specialist area, they find it difficult to put themselves in the position of an outsider.

So, if you’re working with an expert, don’t be afraid to ask them some really basic questions. Don’t worry about looking stupid, or admitting you don’t understand. If you already knew all about the subject, you wouldn’t need the expert at all.

Think of it as a ‘mission impossible’ on behalf of your reader. They’ve parachuted you in to seek out the vital knowledge, and you only have one shot to get it. Don’t let them down.

If you’re writing from your own expert knowledge, take every opportunity to get outside your head by involving other people. For example, you can work with an editor (chapter 22) or ask for feedback on your writing (chapter 23). Don’t just assume that people understand – ask them out loud, and listen to the answer.

From my work helping top academics with their articles, I know that even those who have made ground-breaking discoveries, or developed powerful theories, still face an uphill struggle to put them into words. Brilliant thinkers who are also brilliant writers – like Richard Feynman[16] – are the exception rather than the rule. And everyone benefits from a second opinion on their work, no matter how clever they are.

If people seem to be very clear when writing or talking about their ideas, it’s often because they’ve done a lot of thinking before that point, giving them a mental ‘library’ of words and phrases they can draw on. They’re not really thinking and speaking in the moment, but rather ‘quoting themselves’.

So, however well you know your stuff, don’t be discouraged if you can’t write your thoughts as fluently as you think them. Nobody can. But with time and practice, it will get easier.

Takeaways from this chapter

Use research to fill gaps in your knowledge before you write.

Digest everything first, or start writing as you read – whatever works for you.

Use interviews to get information from subject experts in a quick, easy and engaging way.

If you’re writing from your own knowledge, guard against nerdview by getting other people involved.

5. Length

Decide how much to write by balancing your mission, your message and the reader’s attention.

How much should you write?

The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.

Voltaire

There are no easy answers to this question, because the right length is different for every project. The questions you need to consider are:

What are the points you need to cover? Which are most important, and least important? (We looked at this in chapter 3.)

How much information do you need to give the reader? What do they have to learn in order to achieve their goal (chapter 2)?

Do you expect the reader to read everything? Can they easily pick out the bits they need, or jump to the part they want to read first? (For example, few people read every page of a website.)

What are the constraints of the format you’re using? For example, a one-page leaflet can only contain so much text.

What other materials can support this writing? For example, can you direct readers to a website where they can find out more?

Being brutally honest, how interesting is your subject? What is your typical reader’s natural level of interest in it?

When you’re close to a subject, it’s easy to overestimate how interesting other people will find it. Or you can end up writing about things just because they occur to you along the way, and you can easily write them based on your own knowledge.

So as you reflect on the questions above, keep your mission statement in mind. What’s the one thing this writing must achieve? Don’t let your must-have material get crowded out by stuff that you think would be ‘nice to include’ or ‘potentially useful’. And make sure that you include things that are valuable to the reader – not just easy for you.

Your deal with the reader

So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.

Dr Seuss

As you think about how much to write, recall from chapter 1 that you will only get your message across if the reader actually reads your words. Your reader nearly always has a choice over whether they read or not. And if they stop reading – or never start – all your effort from that point on will go to waste.

Obvious, right? But when some people sit down to write, this simple point flies right out of their heads. Even though they’ve probably given up on hundreds of books and articles in their time, they still assume that no matter how much they write, the reader will dutifully plod through each and every word. (Or, more likely, the reader doesn’t even cross their mind.)

If you fall at the first fence – getting the reader to read – you’ll jeopardise all the other outcomes of your project. And that’s a shame, because of all the problems you could run into, writing too much is a relatively easy one to fix.

Every piece of writing offers the reader a deal. In return for their time and attention, they receive some sort of value. Whatever happens, you need to make sure the benefits of reading always outweigh the costs. As long as they do, the reader will stay on board. But as soon as they don’t, they’ll jump ship.

From this perspective, it’s clear that more words don’t necessarily mean more value for the reader. It’s about quality, not quantity. So your writing should be long enough to communicate your message, but short enough to hold their attention. Write less than that and you’ll have unfinished business; write more and you’ll wear out your welcome.

If you’re unsure how much to write, err on the side of brevity. You may leave some things unsaid, but very few readers will complain that your writing is too short. All they want to do is get that knowledge off your page and into their brain so they can stop reading and do something else. And the quicker they can do that, the happier they’ll be.

The right length can make the reader happier before they even start. If they open up your PDF and think, ‘Hey, it’s only 10 pages! Yay!’, you’ll get a burst of gratitude that launches them into the reading. But if you write tons, they’ll be disheartened from the start – then irritated with you for making them wade through it all. More content from you often means more discontent for the reader.

Think minutes, not words

You’ll probably work out the length of your writing in pages, sections, words or whatever. But those measures reflect your perspective, as the person who’s actually generating the text. A more reader-centric measure is reading time. How long will it take the reader to read what you’ve written?

Some websites, like Medium, show the reading time at the top of each article, so the reader knows the deal up front. In one informal study, this was found to increase engagement by 40%.[17] 

To work out reading time, you need to know how quickly people read. A comprehensive 2019 study found that it’s around 238 words per minute, which is slower than people previously thought.[18] And that’s the adult average – so some readers will be slower, whether because of their reading ability or just the level of attention they can bring to your text right now.

Working out reading time paints a sobering picture of the demands you’re making on your reader. Every word you write takes up another quarter-second of their precious time on earth, which they’ll never get back. Are your words worth it?

For example, this book is about 70,000 words long – so I’m asking you to sit and read it for almost five hours. If I want a whole afternoon of your life, which you could have spent mountain-biking or baking cupcakes, I’d better offer you some useful learning in return. (And even if you’re about to bail out, I’m grateful for the hour you’ve spent already.)

The goldfish myth

Holding readers’ attention is hard work, and it can get frustrating. So it’s only natural to blame the reader from time to time. It’s not your fault that people aren’t reading – it’s theirs, for having such a short attention span! If only people weren’t so damn lazy, they could easily get their heads round your message!

On the face of it, the idea of shrinking attention spans sounds plausible.[19] After all, people consume a lot of ‘short’ content these days, like tweets and TikTok, and everyone certainly seems to be in a hurry most of the time. In fact, there’s a statistic flying around the web that the ‘average attention span’ is down to eight seconds, from 12 seconds in 2000. Even goldfish have more focus than we do.[20]

Is that true? Well, let’s be generous and say you have an attention span of five minutes. Even though your powers of concentration are positively superhuman compared to the rest of us, you’ve still never made it through an episode of Friends. Every dinner date ends with you walking out before the starters arrive. And when your great aunt’s lawyer called to discuss your inheritance, you hung up before he even revealed how much she had left you.

When you think about it, the idea of people having a fixed ‘attention span’ just doesn’t hold up. Your attention is always on something. Your level of attention depends on who and what you’re engaging with, and the context you’re in.

If you’re interested in something – like a binge-watch of Bridgerton, say – you’ll easily maintain your attention for hours at a time. But if you’re not interested, you won’t invest even a few seconds. Why would you?

Besides, when you look into the ‘eight seconds’ claim, the evidence really doesn’t hold up.[21] So far, all we know is that people who habitually ‘multi-task’ between different bits of content at the same time – like their phone and the TV – may be worse at paying sustained attention.[22]

The truth is that readers aren’t lazy or inattentive. They’re just prudent with their cognitive investments. They will happily read something that offers them genuine value or interest, in a form they can easily understand. But they’re not going to gamble their precious time and energy with little or no chance of a payoff.

It’s true that readers’ attention is a finite resource, and you should always make the most of it. However, it’s not like sand running through an hourglass, dwindling with no hope of return. You have the power to create more of it. Once the reader is reading, you can conjure up some intrigue, draw them into your subject and actively cultivate their interest. We’ll look at how you can do this in chapter 18.

Length limits and their benefits

I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.

Blaise Pascal[23]

Are you on Twitter? If so, you already know how productive a length limit can be. When you’re forced to express yourself in just 240 characters, you have to make every word count. Brevity is the mother of clarity.

On some projects, the format you’re using will set a natural limit on the length. For example, the parking letter from chapter 3 is one page long, like many letters we receive. Adding another page would be a big deal, in terms of the time demands on the reader, their first impressions on receiving the letter and probably the cost of sending it out. So you wouldn’t take this step without good reason.

However, with open-ended formats like ebooks, websites and PowerPoint decks, you can write as much as you want. Got more to say? Just add another page. Who’s counting, anyway?

That freedom takes the pressure off – and not in a good way. You can wind up adding more content just because you think it might be nice to include, or to avoid revising a plan that isn’t really working, or to please different people involved in the project.

That’s why it can be helpful to put a length limit on your writing, whatever format you’re using. It might seem artificial, but it helps you to focus.

When you have no length limit, you’re asking yourself, ‘Shall I include this?’ It’s a yes/no question, and it’s all too easy to answer ‘yes’.

But when there’s a length limit, you have to ask, ‘Which of these things shall I include?’ Now it’s an either/or question, and there may not be an easy answer. That forces you to prioritise what’s most important, based on your mission statement, and decide what you really need to include.

As we’ve seen, more content from you demands more time and attention from your reader. So you could set your limit in terms of time rather than length. For example, if you limit your presentation to 15 slides, you’re also limiting its duration to (say) 40 minutes. You decide your length by weighing the complexity of your message against the tolerance of your audience.

As Blaise Pascal’s words suggest, writing short isn’t necessarily quick or easy. Specifically, it doesn’t usually mean you just write for a while and then stop. Instead, you’ll probably have to write a longer draft, then cut it down to size. We’ll come back to this in chapter 22, when we look at editing.

Length targets and their drawbacks

Instead of a length limit that you have to stay under, you might have a length target they you’re supposed to reach – for example, you’ve been asked to put together a 10,000-word white paper.

Having read this chapter so far, I’m sure you can see the problem here. This sort of target isn’t linked to your subject, your message or the outcome you want to achieve. It isn’t based on what your reader might be willing to read. It isn’t even a carefully worked-out length estimate based on a plan. It’s just a big fat number plucked out of the air.

Now, if it turns out that you need to write more than the target, things aren’t so bad. It then becomes a limit, and you edit to stay inside it.

However, if there isn’t really enough to say, you can end up padding out your writing (chapter 12), perhaps unconsciously, to try and reach the target. Then, when it comes to editing, you’re caught between a rock and a hard place: you know you should be cutting out the fluff, but that will take you further from the target.

Sometimes, people use length as a proxy for the goals they want to achieve. For example, they want their white paper to be authoritative and weighty, and they arbitrarily associate that with a length of 10,000 words.

However, I’ve noticed that some writing clients will quietly drop the length target when they see how much text they actually need. So it might be worth writing the amount you feel is necessary first, and only adding more if other people insist. To help people make the right choices, focus on what the writing needs to do, rather than what it should be.

Similar problems can crop up if you’re working in a format that has a fixed size and number of pages, such as a printed brochure. If you’ve said everything that needs to be said, don’t write more just to fill up the space or justify the print cost. Add space to the design, or include a nice illustration or a diagram instead (chapter 20).

Search engine overreach

Sometimes, you may be asked to write a certain number of words per page ‘for SEO’. Because there are studies showing that high-ranking pages tend to be longer,[24] people assume that you have to write (say) 1500 words to please Google. (I should add that real SEO experts don’t think this way.)

In fact, a web page is like any other piece of writing: it should be long enough to achieve its purpose, but no longer. If a page describes a pair of socks, 100 words could be enough. If it’s an introduction to Zen Buddhism, it might need 1000 words or more.

Google ranks pages higher because they meet users’ specific queries, not because they have a certain number of words.[25] And there’s really no point writing a thousand-word page that attracts more visitors, only to bore them all to tears once they arrive. Write for humans first, algorithms second.

Takeaways from this chapter

Decide how much to write based on what you want to achieve, the message you need to convey and your reader’s likely interest.

Every word you write demands more of the reader’s time and energy, and they can withdraw it whenever they want.

People read what interests them, regardless of length.

Setting a length limit can improve focus; aiming for a length target can undermine it.

Write for people, not Google.

6. Structure

Give your writing a clear structure to make it easier to understand.

Why use a structure?

This chapter presents five pre-set structures you can use to give your writing shape: the inverted pyramid, step by step, group by group, Q&A and problem/solution.

Structures can be helpful because they guide you to include the right things. If you choose a structure that suits your message, it will help you cover everything the reader needs to know.

Fixed structures can also give the reader a framework for their new knowledge, by telling them what sort of information your writing is going to provide. This happens before they even start reading.

For example, if you use the step-by-step structure, the reader understands straight away that you are talking about a process that contains stages. That prepares them to think about temporal sequencing (one thing follows another) and causal relationships (one thing leads to another).

Or, if you use a Q&A format, you indicate to the reader that this is a subject people have questions about. The Q&A structure implies that it might be difficult to understand fully at first glance, or that it might have nuances that the reader doesn’t expect.

The only problem with structures is that they can become limiting. As we’ll see, they suggest a particular view of your subject, which might rule out other views that could also be useful for the reader.

So keep in mind that some structures might be better suited to just one part of your writing, rather than the whole thing. And you may have to flex the structure to fit the message – not the other way around. View structures as handy tools, not rigid templates.

The inverted pyramid

In the inverted pyramid structure, you say the most important thing first, then add more detail as you go along. You start broad, and gradually focus in. This gives the ‘inverted pyramid’ shape, with wide coverage at the top and detail at the bottom.[26]

My version of the inverted pyramid uses the ‘five Es’:

Essentials: What the reader absolutely must know about your message (from the plan you made in chapter 3)

Explanation: More detail to fill out the reader’s knowledge, including links to what they already know (chapter 14)

Examples: Different perspectives (chapter 15), metaphors (chapter 13) or stories (chapter 18) that will help the reader understand

Externals: Authoritative views from other people that will build credibility (chapter 17)

Extras: ‘Nice to have’ stuff, or things that might help the reader remember the message (chapter 18).

The strength of the inverted pyramid is that it helps all types of reader. Readers who are already interested have the motivation to read to the end, so they’ll find everything they need. Other readers, who have less interest, time or attention, may not make it that far – but at least they’ll get the most important parts.

To write in the inverted pyramid style, you need to rank your points in order of importance. So if you’ve already made a plan (chapter 3), revisit it to place the most important things first, and the least important ones last.

Write each section as if it’s the reader’s last. In other words, when writing your essentials, make them stand alone. If the reader really does bail out after the first one or two paragraphs, what will they take away?

When people read, they fit the things they learn with what they already know. The more they read, the deeper and fuller their understanding becomes, which makes it easier for them to get to grips with more complex ideas. So it makes sense to introduce simple or familiar ideas first, then move on to more complex, less familiar ones later on. In psychology, this is known as priming.[27]

The inverted pyramid puts the reader in control, because it’s completely transparent. The reader can decide whether and how much they want to read, based on a clear understanding of what’s on offer.

Note that not all writing works this way. For example, some academic writing only reveals the findings of a study after the introduction and method. In the same way, you might be tempted to hold back some important information until the end, like a big plot twist in the closing pages of a novel. But this only works if you know your reader is motivated to read to the end. If they don’t take the bait, your ploy will fail, and they’ll miss out on an important part of your message.

Another benefit of the inverted pyramid is that it makes it easy to reduce the length of your writing: just look at the later sections, and delete the ones that are least important. If you need to sum up the whole thing – for example, in a tweet – then your title or opening is ready to use.

To further strengthen your inverted pyramid structure, you can also:

Write a title or headline that encapsulates the overall message

Use sub-headings (chapter 20) that preview what each part will say

Write a summary at the start, to show readers why they should read on, or give them the main points if they don’t

State the purpose of your writing at the outset, to tell readers exactly what they can expect.

One line to reach your reader

This is a simple but effective technique for shaping your writing around your message and developing an inverted pyramid structure.[28]

Ask yourself: what’s the single most important thing you want to say? If you wanted readers to take away just one thing from your writing, what would it be? Answer in one sentence. For example:

Business owners need to take data security seriously.

Great start! That gives you a possible title – something like ‘Why business owners need to start taking data security seriously’. And you can use your first paragraph to quickly explain what data security is, and why data breaches can be such a major problem.

Now think about the next most important thing. Again, imagine that this is all you get to say to your reader. You need to make good on the promise of your title and keep the reader engaged.

To do that, you might say something like:

Hacking and data theft can happen to anybody, and if they haven’t happened to you yet, it’s only a matter of time.

This will be a good theme for your second paragraph, where you back up your eye-catching claims and substantiate your story with some solid facts and data.

OK, let’s do one more. If readers have taken points one and two on board, what’s the next thing they should learn? It might be:

The most important thing you can do is to set up a proper backup and disaster recovery plan.

This points the way to the nuts-and-bolts part of your writing, where you’ll provide a solution to the problem you’ve raised, and offer the reader some advice they can go away and act on.

You can continue along the same lines, thinking of the next most important thing to say, until you have a complete plan for your writing.

Step by step

A step-by-step structure breaks down your message into smaller pieces, to make it easier for the reader to get to grips with it. (It also makes it easier for you to write.)

For example, you could work through a method that the reader needs to follow, the process of using a product or the steps that an organisation took to develop a new service.

Step by step lets you write a title that promises the reader some really down-to-earth learning that they can put into practice:

Your step-by-step guide to buying a house, from browsing listings to getting the keys

The great advantages of the step-by-step structure are transparency and modularity. The reader can see all the steps before they start reading, and they always know where they are in the sequence. That makes it easy for them to move around within your writing, pick out the parts they need or to refer back to it later on.

Group by group

Sometimes, one piece of writing needs to work for different groups of readers, each one needing a different focus or level of detail.

For example, let’s say you’re writing the instructions for a software app. An IT director might need to know what functions it offers at a high level, while team managers need the hands-on detail of how to set it up. You could solve this by writing a general overview, then going into sections explicitly aimed at each group – ‘For IT directors’, ‘For team managers’, and so on.

Or, if you’re writing about a product or service, you might need to serve readers who are at different stages of learning and expertise. Those who are completely new to the product need background info in order to make their buying decision, while experienced users already know all that and just want to compare features and prices.

You could write a ‘Start here’ section for beginners, where they can learn some ideas and terms that will help them read the rest of your content. Then you could also write a section called ‘In detail’ or ‘Feature breakdown’ for readers who want to get into the nuts and bolts.

You could refer to the different groups in your title. For example:

An introduction to online safety for teachers, parents and pupils

Your challenges when using this structure will be length and focus. You know from the start that few readers, if any, will read the whole thing. But you still have to prevent it from becoming so long and heavy that they’re put off before they start. And each section will need to stay laser-focused on the readers it’s written for, so you don’t end up saying ‘everything everywhere’.

If you’re writing online, it should be relatively easy to direct readers to a page that suits their needs. In print or other formats, you’ll have to consider how you can achieve a similar effect – for example, with colour-coded sections in a booklet.

Business-to-business service providers sometimes struggle with the question of how to ‘slice up’ their offering. Should they talk about the different things they can do, or the different client groups they can help? Well, if the format allows it, there’s no reason why you can’t do both. Create one set of web pages called ‘What we do’ about services, and another set called ‘Your business’ or similar, where you link the services to different client types. As long as readers can find their own best way through the content, it’s all good.

Questions and answers

With this structure, you organise your writing according to questions the reader might have, in the order they might ask them.

Each question becomes a heading, presented as the reader’s ‘voice’, while the text underneath provides your answer to their question.

For example:

What are solar panels?

How can I get solar panels at my home?

How much will it cost?

How much could I save?

The Q&A structure leads naturally to titles like:

Solar panels: Your questions answered

Or:

Everything you need to know about solar panels

For this structure to work, the questions need to be plausible. Don’t put words in the reader’s mouth that they would never say. For example, some commercial websites pose ridiculous questions like ‘What if I need a solicitor in the Springfield area who specialises in child and family law?’ If the point you’re making isn’t an answer, don’t try to hang it on a question.

You should also be honest about the things that readers might ask. They might have doubts or objections as well as queries, and they might link to gaps or weaknesses that you need to deal with head-on.

In the example above, ‘How much will it cost?’ is a question that the writer might prefer to avoid for a while, so the reader doesn’t get put off by the expense. But if the question will be uppermost in the reader’s mind, it may be better to confront it now, rather than trying to talk across them while they’re thinking about something else.

Q&As can work well for SEO, because they answer the questions that Google detects in people’s searches.[29] To discover relevant questions, do some online reader research (chapter 2). If there’s one thing the internet is good at, it’s telling you about people’s queries. So there’s really no excuse for neglecting popular questions – or answering those that nobody asks.

Another benefit of Q&As is they position your writing as a conversation (chapter 11). Just by choosing that format, you show readers that you want to talk to them and respond to their needs. Even if you don’t completely succeed, at least you’re trying.

One downside of question headings is that they’re harder for readers to scan, because key words appear later on. For example, a one-word heading like ‘Savings’ is a lot easier to read than ‘How much could I save?’, where the key word appears at the end rather than the beginning.

Another potential problem with questions and answers, particularly online, is when they become a ‘dumping ground’ for things you should really have covered elsewhere. We’ll come back to this when we look at Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in chapter 19.

Problem and solution

With the problem/solution structure, you talk about a situation that you frame as a problem, before explaining how it was solved – or how it could be solved.

This structure works in many kinds of writing. The table shows some examples.

Writing | Problem | Solution
Job application | You need someone to manage your social media | Employ me and I’ll sort it out for you
Business project proposal | We need to find out what we could do with Artificial Intelligence | Fund and approve my project
Advert for a product | You have dandruff | Buy this shampoo
Marketing for a service | You don’t know what your customers think | Hire us to do your market research
Case study | Our customer needed a new conservatory | Here’s what we designed and built for them
Political campaigning | Our community has social or economic problems | Vote for me and I’ll fix them
Academic paper | There’s a gap in the scholarly literature | Our new findings

This approach gives you a very clear and simple structure, with a straight path from problem to solution. The writing often tells a story, so it’s easy to put the elements in chronological order. Overall, your writing will feel constructive and practical, with a strong focus on taking action.

Problem/solution can also give you a ready-made title. For example:

Why your workspace is stressing you out, and what to do about it

However, problem/solution can also be limiting in terms of what it rules in or out, and the message it sends.

By proposing a single solution, you could be railroading the reader towards a foregone conclusion. That’s exactly how marketers use this formula. First, they ‘poke the problem’ to make it sound terrible. Then they position the product or service as the best solution. In reality, there may be many other solutions – or the problem might not even be that bad.

At a deeper level, just framing something as a problem could imply a value judgement in itself. And that, in turn, could affect the reader’s response. For example, people’s attitudes towards immigration and cultural integration can change based on how the media talks about the issue.[30]

Does everyone agree that the problem is a problem? Might the solution be worse, in some people’s eyes? Even if you believe your answer is the right one, you might make a stronger case for it by showing both sides of the story (chapter 17).

Overall, problem/solution is a simple structure that suits certain subjects, but might not work so well when you need to bring in some nuance, balance and alternative views.

Takeaways from this chapter

Use structures as tools, not templates. Don’t bend your message out of shape just to fit a template.

Use the inverted pyramid structure to convey key information to every reader, no matter how attentive or committed they are.

Use a step-by-step structure to give practical guidance that the reader can use straight away.

If different reader groups need different information or levels of detail, write different pages or sections to provide it.

Use Q&A and problem/solution structures to speak to readers’ concerns – but only when it’s right for your subject.

7. Titles

Tell readers what you’re going to say, and how.

What titles do

Titles have three main functions:

To describe the content. Titles tell the reader what your writing is about.

To set the tone. Titles suggest what sort of experience readers will get from your writing – serious, playful, intriguing and so on.

To promise value. Titles tell the reader that your writing will give them something they want or need – information, insight, new ideas, entertainment and so on.

In other words, titles tell the reader what you’re going to say, how you’ll say it and how it will help them.

By weighing up these three aspects, readers use your title to decide whether or not they want to read on.

Descriptive titles

The simplest type of title just describes what your writing does. For example:

Guitar Playing for Beginners

Descriptive titles are ultra-clear, but they don’t really pull readers in. If they have a choice of what to read, they might go for something that sounds like it will offer them a more interesting or entertaining reading experience.

‘How to’ titles

‘How to’ titles promise some practical knowledge for the reader, which they can use to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal. For example:

How to Get Started on Guitar, Step by Step

This sort of title works well for the step-by-step structure (chapter 6), and when you take a mainly functional view of your subject (chapter 15).

It’s also ideally suited to a problem/solution structure, where you expect the reader will search for what they want to know:

How to Fix a Leaky Tap

‘Why’ titles

‘Why’ titles promise insight as well as information. They tell readers that you’re going to explain something they need to understand. They can also help to generate intrigue, which we’ll come back to in chapter 18.

For example:

Why Every Teenager Should Learn to Play Guitar

As this example suggests, ‘why’ can lead on to opinion as well as explanation. The article behind this title could be a reasoned argument about the best instrument to learn. Or it could be a barnstorming rant about kids wasting time on their phones instead of playing real music.

Question titles

This type of title poses a question that the reader might have. For example:

What Type of Guitar Should I Buy?

This speaks directly to one of the reader’s knowledge gaps (chapter 14). There’s something they want to know, and your writing will help them to find out.

The only potential problem with a question title is that while it suggests that the reader will find an answer to their question, it doesn’t directly state what the writing will do. So the reader might be subconsciously unsure about whether the writing will actually deliver.

For example, a more reassuring version of the title above might be:

The Five Main Types of Guitar and How to Choose the Right One for You

This combines the descriptive and how-to styles to speak more directly to the things readers are most likely to be interested in – answering their question rather than just echoing it.

Command titles

These titles are framed as a command directed at the reader. For example:

Learn to Play Guitar in Half an Hour

As you can see, the title isn’t really telling the reader what to do. Instead, it implies that reading will allow them to do it. The underlying meaning is:

[Read This and] Learn to Play Guitar in Half an Hour

One advantage of this title style is that it puts key words and phrases near the start, which is good for both SEO and user experience (chapter 19). If people are searching for ‘learn guitar’, this title reflects their search and also speaks directly to their user story (chapter 2).

The key to getting this right is identifying the verb + noun combination that captures the reader’s goal. In this case, it’s ‘learn’ + ’guitar’, which is fairly easy to work out. However, with more obscure or technical subjects, you might need to consult Google Trends[31] to discover what people actually search for – bearing in mind that they may not yet know the correct terms for the things they want to learn about.

Doing titles

These are similar to command titles, but use an ‘–ing’ word rather than a command (in grammar terms, a present participle rather than the imperative). For example:

Learning the Guitar: Everything You Need to Know

This type of title can be quite weak, because it hides agency. It’s not clear who’s behind the ‘–ing’ word; it just kind of happens. However, for some subjects, that could be useful. For example, you might be writing about a process that involves a lot of different people, not just the reader:

Preventing Plastic Pollution: What Citizens, Companies and Public-Sector Organisations Can Do Now

You might be thinking that it would be better to say something like:

What Citizens, Companies and Public-Sector Organisations Can Do Now to Prevent Plastic Pollution

However, while that is more elegant, it also relegates the key phrase to the end of the title, making it slower and more difficult for the reader (and maybe Google) to tell what the writing is about.

List titles

List titles tell the reader that your writing is going to cover a certain number of things, in the form of a list article or ‘listicle’. For example:

Seven Ways to Improve Your Guitar Playing in Minutes

As this example suggests, the things are usually a set of related items, or different aspects of a single subject.

List titles work well because they combine a solid, quantified promise of value with intrigue. Getting seven ideas (or whatever it is) in return for reading just one article sounds like a pretty good deal, with a good chance of getting a rounded view of the subject. At the same time, the reader is immediately curious to know what all these different things are, and whether they’ve correctly anticipated any of them.

However, as I’m sure you already know, this type of title has been overused online, as a ploy to tempt readers into clicking a link. If you use this sort of title for a serious information article, readers might think it’s clickbait even when it’s not.

Two-part titles

With two-part titles, you pair an evocative main title with a more descriptive subtitle that explains your subject, like this:

Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience[32]

Here, the main title can’t really stand alone, because it doesn’t give the reader any literal information about the subject. Its only job is to inspire and intrigue the reader. The subtitle could stand alone, but it would still be rather lacklustre compared to the two-part version.

The key to this approach is to make each part do its job, and nothing else. In other words, make the main title really vivid, and nail all the description in the subtitle. If these functions get mixed up, or both parts only manage one job between them, your title will be far less effective. A striking metaphor (chapter 13) might give you a powerful main title.

You can also use a ‘how to’ or ‘why’ title as your subtitle, like this:

Teenage Kicks: Why Every Young Person Should Learn the Guitar

Two-part titles imply a certain depth of content, so they’re probably best suited to longer pieces of writing. They’re often used for academic papers and serious non-fiction books.

Standout titles

All the titles we’ve looked at so far focus on the content of your writing. But another important function of a title is to make your writing stand out against other things that the reader might want to read.

There are several ways to do that. For example, you could express supreme confidence in your message or its value:

The One Article You Must Read If You’re Learning Guitar

Or you could be deliberately hyperbolic – that is, make an extreme statement that isn’t meant to be taken seriously:

The Best Guide to Choosing a Guitar… Ever!

Or you could aim to generate intrigue:

Why Everyone is Suddenly Buying This Guitar in 2021

Here, the idea is to tantalise the reader with an irresistible promise of essential knowledge – knowledge that they can only get by reading on. We’ll come back to this approach in chapter 18, when we look at ways to make your message stick.

Now, arguably, titles like this aren’t really clear, because they claim something that the content doesn’t really deliver. However, you might still choose to use them, because as we’ve seen, the reader’s attention is an important part of the context for your writing. The reader always has a choice, and if they only have so much time or interest to spare, you may have to fight for their attention before you even get a chance to speak.

Takeaways from this chapter

Use your title to describe your writing, set the tone and offer help.

Speak to readers’ questions and address their knowledge gaps.

Bring in emotion and intrigue to get the reader’s attention, but make sure you don’t over-promise or mislead.

8. Plain language

Use plain, simple and accessible words so everyone can understand you.

What is plain language?

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words, and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way.

Mark Twain[33]

We’ve seen that clear writing is a process of communication, not just putting words on a page. So the best definition of plain language focuses on what the reader gets out, not just what the writer puts in.

Here’s Dr Annetta Cheek of the Center for Plain Language:[34]

A communication is in plain language if it meets the needs of its audience—by using language, structure, and design so clearly and effectively that the audience has the best possible chance of readily finding what they need, understanding it, and using it.

In other words, plain language is helpful and useful to the reader. It has value when it helps readers to get things done.

Plain language is the foundation for every level of the pyramid of aims from chapter 3. It makes reading easier. It helps readers understand and remember your message. And it makes them more likely to change how they think and act.

Most people prefer plain language if given the choice.[35] Even experts, who can easily handle complex writing if they need to, would rather learn from writing that’s simple and easy to understand.[36] So using plain language gives the reader a better experience, as well as helping you communicate with them.

The value of plain language

Communication is like any other organisational process: the more efficient it is, the better for everyone involved.

The easier it is for people to get information, the less time they have to spend looking for it, or trying to understand it. They’re also more likely to get things right first time, so they don’t raise queries that need answering, or make mistakes that need sorting out. In a business context, that can save time for sales or customer service teams, as well as for the customers themselves.

For example, in 1998, Federal Express reworded its policies and procedures into plain language. That saved so much time that FedEx made efficiency gains worth at least $400,000 a year (over $650,000 today).[37]

That’s the financial perspective. But plain language has great human value too. When readers understand a situation clearly, they have more choices and more opportunity to help themselves, or others. Knowledge is power.

For example, one of the issues with obtaining people’s informed consent for clinical trials is that they don’t always understand what they’re signing up for.[38] More seriously yet, if people can’t understand instructions from healthcare professionals about how to take their medicine, they can’t follow them.[39] In this context, using plain language could be a matter of life and death.

Why plain language works

As we saw in chapter 5, one of the most fundamental aims of clear writing is to keep the reader reading. Plain language is easier for people to read – and since it’s usually shorter, they’re more likely to read it all too.

The next aims after reading are understanding and remembering – and plain language is better for these aims, too. To see why, let’s take a look inside the reader’s head.

We can think of the reader’s brain as a machine for processing information, as shown in the diagram.[40]

When the reader sees or hears your words, information comes from their senses into their sensory memory. Like a funnel, sensory memory can only handle a certain amount of stuff at a time. So the reader uses their attention to work out what’s most important, and filters the rest out.

It would be nice if the reader gave your writing their full attention, but you can’t count on it. They might be distracted by things around them (like other people on the train), or other thoughts in their head (like what to have for dinner). So they might skim-read your words, or read them without really taking them in.

Bear in mind that your reader might be hearing your words instead of seeing them – for example, because they’re using a screen-reading application. They will understand your words exactly the same way,[41] but if they miss something, they have to physically intervene to vary the pace of playback, or go back and re-listen.[42]

Obviously, you can’t control the reader’s surroundings, or what they use to read. But you can make the best use of whatever attention they bring to your writing.

Next, information is passed to the reader’s working memory, or short-term memory. This is where they try to make sense of it, or relate it to things they already know. However, working memory has a limited capacity: it can only handle between five and nine items at a time.[43] Whatever the reader can process is passed into long-term memory; the rest is forgotten.

All this thought-crunching uses up brainpower, which increases what psychologists call cognitive load.[44] The reader’s brain can only do so much. If you give them too many things to think about at once, some of them will get squeezed out.

By using plain language, you show the reader kindness and respect. You say, ‘I know reading takes time, and this stuff may be boring or hard to understand. And I know you’re busy, or tired, or irritated, and maybe you don’t want to be reading this right now. So I’ve done my best to make it easy to read, to save you time and effort.’

Think back to a time when you read something really clear and concise about an unfamiliar subject – a product manual, maybe, or an online guide. Remember how relieved and grateful you were, when you realised that this wasn’t going to be so bad after all? That’s exactly how you should aim to make your reader feel.

Simple words

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.

Jack Kerouac[45]

Simple words are the building blocks of plain language.

They are usually:

Shorter

More familiar (because we learned them earlier in life)

More concrete (so they talk about people, things and events in the real world, rather than ideas)

Unambiguous (so they mean just one thing in context).

Simplicity is a choice that you make word by word as you write. Whenever you have a choice between words, you choose the simplest one.

As you do that over and over again, you build up a simple, solid draft that expresses the very heart of your message. Then, if you have a good reason to add in more complex words or ideas, you can.

The first words you think of aren’t always the simplest. Stop and ask yourself, ‘What am I trying to say?’ Imagine you’re explaining it to someone who’s never heard anything like it before – a child, or an alien, or someone from the distant past.

Don’t start a sentence you can’t finish. If you can’t hold this whole idea in your head, neither can your reader. Take your hands off the keyboard for a moment and just think. Say the words out loud, if that helps – to yourself, or to someone else. Then, once you’ve got your thoughts in order, write them down.

Sometimes, you might have no choice but to use a more unusual word. For example, you might need to explain a complex idea or a technical concept. But simple language should always be your first choice – in other words, you use the simpler word unless you have a good reason not to.

If you’re not sure how to simplify your word choices, use a thesaurus. There are free ones online. Enter the complex word you were going to use, and see if you can find a simpler equivalent. (This is a far better use for a thesaurus than trying to decorate your writing with unusual words.)

Everyday words

To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.

Aristotle

Although the average native English speaker knows 15,000–20,000 word families (or lemmas), they generally use fewer than 1000 in everyday life. Those are the words they say out loud and hear spoken in conversation, day in, day out. And they’re also the ones they use in their ‘mind’s voice’, when they’re talking to themselves inside their head.

These words are what everyday life is made from. When you use them, your writing fits right into the word-flow of the reader’s day-to-day experience.

Everyday words express familiarity and trust. When people need advice, information or support, they usually turn to their own family, friends or colleagues first. The answer they hear will be expressed in the same words that they use themselves. By using the same language, you’re putting your writing on the same level.

If the reader has questions, you should answer them in the language they use – not talk across them with words they don’t even know. That’s why the UK National Health Service uses the words ‘pee’ and ‘poo’ on its web pages, instead of medical terms taken from Latin like ‘urine’ and ‘faeces’. The decision was based on the words that visitors actually used, taken from website data, survey feedback and Google searches. Now, the NHS website receives 10 times more positive feedback than negative about its online language.[47]

SEO is another powerful reason to use the reader’s language. When people search, they type their words into Google – not yours. So if your website doesn’t reflect that language, people will never even find it. Online, your words don’t just shape your message – they also determine your audience.

Concrete words

Plain language is usually concrete rather than abstract. In other words, it talks about things, people and events in the real world – not ideas and concepts that only exist on paper or in people’s heads.

Psychologists believe that people build their own mental experiences of the things they read about, using their memories and experiences as a source. These ‘mental movies’ can involve all the senses, not just sight and sound. This is known as the embodied simulation hypothesis.[48]

By using concrete language, you key into these memories, making it easy for the reader to understand you. In their mind, they are seeing what you mean, or hearing what you’re saying. But when you use more abstract words, there’s nothing for them to get to grips with.

For example, stop reading for a moment now and imagine you’re eating an apple while sitting on a beach.

To do that, you used your own memories to create the scene in your mind. Maybe you saw a particular beach that you know, and the colour of the apple. If you spent a bit more time on it, you might have heard the sound of the waves, smelt the sea or felt sand through your fingers. But at the very least, you will have some sort of mental image of the things I’m talking about.

I haven’t even told you anything about apples or beaches yet. But just by using concrete language, I’ve activated a particular part of your brain.[49] I’ve made a connection with your lived experience of the world. In a small way, we’ve shared an experience and become partners in meaning. Now we can go forward together to explore a new idea.

With most of your writing, you won’t be talking about nice things like apples and beaches. But the principle is the same. Whenever you write, ask yourself:

What is actually happening?

Who is doing what?

What real-world things are involved?

We’ll come back to these ideas in the chapters to come, as we explore how to craft clear sentences (chapter 9) and avoid traps like abstractions and nominalisations (chapter 12). We’ll also look at metaphors (chapter 13), which can help you use more concrete language even if you have to talk about abstract things.

Real-world language isn’t just clear – it’s effective, too. Researchers have found that people working in several areas can get better results by using concrete language.

For example, sharing information in concrete terms gets a more positive reaction from investors,[50] and even makes them more likely to invest.[51] When customer service teams use concrete language, consumers are more satisfied and willing to purchase, because they feel they are being listened to.[52] And many studies find that vivid visual language is more persuasive too.[53]

Accessible language

Accessible language is open to everyone. Writing in an accessible way means being as clear to as many different readers as you can.

The word ‘accessible’ reminds us that clear writing is communication. It’s not about just about how you use words, but how you help the reader access the things they need – information, help, advice, services and so on.

The opposite of ‘plain’ is ‘complicated’. But the opposite of ‘accessible’ is ‘closed off’. If you use inaccessible language, you could be excluding certain readers from your message, and the benefit they could get from it. Your choices as a writer shape the choices of your reader.

Accessible language opens up your message to every reader, even if they find it hard to read and understand the written word. Readers like this are often known as ‘Limited English Proficiency’ (LEP) readers in the U.S.,[54] or ‘low-literacy’ readers in the UK. Within that category, ‘very low literacy’ readers are those who can only understand short, simple sentences about their own lives.

Low-literacy readers may be in the minority, but there are still a great many of them. In the U.S., 43% of adults have only basic or below-basic literacy skills.[55] In England, 16.4% of adults, or 7.1 million people, have very low literacy skills.[56]

There are several reasons why people might have limited English proficiency. English might not be their first language. (That could be because they’re deaf, and sign language is their first.) They might have a condition that affects their reading or comprehension, like dyslexia, autism[57] or learning difficulties. They might find reading difficult, or dislike doing it. Or, aside from reading ability, they might just be feeling upset or distracted right now, reducing the attention they can bring to your writing.

It’s good to be aware of all these factors. But at the end of the day, the ‘why’ doesn’t matter all that much. Whatever the profile or situation of your reader, your job is the same: to make sure they understand. And the way to do that is pretty much the same, no matter who your reader may be.

Research suggests that if you want everybody to understand your writing, your language needs to be a lot plainer than you think – and it may be quite different from what you’re used to seeing in print too.

For example, the readability guidelines developed by Content Design London in collaboration with usability experts[58] include suggestions such as:

Avoid negative contractions like ‘can’t’ and ‘don’t’ – people misunderstand them, or find them hard to read

Use numerals, not words, for all numbers – they’re easier to scan (so, write ‘3’ instead of ‘three’)

Instead of defining an unusual word once at the start, use the simpler rephrasing every time

Avoid all metaphors (chapter 13) – they do not say what you mean, and can slow down comprehension.

Easy read is a format that was created to help people with learning disabilities understand information easily.[59] It uses short and simple sentences, one for each idea. Each sentence has just one verb in the active voice (see chapter 9). Easy read also uses pictures to show what the words are saying, giving readers another way to understand.[60]

Bear in mind that these sorts of guidelines help you write so absolutely anyone can understand. But that isn’t always the aim. Instead, on most projects, you’ll make a trade-off – for example, sacrificing accessibility so you can make your writing more memorable. Or you may have to accept that if you want to be crystal clear to your main target readers, some other readers may not understand so well. It all depends on what you want to achieve.

Measuring readability

You don’t need a linguistics degree to recognise plain language. But there are tools you can use to get a more scientific verdict on how readable your writing is.

Oxford Learners’ Dictionaries have compiled a list of the most commonly used words that you can browse and search online.[61] They’ve also built an online text checker where you can paste in your text to find out its overall reading level,[62] the level of each individual word and other useful information like the average length of your sentences.[63]

Microsoft Word will give you readability statistics for your writing after it finishes checking spelling and grammar.[64] You can find out how long your words and sentences are, on average, and get a Reading Ease score out of 100 (the higher the better).

Plain English is between 60 and 70. At this level, most 13–15-year-olds can understand. Aim for this level or higher, unless you’re writing for a specific readership who can handle a few specialised words or technical terms. (This book scores 66.)

Word will also tell you the reading age of your text (the lower the better).[65] This is the level of education that someone would need to understand your text, expressed as the age of a young reader. Allegedly, the average reading age in the UK is nine, while popular newspapers like The Sun are written for a reading age of eight.[66] The NHS aims for a reading age of nine to 11 on its website.[67] (This book scores 12–13.)

As we’ve seen, it’s always good to focus on your reader and their needs, and reading age is an intuitive way to do that. But personally, I’m uneasy about applying children’s reading ages to readers who are in fact grown-ups – that is, adult citizens with needs and rights of their own. To assign them a reading age of eight feels condescending and ableist, like we’re saying ‘LOL, you read like a little kid.’

If the reader is an adult, then by definition their reading ability is that of an adult, not a child. So these days, I prefer to aim for the highest Reading Ease score I can, without getting into who has a reading age of what.

The limits of statistics

Readability statistics are great in some ways. They give you an instant snapshot of how clear your writing is, or how much clearer you’ve made it. They might also help you make your case to those who are sceptical about the value of plain language, or have their own views on what it is.

However, stats only reflect inputs, not outcomes. They only analyse the words you put down on the page, and they do it in a fairly low-level, mechanistic way. They suggest that something might be wrong, but they can’t tell you how to fix it.

For example, stats can’t tell you if you’ve got a logical structure, or the right length. They can’t tell you how persuasive or memorable your writing is. And they certainly can’t tell you how your reader will react when they read it.

So use stats as a part of your writing toolbox, but don’t let them replace or overrule your own judgement, or feedback from readers (chapter 23).

Opening up, not dumbing down

You turn the handle the way it goes, not the way it ought to go.

Confucius

Plain and accessible language is democracy on the page. It’s about speaking so people can listen: bringing as many people into your message as you can.

However, some people don’t see it that way. They feel that accessibility is ‘dumbing down’, or catering to the ‘lowest common denominator’. The idea is that readers should be able to read at a certain level, and if they can’t, writers shouldn’t be pandering to them.

Before long, the conversation takes a turn into areas like educational standards, preserving the English language and even national culture and immigration.

Maybe you’d like to see literacy improved. I would too. But the solution to that problem lies elsewhere. You won’t achieve a positive change by writing in a way that your reader simply can’t understand. There’s no shortage of obscure, complicated writing out there, but it isn’t helping anyone improve their reading skills. It just locks them out of messages they might need.

Maybe you feel the reader should be able to understand what you write. But the point is, they don’t. If you want to communicate with someone, you must meet their needs in the here-and-now. Anything else is not clear writing.

As content expert Sarah Winters says, ‘It’s not dumbing down. It’s opening up.’[68]

The courage to be simple

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.

E.F. Schumacher[69]

At school, we learn the shortest, simplest words first, then move on to longer and more complex ones as we get older. So we associate big words with being clever, mature and sophisticated, and short, simple ones with being childish or naïve.

However, knowledge is not the same as intelligence. Knowledge is knowing lots of words. Intelligence is knowing which ones to use.

Using simple words takes courage. When you express yourself in the simplest way, you put yourself out there for everyone to see – for better or worse. There’s nowhere to hide.

As you speak plainly, so readers hear clearly. They get your message straight. So if they respond negatively, it’s definitely because of what you’re saying – not because they didn’t like your choice of words, or they couldn’t quite see what you were getting at.

Now, some people can’t handle that. They don’t want to be so exposed. They may also be afraid of looking uneducated, unsophisticated or just childish.[70] So they cloak themselves in complex, fancy writing as a kind of armour against ridicule.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Researchers have found that when people over-complicate their writing, readers actually see them as less intelligent, not more.[71]

Simplicity is the currency of genius. Geniuses say things that are completely new, yet seem obvious the second they say them. Or they say things you’ve always known, but could never express.

OK, you might not reach those dizzy heights with your writing. But still… isn’t it something to aim for?

Takeaways from this chapter

Plain, accessible language aims to help the reader and is open to everyone.

Use everyday words to fit in with the reader’s experience and the voices of those they trust.

Use concrete words to get a positive response from your reader.

Use readability statistics as a guide, but know their limits.

Have the courage to be simple.

9. Clear sentences

When the bricks are well made, the wall will be strong.

What sentences do

Sentences are the building blocks of your clear writing. Each sentence makes another point, and as the reader reads them, you gradually build up your message in their mind.

To make your writing clear, talk about what is actually happening. Make each sentence describe a single event in the real world. If you do that consistently, your writing will be clear.

On the other hand, if you’re struggling with a sentence, it’s often because you’re trying to say too many things at once, or you’re not quite clear what you want to say, or you’re talking about ideas rather than reality. 

You could fill a whole book with advice on structuring sentences, and several authors have.[72] In this chapter, I’ve aimed to give you the basics, without getting too bogged down in the finer points of grammar.

If you find the workings of language interesting, by all means read more about them.[73] However, you may find that you learn just as much by reflecting deeply on what works and what doesn’t work – in your own writing, and in other people’s too.

Write ideas first, not sentences

Sometimes, it’s hard to write fully formed sentences from the get-go. The ideas are there in your head, but the words won’t come out right. Or the thoughts are fluttering by too quickly for you to capture them in your word-net.

If so, try just writing points, one per line. Each point will become a sentence, but you don’t have to worry about that for now. Just get the ideas down in some sort of order. Think of them as clay that you can use to make bricks later on.

You might find it helpful to speak your thoughts out loud. You could make an audio recording as you go – your phone will do it. That allows you to forget all about writing for the moment, and focus completely on your thoughts.

For example, here are the notes I made when writing this section so far:

sometimes hard to write proper sentences right off

instead write notes

put one idea per line

say things out loud if that helps

It feels weird showing you that, because these notes never normally see the light of day. But that’s precisely the point. It doesn’t matter how bitty or clunky or jumbled your notes are, as long as they record your thoughts in a way you can understand. Nobody need ever see behind the curtain of your writing process.

Once you’ve safely captured your ideas, you can spend as long as you like turning them into sentences. So let’s look at that now.

Basic sentences

A basic sentence is like the ones we learned at school:

The cat sat on the mat.

I promised to keep grammar to a minimum, but we need a little bit here. In this sentence, ‘the cat’ is the subject, or what the sentence is about. ‘Sat’ is the verb, or what’s happening. And ‘the mat’ is the object, or what it’s happening to.

In basic sentence structure, you follow the order ‘subject, verb, object’:

You start with the person (or thing) who is doing something (the subject).

Then you say what they are doing, or what is happening (the verb).

Then you say who or what they are doing it to (the object).

Basic sentences are very clear, so use them to express the most important ideas in your text. A basic sentence at the start of a paragraph often works well, by setting the theme. We’ll come back to this in the next chapter.

Keep sentences short and simple

When I was a kid, there was a TV programme called Crackerjack with a quiz called Double or Drop. For each correct answer, the young contestants were given a prize to hold. If they got something wrong, they got a cabbage instead. But if they dropped anything – whether prize or cabbage – they were out of the game.

Sentences can be like that. If you give the reader too much to hold in their heads, there’s a risk that they’ll drop something.

As long as a sentence is simple enough, the reader can still hold all the pieces of its meaning in their mind.[74] But when it gets too complex, the cognitive load is too much, and some detail is lost.[75] They’re also less likely to remember what they read.[76]

Researchers have found that longer sentences are harder to read.[77] That’s why many writing guidelines suggest keeping sentences to around 15 words, or 25 at the most. A sentence with more than 40 words will probably be hard to understand.[78] Shorter sentences will also work better if your reader is using a small screen, like a phone.

However, if you use nothing but short, basic sentences, your writing will sound monotonous. The consistent rhythm will send the reader off to sleep, like the sound of a train on its tracks. So you’ll want to use a few longer sentences too – but only if they’re the right kind. Let’s see how.

Right-branching sentences

Short sentences are nearly always clear – but long ones can be clear too. It’s not just the length of the sentence that matters, but also its structure.

For example, once you’ve written a basic sentence, you can use it as a basis to make some additional points. Like this:

The cat sat on the mat just inside the back door and began washing its whiskers as it watched the family eat breakfast.

This is called a right-branching sentence. It works because the subject (‘cat’) and the verb (‘sat’) are close together, so the core of the meaning is still clear. That first, basic part gives the reader a strong hook to hang everything else on. We start with the image of the cat, then see it on the mat, and expand our view to the rest of the room. So the sentence works like a mini-story.

When the subject and the verb drift apart, things get tricky. Have a look at this:

The cat, which had just walked through the back door and would soon begin washing its whiskers as it watched the family eat breakfast, made its way to the mat, where it duly sat.

Reading this is like desperately seeking meaning. There’s a sense of holding your breath as you wait for the verb to arrive. In the meantime, your poor brain struggles to take in loads of extra details – but at the same time, it’s itching to skip forward and find out what is actually going on with the cat.[79]

So you can write long sentences – like this one, which has a whopping 41 words – as long as the subject and the verb are close together, and the ideas unfold in a way that the reader will find logical and clear.

Make key points stand alone

Sometimes, a longer sentence is trying to do the job of two shorter sentences at once. For example:

Penicillin, discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, was the first medicine that worked against bacterial infection.

Here, the reader has to keep hold of two points until they reach the end of the sentence, at which point they can mentally separate them out.

It’s clearer to split the ideas up and give them a sentence each:

Penicillin was the first medicine that worked against bacterial infection. It was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928.

The link between the two points is still clear, but the effect is far stronger when each one is allowed to stand on its own.

Progressive sentences

The nouns and verbs in a sentence tell your reader what real-world things to think about. However, they will start thinking about each idea as soon as they read each word – sketching out their mental picture before they even finish the sentence.[80] So the order of the ideas within the sentence is important too.

To make things clear for the reader, describe the parts of your sentence in visual, logical or chronological order. This will create a progressive sentence.

For example:

The tutor will give all year-10 children passcards.

This sentence is perfectly correct, but the progressive version is clearer:

The tutor will give passcards to all children in year 10.

Now the sentence describes the images and events in a logical order. First, we see the tutor. Then we see the passcards in their hand. Next, we see them give the passcards to the children. Finally, we ‘zoom out’ to see that the children we’re talking about are in year 10.

If you’re telling the reader something new, put it towards the end of the sentence. For example:

While standard chargers take two or three hours to charge a phone, the new type can do the same job in 20 minutes.

As we’ll see in chapter 14, existing knowledge is one of the most important factors in learning. This sort of sentence guides the reader to think about what they already know, then add on the new knowledge.

However, there may be times when you need to say things in the ‘wrong’ order. For example, you might need to speak to a reader’s concerns and priorities before you try to tell them anything:

Before we change anything, we’ll give you a full report on the problems with your website and how we plan to fix them.

This sentence isn’t chronological, because the report is written before the changes are made. Instead, it follows the logic of the reader’s priorities. The thing they’re most concerned about is their website being changed without their approval – so the sentence deals with that first.

Passive and active

Some sentences say what is happening, but not who is doing it. This is called the passive voice.

With the passive voice, you’ll often see ‘is’, ‘was’, ‘were’ or ‘being’ followed by a verb. For example:

The survey was conducted in 2018, and responses were received over 12 months. The survey was based on questions that were derived from an earlier iteration.

The problem with the passive voice is that it’s detached from the real world. Somewhere behind these words, people are creating a survey and sending it out, and then some other people are filling it in. But we don’t see those human actions. Instead, inanimate objects take centre stage, and things just mysteriously happen to them.

Here’s a revised version in the active voice:

We did the survey in 2018, and people returned their responses over 12 months. We based the survey on questions we took from an earlier version.

Often, the way to fix passive voice is just to add ‘I’, ‘we’ or ‘you’. Here’s another example:

Orders will be despatched within two weeks of being placed.

We know that ordering and despatching will happen, but not who will do it. Maybe it’s obvious, but the writing still feels cold and impersonal. It’s better to say:

Once you place an order, we’ll despatch it within two weeks.

This clarifies who will do what, and emphasises the relationship between you (or your organisation) and the reader. It’s also a good way to talk to them directly, which we’ll come back to in chapter 11.

Because the passive voice hides agency, it can also be used to shift responsibility or blame – as in the non-apology ‘mistakes were made’, which acknowledges problems but not responsibility or intent.

This sort of slippery wording can have serious implications. For example, the phrase ‘violence against women’ positions violence as a bad thing that just happens to women, like nasty weather. Women ‘are assaulted’, but male criminals don’t even enter the picture. That puts the focus on the victims themselves, which can easily lead on to blaming them for things that others do to them.[81]

In contexts like these, using the passive voice isn’t just a fine point of grammar. It’s a moral or political choice. And it’s not clear writing, because it isn’t giving readers a true picture of what is actually going on.

However, in other situations, this one-sidedness is exactly what you want. For example:

The President has been shot!

Here, we only care about what happened, and who it happened to. We don’t yet care, or even know, who did it. So it’s fine to use the passive voice to highlight the person who is being ‘done to’, rather than the doer.

As this example suggests, you should decide whether or not to use the passive voice based on what the reader cares about most. For example:

Your meal will be prepared by our expert chefs using only the freshest ingredients.

Here, what’s most important to the reader is their meal, which is highlighted by appearing at the beginning of the sentence. If you wrote:

Our expert chefs will prepare your meal using only the freshest ingredients.

It would be too focused on the chefs, with the reader’s concerns buried in the middle.

End sentences with significant words

The end of a sentence or paragraph is a signal that the reader should pause, reflect and mentally ‘draw breath’ before they go on.

In that brief silence, the last word they read echoes in the reader’s mind, like the final chord of a concert. So make it a strong one.

For example, instead of saying:

It can take years to master database software, which is increasingly complex.

You could say:

Database software is getting more and more complex, and mastering it can take years.

Now, instead of tailing off, the sentence ends with a bang. Before, the most significant word – ‘years’ – was lost in the middle of the sentence. The revised wording leads the reader along a path that brings them to the key point.

End sentences with a stressed syllable

Read these two sentences out loud to yourself:

The interface brings all the information together.

The interface shows all the information in one place.

Which one has the best sound, or the best feel?

Most people would say the second sentence. And the reason is that it ends on a syllable that is stressed.

A stressed syllable is a part of a word that sounds louder or stronger when you read it out loud. Here are the two sentences again, with the stressed syllables in bold:

The interface brings all the information together.

The interface shows all the information in one place.

Finishing your sentence with a stressed syllable makes it sound solid and certain – like returning home at the end of the day.

Changing rhythm doesn’t affect the underlying meaning of your words. However, the more your writing flows, the more your reader will see your message as easy, familiar and safe.[82] So your message will feel clearer, even if the meaning is technically the same.

Say what is happening, not what ‘there is’

Watch out for phrases like ‘there is’, ‘there are’ and ‘it is’. They make sentences longer for no reason, and you can nearly always change them to something clearer and more direct.

For example, instead of this:

It is now possible to submit a grant application online.

Or this:

There is now a facility to submit a grant application online.

You could just say this:

You can now apply for a grant online.

To get rid of these phrases, think about what is actually happening, or who is doing what. Then make your sentence about that.

Here’s another example:

There is a new method for updating your records.

What has actually happened? The procedure has changed. So we need to add the verb ‘change’ to our sentence:

The way you update your records has changed.

To get rid of these phrases, you’ll probably need to add a verb (a doing word) in place of a phrase like ‘there is’, and maybe get rid of a noun that you don’t need (like ‘facility’ and ‘application’ above). You may also need to say ‘I’, ‘we’ or ‘you’ where you didn’t before.

Positives and negatives

I am not a crook.

Richard Nixon[83]

When Nixon said this on TV, most viewers concluded the exact opposite. Just by saying ‘crook’ out loud, he put the idea in their minds – even though he was denying it.

Our minds find it hard to grasp negative ideas. If a negative sentence contains a vivid image or a strong emotion, we’ll latch on to that instead – no matter how many times we hear ‘no’ or ‘not’. (Try telling my dog he’s not getting any more cheese.)

That’s why it’s usually best to frame your points positively rather than negatively. For example:

The new regulations have been designed to reduce red tape for businesses.

This sentence is saying there’s now less paperwork. But because red tape is such a vivid image, it might stick in the reader’s mind, when actually we want them to understand that the red tape is gone.

So instead, we could write:

The new regulations have been designed to make life easier for businesses.

In a similar way, if you’re giving the reader an instruction, you’ll probably want to focus on what you do want them to do, not what you don’t want them to do.

For example, if you write:

Keep off the grass

You’re planting the idea of going on the grass in readers’ minds. For some of them – for example, mischievous six-year-olds – the desire to break the rules may be overwhelming.

However, if you write:

Keep to the path

You sound much more reasonable; you’re painting a picture of what you actually want to happen, and you’re not reminding readers of things they’re not allowed to do.

Phrases like ‘fail to’ or ‘lack of’ have a similar effect, by focusing the reader’s mind on what didn’t happen, or what is missing. Find a way to turn the point around and say it positively instead.

Double negatives

If Tom Jones had sung ‘It’s fairly common’ instead of ‘It’s not unusual’, he probably wouldn’t have got to number one. But at least he would have been clear. And that’s far more important.

A double negative is when two negative words combine to make a positive idea. It’s like in maths, where two negative numbers multiplied together make a positive one.

Double negatives can give subtle shades of meaning. For example, ‘not insignificant’ can mean ‘quite significant’. But if you want to be clear, you need bold colours, not subtle shades.

For example, have a look at this sentence:

There’s no reason not to upgrade.

It’s OK, and it does sound like something a real person might say. But the heart of the sentence is ‘reason not to upgrade’ – and because it comes last, that’s what will linger in the reader’s mind. So they’ll actually think about the very opposite of what you want them to.

Here’s the positive equivalent:

You should upgrade now.

It’s simpler, shorter and more forceful. Instead of asking the reader to solve an equation, we’re simply telling them what they need to do.

When to use negatives

The words ‘no’ and ‘not’ can focus the reader’s mind on the wrong things, and writers sometimes use them to skirt round a tricky subject. But sometimes, you need to use negative language to challenge something the reader already thinks. Here are a few possibilities:

Misconception: the reader believes something is true, but it’s not

Expectation: the reader thinks something will happen, or work a certain way, but it won’t

Novelty: something used to be one way, but now it’s changed.

In these situations, the reader is already thinking the ‘wrong’ thing – whatever that means in context. So it’s no use talking across the issue; you need to get in there and confront it.

For example, here’s a poster headline used by the UK NHS to encourage people to comply with social distancing rules:

Don’t help the virus spread

Positive alternatives would be ‘Stop the virus spreading’ or ‘Control the virus’. But most of the ways to do that involved not doing things that people were used to doing – like meeting indoors. The reader needs to understand that the things they want to do might actively help the virus. And the writing challenges the misconception that they can get away with bending the rules here and there.

That example uses anxiety to hammer home its point. But in another context, you might use a negative to reassure the reader. For example:

We won’t start digging or cutting until we’ve surveyed your garden and agreed our plans with you.

This addresses a specific worry that readers might have: that the gardening contractor will wade in and make permanent changes without checking first. Your reader research (chapter 2) might throw up common concerns that you need to address in this way.

Clarity first, grammar second

Don’t obsess over grammar. If you have to obsess, obsess over clarity. Write as clearly as you can. When it works, there’s a magic in writing: you can get an idea out of your head and into someone else’s. That’s your goal.

Neil Gaiman[84]

In this chapter, I’ve aimed to keep grammar to a minimum, and I haven’t mentioned punctuation at all. That might make you feel relieved – but maybe also a little bit surprised, given that this is a book about writing. How important are grammar and punctuation really?

Well, it’s definitely worth getting them right if you can. Some mistakes could make your writing less clear. Also, taking care over details shows respect for your readers, and some will definitely find errors distracting. So by all means brush up your skills if you feel they need work. (One good way to do that painlessly is just to read a lot of good writing.)

However, the most important thing, and the focus of this book, is to get the ideas out of your head, down on the page and into the mind of your reader. That is what will make your writing most effective in the real world. And, on a broader scale, it’s only through true communication and understanding that people can make real progress and achieve positive change – at every level, from the schoolroom to the parliament chamber.

Clear and correct are two different things. You could spend days getting all the errors out of your writing, until it’s 100% correct from a technical standpoint. But if it’s too long and wordy, or it doesn’t capture what you need to say, what’s the point?

It’s partly about making the best use of your time. If you only have so long to spend on a project, it’s better to focus on making your writing as clear as you can, rather than polishing something that doesn’t do its most basic job.

On the other hand, if you make a few minor errors here and there, it won’t hurt your message as long as your writing is clear overall.

At other times, you may break the rules on purpose, because the wording that feels clearest to you isn’t technically correct. If so, take Neil Gaiman’s advice. If you have to choose between being clear and being correct, be clear.

Now, this attitude is infuriating to those who go through life hunting for errors to pick up on, like grocers’ chalkboards with a misplaced apostrophe in ‘Orange’s’. One vigilante in Bristol even snuck out at night to correct the punctuation on local signs with his long-handled ‘apostrophiser’.[85] But while the grammar police may mean well, I personally think they’re investigating the wrong crimes.

Yes, the grocer’s chalkboard contains an error, strictly speaking. But it’s perfectly fit for purpose, and it’s crystal clear to 100% of its readership. Once you can say that about all your writing, by all means go out and find fault with other people’s.

The problem with policing grammar is that it makes people focus on the wrong things. Every writer should be aiming to express themselves as clearly as they can. But with the gatekeepers of grammar breathing down their neck, they become fearful of ‘breaking the rules’ or ‘making a mistake’. Then they hesitate to write at all – which is a shame.

Personally, I want to read those who have something interesting to say. Not just those who’ve mastered the (ridiculously complex) rules that govern English grammar.

To make it easy for yourself, take my advice and keep it simple. If you’re not sure what a word means, don’t use it. If you’re struggling to structure a sentence, break it up. Simple writing is easy for you, as well as your reader.

Also, remember that accuracy is something you can buy – by getting an editor or a proofreader involved. They’ll fix any problems with grammar, punctuation and consistency, including any that you’ve missed because you’re over-familiar with the text. And that’s a very worthwhile investment for almost any project.

Takeaways from this chapter

Use basic sentences to make your most important points.

Basic sentences take the form subject, verb, object – like ‘The cat sat on the mat.’

Use longer sentences when they are clear, and to vary the rhythm of your writing.

Use progressive sentences to link points together in logical or chronological order.

Say what is, not what is not.

Get grammar right if you can – but above all, be clear.

10. Clear paragraphs

Guide the reader through your text with clear, well-ordered paragraphs.

What paragraphs do

Paragraphs guide the reader through your writing. By breaking your text up into paragraphs, you group your points into themes and tell the reader when you’re moving on to the next one.

Each of your paragraphs should express a particular part of your message – an idea, a thought, an event and so on. Then your paragraphs link together to form a description, an argument or a story.

Paragraphs help to set the reader’s pace. At the start of each paragraph, they mentally ‘draw breath’ and get ready to focus on a new idea. As they read through the paragraph, they try to hold all the points that it makes in their mind. Then, when they reach the end, they mentally ‘exhale’, pause for a moment and reflect on what you’ve just told them.

This pattern of points and pauses gives your writing a deeper rhythm that supports the rhythm of your words and sentences. As the reader works through your paragraphs, your message gradually unfolds in their mind.

Basic paragraph structure

When you want to write clearly, it’s best to make most of your paragraphs fit the same basic structure. This is made up of three elements, always in the same order:

Topic or key sentence

Supporting sentence(s)

Closing sentence.

First, you start each paragraph with a basic sentence (chapter 9) that sums up the main point. This is called a topic sentence or a key sentence.

Topic sentences work as advance organisers: they give the reader a sense of what you’re about to say, so they can fit it with what they already know.[86] They also make it easier for skim-readers to skip over stuff they don’t want or need.

After your topic sentence, you write one or more supporting sentence(s) to add more substance to the main point. For example, you could describe something in more detail, explain how something works or give the reader some more detailed instructions. You could also add nuance to an idea – so having given a general rule, you go on to say what the exceptions to it are.

Finally, you write a closing sentence to finish off the paragraph. This rounds off the points you want to make, preparing the way for your next paragraph. You could also say what conclusion you can draw from the points you’ve just made, or offer some proof for what you’ve been saying.

In longer paragraphs, your closing sentence might also return to the point you made in your topic sentence, so you can restate it (chapter 18) and help the reader remember. However, you should only do this if it feels natural. If you have several paragraphs that all deal with closely related points, adding a conclusion to all of them could just pad out your writing without really helping the reader.

Sometimes, writers misplace the topic sentence at the end of the preceding paragraph, instead of at the start of the next one – perhaps aiming to ‘change the subject’ before the next paragraph starts. If the rhythm of your paragraphs doesn’t sound quite right, this may be the problem.

Using this paragraph structure is proven to make your writing clearer. One study found that clear paragraphs help readers read quicker, understand better and remember more. On the other hand, badly formed paragraphs increase the cognitive load on the reader, because they have to hold all the jumbled-up bits of meaning in their mind until they can fit them together and make sense of them.[87]

Here’s an example paragraph that follows the basic structure, with labels for the three elements:

[Topic] Owning a bike brings a whole range of benefits. [Supporting] Cycling is a great way to build exercise into your daily routine and stay fit. It’s an easy way to get around town, with no worries about where to park. Plus you can reduce your carbon footprint at the same time. [Closing] Overall, cycling is good for you – and the planet, too.

You can think of the basic structure as ‘Say what you’re going to say, say it, then say that you’ve said it.’ If you know the topic well, that can feel heavy-handed, because the ideas are so familiar and obvious to you. But as we’ll see in chapter 14, your reader may be completely new to the subject – plus repetition helps them learn, as chapter 18 will explain.

Put your points in the best order

The sentences within your paragraphs need to unfold smoothly and logically, building up meaning in the reader’s mind as they go.

Here are some ways you could order your points:

Time. Describe events in the order they happen, from the earliest to the latest.

Detail. Explain the big picture first, then go into the details.

Specificity. Explain the general idea first, then show how it works in practice.

Causality. Show how one thing leads to another.

Dependence. If the reader needs to know one thing before they can understand another, tell them that first.

Here’s a paragraph that needs reordering:

To gain more space for expansion, we’ve moved to a new headquarters. The building has on-site facilities for storing stock and carrying out repairs. It covers 10,000 sq ft and is located at 54 High Street, Newtown.

All the individual points in this paragraph are pretty clear in themselves. But the overall effect is confusing because they’re in the wrong order.

We can make the paragraph more logical by working from the highest level of detail to the lowest: first the building and its location, then how large it is and finally what it contains. It’s like a mini version of the inverted pyramid structure we saw in chapter 6.

With that in mind, let’s go back to the original paragraph, split up the points and work out what order they should be in:

[4] To gain more space for expansion, [1] we’ve moved to a new headquarters. [5] The building has on-site facilities for storing stock and carrying out repairs. [3] It covers 10,000 sq ft and [2] is located at 54 High Street, Newtown.

Now we can rewrite the paragraph to reflect this order:

We’ve moved to a new headquarters at 54 High Street, Newtown. It covers 10,000 sq ft, which will give us more room for expansion. Plus we have facilities on site for storing stock and carrying out repairs.

Reading this is a bit like watching one of those virtual flythroughs. In their mind’s eye, the reader hovers outside to view the building as a whole before swooping in through the window and taking a quick tour of the areas inside.

How long should a paragraph be?

The simple answer is, ‘Long enough to make your point.’ So if you can make your point clearly without following the guidelines I’ve just set out, go ahead. 

For example, if your paragraph only makes one point, it only needs one sentence. More specifically, if your topic sentence can stand on its own, with no supporting points and no need for a conclusion afterwards, then by all means make it a paragraph on its own.

One-sentence paragraphs give you the effects of beginning and ending a paragraph all at once. They tell the reader to mentally ‘draw breath’ before the sentence, and also to reflect for a moment after it. So they’re good for making the reader sit up and take notice of an important point, or highlighting a dramatic event in a story.

See for yourself.

Some writers only ever use one-sentence paragraphs.[88] Many press releases are written this way too, because they’re mainly intended as source material for other writers to use. But while this style makes each individual sentence ultra-clear, you lose the effect of grouping your points into themes, which can give your reader a valuable helping hand. The rhythm of your writing can suffer too.

Paragraphs with three sentences often work well. They’re the shortest possible version of the basic paragraph structure: one topic sentence, one supporting sentence and one closing sentence. This paragraph is an example.

However, too many three-sentence paragraphs in a row will start to sound monotonous. So mix it up a little too.

The longer your paragraph, the heavier the cognitive load you place on your reader. By adding more and more sentences, you’re implying that the reader should try to keep all these points in mind until the end of the paragraph. But as we saw in chapter 8, they can only hold around seven things in their working memory at a time. If you pile on too many points, some are bound to fall off. Plus your reader will start to feel anxious that they’re not getting your meaning – or just irritated that you’re taking too long to express it.

Think of your writing as an ocean dotted with islands. Each paragraph is another stretch of water that your reader has to swim across, carrying your meaning balanced on their head like a vase. Once they reach dry land, they can pause, unload your meaning and store it in their memory.

The longer your paragraphs, the further the reader has to swim before they can take a rest. So don’t cast them adrift in a sea of words with no land in sight. Instead, give them reassurance that the next island is always in easy reach – or, if they need to, they can go back to the previous one.

Also, remember your reader’s context. They may be reading on a phone screen that can only display one or two paragraphs, with the TV on in the background. If so, short, bite-sized paragraphs are your best bet for getting your message across without demanding too much of their attention.

If you feel a paragraph is getting too long, find a way to split it up into two or more shorter paragraphs. Identify the sub-points within the general point, and give each one its own paragraph. You’ll need to write new topic sentences to introduce each one, and possibly a concluding paragraph too.

You might find it helpful to focus on making paragraphs as a task on its own. Put all your sentences on their own to begin with, then group them into paragraphs as the themes of your writing emerge. The simplest, most basic ones might become your topic sentences, while the longer and more discursive ones might work well in support.

Signposts for the reader

Use linking words and phrases to tell the reader what’s coming next and make your paragraphs flow. The table shows some examples. Some of these can be used to join sentences together, and others work best at the start of a sentence.

If you’re writing… | Say…

More detail or ideas

What’s more

Also

In other words

In addition

Besides

Moreover

Furthermore

Comparison or contrast

On one hand… on the other hand

In the same way

Alternatively

Conversely

While

Whereas

Causality

That’s why

Because

For this reason

Since

For

So

Therefore

Sequence

Firstly

Next

Then

After that

Finally

Lastly

Example | For example For instance

Exception or qualification

However

But

Although

Alternatively

Reference back or repeating an idea (see chapter 18)

As we’ve seen

As we saw

As I explained

As discussed above

Reference forward to where something is covered in more detail | As we’ll see later As discussed below

As you can see, some of these are quite formal, and others are more conversational. So you’ll want to choose the ones that feel right for your project and your reader. We’ll look at talking to the reader in the next chapter.

Using a linking phrase like ‘What’s more’ at the start of a paragraph (not just a sentence) has the effect of re-engaging the reader and picking up the pace. You’ll often see this done in advertising copy, where the writer wants to keep the reader reading above all. However, it’s not so friendly to skim-readers, who may use the start of a paragraph to work out what it’s about.

Takeaways from this chapter

Paragraphs give shape, pace and rhythm to your writing.

Each paragraph should explain one thing – an idea, a thought, an event and so on.

To make your writing clear, stick to the basic paragraph structure: topic sentence, supporting sentence(s), conclusion.

Order points logically within each paragraph.

Shorter paragraphs will help the reader, particularly if they’re distracted while reading.

Use signposts to link your sentences and guide the reader.

11. Talking to your reader

When your writing sounds like a conversation, the reader is more likely to listen to what you say.

Why writing is like talking

Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.

Jules Renard[89]

We humans have been talking to each other for up to two million years,[90] but we’ve only used writing for the last 5000 years or so. While the ancient Egyptians used basic written symbols to help with trading, writing as we know it today only began when people started using letters to represent the sounds of spoken words.

So although we might think of words as representing ideas, they’re really more like audio recordings of speech, which our brains play back as we read them.[91] (Silent reading is a relatively recent invention: until the 10th century, most people read everything out loud.[92])

That means that your reader mentally ‘hears’ every word you write. As you read this, right now, you’re ‘hearing’ these words in your mind’s ear. So even though I wrote this in a completely different place and time, it’s like I’m talking to you in the here-and-now. That’s the magic of reading.

Our descriptions for writing and speaking often overlap, showing how closely the two concepts are linked in our minds. For example, if we like what a piece of writing ‘says’, we might say that it ‘speaks to’ our concerns or ‘sounds good on paper’. If we dislike it, we might say that it just doesn’t ‘speak our language’.

As you speak through your writing, so your reader replies in their thoughts. Your words form one side of a dialogue with their inner voice, and you both collaborate to build a meaning in their mind. You express your ideas as best you can – but only your reader can put the meaning together.

Answer the reader

To make your writing flow like speech, aim to anticipate the reader’s side of the conversation and respond to it. Start where they are now, answer their questions, deal with objections, anticipate their errors and stay close to their knowledge and interest as it grows.

Yet, while doing all this, you also need to make sure you achieve the mission you wrote down in chapter 3. That means giving the reader new information, explaining new ideas and maybe challenging their views.

As with a real conversation, you need to listen as well as speak. If you drone on and on about your own concerns, ignoring the reader, that will be boring. But on the other hand, if you only tell them what they already know, or pander to the views they already hold, that will also be boring – just in a different way. Good writing is a dance between the writer’s knowledge and the reader’s interest.

This text from a letter sent out by HSBC does a great job of anticipating and answering the reader’s likely questions:

What’s happening?
We’re making a payment to you.

Do I need to do anything?
Yes, please bank the attached cheque.

This appeared right at the top of the page, next to the address, so the recipient would see and read it before anything else.

Write like you talk

Since readers will ‘hear’ your words, your writing should sound like someone talking.

Here are some ways to achieve that:

Keep most sentences short (chapter 9). When people talk, they will often join lots of sentences together with words like ‘and’ or ‘then’. But if you listen, each individual thought is usually quite short and simple. So that’s how you should write.

Address the reader directly. Use ‘I’, ‘we’ and ‘you’ to make it clear who’s doing what, or who is talking to whom. For example, don’t refer to yourself as ‘the council’, or call the reader ‘the householder’. Readers may not identify themselves – or you – the way you expect.

Make it real. Talk about people, things and events that readers will recognise from their experience, not abstract ideas (chapter 8). For example, say ‘car’ instead of ‘vehicle’; say ‘build’ instead of ‘construct’.

Use simple contractions, like ‘don’t’ (instead of ‘do not’), ‘won’t’ (‘will not’), ‘can’t’ (‘cannot’) and ‘isn’t’ (‘is not’). As we saw in chapter 8, they may be slightly less clear – but they are far more conversational. However, you should definitely avoid the more unusual ones, like ‘could’ve’ and ‘mightn’t’, since they are rarely used in writing, and the reader probably won’t ‘hear’ them the same way.

Use conversational verb phrases in place of single, more formal words. For example, say ‘mixed up’ instead of ‘confused’, or ‘got better’ instead of ‘recuperated’.

Consider using phrases or proverbs that the reader will know, like ‘a stitch in time saves nine’, which can express useful ideas very quickly (see chapter 13).

Write for one person

The best way to make your writing more conversational is to imagine you’re writing for just one person. When you picture an individual reader, it’s easier to find the right words to reach them – particularly when you’re talking about important life events, relationships or emotions.

On some projects, you may actually be writing to just one reader – a letter or an email, say. If so, your words should reflect the way you relate to them, or the sort of relationship you would like to have. Say in writing whatever you would say to them face to face.

On the other hand, even if you’re writing to a group, a conversational style will still make your writing will feel direct and personal. The act of reading is always one-to-one – even if your reader is sitting on a crowded train, they will still be alone with your words, hearing them inside their head.

Write for someone you know

Sometimes, people find it hard to write like they talk. They know what they want to say, but when they sit down to write, what comes out is completely different.

I guess they have an idea that writing has to sound a certain way. But it doesn’t. You can use the same words as if you were actually talking to your reader.

To get into the right mindset, try writing for someone you know. Think about your target reader (chapter 2), then bring to mind a friend, colleague or family member who’s similar to them.

Now, imagine you’re sitting and having a drink with that person, and you need to get your message across. What will you say?

To make it more challenging – and closer to reality – imagine that your listener is doing something else while you talk to them. It could be something they enjoy, like a hobby, or just a task they have to do. Somehow, you have to get their attention and make them think about your message.

If you find that the act of writing gets in the way, try talking instead. Record yourself saying what you want to say to the reader. Remember, you’re not trying to dictate the finished draft. You don’t have to use any of these spoken words exactly as they are, and you can edit them as much as you need to. For now, just talk freely and see what comes up.

Listen to your writing

The best way to tell if your writing sounds like speech is to listen to it. Even though you ‘hear’ the words in your head when you read, that’s not the same as hearing them actually spoken out loud.

You can read your own draft out loud, but while you’ll pick up some issues, I find the problem is that you’re listening and speaking at the same time. It’s better to focus on listening alone.

To do that, get someone else to read your draft out loud, or use a text-to-speech app. There are text-to-speech functions built into Mac OS on Apple devices and Windows on PCs.

As you listen, focus on the sound of the words, as well as their meaning. Do they sound natural and fluent? Do the ideas unfold naturally? Is there anything that sounds like a ‘mouthful’ – that is, difficult to say out loud? (You can hear this quite clearly, even when it’s only a computer talking.)

The speak-easy effect means that when words are easier to say, people think they’re more trustworthy and valuable. On the other hand, when things are difficult to pronounce, people see them as unsafe – because they’re unfamiliar, and unfamiliarity means risk. For example, hard-to-pronounce food additives are seen as being more harmful.[93] So paying attention to the sound of your words isn’t just about making them easy on the ear – it will also affect how your message comes across.

Takeaways from this chapter

Think of your writing as a conversation between yourself and your reader.

Use the language of everyday speech.

Imagine you’re talking to someone you know, and write what you would say.

Listen to how your writing sounds.

12. Ten writing traps

Some traps that we all fall into – and how to climb out.

Padding

It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessential.

Bruce Lee

Padding is words that don’t need to be there. You can take them out, or swap them for something shorter, and your meaning is still the same.

The problem with padding is that it waters down your writing. It may seem harmless and transparent in itself, but it still dilutes your message. Your reader has to put more time and cognitive energy into decoding all those extra words – and they only have so much to spend. In general, the quicker you say it, the happier your reader will be.

Sometimes, padding is like the, um, hesitation and, ah, you know, duplication… no, I mean, what’s the word? repetition you get in everyday speech. You’re reaching for what you want to say, but you can’t quite put your finger on it – and padding is what comes out in the meantime.

Padding could creep in when you’re working to a deadline or trying to reach a length target (chapter 5). The pressure to produce something leads you to fill up the page with stuff. But it’s the wrong stuff.

It’s fine to have some padding in your first draft. But your next job is to comb through your writing and take out every word that isn’t adding value for your reader.

In particular, look out for:

Wordy phrases you can replace with a single word (for example, ‘with a view to’ instead of ‘to’)

Tautology, or saying the same thing twice (for example, ‘over-exaggeration’, ‘briefly summarise’ or ‘necessary requirement’)

Abstract nouns that you don’t need (often words like ‘fact’, ‘reason’, ‘lack’ or ‘purpose’).

The table shows some common padding phrases and what you can replace them with.

Padding phrase | Shorter replacement
In order to | To
In order that | So
In the event that | If
In spite of the fact that Regardless of the fact that | Although
Due to the fact that In the light of the fact that | As, since, because
In spite of the lack of | Despite not having
For the reason that | Because
The reason for this is that | This is because
As a direct result of | Because of
Become aware of | Find out
Be aware of Have an awareness of | Know
The majority of | Most
At the present time | Now
Prolonged period of time | Long time
In the early stages of | Early in
For the purpose of | To
Have an adverse impact on | Set back
Afford the opportunity to | Allow, let
By means of | With
In the event of | If
Draw [someone’s] attention to | Tell

You get the idea. Once you practise for a while, you’ll get better at spotting the padding in your own writing (and other people’s too).

Having said all that, some tautological phrases are OK. The extra words may not be technically necessary, but they still fulfil an emotional or psychological function – usually, offering the reader some reassurance. For example, you don’t need to say ‘safe haven’. All havens are safe, by definition. But if you’re writing about a refuge for people fleeing domestic abuse, that ‘safe’ might be the nudge they need to pick up the phone. (It also covers you if they’re not sure what a haven is.)

There may also be times when you need to pace your writing, to give the reader time and space to take on new ideas. We’ll come back to this in chapter 16.

Abstractions

Abstractions are words that represent ideas rather than things. Examples include truth, beauty, nature, love, freedom, change and so on.

Abstractions are powerful, but slippery. They’re often words that we intuitively understand – but when you look closer, it’s hard to say exactly what they mean. Their meaning often depends on the context where they’re used. Or they reflect the values or preferences of the person who’s using them. So if you use words like this, there’s a risk that the reader might hear their own meaning, rather than the one you had in mind.

The antidote to abstractions is to get specific. When you use this word, what exactly do you mean? How can you make that clear to the reader?

For example, ‘natural’ is a word that seems simple, but can actually have many different meanings in different contexts. So if you’re writing about ‘natural childbirth’, describe precisely what the arrangements are. If you talk about a ‘natural reaction’, say what you mean – is it what most people do, or just what certain people expect?

Some abstractions are so high-level, they hardly have any meaning at all on their own. For example, words like ‘freedom’ and ‘change’ are very powerful and emotional, but only because they can mean so many different things to different people. That’s why politicians and marketers use them to evoke deep emotions in a broad audience, but without specifying exactly what they mean.

Other abstract ideas have taken on very specific meanings because they’ve been adopted by a particular cause. For some readers, or in some contexts, those words may touch on ‘hot button’ issues, giving them very strong associations for some readers that could help or hinder your message.

For example, in the context of the debate over abortion rights in the U.S., ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ stand for very specific beliefs. So the words ‘life’ and ‘choice’ may have particular resonance for some readers, even if you don’t intend them to.

Nominalisations

A nominalisation is a thing made out of an event or action (in grammar terms, a noun formed from a verb). For example, ‘consideration’ instead of ‘consider’, or ‘assessment’ instead of ‘assess’.

Nominalisations are abstraction squared. You take a verb that’s already abstract, and then you make it into an even more abstract noun. The result is a ‘thing’ that seems to exist somehow, but the reader can’t possibly picture it.

Some nominalisations are useful. For example, you can’t see or touch a relationship. But it’s still a very useful shorthand for the things people do and say to each other, or how two objects interact.

However, many other nominalisations are not so helpful. Mix a few of them together and you have a good shot at melting the reader’s brain:

The implementation assessment, which follows the management analysis, has multiple dependencies with the alignment and effectiveness of the prevention process.

You have never seen a dependency, or some effectiveness, and neither have I. Nobody has. This unholy pile-up of unimaginable things will put so much cognitive load on the reader that they’ll probably just skim over the surface of the text, hearing the words without even trying to understand them.

To prevent this problem, ask yourself what is actually going on. When you read your writing, you should get a clear mental picture of whatever you’re describing. If you don’t, you’re talking too much about ideas, and not enough about things.

Somewhere inside each nominalisation, there’s usually something that happens in the real world. If so, say who did what. For example, ‘implementation assessment’ could be ‘a manager looks at the project to see how it went’.

People like nominalisations because they sound clever. All those ‘–isation’ words make you sound official and scientific. That’s probably why people end up using them without actually thinking about what they actually refer to. So if there are any in your writing that don’t seem to be adding any meaning, just take them out and see if the core of your message remains the same.

Weak adverbs

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Thomas Jefferson[94]

An adverb is a word that says how something is done. For example, in this sentence:

The cat sat regally on the mat.

The word ‘regally’ is an adverb. It modifies the verb ‘sat’, so it has a slightly different meaning than it would on its own. As well as saying that the cat sat, it says how it sat.

As this example shows, adverbs can add colour to certain types of writing. But the problem is that while some are essential, others add nothing and just get in the way. To write clearly, you need to learn the difference.

Essential adverbs convey meaning that you can’t get across any other way. If you took them out, the meaning of the sentence would be completely different. For example, these two sentences have very different meanings, and it all depends on the choice of adverb:

The team eventually reviewed all the applications.

The team quickly reviewed all the applications.

Then there are optional adverbs. You can end up using these because you chose a verb that wasn’t quite right, so you try to bend it into shape with an adverb. For example:

This project will completely change the way we serve our customers.

The phrasing does the job, but we can improve it if we choose a different verb that expresses the meaning with just one word:

This project will transform the way we serve our customers.

Finally, some adverbs are pointless, because they don’t add anything at all. For example:

The software helps you manage your customer records effectively.

Here, ‘effectively’ just adds a vaguely businesslike flavour. ‘Effective management’ sounds dynamic and positive, even if we’re not sure exactly what it is.

This sort of phrasing can be a sign that you need to say something more concrete and specific. How is the software effective, exactly? If you answer that question in a way anyone can understand, readers will know exactly what to expect:

The software lets you keep your customer records up to date and access them whenever and wherever you want.

Finally, you might choose to use some adverbs that aren’t essential to your meaning, but they still express empathy with the reader, or respond to their concerns:

Our programme will help you lose weight successfully.

Strictly speaking, ‘successfully’ isn’t needed here. You can take it out and the meaning of the sentence remains the same. However, this word might still reassure the reader, by acknowledging that even if their previous diets didn’t work out, things will be different this time.

Jargon

I get nervous when people are glorying in the jargon of their profession. That, to me, points towards an insecurity. If you’re happy with what you’re doing, you should be able to talk about it in childlike terms with anybody.

Dylan Moran[95]

Jargon is special words or phrases used by a particular group that are difficult for outsiders to understand. Different jobs each have their own jargon, so we have medical jargon, legal jargon, academic jargon and so on.

Jargon can be a useful shorthand for insiders. For example, when I worked in publishing during the 1990s, our everyday conversation was peppered with terms like ‘Quark’, ‘rainbow proof’, ‘drum scanners’ and ‘scuzzy probe’.[96] Anyone walking into the office would have no idea what we were on about – but to us, it was crystal clear.

Beyond its practical function, jargon also shows that the speaker is a member of a select group. People identify with groups they have something in common with – colleagues, family, fellow supporters of a sports team and so on. In social psychology, this is called an ingroup. Anyone who isn’t a member is part of the outgroup.[97]

For the ingroup themselves, jargon can reinforce shared culture, values or experience. For instance, texting teenagers use abbreviations to tell each other ‘143’ while ‘KPC’.[98] Here, the language is an integral part of the experience, not just a description of it. Words aren’t ‘about’ life; they are life.

So if you’re certain the reader will understand a jargon term, go ahead and use it. Knowing jargon shows that you belong, so readers might respect you more if you speak their language. You’re also indirectly acknowledging their experience and emotions, which could build empathy (chapter 16). However, if there’s any chance the reader won’t understand, you need to explain the term or just drop it.

On the flip side, confusing jargon irritates or alienates the reader. You’ll send a message that they’re not smart enough to understand what you’re saying, or that they don’t deserve to take part in the conversation. That’s why even one or two jargon words could make the reader less receptive to your message – even if they understand everything else you say.

Watch out for words that form a bridge between specialists and non-specialists. For example, people who work on a customer helpline might be used to talking about ‘support tickets’ or ‘resolving queries’ around the office – but those words don’t necessarily mean anything to outsiders. So people who call customer support may need to be told that a ‘support ticket’ is not actually a slip of paper, but a reference number they’ll receive in an email.

Sometimes, people use jargon to compensate for their own insecurity. They think that using big words makes them look like a big shot. But truly high-status people don’t have anything to prove – they just want to make themselves clear. It’s only small fry who strive to impress.[99] So if you really want to convey authority in your writing, ditch the jargon and go for plain language instead.

Commercialese

Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – although I don’t exactly know what they are!

Lewis Carroll[100]

Commercialese is a kind of jargon used by some businesspeople. To speak this language, you pepper your writing with as many new-fangled corporate buzzwords as you can.

For example, you might talk about ‘leveraging your dynamic strengths going forward’, ‘proactively ideating a seamless solution’, ‘synergistically catalysing mindshare’ or ‘reinventing innovation’.[101]

Like all jargon, commercialese shows that the speaker is in with the in-crowd. People also use it to project commitment, insight and energy, which they hope will give them an advantage in the business world. (Intriguingly, extroverts tend to use more of these abstract words than introverts do.[102])

The problem is that commercialese isn’t even trying to be clear. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Buzzwords are verbal smoke and mirrors, designed to impress the reader rather than inform them. And if readers feel puzzled, they’re clearly not at the cutting edge.

When you look a little closer, most buzzwords are big words for simple things, or new words for old things, or they just don’t mean anything at all. For example, ‘innovation’ is new ideas, ‘synergy’ is working together, and ‘leverage’ is just a fancy word for ‘use’.

If you find yourself wanting to use a buzzword, think of a simpler and more concrete way to express the same idea, without losing the positive connotations. Be specific: say what you have actually done, or what has actually happened.

All buzzwords are irritating, but I would argue that some are better than others. For example, while abstractions like ‘solutioning’ are just baffling, metaphors like ‘upstream’, ‘landscape’, ‘onboard’, ‘sunset’ and ‘roadmap’ are more intelligible – plus they add at least some concrete imagery to your writing. So if your, er, stakeholders are pressuring you to leverage more buzzwords going forward, choose the ones that have real-world colour.

Officialese

Be short. Be simple. Be human.

Ernest Gowers[103]

Officialese is the jargon of civil servants and lawyers. It features a lot of long words and complicated sentences, and generally deals with abstract ideas rather than real-world objects and life events. On top of that, its tone is generally formal, stuffy and self-absorbed, which tells the reader that they’re not really part of the conversation, and don’t have the right to reply.

People use officialese because they think formality is the same as authority. They think that if they make their writing sound more ‘official’ or ‘professional’, their readers are more likely to respect them, believe them or do what they want. But while using officialese might give your writing the outward appearance of being thorough and correct, that doesn’t mean there’s anything happening underneath.

Officialese is a kind of defence mechanism. It’s rooted in the fear of getting something wrong, or leaving something out, or looking stupid. But as we’ve seen, people who use simpler language are actually seen as more intelligent and authoritative.

Even if readers do manage to decode officialese, they’ll probably still feel confused, irritated or patronised by it, making them less likely to take on its message. You can’t really talk to someone when you’re keeping them at arm’s length.

To write officialese, you just need to use lots of long and obscure words in place of short simple ones. You make your sentences as long as you can, and you usually talk about ‘what has been done’ rather than who actually did it (the passive voice from chapter 9). And you use nominalisations wherever possible. For example, you don’t just ‘decide’ – you ‘reach a decision’.

Here’s an example:

Unauthorised access prohibited. Visitors should be advised that these premises are under video surveillance at all times.

Recall from chapter 1 that clarity is in the mind of the reader. A sign like this should be clear to everybody. So while the meaning of this sign may be technically clear, it’s still not clear in context.

‘Prohibited’ is officialese for ‘not allowed’, while ‘these premises’ just means ‘this building’. ‘Visitors’ is a roundabout way of saying ‘you’, while ‘should be advised’ and ‘authorised’ add nothing. (Anyone who is authorised doesn’t need to be told they can enter.)

All the sign really needs to say is:

No entry. You are on camera.

Here’s a list of officialese words, with their plain English translations.[104]

Officialese | Plain English
Advise | Tell
Subsequently | Afterwards
Consequently | Because of that That’s why
Prior to Previously | Before
On an annual basis | Every year

Ascertain

Determine

Establish

Identify

Find out

Work out

Approximately | About Roughly
Advantageous | Helpful Useful
Appropriate | Right
Assist | Help
Be aware of | Know
Cease | Stop
Commence | Start
Endeavour | Try
Enquire | Ask
Ensure | Make sure
Indicate | Tell or show
Investigate | Look into
Obtain | Get
Purchase | Buy
Regarding | About
Require | Need
Retain | Keep
Terminate | Finish End

Note that these are direct equivalents, not approximate ones. In other words, you can make all the swaps in this list without losing any meaning at all. So this isn’t a question of ‘dumbing down’ or ‘over-simplifying’ or the ‘lowest common denominator’ or anything like that. It’s just about choosing the clearest words.

However, it’s not always that simple. Some formal words are unavoidable, because they express an idea that would take too long to say in simpler words each and every time. If you need to use a word like this, give a definition the first time you use it:

These rules apply to all kinds of vehicle. (A vehicle is a car, motorcycle, truck or anything else with an engine that goes on the road.)

Readers need to know the definition so they can understand the rest of the writing, so you could make sure they see it by highlighting it in bold, or formatting it as a pullout (chapter 20).

Weasel words

Weasel words are deliberately unclear or ambiguous. They imply things without saying them, or create an expectation without making any firm commitment. So they give the reader the impression that you’re saying one thing, when you’re actually saying something else – or nothing at all. Obviously, that’s a long way from clear writing.

The table shows some examples of weasel words and phrases. The bits in square brackets are there to show a possible context.

Weasel word or phrase | Why it’s not clear
Up to [1000 people attended] | ‘Up to’ could be any number from 0 to 1000
[2500] or more | Suggests a far higher value, but without committing to one
As many as [50 different products] | Suggests the maximum value, even though it may be rare or exceptional
Many [apps include this feature] | How many exactly?
Most [observers agree that…] | How many exactly? ‘Most’ only means ‘more than half’, but the reader may think it means ‘nearly all’
Regarded [as an expert] | Who is doing the regarding?
Said to be [the best approach] | Who says?
Research shows… Experts say… | Who are the experts? (To fix the problem, cite your source)
Leading, leader | What does ‘leading’ mean? How is it measured?
Improves [skin softness] | How big is the improvement?
Reduces [the signs of ageing] | How big is the reduction?
Helps to [combat antisocial behaviour] | How much does it help? Does it make that much of a difference? What else is needed to actually get rid of it?

Seems that

Appears to be

Looks like

Apparently, …

Seems to whom?

Looks can be deceiving

Arguably, … | Who makes the argument? Arguing doesn’t make it so
Probably | More likely than not – that is, the probability is over 50%. But the reader may think it means ‘almost certain’

Potentially

Possibly

Likely

Unlikely

How likely exactly?

Quite [warm]

Rather [warm]

Fairly [warm]

Reasonably [warm]

Moderately [warm]

Relatively [warm]

Somewhat [warm]

How [warm] exactly?

Rarely

Often

Frequently

Usually

How often exactly?

The problem with weasel words is they’re so familiar. You’ve probably seen most of these in print dozens of times. So if you’re aiming for a certain tone in your writing, it’s easy to use them without thinking, even if you have no intention of deceiving the reader. And that, in turn, might make them suspicious of you, even if they don’t need to be.

However, not all weasel words are bad. You don’t need to do a search and replace to get rid of every word in the list. It all depends on the context and your own intentions.

For example, if I say, ‘The effects of climate change have been relatively mild so far’, your weasel alarm should start ringing right away. What exactly do I mean by ‘mild’? And relative to what? By using weasel words in this way, I’m clearly trying to play down the evidence of climate change.

On the other hand, if I say, ‘Lots of writers use weasel words without thinking’, I’m not trying to mislead you about an objective truth; I’m just making an encouraging observation. In the context of this book and its aims, it’s really not that weaselly at all.

Have a look out for weasel words in the things you read. Pay particular attention to marketing claims and politicians’ statements. What are they actually committing to?

Hedging

Some words and phrases express uncertainty. If you let them into your writing, you’re telling the reader that you’re only giving your own opinion, which you can’t be sure about, and that they should probably find out for themselves.

Some verbs have the effect of framing everything that comes after them as conditional or uncertain. They’re called ‘hedging verbs’. For example:

It appears this is the right thing to do.

We suggest it’s time to stop now.

I think you’ll find this is the best option.

Other examples include ‘sounds like’, ‘guess’, ‘assume’ and ‘hope’.

Professionals like lawyers or consultants sometimes fall back on hedging verbs when dealing with their clients. Because they will be held responsible for results, they’re reluctant to come right out with a firm prediction or clear-cut advice. So they hedge their bets by saying that their view is only what they ‘believe’, or their advice is only what they ‘suggest’, which leaves the final choice to the client.[106]

To firm up the message, simply remove the hedging part:

This is the right thing to do.

It’s time to stop now.

This is the best option.

It’s still clear that you’re expressing your own view. Who else’s could it be? But when you say it this way, you express certainty rather than doubt.

You might want to say something like ‘I believe’ if you really do want to emphasise that you’re only giving your own opinion, which could be wrong, and others may differ. But otherwise, keep your writing strong and sure.

Another culprit is ‘just’. When you say it, you play down your own authority, or the value of your message. For example, you might say that your contribution is ‘just an idea’ or something that you’d ‘just like to say’:

I just feel that this is the best option.

Saying ‘just’ all the time is a verbal bad habit that’s hard to give up.[107] But when you’re writing, it’s a lot easier to search it out and delete it.

Uncertain language

Using uncertain language will undermine your message by making the reader feel uncertain too. Research shows that there’s a strong link between uncertain language and decisional conflict – that is, not knowing what to do.[108]

Some words express the possibility that something might happen – for example, verbs like ‘can’ ‘could’, ‘would’, ‘may’, ‘might’ and ‘should’, or phrases like ‘has the potential to’.

When you use these words, you’re suggesting that something else might be needed as well, but you’re not saying what it is. There are strings attached to what you’re saying. For example:

Feeding your lawn should keep it green all summer long.

To leave the reader in no doubt, change the ‘possible’ word to a ‘definite’ one, like ‘will’ – or just get rid of it altogether. Alternatively, explain what the condition is, so the reader understands what else has to happen:

Feeding your lawn should keep it green all summer long, as long as you make sure it’s well watered during dry spells.

However, there could be times when you really do want to communicate uncertainty, or you have no choice. For example, in this book, I’ve said that many techniques ‘could’ work, or that they ‘might’ affect the reader in a certain way. What’s the deal?

I believe what I’m saying. But I still can’t be 100% sure what you should write on your project, or what will happen in your reader’s head when you do. And I promised at the start that I would give you ideas to reflect on, rather than prescriptive advice or claims of guaranteed results.

From this perspective, you can see that uncertain language can show respect for the reader. It’s a way to show both sides of the story – which can be persuasive, as we’ll see in chapter 17.

As with weasel words, it comes down to your intention. If you’re deliberately missing something out, or holding something back, that is not clear. But if you’re putting all your cards on the table, admitting the limits of your knowledge and letting the reader decide for themselves, you are being as clear as you can in the context.

Takeaways from this chapter

Lose the padding so your writing gets right to the point.

Talk about people, things and events more than ideas, and use simple words and phrases to describe them.

Guard against jargon, commercialese and officialese. Understand how and why you might slip into using them, and watch your own thoughts and emotions as you write.

Don’t undermine your own message with weasel words, hedging or uncertain language.

13. Metaphors

Use comparisons and analogies to show your message in a new light.

What is a metaphor?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, a metaphor is a way to bring some pictures into your writing.

A metaphor is a comparison between one thing and another. When you use a metaphor, you tell the reader, ‘This thing is that thing.’ The word ‘metaphor’ literally means ‘carry across’,[109] because meaning is carried between the two things. (A simile is very similar, but less direct; it says, ‘This thing is like that thing.’)

For example, if you write:

Our new app is a tool to tackle many everyday office tasks.

You’re saying that the app is like a physical tool, like you’d find in a toolbox.

Now, the two things aren’t alike in every way – just certain ways. You can’t use an app to fix a leaky tap. But readers understand the basic idea: the app is handy, and it helps with lots of different jobs.

Thinking with metaphors

Metaphors are more than figures of speech; they’re a part of how we think. You can use them to teach your reader new things, or show them new perspectives. You lead your reader to a window where they can get a different view of the world outside.

Take the internet. In reality, it’s a network of computers. But we usually understand it in terms of space, travel and distance.

For example, we talk about going online. Back in the 90s, we travelled the world wide web by surfing, or riding the information superhighway, but these days we’ll probably just visit a site. When we arrive at a landing page, we navigate some pages until we decide to leave. If we have our own domain on the web, we might direct traffic to it, to create a user journey. Even a bookmark, which seems unrelated, is still a way of keeping our place.

These spatial metaphors help us make sense of the web. They turn something we can’t see or touch into something solid and real. And if we’re new to the digital realm, they explain something we don’t know about in terms of something more human, and more familiar from our everyday lives.[110]

Metaphors are woven so deeply into the way we think that we use them almost without realising. For example, when we talk about ‘getting into’ a subject, we’re thinking of it as a container, a building or an area. When we say ‘a long time’, ‘back then’ or ‘going forward’, we equate time with distance. And when we talk about ‘building’, ‘damaging’ or ‘repairing’ a relationship, we’re framing it as a physical possession.

Here’s a metaphor to teach business readers about different types of data backup:

While disaster recovery is how you respond to losing all your data, backups are about how you recover individual files and folders. If disaster recovery is what you do when the house burns down, backup is more like replacing a light bulb.

This builds on something the reader already knows about – their own home – to explain something about computers and data. Both the scenarios are things that could go wrong, which the homeowner or data owner would need to spend time and money putting right – although one is clearly more serious than the other. Also, comparing business data to a home underlines that both things are vital in their way, and that losing either of them in its entirety would be a very big deal.

Mixed metaphors

Because metaphors are so concise – often, just a single word – it’s easy to mix them up, so you’re planting two different ideas in the reader’s mind at once. For example:

We’ll have to iron out the remaining bottlenecks..[111]

There are two ideas here: smoothing (‘iron out’) and congestion (‘bottlenecks’). Each one makes sense in isolation, but when you combine them, the imagery gets confused.

That’s a fairly extreme example. In your day-to-day writing, you’re more likely to end up with things that are just slightly off, like this:

We need to build agreement before we can move forward.

Here, there’s a subtle but noticeable clash between building and travelling. This sort of thing is easy to do because the metaphors involved are so familiar, basic and short (a single verb). It’s better to bring everything together in one metaphor:

We need to bring everyone with us as we move forward.

Metaphors have limits

Some metaphors are like elastic bands. They’re great for holding two ideas together, but if you stretch them too far, they’ll break. So if your metaphor is only good for one point, don’t take it any further than that.

Other metaphors are more like suitcases. They can carry important ideas that the reader will need throughout their journey. In other words, you can use them to explain a basic concept, which you then use as a framework for lots of other things you want to say.

For example, in chapter 3, we looked at the pyramid of clear writing aims. Now, the aims aren’t really levels in a pyramid; they’re neurons in the reader’s brain doing neuron stuff as they read.[112] But that metaphor helped me explain how each aim ‘rests’ on the one ‘beneath’ it. And having established that idea, I’ve been able to refer back to it several times.

Now imagine I take this metaphor to the next level. Maybe I liken sentences to limestone blocks, or your writing process to zigzag ramps and wooden levers. I want to stick with my clear metaphor – but instead of building up its power, I’m actually diluting it. Now I have to explain both sides of the metaphor – the writing and the pyramid – so the effect is clumsy and heavy-handed.

Also, metaphors can lie. Just because a metaphor is attractive, or intuitive, that doesn’t mean it’s truthful. For example, people often think of the national economy as being like a household budget, when it really isn’t.[113] So if you’re feeling pleased with a colourful metaphor you just thought up, take a minute to reflect on whether it really says what you want it to.

Metaphors embody values

So far, so clear. But metaphors are more than transparent windows for looking at the world. They also shape what the reader ‘sees’.

For example, the idea of ‘cyberspace’ implies freedom of movement. We should be free to ‘go’ wherever we want in the digital world.

But it’s not quite that simple. Phrases like ‘web traffic’ and ‘superhighway’ remind us that even a digital landscape has its infrastructure, and that we might need the government to maintain it. Or that the individual freedoms we enjoy must be balanced with the greater good.[114]

Also, for many people, going online is not at all like walking down the street. In the UK, around 17% of the population lack the skills and confidence to use the internet, and 7% have never been online at all.[115] For them, the internet is not a wide-open highway, but a tightly bolted door.

So remember that every metaphor you use will highlight some aspects while putting others in the shade. And those other things might be important – at least for some of your readers.

Metaphors express emotion

Metaphors evoke emotions in the reader, as well as ideas. When you use a metaphor, you say to the reader, ‘Feel about this as you feel about that.’

When Stevie Wonder sang:

You are the sunshine of my life [116]

he wasn’t talking about light or warmth, but about how someone made him feel.

Sometimes, the emotion is universally positive. If you talk about a new medical treatment offering a ‘ray of hope’ for patients, the image of sunshine through the clouds probably won’t upset anybody.

However, emotions can also work against you, depending on what your reader thinks and feels. For example, if you write something like:

The new funding will be a shot in the arm for our publicity campaign.

your reader might be encouraged by the thought of an energy boost, yet still put off by the mental image of an injection.

Some metaphors are deliberately confrontational and hard-hitting, aiming to shock the reader out of complacency. For example, here’s writer and environmental activist Edward Abbey:[117]

Growth for growth’s sake is the ideology of the cancer cell.

By equating businesses and economies with cancer cells, Abbey leaves no room for compromise: in his view, capitalism is a disease that needs to be cured.

Metaphors affect action

Researchers at Stanford asked people to suggest ideas for how to fight crime in a fictional city. However, each group was told about the problem with a different metaphor. Those who had read about ‘a virus infecting the city’ suggested ‘cures’ like social reform. Others, who were given a description of ‘a beast preying on the city’, suggested ‘hunting’ criminals down.[118]

The two metaphors determined how people framed the problem of crime, which in turn affected the solutions they proposed. So while metaphors are ways of seeing and thinking, they can shape the reader’s reactions too.

As we saw in chapter 8, your reader imagines everything you describe. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a ‘figure of speech’ or an ‘illustration’. The picture in the reader’s mind is just as real.

So, for any person, animal, object or whatever that you want to use as a metaphor, ask yourself:

What do people generally think and feel about the subject of your metaphor? For example, do they like it, hate it, avoid it, fear it, crave it, get angry about it?

What does this metaphor imply about your message?

What does the metaphor say in addition to the specific point you want to make?

What does this metaphor mean for the action you want readers to take?

If the reader accepts the ideas you propose in the ‘metaphor world’, what will be the parallel implications in the real world?[119]

For example, if you were writing about the stock market, you might talk about ‘playing’ the market, or refer to investors as ‘players’. The metaphor of a game captures the idea of an activity where participants try to make gains through luck and skill, in a forum with fixed rules and uncertain outcomes.

However, if your reader takes your metaphor to heart, they might decide that investing is nothing more than a hobby, or that they should aim for quick wins. Or they might shrug off losses they can’t really afford by saying ‘it’s all in the game’ or ‘win some, lose some’.

On the other hand, if you talk about ‘building’ or ‘growing’ a portfolio, the metaphors of construction and organic growth emphasise slow, steady progress towards a personal goal – as opposed to ‘winning’ or taking part.

Metaphors at work

If you’re writing for work, you might hear or use some of the many metaphors people use for organisations. The table shows three of the main ones.[120]

Workplace metaphor | Example words and phrases | Implications | Limitations

Military

(Organisation as army)

Workforce

Frontline staff

Rally the troops

Plan of attack

Outflank

Business is war

Victory at all costs

Loyalty is paramount

Chain of command

Plays down collaboration and partnership

Needlessly harsh and combative

Mechanical

(Organisation as machine)

Human resources

Re-engineering

Inputs and outputs

Structure is fixed

Processes must be repeatable

Control is everything

Optimisation is the goal

Rigid

Turns people into components

Machines are difficult to change

Biological

(Organisation as a living thing)

Growth

Evolution

Adaptation

Ecosystem

Must adapt to the environment

Survival of the fittest

Organisations are groups of individuals, not organisms

Continuous change is stressful

Metaphors like this embody certain ideas and values. When we use them, we rule different things in or out. This can affect the way we think – for better or worse.

For example, if you see business as a war, you’ll focus on discipline, loyalty and defeating your competitors. But in the end, a business can only thrive by helping customers. And armies don’t have customers – just enemies.[121]

Proverbs

Proverbs are sayings, very often based on metaphors, that have become widely used and handed down through the generations. They include phrases like ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ and ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’.

On the face of it, proverbs are clichés, which many people will tell you not to use. But our main concern in this book is clarity, not originality. So we would only avoid a proverb if we felt it was making our message unclear. And, most of the time, it won’t.

Proverbs are like potted experience. They capture long-time wisdom in a short format, which makes them very useful shortcuts to meaning.

Also, because they’re so familiar, proverbs express a kind of folk wisdom that ‘everyone’ knows to be true. So you can use them to establish common ground with your reader.

For example:

When we introduce the new leaflets, we will have to withdraw the ones we published last year, but it’s worth it to get our messaging right. After all, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

Like everything else, proverbs only work in context. While native English speakers may know them very well, other readers may not. If in doubt, use the proverb to back up your meaning, but not to carry it all alone – as in the example above.

Analogies

Analogies are multi-sided metaphors where you use a comparison to make several points about your subject at once. You can spell out all the parallels yourself, or just let the reader make their own connections.

For example, when Onto launched its electric car rental service, it was described as ‘Netflix® for cars’.[122] In just three words, this told the reader several things at once – some positive, others less so:

You pay a flat, all-inclusive subscription every month to get the service, with no upfront cost

You can change your package or cancel whenever you want

There’ll be some sort of digital platform or app involved (you use the Onto app, not a key, to start your car)

There will only be a certain range of cars to choose from

There will be limits on sharing (with Onto, three named drivers can use the car).

Without the Netflix analogy, you would have to spell all that out before people could get even a basic idea of the service. But Netflix has already done all the heavy lifting, by promoting and describing its own service over several years. So instead of learning about Onto from scratch, all the reader has to do is work out how the service is different from Netflix. For example, there’s no Netflix equivalent of charging up a car battery, so the reader has to learn that bit themselves.

The analogy works because the reader already has a mental framework for ‘Netflix’ (or just ‘digital subscriptions’), based on their past experience, which they can use to shape their learning in the present. In psychology, this is called a schema.[123] Schemas lighten the cognitive load on the reader, because they’re much easier to remember and think about than new, complex and unfamiliar ideas.

However, this analogy does more than just explain the service. It also uses the persuasive principle of consistency, to suggest that if you already subscribe to Netflix (or any other digital subscription), it makes sense to choose this one too.

Beyond that, there are positive emotional connotations too. Onto could have been compared to buying vehicle insurance, which is another fixed-price subscription that’s arguably closer to cars than streaming TV is. But insurance is a forced purchase that most people find boring and dreary, whereas Netflix is about indulgence and fun.

You can also combine two schemas to quickly create a third. For example, while it might take you a while to explain how a soup-maker works, you could also describe it as ‘the love-child of a kettle and a blender’. By fitting these two schemas together, the reader can get a rough idea of the design, then fill in the blanks to work out what it does.

This is similar to how filmmakers use ‘high concepts’ to pitch story ideas. For example, Under Siege was famously described – not always positively – as ‘Die Hard on a boat’.[124] Motor-racing thriller Days of Thunder was such a shameless retread of Top Gun that it was known during production as ‘Top Car’.[125]

These cinematic examples highlight another potential drawback of analogies. While schemas are powerful cognitive shortcuts, they can also suggest familiarity, or even unoriginality. So they may not work so well if you want to highlight an innovation, or shake the reader out of their mental comfort zone. You might want to lead with what’s different, rather than what is the same – for example, by using words like ‘reinvention’, ‘evolution’, ‘new twist’ and so on.

Don’t use people as metaphors

Some traditional metaphors are based on people’s identities or experience. For example, if you talk about someone being ‘blinded’ to a possibility, or about an idea being ‘lame’, you’re using people’s physical ability as a metaphor. Words like ‘blacken’ and ‘blacklisted’ refer to a colour that’s also a race.[126]

The crucial point about metaphors like this is that they’re nearly always negative. They embody a judgement about people and their relative worth – usually judged against a standard of white, able-bodied westerners as the ‘default’.[127]

So while these metaphors might be clear and vivid to some readers, they might offend or alienate others. For me, that’s reason enough to avoid them. But even if you don’t agree with that, you have to accept that by using them, you’re making your message less effective for at least some of your readers, because their negative emotional reaction could make them less receptive to what you say – as we’ll explore in chapters 16 and 17.

Should you use a metaphor?

Every metaphor you use is a detour from the straight and narrow. When you use one, you are talking about something that is not real, even if it’s only for one sentence. So while metaphors may make your writing more colourful, they won’t necessarily make it clearer.

Metaphors mean that your reader has to think about two ideas instead of one – and that might not help them understand. Recall from chapter 8 that the reader only has so much cognitive currency to spend. They might be rushed, distracted or confused when they read, or they might be a less able reader. So whatever metaphor you use, you need to balance the benefits of the metaphor against the cost of using it, to make sure it justifies its cost in brainpower.

Ask yourself:

Does this metaphor really make my point clearer?

Am I using it because it will help the reader understand, or just because it adds a nice image?

Is the metaphor serving my real-world description, or is it getting in the way?

Have I over-extended the metaphor, or taken it too far? Would it be better as a single phrase or sentence?

What does this metaphor say, or imply, about my subject? What emotions might it evoke in my reader?

Takeaways from this chapter

Metaphors make some things clearer, but hide others.

Metaphors don’t work so well if you over-extend them or mix them up.

Metaphors can embody values, emotions, and ways of thinking. As a result, they can affect choices.

Only use metaphors when they bring clarity, not confusion.

14. Building knowledge

Build the reader’s knowledge from the foundation of what they already know.

How people learn

The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows.

David Ausubel[128]

Educational psychologist David Ausubel researched how people learn new things. He found that learners make sense of the world around them by fitting new knowledge with what they already know.

Every learner’s mind has a cognitive structure, which includes all the things they know and the relationships between them. If new learning fits into this structure, it’s meaningful to the learner. If it’s not meaningful for them, the best they can do is learn it by rote – that is, commit it to memory without necessarily understanding it.

Readers do something similar when they try to make sense of what they read. First, they make links (called associations) between what they know and what they’re reading. Then they fine-tune these links to build their own mental representation of what the text is about.[129]

All this means that if you want the reader to learn from your writing, you need to understand what they know already, so you can fit your ideas with theirs.

You can think of the reader’s knowledge in four categories: certainties, knowledge gaps, hidden knowledge and complete unknowns.

Certainties Things the reader knows and understands | Knowledge gaps Things the reader is aware of, but doesn’t fully understand
Hidden knowledge Things the reader understands, but isn’t aware of | Complete unknowns Things the reader isn’t aware of and doesn’t understand

Certainties

Certainties are things the reader already knows and understands. These are areas where they already have all the knowledge they need – and they know that they have it too. So they can use what they know to take action in the real world.

You can use certainties as a foundation for your own message by referring to something the reader already knows, then explaining how your message relates to it. The table shows some ways to do that.

What | How | Example
Comparison | Say how one thing is similar to another | Colour printing is like a paintbox where you have just four colours: cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
Contrast | Say how one thing is different from another | While a Word document can be edited by someone else, a PDF is fixed once you create it.
Extension | Say how one thing has more elements or complexity than another | A wood-burner is similar to an open fire, but gives you more control over the fire as it burns.

To use this technique, you need to refer to the reader’s existing knowledge before you present the new information. That way, the reader knows where to place it in their mind, and how to link it with what they already know. You need to start where the reader is, by talking about the things they know first – not putting your message forward and then relating it to the reader’s knowledge as an afterthought.

However, certainties aren’t necessarily true. They may be beliefs rather than facts – things the reader doesn’t really know enough about, but still feels they understand. This is the realm of gut feel, hunches, instinct, intuition and what people call ‘common sense’.

You could use the reader’s commonsensical beliefs to introduce a counterintuitive idea – something that’s different from what the reader expects, or the way they think it ‘should’ be. For example:

For teenagers to get pregnant, they obviously need to have sex. So you might think that promoting sexual abstinence among teens would help to reduce teenage pregnancies. But in fact, it has the opposite effect.[130]

This leads the reader from a factual certainty (‘sex leads to pregnancy’) to a shakier one (‘promoting abstinence reduces pregnancy’) and then on to the message the writer wants to convey. Making the same points in a different order would be less effective.

Some certainties, like preconceptions and prejudices, may be based on negative emotions like anxiety or fear. We’ll look at ways to overcome these strongly held beliefs in chapter 17.

Knowledge gaps

Knowledge gaps are the reader’s unsolved problems and unanswered questions. They know something about the subject, but they don’t fully understand it yet. They may already know where and how they can find out more, or they may not. But either way, they do appreciate their own position – in other words, they know what they know, and what they don’t.

People learn best when they already know something about a subject, and they want to expand their knowledge.[131] In this situation, as long as you’re addressing the reader’s problems and questions, they are motivated to keep reading.

For example, the reader may know that they need to make a will. They know what a will is, and roughly how it works. But they don’t know what areas a will actually covers, or how they go about making one, or what actually happens with their will after they die.

To make use of knowledge gaps, you need to understand where the reader is now, where they need to be and what they need to learn in order to get there. In management, this is called a gap analysis, because you aim to bridge the gap between the current and desired states.[132] Having done that, you can position your message as an answer to the reader’s question, or a solution to their problem.

To show the reader that your message is relevant to them, you could choose a title that speaks very directly to the question they have in their minds – like ‘How do I make a will?’ Or you could use a question-and-answer structure, as we saw in chapter 6.

On other projects, you need to explain something new in terms of what the reader already knows. Your reader profile or persona (chapter 2) should give you a sense of their existing knowledge.

For example, in 2021, it was confirmed that Martin Bashir had obtained his famous 1995 TV interview with Princess Diana through deception.[133] For my generation, the ‘Interview of the Century’ still felt like yesterday – but not for listeners to BBC Radio One, whose memories might only go back as far as 2010.[134] So Radio One Newsbeat was careful to explain that Diana was Prince William and Prince Harry’s mum, while Bashir was simply ‘a BBC journalist’. The reporting linked the story to people and events that listeners probably did know, while explaining why it was headline news today.

Hidden knowledge

Hidden knowledge includes things the reader understands, yet isn’t aware of. I know, that sounds weird – but there are a couple of ways to make sense of it.

First, there is implicit memory, which is knowledge that’s so familiar, we don’t think about it anymore.[135] It often relates to everyday tasks, like how to make a cup of tea.

Second, the reader may have knowledge of another area that could be relevant here – also known as transferable knowledge. Their knowledge is useful, but they haven’t yet realised why or how. Maybe you could draw parallels between their knowledge and your message to make a point. For example:

Project management may sound scary – but if you’ve ever taken a family holiday, you’ve basically planned a project. You identified your aims, you assembled your resources and you thought about your team members’ strengths and the tasks they each need to complete.

This gives the reader reassurance as well as knowledge, because it frames the new knowledge as something that they can easily learn. They learned that other thing, so they can learn this too.

At a deeper level, there may be things that the reader knows, but pretends not to, or has chosen to forget. This is the realm of denial, psychogenic amnesia[136] or dissociation.[137] For psychoanalysts, unknown knowledge resides in the Freudian unconscious;[138] it is what Jacques Lacan called ‘the knowledge that does not know itself’.[139]

There may be times when you need to venture into these dark areas – for example, if you’re writing a guide about dealing with past trauma, or telling a story describing distressing events. If so, tread carefully, and shine a light for the reader. Warn them in advance what you are going to talk about, and tell them where they can get help if your writing stirs up difficult feelings or distressing memories.[140]

Complete unknowns

Finally, complete unknowns are totally off the reader’s radar. They have no prior knowledge at all; no cognitive framework to fit their new knowledge into. And, in contrast to knowledge gaps, they aren’t aware that they lack knowledge, or that there’s something they need to learn. In other words, they don’t know what they don’t know.

If the reader’s knowledge gap is too big, they might find it too wide to bridge. So if you want to talk about complete unknowns, you need to give the reader a frame of reference first. You’ll have to explain what they are, and why the reader needs to know about them, before you can give them any new information.

Any link you can make to the reader’s knowledge, or their everyday life, will help. Failing that, you could use a metaphor or an analogy (chapter 13) to give them a way in.

Conscious and competent

Another way of thinking about the reader’s knowledge is in terms of consciousness and competence. These two dimensions give four stages along the journey of learning a skill, from knowing nothing about it to being able to do it without thinking.[141]

Unconscious incompetence Things the reader can’t do and doesn’t know about | Conscious incompetence Things the reader knows about, but can’t do
Conscious competence Things the reader can do with a conscious effort | Unconscious competence Things the reader can do without thinking

At the level of unconscious incompetence, the reader doesn’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know that the skill exists, or appreciate its value, which leaves them powerless. For example, maybe the reader is suffering from hip pain, but it’s never occurred to them that they could relieve it by doing some simple stretches.

To reach a reader at this stage, you have to reveal their blind spots. You have to tell them why they need knowledge, or what they could do with it – otherwise, there’s no context or framework for them to learn in.

The next stage is conscious incompetence. Now the reader knows that the skill exists, and may appreciate its value – but they still can’t do it. For example, they may be well aware that many people speak Portuguese, but they haven’t yet learned the language themselves. They need functional guidance (see chapter 15) to help them develop their ability.

When the reader achieves conscious competence, they have learned the skill, but they still have to concentrate to perform it. This is the level most of us reach with household tasks like cooking, gardening and DIY. Readers at this stage might appreciate handy tips or refinements that can help them improve their skill.

Finally, the unconsciously competent reader can perform the skill without thinking, and may be able to teach it to others. The classic example is riding a bike: once you’ve learned it, you don’t have to think about it anymore.

While unconsciously competent readers may not need to learn anything new, there may still be things they need to unlearn in order to get even better at the skill. For example, advanced driving teaches car drivers that they can’t expect others to react as they would themselves, and to be less confident in their own ability.[142]

Takeaways from this chapter

Readers learn best when they can relate new knowledge to what they already know.

Use certainties as foundations on which to build new knowledge.

Address knowledge gaps with ‘how to’ information, answers to questions or solutions to problems.

Consider how hidden knowledge might affect the reader’s understanding. Are there useful links you can make – or unwanted reminders you should avoid?

To explain complete unknowns, give the reader a frame of reference first.

15. Four pathways to understanding

Help the reader understand with four styles of communication.

Communication styles

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

John Locke[143]

For every writing project, you have a choice over which aspects of your message to highlight, or how to present them. These options are sometimes called communication styles.[144]

There are four main styles: analytical, intuitive, functional and personal. They’re shown on the illustration.

Many people – including 96% of teachers – believe that we each have a different learning style that reflects the way we like to learn new things. For example, people sometimes say things like, ‘I’m a very visual person’, suggesting that they like to see everything in pictorial form. But while this idea might feel intuitive, there isn’t actually much evidence for it.[145]

In reality, learning is most successful when the style is tailored to the content, rather than the learner – no matter what they think their learning style is. That makes sense when you think about some specific learning situations. For example, if you’re trying to build a wardrobe, a diagram will probably help you more than an audio description.

That’s why I’m describing these as styles of communication, rather than fixed personality types. Think of them as alternative pathways to understanding that you can offer to your reader, or ways to help them at different stages of their learning process.

With that in mind, let’s work through the four styles and see how you might use them in your writing.

The analytical style: ‘Show me the proof’

When you’re giving readers information, they might want some evidence that what you’re saying is true. If so, they’ll appreciate factsheets, data tables, charts, graphs, comparison tables, statistical analysis and anything else that lets them ‘see for themselves’.

If you can’t show your own evidence, you could point to someone else’s. For example, you could refer to other publications with references or links, or provide quotes from experts. This appeals to the persuasive principle of authority.[146] However, it will only work if the reader accepts the source as legitimate. We’ll come back to this in chapter 17.

Now, your reader might not fully understand the material you’re showing them. But they still want to have the feeling that they’ve ‘done their research’, even if their ‘findings’ only serve to confirm what they already think.[147] This is the function of the ‘science bit’ in TV adverts for shampoo and cleaning products.

Analysis only gets you so far, because ‘not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts’, as Albert Einstein put it. Also, as we’ll see in chapter 17, no amount of factual detail will change a firmly held belief. So while some data may be convincing, adding more beyond that point probably won’t strengthen your case.

The intuitive style: ‘What’s the big idea?’

Sometimes, readers want to see the helicopter view, not grub around in the weeds. They have no time for long explanations or reams of numbers. Instead, they just want to get a sense of the big picture, then join the dots later on. Or they might want to jump straight to the conclusion, then go back to see how it was reached.

The intuitive style suits expansive, high-level questions, like ‘How can we get our kids to learn?’ Readers in an intuitive frame of mind might respond to catchy soundbites or slogans, or latch on to heuristics[148] that they can use as simple rules of thumb without understanding a situation through and through.

You can serve intuition by allowing readers to get the gist of your ideas quickly and easily. For example, you could include a mind map, an overview diagram or an executive summary that gives them the basics of your message at the start. Or you could encourage skim-reading with running headers at the top of pages, informative headings, bold text highlighting key points in the text or pullout quotes (see chapter 20).

The problem with relying on intuition is that some ideas are inherently complex. For example, you may need to grasp some scientific principles to understand a new product design, or learn some history to appreciate why a political situation is so tense. Also, some learning is counterintuitive – that is, it goes against people’s intuition. So your challenge is getting readers to take on board everything they need to know, without drowning them in information.

The functional style: ‘How does it work?’

The functional view is all about process, logic and detail. Instead of talking about general principles or abstract concepts, you show readers how the ideas can actually be put into practice.

The functional style includes all types of methodical, practical writing, like instruction manuals and detailed explanations. It can include things like process diagrams, decision trees, step-by-step descriptions (chapter 6), feature lists, modular breakdowns, schedules, timelines and so on. You could introduce your functional content with a heading like ‘How to [do a task], step by step’.

The potential downside of the functional style is that it could end up being too mundane, predictable or even pedestrian. With some subjects, your reader might respond more to something a little more elevated or inspiring, rather than a functional, ground-level trudge. If so, you could confine the functional style to just one section of your writing, rather than using it to structure the whole thing.

The personal style: ‘People matter most’

It’s true when you think about it. Abstract ideas, inert data or inanimate objects are nothing in themselves. In the end, everything comes down to people and how they connect with each other. Progress, achievement and change happen through people – or they don’t happen at all.

To cover the personal angle, include anything that offers a human perspective: stories, testimonials, comments, reactions and reviews. Show how your subject involves links between people – family, friendship, collaboration or teamwork. Readers might also be interested in the emotions and psychology behind the facts, and how problems such as conflict, disagreement or scepticism can be overcome.

The personal style allows readers to identify with your message, or see how it chimes with their own life experience. To key into this, longer non-fiction articles often set the scene by opening with a story, before getting into hard facts or deep analysis:

On a bright day in July 1987, Elias Bonaros, then 15 years old, grabbed a bucket and headed from his home in Bayside, Queens, to Ronkonkoma, a town 40 miles to the east on Long Island…[149]

If you get this right, readers will be immediately engaged and drawn into your subject. However, if the story doesn’t really connect, the reader may just find it trivial or irrelevant. So bear in mind that it might be just as effective to open with a handy practical tip (functional), an arresting statistic (analytical) or an intriguing question (intuitive). While the personal style may be the ‘warmest’ or ‘most human’ approach, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always the best one to use with your message.

The table shows an overview of all four styles and how you can cater to them.

Style | What it includes | Features that might work well

Analytical

Hard data

Specific details

Lists of features

Close analysis

Tables

Charts

Statistics

References

Intuitive

Big picture

Big concepts

Open questions

Heuristics

Summary diagrams

Executive summaries

Informative headings

Pullout points

Slogans and soundbites

Functional

Hands-on details

Real-world examples

Timelines

Step-by-step explanations

‘How to’ and ‘How it works’

Practical tips

Links to the reader’s own experience

Personal

Human side

Case studies

Quotes and testimonials

Reactions, reviews and recommendations

Stories

Personal accounts

Combining styles

You’ll probably want to mix and match styles to suit the content of your message and the context of the reader.

The reader might want to look at a subject from different angles, but still favour one particular style to bring their knowledge together or make up their mind. For example, they might think ‘OK, the data looks promising [analytical], but does it work in the real world [functional]?’ Or they might think, ‘I’m sure my team will love this [personal], but I still can’t quite see how it all fits together [intuitive].’

To meet these needs, you could use one style to shape your overall theme or structure, and bring in the others whenever you can. For example, if you were helping readers choose a care home for a relative, you might write a step-by-step guide (functional) that featured case studies (personal), pullout quotes (intuitive) and a few eye-catching statistics (analytical).

If you’re offering guidance or advice, it might help to think of your reader travelling from not knowing to knowing. At the start of their learning journey, they need a map to get a sense of the landscape (intuitive). Later on, they need help choosing a direction (functional, personal). Finally, they need evidence to support their choices (analytical).

Or you could refer back to the reader’s user story (chapter 2) to get a sense of what styles you should use. What does the reader need from your writing, in order to do the job they want to do? What’s holding them back, or standing in their way? And which style could help them move forward?

Takeaways from this chapter

Use the four communication styles to offer the reader different angles on your message.

The analytical style concerns details, facts and data.

The intuitive style is about big concepts, summaries and overviews.

The functional style centres on processes, explanations and hands-on stuff.

The personal style brings in stories, relationships, emotions and thoughts.

Choose and combine styles to suit your message and the needs of your read.

16. Empathy

Understand the reader, just as you want them to understand you.

What is empathy?

No-one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Attributed to Theodore Roosevelt

Empathy is about feeling the same things as your reader. The word ‘empathy’ comes from the German Einfühlung, which literally means ‘feeling into’. When you empathise with someone, you put yourself in their shoes. You imagine yourself in their situation, and understand their experience as if you were experiencing it yourself.

Empathy has two sides: cognitive and emotional. Cognitive empathy is about knowing the contents of someone else’s mind – what they know, think and feel. Emotional or affective empathy is about actually feeling the same emotion as someone else, responding to their plight or feeling compassion for them.[150]

Empathy normally happens between two people who are interacting in real life. It’s the reaction that one person has when they see someone else going through a certain experience.

As a writer, you can’t see your reader in the same way. Plus you may be writing for a whole group of people, all with different lives, personalities and thoughts. So when you aim to show empathy in your writing, you’ll be thinking about the situation or emotional state that your reader is most likely to be in, based on the profile of them you built up in chapter 2.

Why empathy matters

That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

Arundhati Roy[151]

Why should you care what the reader feels? After all, you’re just giving them information, no more and no less. If they don’t like it, that’s their problem – right?

The reader’s emotions matter because they affect how they receive your message. If they feel anxious, or angry, or frustrated while reading, it will be harder for them to process your message and take it on board.[152] Or, if they get really upset, they might stop reading altogether. Either way, disregarding the reader’s emotions means your message doesn’t get through as well as it should.

You’ve probably experienced this yourself – for example, at your workplace. Maybe someone sent you an email that was just so infuriating, you couldn’t even think straight. You flew into a rage, stormed out of the office and rushed home to pound the Chardonnay.

But the next day, your vision was clear again. When you re-read the email, you realised it wasn’t quite as bad as you thought. And thinking about it now, maybe the sender had a point after all. At first, your own emotions got in the way of your understanding – but once you tuned into your colleague’s side of the story, things got a whole lot clearer.

We have to deal with work emails sooner or later. But many other types of writing can be ignored. If you rub your reader up the wrong way, they probably won’t give your writing a second chance. So empathy is a vital way to tailor your writing to your reader and their context, so you have the best chance of communicating your message clearly and getting it right first time.

However, empathy has to be sincere. It’s not about fooling the reader into thinking that you understand them, so you can manipulate them into doing what you want. It’s a genuine, good-faith attempt to get inside their lived experience and feel what they feel.

When you open yourself up this way, you make yourself vulnerable. Your link to the reader becomes a two-way street. You might feel some things that you personally find uncomfortable, or you might even be changed by your experience. But whatever happens, a deeper understanding of your reader can only make you a better writer.

The next few sections suggest some ways to build empathy in your writing.

Plain speaking

The language of truth is simple.

Euripedes

In chapter 8, we saw how simple, plain language helps the reader to understand. But it also encourages them to put their trust in you and your message.

When we’re talking to someone face to face, we use their tone of voice, eye contact and facial expressions to work out whether they’re telling the truth. But when we’re reading, all we have is the writer’s words. For better or worse, your reader will judge your character by the words you use.

Lying is hard work, and it takes skill. When people lie, they have to consciously separate their thoughts from reality, and then use words to spin an untruth.[153] That usually demands more complex language. For example, liars will hedge their statements, dwell on tiny details rather than big themes, resort to euphemisms,[154] change the subject[155] and speak in weasel words (chapter 12).

On the other hand, when people are telling the truth, they don’t need to hide behind fancy words. When we say someone is ‘plain speaking’, we mean their words are both simple and honest; the two go hand in hand. Simple language has the ring of truth. Backing this up, psychologists have found that the more easily we can process information, the more likely we are to think that it’s true.[156]

The emotions of learning

In chapter 14, we saw how you can fit your message with the things the reader already knows, to make it easier for them to learn. However, thinking about the reader’s knowledge has another important benefit: it builds cognitive empathy.

By showing that you’ve thought about what the reader knows – and what they want to know, or need to know – you show that you care about them, and you’re here to help. That builds trust before you even begin to explain your message.

Learning involves emotions, and those emotions affect how we learn. When we’re interested in our learning, it doesn’t seem like work at all. However, if we’re less involved, we can end up feeling anxious, frustrated or simply bored.

This can be because the content itself is complex or hard to learn, or because the way we’re learning it is difficult or discouraging. Either way, we feel bad – and that negative emotion makes it harder to learn and remember what we’re being taught.[157]

That means you need to consider two sides of the reader’s emotions: how they feel about your message itself, and how they feel about the way you express it.

For example, maybe you’re telling the reader something they don’t really want to hear – like the health consequences of their lifestyle choices. That might make them feel anxious and concerned, or defensive and resistant to change.

However, if you use a lot of obscure medical terms in your explanation, they might also be worried that they simply don’t understand what you’re saying. They can tell that you’re making a serious point, but they feel anxious because they’re not really getting it.

The reader might even have both these reactions at once. And with all those negative emotions swirling around in their head, your chances of getting your message across are pretty slim.

Dealing with these two strands of emotion calls for different writing techniques. If you think the reader might react negatively to your message, the ideas in chapter 17 could help to bring them round. To help them get to grips with the ideas, consider the pathways to understanding from chapter 15, ways to link old and new knowledge from chapter 14 or ways to make your message stick in chapter 18.

Acknowledge the reader’s feelings

Before you try to tell the reader anything, talk about what they might be feeling now. This reassures them that their emotions are natural and appropriate, and that they don’t have to feel guilty for having them. It also shows that you understand them – or, at least, you’re trying to – and that you won’t just talk over their feelings.

The reader might never have named their feelings before, or even given them much conscious thought. But research shows that simply putting difficult feelings into words can help people feel better, even if nothing has really changed.[158] So by suggesting the right words for what they’re feeling, you can build empathy right from the start.

For example:

Many people find the whole idea of making a will upsetting. It reminds them of their own death, or of loved ones who have passed away. But however distressing it may be, everyone needs to plan for the future so their relatives can cope after they’ve gone.

This leads the reader from the negative emotion they’re feeling now (anxiety, sadness) to a different, more productive one (concern for family). That encourages them to weigh up the two emotions, and consider whether one should take priority over the other. It’s far more effective than just hectoring them by saying, ‘Make a will, it’s important!’

In chapter 8, we saw the importance of matching the reader’s own language, while chapter 12 explained how using ingroup language can express a shared connection with the reader. When you’re acknowledging the reader’s feelings, describe those feelings in their words as far as you can. Your reader research (chapter 2) might suggest some phrases that people typically use.

State your purpose

Since adults learn best when they know why they’re learning, it may be worth telling the reader why you’re writing. Explain the deal up front, so the reader knows what’s in it for them.

Go back to the mission statement you defined in chapter 3. What’s the purpose of this writing? What will the reader learn from it? What will it help them to do? What user story (chapter 2) does it serve? For example:

This guide explains how to start using the software within your team. Once you’ve read it, you’ll be able to show other team members how to get started.

Strictly speaking, you don’t really need this sort of ‘writing about writing’, because the scope and coverage should be clear from your title, sub-headings, navigation links and so on. For example, at the start of a letter, you don’t really need to say:

We are writing to let you know that…

It’s obvious that you’re writing a letter, and that it contains information for the reader. However, this might still give readers some much-needed orientation or reassurance when they come to a message for the first time. It speaks to the questions they might be asking themselves, like ‘What is this?’, ‘Who is it from?’ and ‘Why do I need to read it?’ And ‘we’ and ‘you’ position the writing as a human-to-human conversation, rather than a cold statement of fact. A few ‘unnecessary’ words may be a price worth paying to put the reader at ease.

Parent, Adult and Child

Transactional Analysis (TA) suggests that each of us has three ego states: Parent, Adult and Child.[159] Our Adult responds to what is happening in the here-and-now. Our Parent is based on behaviours copied from our own parents, while our Child is based on things we did when growing up. Different ego states come to the fore at different times, and in different situations.

For example, imagine you’ve been criticised at work. The Adult response is to examine your behaviour and decide what to change. The Child response is to sulk, while the Parent response is to turn round and start telling others what they’re doing wrong.

Whenever we communicate, we speak from one of these states, and other people respond from one of theirs. This is called a transaction.

A complementary transaction is when the other person responds back in the same direction. For example, if you’re explaining something, your Adult says, ‘This is how it works,’ and the other person’s Adult responds, ‘Yes, I see.’ A complementary transaction will generally get the result that the speaker is hoping for.

However, if one ego state speaks and a different one responds, the transaction is crossed. For example, let’s say you can see that someone in the office is struggling with a problem. You might make a friendly Adult-to-Adult suggestion, like, ‘Why not try this?’ But they might resent your interference, so their Child snaps petulantly back at your Parent: ‘Mind your own business!’ As you can imagine, the result of a crossed transaction like this might be very different from what the speaker intends.

Eric Berne, who created TA, argued that it could represent all human interactions. Here, I’m using it specifically to focus on the attitude you might take in your writing, and what emotions it might evoke in the reader.

When you want to be clear to your reader, you should aim for your writing to be Adult to Adult. Speaking as an Adult, you simply describe things as they are. You aim to keep your own values and emotional baggage out of the picture, and you don’t attempt to control or manipulate the reader.

For their part, the reader should respond in the same way: Adult–Adult. If you could hear their response to your writing, it would be something like, ‘Yes, I understand.’

However, there might be times when you write from the Parent state. The positive side of this state is nurturing. When you write from this place, you can build empathy with the reader’s Child, who may be feeling vulnerable, confused or scared.

For example, if you know the reader is going through a tough time, you could show that you understand, or encourage them to keep going. If they’re dealing with a problem, you could reassure them that there is a solution, and that they’ll find it in due course. Or, if they feel alone, you can let them know that others have been this way before, and made it through, or that there are people the reader can talk to.

This sort of writing demands a light touch. If you take it too far, you’ll come across as patronising or twee. Then, instead of the reader’s Child saying a heartfelt ‘Thanks!’ you’ll get their Adult moaning, ‘Give me a break!’

The flip side of this attitude is a more controlling Parent. You might slip into this if you’re aiming to change the reader’s behaviour. It might come through in direct commands, prescriptive advice, universal rules (‘always’ or ‘never’) or value-based phrases like ‘you should’ or ‘you must’. With words like these, you’re trying to control the reader through sheer force of authority: ‘Because I say so.’

That’s fine if the reader’s Child replies, ‘Yes, OK.’ But if you lay it on too thick, you might get an angry response, like ‘But I don’t want to!’ This is called reactance: the impulse to kick back against authority, or to do things we’ve been forbidden to do.[160]

Reactance can be a real problem in areas like health messaging. For example, when people are told to cut down on alcohol or tobacco, they sometimes feel that their freedom is being taken away. So they resist the health advice even though it would benefit them to follow it.[161]

To communicate your message, you naturally want to set everything out as clearly as you can. And with a subject like health, the reader will appreciate you being honest, open and clear. But on the other hand, if you’re too explicit about what they should do, they might push back against you.[162] So you have to strike the right balance between Adult and Parent voices in your writing.

For example, instead of simply telling the reader what to do, you might get a better result by just implying what’s best for them, or emphasising their freedom to choose. You could also refer to other people in their life who might want them to act differently, or tell stories (chapter 18) that illustrate a useful course of action.

Finally, we have Child communications. These could include being irreverent, mischievous or rebellious, or telling jokes.

Here, everything depends on how the reader responds. If you get a Child–Child reaction – like a giggle – you could put the reader at their ease. Since you can both see the funny side, you probably see eye-to-eye on other issues too. However, you might equally get an Adult response (‘What?’) or, worse, a Parent one (‘Don’t be silly’). Child-talk is a high-risk strategy that could easily leave you worse off than before – so use it with care. We’ll come back to the subject of humour in chapter 18.

Tone of voice

We’ve seen how people ‘hear’ the words they read in their minds (chapter 11). But whose voice do they hear them in?

Inner reading voices are sometimes our own voice, and sometimes other people’s. They can vary in terms of identity, gender, pitch, loudness and emotional tone. If we’re reading a text message or an email, many of us hear it in the voice of the sender. (Some theories suggest that people with mental illness who ‘hear voices’ can’t distinguish between inner voices and real ones.[163])

If you actually know your reader in real life, the chances are they’ll hear your own voice when they read your words. But for other readers, the words you choose will affect the voice that they hear, or the personality they perceive.

For example, if you take a very formal tone, the reader might hear you as a stuffy civil servant. If you’re telling them facts, they might hear you more like a teacher. If you tell them what to do, they might respond to you as a parent – and if you’re playful, they might hear a child.

How are you hearing my tone, right now? What sort of person do I sound like? (Someone pretty cool, right?)

Read through your draft – ideally, out loud – and think about the tone.

What sort of person does this sound like?

What sort of attitude are they taking?

Do they sound helpful, friendly and authoritative?

…or are they actually a bit stuffy, standoffish and bossy?

Is the tone consistent all the way through? Does it sound like the same person is speaking?

To build empathy with your reader, you need to come across as someone they can get on with, or relate to, or confide in. On the other hand, if you sound like someone they can’t warm to, they’ll be less likely to take your message on board. We always listen more to people we like.[164]

Own your mistakes

When the UK passed 100,000 coronavirus deaths in January 2021, some people felt it was time for the government to acknowledge its failings in dealing with the pandemic. But instead, Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted that his ministers ‘did everything [they] could ... to minimise loss of life and to minimise suffering’. That brought immediate condemnation from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, who called the remarks ‘a kick in the teeth’.[165]

There’s nothing more infuriating than someone who won’t accept they’re wrong. On the other hand, admitting your mistakes can build empathy, and can actually be more persuasive too.

For example, consumers are more likely to purchase a product if it’s recommended by a reviewer who has previously made a purchase mistake.[166] Then there’s the pratfall effect, which says that competent people or authority figures are seen as more likeable or attractive when they make an everyday blunder.[167]

Simply by writing, you take on the mantle of authority. You are speaking, and the reader is listening. They’re counting on you for knowledge or guidance. So you might feel that you shouldn’t undermine your own position by admitting that you don’t have all the answers.

On top of that, you may be writing for a firm or organisation that has a brand or public image to maintain. Organisations spend millions on PR and advertising to make themselves look strong and smart, so they often hesitate to admit when they’ve got something wrong.

However, you may actually get a more favourable hearing from your reader if you admit some sort of shortcoming. For example, you could write about:

A mistake that you, or your organisation, made in the past

Something that you should have done, but haven’t (yet)

The limits of your knowledge or expertise

A new factor that you’ve only just discovered

Something that you’re uncertain about, or can’t know for sure just yet.

By putting these things into your writing, you admit that you are fallible. But you also look human, and you show that you don’t value your own ego above the reader’s right to know. When they see that you have made a mistake, they will understand that they have a chance to learn from it, at no risk to themselves. And, once you acknowledge something has gone wrong, you open the door to saying how you’ll fix it. Doing wrong is always an opportunity to do right.

Anticipate the reader’s mistakes

To be clear, you have to say exactly what you mean. But sometimes, you may also need to be clear about what you don’t mean.

In other words, you may need to think about what mistakes the reader could make, and anticipate them in your writing. The best writing has a tolerance for error, so it actively prevents readers from misunderstanding it, or using it in the wrong way. Sometimes, it’s not enough to build a bridge for the reader – you have to put guardrails along the sides as well.

For example, you could cover common misapprehensions or assumptions about your subject, or intuitive ideas that are actually wrong, or obvious solutions that don’t work. Your reader research (chapter 2) may throw up things that people often get wrong, which you can anticipate and help them to get right instead.

In most cases, it’s good to address the reader (chapter 11). But here, it’s more empathetic to frame potential reader mistakes indirectly – for example, as things that ‘people often assume’, or ‘can be confusing’ – rather than bluntly saying ‘this is something you’ll probably get wrong’.

Pacing

Think back to a time when you learned to do something new, like cooking a dish you really wanted to try. Working your way through the recipe, you carefully checked every ingredient, every quantity and every step in the method. You probably had to check a few things twice, to the point where the reading might have taken longer than the hands-on work. But once you’d made the recipe a few times, you could breeze through it in about half the time.

The brain needs time to process and absorb new information. So if you know your reader is less familiar with your subject, you might need to pace your writing to give them some time and space to get to grips with it. For example, you might need to say the same thing in two or more different ways, or talk around the subject a little before you get into the substance of your message.

When you match the reader’s pace, they can ‘stay with you’ as they read. Instead of having to stop and think, or go back and re-read things, they can take in everything you say as they read it. That puts them at their ease and makes them more receptive.

The pace you need will depend on your reader and your context. A text that seems slow or repetitive to an expert might be perfectly paced for a beginner. If you’re an expert yourself, you may need to consider whether the pace that feels right to you will be manageable for everyone else.

One way to pace your writing is by acknowledging the reader’s feelings, or offering reassurance about something they might be feeling unsure of. By bringing in these other aspects of your message, you can put a bit of space around complex ideas or difficult truths, so you don’t hit the reader with too much heavy stuff too quickly. For example:

Soufflés have a reputation for being fiendishly difficult to make, which is why many learner chefs avoid them altogether. But there’s no need to be so nervous, because you really only need to get one thing right: the egg whites. As long as you take your time and pay attention, you’ll be fine.

Factually speaking, all this really says is, ‘The egg whites are important, so take care with them.’ But that would show zero empathy with the novice chef. Only those with plenty of experience – and confidence – can handle new knowledge in such a raw, unfiltered form.

As this example suggests, pace can be particularly important towards the start of your writing. If the reader is feeling apprehensive, you need to warm them up and put them at their ease before you dive into the facts. It’s like a meeting where people break the ice before getting down to the real business of the day.

Inclusive language

Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from, and where they are going.

Rita Mae Brown

Inclusive language is about making your writing welcoming to everyone. It conveys respect for the differences between people and promotes equal opportunities for everybody.

To write inclusively, avoid words or phrases that exclude people of a certain gender, age, class, race, sexual orientation or physical ability from your message, or suggest stereotypes based on those things. Make sure your writing doesn’t make any assumptions about one sort of person being better than another, for any reason, or that certain types of people are ‘normal’ while others are deviations from the norm.

In chapter 13, we saw how some metaphors can imply negative things about people of certain races. Obviously, you should avoid any sort of racial slur or outdated racial term in your writing. When describing people’s origin, use adjectives (‘a Mexican person’) rather than nouns (‘a Mexican’). 

To write in a gender-neutral way, don’t bring gender into your message unless it’s actually relevant. Specifically, don’t use words that imply that:

Certain things are more appropriate, or only appropriate, for certain genders (roles, jobs, activities, clothes, toys or anything else)

Men represent everyone, regardless of their gender

Men are the norm or somehow ‘best’, while other genders are non-standard, inferior or negative[168]

All families conform to a certain pattern

There are only two genders, and everyone is one or the other.  

The table shows some traditional gendered terms and their gender-neutral equivalents. The general idea is to make your language broader and less gender-specific, so it includes everyone it might refer to. You can normally do this without losing any important meaning. 

Gendered term | Gender-neutral equivalent
Actress | Actor
Barmaid | Bartender
Boys and girls | Children
Businessman | Businessperson
Chairman | Chair (although ‘chairman’ is also used neutrally)
Fireman | Firefighter
Foreman | Supervisor
Headmaster | Headteacher, Head
Man-hours | Working hours
Mankind | Humankind
Men and women | Adults
Mums and dads | Parents, carers
Policeman, policewoman | Police officer
Stewardess | Flight attendant
Waiter, waitress | Server (although ‘waiter’ can be gender-neutral)

At other times, you’ll need to talk about someone without referring to their gender. For example:

Your social worker will visit you at home to talk about mentoring and ask you some questions. Based on your responses, he or she will try to match you up with a child. Anything you say to him or her is completely confidential.

A few decades ago, it would have been standard for writers to use ‘he’ and ‘him’ in this situation. That was the rule set in the 18th century by (male) grammarians,[169] and it had the effect of making men the centre of the universe while erasing everyone else. Thankfully, those days are gone.

‘He or she’ works OK, but it’s a bit cumbersome. Some writers use ‘she’, to redress the historical imbalance – but it’s still not gender-neutral, and it might suggest that the person you’re talking about is always female, or that they should be.

The best solution is the singular ‘they’. Instead of ‘he or she’, you put ‘they’, but write the rest of the sentence as if you had said ‘he’ or ‘she’, or the person’s name. If you need to talk about something that belongs to them, say ‘their’. And if you need to say ‘himself’ or ‘herself’, say ‘themself’ or ‘themselves’.

For example:

Your social worker will visit you at home to talk about mentoring and ask you some questions. Based on your responses, they will try to match you up with a child. Anything you say to them is completely confidential.

Person-first language is the best way to talk about people with illnesses, disabilities or difficulties in their lives. The general rule is to characterise the situation or condition rather than the person, so you don’t reduce people to a single dimension.

For example, instead of describing someone as a ‘cancer sufferer’, say they ‘have cancer’ or are a ‘person with cancer’. Instead of labelling someone a ‘drug addict’, say they have a problem with substance misuse.

You also need to guard against language that implies certain values or attitudes. For example, people sometimes talk about people with cancer ‘battling’ the disease. But if illness is a battle, that might suggest that people who ‘lose’ weren’t strong enough, or didn’t fight hard enough. So while you might be hoping that the battle metaphor will evoke bravery, the person themselves might hear it as blame. Research even shows that using military metaphors for cancer can make people more fearful and fatalistic about the disease, and therefore less likely to take the right action.[170]

Like plain language (chapter 8), inclusive language can be a hot issue. For example, some see the singular ‘they’ as a trendy modern invention – even though it’s been around for hundreds of years.[171] Or they might object that traditional gendered terms worked perfectly well, or that no-one is bothered by them anyway, or that the modern, gender-neutral equivalents are ugly.

For me, there are three powerful arguments in favour of inclusive language.

First, it’s an elegant solution to something that just doesn’t need to be a problem. If gender, race or other characteristics aren’t an issue in the real world, there’s no need to make them an issue in your writing.

Second, inclusive language is clear. Exclusive language doesn’t describe the world as it is today. For example, people of any gender can do any job, and a person’s gender is nothing to do with the work they do. If you imply otherwise, you’re misleading your readers.

Finally, inclusive language is reader-focused, and that builds empathy. It doesn’t presume to decide what words people should find acceptable; instead, it welcomes every reader, without prejudice. And as we’ve seen over and over again, when you start where the reader is, they’re more likely to listen to what you say.

Takeaways from this chapter

Build empathy with your reader so they warm to the ‘personality’ you project in your writing, making them more likely to listen to what you say.

Cognitive empathy means helping the reader, not just telling them things.

Think about what the reader might feel about your message, or the way it’s presented.

Acknowledge what the reader feels now before you try to change it.

Address the reader Adult to Adult, unless there’s a good reason to speak Parent to Child.

Be aware of your tone of voice, and keep it consistent.

Pace your writing so the reader can stay with you without feeling overwhelmed.

Use inclusive language to welcome every reader into your message and avoid imposing your own values.

17. Changing the reader’s mind

Guide your reader to make a different choice.

How minds change

OK, so you want to change the reader’s mind. But first, let’s take a look at yours.

When did you last change your mind about something important? How did it happen? What did you hear, see or read that made the difference?

Firstly, nothing ‘changed your mind’. You changed it yourself. Nobody bullied you into thinking differently, or defeated you in an argument. If they tried that, you’d probably just double down on what you thought before.

Second, although you chose to change your mind, you probably did so reluctantly. You were happy with the way things were. You didn’t wake up that morning thinking, ‘Hey, what can I change my mind about today?’

And even though it may have been a relief to switch from a wrong view to the right one, you still had a feeling that you were somehow giving in, or giving up. Opinions are possessions: we cling to them and cherish them. Every change of mind is also a change of heart.

What prompted your change of mind? I bet it wasn’t reading dozens of peer-reviewed academic papers, or a newspaper you never usually buy. It was more likely a significant life event, an interesting chat with a loved one or a thoughtful article by an author you respect. Even then, you probably took some time to think things through for yourself, and reach a conclusion when you were ready.

As you know from your own experience, changing someone’s mind is not like changing a light bulb. If you were trying to do it in conversation, that would be painfully obvious: you’d see doubt, resistance and even anger all over their face. But when you’re writing, it’s easy to imagine that your reader will react in ways that you never would yourself.

Your facts may be proven, your reasoning sound, your advice solid gold. But that doesn’t mean the reader will accept what you say. Why not?

Two paths to persuasion

In the 1980s, psychologists Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo set out to discover what really changed people’s minds. Their answer was the Elaboration Likelihood Model, or ELM.[173]

In the ELM, there are two routes to persuasion: the peripheral path and the central path. The difference between them is how much thought, or ‘elaboration’, people put into their decisions.

On the peripheral path, people decide based on simple, shallow reasoning, or rely on superficial factors like the credibility of the source, or how the message is presented.

Most advertising takes this path. It aims to change people’s behaviour in the short term by pushing their emotional buttons, dazzling them with presentation or exploiting behavioural ‘nudges’. Advertisers skip right over the middle levels of the pyramid of aims from chapter 3. They don’t really care whether the reader understands, or what they think, or even if they change their minds back again later on. They just want them to take action in the here-and-now.[174]

On the central path, however, people carefully consider all the information being put forward to support a position. They think more deeply, weigh up more factors and take longer to reach their decision.

That process is much more likely to result in a strong, enduring change in how they think and act. And once their mind is made up, it will be resistant to other forms of persuasion too.

In this deeper form of persuasion, you are the reader’s servant, not their master. Your task is to lead them, step by step, through the things they need to learn and understand in order to change the way they act.

Instead of trying to manipulate or cajole the reader, you’re aiming to empower them,[175] by giving them the insight they need to follow a new path. If they’re uncertain, you reassure them. If they’re confused, you guide them. If they’re feeling helpless, you help them. And, once you’ve done all that, they choose what they want for themselves – not just what you want them to do.

Knowledge vs beliefs

So far, so good. But while giving the reader new information is one thing, changing what they believe is something else.

Knowledge is what we know: it relates to the world outside our heads. When we get new information, we update our knowledge without hesitation. If I tell you it’s raining, you don’t start arguing. You take an umbrella.

Beliefs, on the other hand, are what we think. They are part of our inner reality, and shape how we see the world outside.

Sometimes, we have both knowledge and beliefs about the same thing – and the belief wins. For example, I know, from looking it up dozens of times, that about 75 g/2½ oz of pasta will make a portion. But when I see those few little fusilli staring up at me from the sieve, I simply cannot believe it’s enough. Better throw in another handful or two, just to be on the safe side.

We originally form our beliefs in response to our life experiences. In that sense, they are based on external reality. But once we’ve taken on a belief, it shapes our internal reality, by influencing which parts of the real world we pay attention to. And that, in turn, affects the choices we make.

From the inside, this process of forming and using beliefs is completely transparent. We think we’re seeing the world as it really is, when in fact we’re looking through the window of our beliefs – and they don’t show us the whole picture.[176]

Unlike knowledge, beliefs aren’t neutral. They have an emotional charge, usually resulting from the events that inspired them.[177] They’re also rooted in our social identity – we hold certain beliefs because ‘that’s what people like me think’.[178] That’s why it can be hard to let go of a belief: you feel you’re giving up a part of yourself.

Motivated reasoning

What has not been reasoned in, cannot be reasoned out.

Attributed to Sydney Smith

You might think that we use our learning to shape our beliefs. But in fact, it’s the other way round: we use our beliefs to direct our learning.

When we come across new information, we use our powers of reasoning to seek out evidence for our beliefs, and find reasons to dismiss evidence we don’t like. Psychologist Ziva Kunda called this motivated reasoning.[179]

Kunda investigated the effect by asking people what they thought of a medical article about the health risks of caffeine to women. Most of them found the article pretty convincing – apart from women who drank a lot of coffee, who saw plenty of reasons to doubt it.

Deep knowledge is no protection against motivated reasoning. Experts do it too. In fact, the more you know, the better you are at finding facts to support the conclusion you want to reach. As Molière said, ‘A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant one.’[180]

Motivated reasoning explains why you can’t change the reader’s mind just by throwing a load of facts at them. Even if everything you say is true, they will still see whatever ‘evidence’ they want to see. You can ‘prove your point’ as much as you want, but the only person you’re convincing is yourself.

In fact, when it comes to highly emotive, ‘hot button’ issues, the more evidence you put before the reader, the stronger their existing beliefs will become.[181] So you’ll actually make your ideas less clear by trying to substantiate them.

Basically, you can’t bring facts to a feeling fight. So what does change the reader’s mind?

Start where the reader is

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Stephen R. Covey[182]

Before you even try to change the reader’s beliefs, acknowledge what they’re thinking now. Start where they are, not where you want them to end up. To work out where they are, think back to your reader research (chapter 2), your analysis of what they know (chapter 14) and your consideration of their feelings (chapter 16).

Think of it as a counselling or consultancy session. You’re ‘listening’ to the reader’s problems and concerns through your writing. Of course, you can’t actually respond to them as an individual – but you can acknowledge what they might be thinking, in a way that they can identify with. For example:

How much pasta is enough? Believe it or not, 2½ ounces or 75 grams of pasta is plenty for an adult portion. Pasta can double in size and weight when it’s cooked, because it absorbs so much water in the pan.

Simply telling the reader the correct portion size isn’t enough. We also need to acknowledge their strong existing belief, and provide some additional evidence to back up our position.

Most people don’t feel that strongly about pasta portions. So this belief is one that the reader should be able to let go, at least until they’ve finished following a recipe. But other beliefs are much more strongly held – and acknowledging them might feel like a far bigger deal. Here’s an example:

Some people feel the coronavirus pandemic has been exaggerated, or that lockdown and social distancing measures have been excessive. However, most scientists agree that they are the only way to get infection rates down and keep them down.

Now, that first sentence does not represent my views, and to be honest, just typing it felt a bit weird. So remember that acknowledging different views doesn’t mean you endorse them. You’re just using them as stepping-stones to the point you want to make.

You might feel that just by putting down unfounded opinions in black and white, you’re giving them a credibility they don’t deserve, or helping to spread misinformation. Also, as we saw in chapter 8, denying ideas can simply end up reinforcing them. But if you try to ignore misconceptions, or ride right over them, that might make it harder to change them. Think back to a time when someone talked over your feelings, or denied your lived experience. Did that change your mind?

At the end of the day, this is a judgement that you must make based on your message, your reader and their context.

Get the right response

The cognitive response model suggests that people remember their own reaction to a communication, rather than its actual content.[183]

For example, when we look back on an argument, we’re actually remembering the thoughts we had in the heat of the moment, rather than what we said, or what was said to us. That’s why people have such different recollections of an argument later on.

In the same way, when we remember a piece of writing, we’re partly remembering our own reactions when we originally read it. Readers build their response from their own mental images and experiences, which is why it’s so helpful to use real-world language, as we saw in chapter 8.

When you try to persuade the reader through your writing, they’ll react in one of three ways: agreeing with you, disagreeing with you or criticising you.[184]

If the reader agrees with you, that’s great. But if they don’t, it’s still worth acknowledging their view, so they remember that they agreed with you – at least for a while. The more positive stuff you can make happen in the reader’s head, the better.

If the reader disagrees, or raises a counterargument, you need to acknowledge their viewpoint and then try to change it. The rest of this chapter suggests some ways to do that.

If you never get to grips with the reader’s view, their main memory of your writing will be the objections they had at the time they read it – which could leave you worse off than before.

Finally, the reader might dismiss your message because they don’t accept you as a messenger. For example, they might think to themselves that you’re biased, you can’t be trusted, you have a vested interest, or you just don’t know what you’re talking about. (That could be you as an individual, or you as a brand, a firm, a group or an organisation.)

To counter that, you may need to build up your own credibility by talking about your background, skills, qualifications, experience and so on. Organisations can point to their history, mission and values, or objective measures of worth like awards, certifications, performance figures or customer reviews.

Authority

If you think the reader won’t accept you as a source – or simply doesn’t know you – you can get an outside authority to ‘speak’ on your behalf.[185]

The authority figures you refer to could include elected officials, religious leaders, subject experts, academics, doctors, lawyers, authors or top industry figures. They could also be organisations like universities, think tanks, consultancies, major firms and so on. However, cultural figures like actors and sportspeople can also have authority – for some readers, at least.

You can bring the authority figure into your writing by quoting their opinions, findings or suggestions and relating them to your message. In some projects, you can also evoke their authority indirectly by showing an image of them looking ‘authoritative’ (for example, a white-coated scientist in their laboratory), or displaying an organisation’s logo.

Authority is persuasive because people assume that those in positions of authority have more knowledge and expertise than they do. So following their advice should lead to a better result than acting alone.

However, it takes two to tango: your authority only works if someone else accepts it. Authority is something you do, rather than something you have or someone you are. And its power is completely dependent on context.[186] So if the reader doesn’t accept the person you’re referring to as an authority, your persuasive tactic will fail. UK government minister Michael Gove famously dismissed academic, institutional authority when he declared that ‘the people of the UK have had enough of experts’ (in relation to the Brexit vote).[187]

The reader might deny an authority because of – you guessed it – their beliefs. For example, a politician might have detailed knowledge of an issue in the news, which technically makes them an authority on it. However, if the reader holds different political views, they may find it hard to accept that the politician is acting in good faith. A good example is former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair: despite his decade in office, many people feel his authority to speak on current affairs is undermined by his part in the Iraq War.[188]

So choose your authority carefully, bearing in mind that the one best suited to your message may not actually have the most clout with your reader.

Go to a higher level

To start from agreement with the reader, appeal to a need, desire or goal they want to achieve, then position your message as a means to achieve it. For example:

We all want to live a long and healthy life. Big changes like taking more exercise are important – but so are little things, like watching how much salt you eat. The more salt there is in your diet, the higher your risk of high blood pressure and heart attacks.

Here, the end is living a long time, and the means is cutting down salt. Exercise is another means that the reader may have in mind, and the contrast between the two highlights that eating less salt is a relatively easy means to achieve the end.

You can also appeal to a higher ideal, value or principle that the reader respects or believes in. Then you show how your own message supports it – perhaps in a way the reader hasn’t thought of before. The implication is that the reader needs to accept your message in order to be consistent with the principle they hold dear.[189]

For example:

Caring for children and keeping them safe is every parent’s number-one priority. The MMR vaccine has been shown to be safe in multiple trials and protects against three serious illnesses: measles, mumps and rubella.

Here, the value of ‘care’ encourages the reader to look again at the preconceptions they may have about the vaccine. Simply citing the clinical trials probably wouldn’t have the same effect.

Let the reader decide

You may have noticed that in all the writing examples above, I wrote something like ‘some people’ or ‘we’ rather than ‘you’.

In chapter 11, we saw that it’s usually best to address the reader directly. But when you’re trying to change their mind, that could come across as intrusive or overbearing.

If you presume to know what’s happening in the reader’s head, you might irritate them even if you’re right. And if you confront them, or give them a direct command, it might make them determined to resist (because of reactance, which we saw in chapter 16).

So instead, take the pressure off and approach the topic in a more roundabout way. Talk about emotions that some people may have felt at some point, so the reader has the option to identify themselves without feeling accused. Talk about a range of views, one of which the reader might hold. Place the problem and the solution next to each other, but without necessarily making a link between them.

Remember: the more thought and deliberation the reader puts into a decision, the more likely it is to stick. So lay out the path for the reader, then give them time and space to follow it themselves. Don’t push them into a decision too quickly by telling them what to do; let them decide when they’re ready. As we saw earlier, this approach is far more likely to lead to a lasting change.

Social proof

I’ll have what she’s having.

Dialogue from When Harry Met Sally (1989), by Nora Ephron

When we’re unsure what to do, we look to other people for cues. If other people are doing something, we assume it must be right. Psychologists call this social proof.

You can use social proof by talking about how other people have done whatever you want the reader to do:

Over two-thirds of small firms in Manchester have already signed up for the scheme.

As this example suggests, your claim will be more persuasive if it’s supported by statistics or other hard evidence. Saying something like ‘many firms’ without proof is an example of weasel words (chapter 12).

For a more individual perspective, you could incorporate other people’s views through quotes, interviews, testimonials and reviews. You can let these other voices ‘speak’ to the reader on your behalf, which makes your message more balanced and impartial. They might be able to say things that would sound too boastful, or lack credibility, if you said them yourself.

If you use quotes, you don’t need to include everything that people say. Rather than reproducing a long, rambling quote verbatim, focus in on a sentence, or even a single phrase, that backs up your argument. I think this sort of editing is fine, as long as the speaker would still recognise their own thoughts. If in doubt, run your version by them before you publish it.

Social media can be a good source, since people increasingly rely on it to make decisions.[190] However, bear in mind that social content isn’t free for anyone to use,[191] so ask permission before you reproduce someone’s Facebook post or tweet.

Homophily

We have a natural tendency to associate with people who are similar to us. The ways they are like us can include race and ethnicity, sex and gender, age, religion, education, occupation, social class and interests. This is called homophily, and it’s encapsulated in the phrase ‘birds of a feather flock together’.[192]

If, like me, you believe that it takes all sorts to make a world, you may find it sad that homophily is so prevalent. But many studies have borne it out, and you can see it for yourself if you use social media: many Facebook groups are the very picture of homophily.

Homophily means that your social proof will work better if the ‘other people’ you’re pointing to are similar to the reader.[193] The more characteristics they share, and the more important those characteristics are to the reader, the more persuasive it will be. The extreme example is ‘keeping up with the Joneses’, where people want to be exactly like their neighbours in every way.[194]

On the other hand, if the reader feels that your ‘other people’ aren’t really that similar to them, they might not buy in to your argument. For example, you could cite trends in Norway to encourage drivers to buy an electric car,[195] but some UK drivers might feel that the two countries are so different that your comparison isn’t valid.[196]

If you can’t be so precise about the reader’s identity or background, you might still be able to refer to a shared situation. Recall from chapter 2 how user stories identify readers by their problems, preferences or priorities – in other words, what they want or need, rather than who they are.

For example:

Some gardeners still choose to bring their own garden waste to our refuse centre. But most others have found that our home collection service actually works out cheaper once you take account of time, materials and travel costs.

Here, target readers could have pretty much any demographic profile – they’re just people who need to get rid of garden waste. The writing guides them to reconsider which group they should use as their reference point for social proof.

When you first meet someone, you naturally seize on any characteristics that you share with them. Maybe you both went to the same college, or you both have the same health issue, or you both have cats. Pretty much anything will do, as long as it suggests you’re alike in some way, and will therefore get on well.

In the same way, you could suggest that you, as a writer, have something in common with your reader. For example, when writing an application letter or a prospecting email, you could point to a connection you share with the recipient. Or, if you’re writing to a group, you could talk about an experience, situation, attitude or belief you share with them.

The facts behind beliefs

When you’re writing factual content, it’s easy to imagine yourself as nothing more than a teacher. You have information that the reader needs, and it’s your job to pass it to them as clearly as you can.

However, it’s not always that simple. The reader has knowledge of their own, and your teachings will have to fit in with it somehow. There might be things that you think are irrelevant, or don’t know at all, that your reader sees as familiar, obvious and important. In the system from chapter 14, something that’s a complete unknown for you might be a certainty for your reader.

What’s more, the reader’s knowledge might support a strongly held belief. And if it’s based on their own experience, or the experience of someone close to them, it might have a powerful emotional charge. So it may not be that easy to replace with the things you want to say. You can’t ‘put someone right’ if they believe they already are.

For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, UK health officials were concerned to find that some people from Black and minority ethnic groups were hesitant to be vaccinated against the disease,[197] even though they were more at risk of dying from it.[198] Why would anyone resist something that could save their life?

Research found that these people weren’t ‘anti-vaxxers’. Nor did they have ‘irrational’ fears. In fact, they had very sound reasons, based in fact, to feel the way they did.

Black patients, in particular, remembered the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. In this deeply unethical project, carried out by U.S. health authorities from 1932 to 1972, 600 impoverished African American sharecroppers were left untreated for syphilis in order to observe the effects, without being told of their condition. As a result, at least 28 of them died – possibly as many as 100.[199] Along with systemic discrimination,[200] Tuskegee was a major reason why both African Americans[201] and Black British people[202] came to distrust the medical system.

Everyone’s beliefs are based on facts and experiences. But the reader’s facts and experiences may be very different from yours. So before you challenge their beliefs, see if you can discover the facts that lie behind them – and acknowledge them in what you write. Then you can at least build your argument based on a shared basis of fact, instead of speaking from a completely different place that the reader just won’t recognise.

Flavours of wrongness

Morals are strongly held beliefs about what’s right and wrong. Like other beliefs, they don’t usually come from conscious learning or rational reflection. We develop them intuitively, through our reactions to life events and the people around us.

We use our morals to judge the ideas and suggestions we come across in everyday life – and they can evoke strong emotions too.

Think of a time when you were reading an article or a social-media post that really rubbed you up the wrong way. It’s not just a question of thinking, ‘No, that’s not right.’ You feel your reaction in your body: eyes widening, heart racing, muscles tensing. It’s almost like you’re being physically threatened.

If you write something that the reader feels is morally wrong, they could feel anything from mild irritation through to full-blown anger. Obviously, that isn’t the sort of reaction you want. The more threatened they feel, the more likely they are to reject your message, form a counterargument in their head or simply stop reading.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt suggests six foundations of morality.[203] Each of us has different ‘tastes’ in these six areas, which determine what we consider right or wrong. That means there are six main moral objections that readers might have to your message:

Care/harm: This is harmful to someone who should be cared for.

Fairness/cheating: This is unfair, because someone is cheating or taking advantage.

Loyalty/betrayal: This is a betrayal – of a country, a point of principle or anything else.

Authority/subversion: This is disrespectful to certain people, or undermines structures that we should keep.

Sanctity/degradation: This shouldn’t happen to anyone.

Liberty/oppression: This affects my freedom.

As abstract concepts, these sound like they relate to serious issues or major life events. But they could come into play even with relatively trivial messages. In this example, the notes show where the text might tread on the reader’s morals:

We’ve decided to introduce subscription fees for the first time. Although we always said we wouldn’t [subversion, betrayal], we think it’s the best way to make sure everyone can enjoy our community for many years to come [authority, freedom]. And we’re setting up different levels so everyone pays only what they can [fairness, care]. We’d like to thank you for sticking with us for so many years [respect, loyalty].

Morals aren’t necessarily expressed in words. So even though your reader may feel a moral objection very strongly, they may never have put it into words, let alone seen it written down. So you probably don’t need to mention the abstract principles by name – just deal with the way they come up in your specific context.

Show both sides

At the start of this chapter, we saw how persuasion works best when people consider all the information available to them. And that can include things that don’t support your argument. Psychologists have found that presenting both sides of an issue can be more persuasive than focusing on just one.[204]

For example, you could write about the downsides of what you’re proposing, as well as the upsides. You could highlight other options that the reader could consider, or you could refer to other sources or writers who explore alternative views – as long as they’re grounded in fact.

Alternatively, you could show that although there’s a trade-off between the pros and the cons, your way still comes out best overall. For example, Buckley’s, the Canadian cough syrup, used this slogan:

It tastes awful. And it works.

This proposed two aspects of the product – taste and effectiveness – and suggested that one should outweigh the other. (In fact, it even implied that one supports the other, because anything that tastes so bad must be doing you good.)

Opposition isn’t necessarily a problem. It’s just how communication works. We form relationships through two-sided dialogue, and we reach agreement and make decisions by working through our differences and resolving the tensions between opposing ideas. This idea of complementary opposites is visualised in the famous symbol of yin and yang. (The theory is called relational dialectics.[205])

For example, you know that two’s company, three’s a crowd. But you also know that the more the merrier. You can hold both these ideas in your head at the same time, and you know that both can be true – in different ways, at different times, or for different people. By bringing opposing ideas together, you can get to grips with what you and others think, or work out what to do in a particular situation.

By showing both sides of the story in your writing, you’re reflecting the dynamic that the reader would expect when they talk something over with a spouse, relative, close friend or valued colleague. On the other hand, a relentlessly one-sided monologue is what they might expect from a pushy salesman, a bar-room bore or a sulky child. Who would you rather talk to?

Challenge yourself

Recall from chapter 1 that writing is a process of communication between two human beings. You’re not infallible just because you’re writing, and the reader is not gullible just because they’re reading. You’re just as likely to have cognitive biases, prejudices and patchy knowledge as your reader. And let’s give the reader some credit: they might see through them too.

The more balanced your writing is, the more credible and persuasive it will be. So as you write or review your text, take a look at your own biases. What are you taking for granted, or leaving unsaid? How do you feel about your own message? Do you actually believe what you’re writing, or believe in the principles behind it? How could that affect what you write?

Think about objections the reader could raise: ‘I don’t believe it’, ‘How do you know?’ or ‘Why should I listen to you?’ What are the limits of your own knowledge? How can you go beyond them, using techniques like authority?

If you can, seek out the opposite view to your own. Go online and search for people who disagree. What are they saying? What would they say if they read your writing? How could you counter their opinions?

Calls to action

Once you’ve set out your persuasive case, you can tell the reader what you actually want them to do, in order to act on your advice. You can do this with a written command known as a call to action. For example:

To get started on the scheme, go to our website and set up an account.

Notice how this uses simple commands, in the form of imperative verbs (‘get started’, ‘go’ and ‘set up’), to tell the reader exactly what to do. As we saw in chapter 12, more abstract words are harder to visualise. You want the reader to see what they’ll be doing before they do it.

Make the action as simple as you can, and don’t say stuff that isn’t needed. If you need to include the call to action more than once (for example, on different web pages), make the action the same every time. Any uncertainty or extra detail around an action can make it harder for people to choose it – even if the other stuff isn’t really relevant to their decision.[206]

Whenever you ask the reader to do something, they consider how hard it will be for them to do it. The harder they think it is, the less likely they are to comply. To weigh up their options, they run a sort of mental movie – a simulation of the future that tells them how much effort it’s going to take.

However, when people base their simulation on a piece of writing, the perceived ease of the action is affected by the ease of their own reading. Basically, they assume that if it’s easy to read, it’s also easy to do.[207] So your description of the action should be simple, as well as the action itself.

Also, simple things are easier to remember – and memorable things are seen as useful. When people can recall information easily, they see it as more valuable (and actually, they’re often right). This is called the fluency heuristic.[208] So the more memorable your call to action, the more likely the reader is to act on it.

Takeaways from this chapter

When you’re trying to change the reader’s mind, remember how you change yours.

Clear writing puts forward a detailed, balanced argument and gives the reader space to decide, instead of trying to ‘nudge’ them into action straight away.

Start where the reader is by acknowledging what they already know, think and believe.

Appeal to higher-level goals or principles to argue your case.

Think about how other people can support your message, whether through authority or social proof.

If you want the reader to do something, write a simple, memorable call to action telling them what to do.

18. Making your message stick

Help the reader to remember your message.

What makes a message memorable?

Sometime around 1986, when I was about 15, a PE teacher told me that a gentle jog uses less energy than walking.[209] I can still see him demonstrating the jogging style, and I think of it every time I’m out running and I slow down to a walk. But why do I remember this one moment, out of millions, so many years later?

I’m sure you have plenty of equivalents of your own – little nuggets of language, information and advice that have stayed with you down the years. You probably didn’t make a conscious effort to memorise them – they just stuck. But why?

Psychologists have found that the messages people remember for longest are usually:

Short

Conversational: Spoken rather than written

One-on-one: Delivered to an individual alone, rather than a group

Relevant: Seen as having a link to the recipient’s needs

Elevated: Provided by older or higher-status individuals.[210]

You could remember these with the acronym ‘SCORE’. Let’s look at them in turn.

We’ve already seen how important it is to keep words and sentences short and simple (chapters 8 and 9). To get the reader to remember your message, you need to put it into a really short and punchy form – what people sometimes call a ‘soundbite’. Thinking back to your mission statement (chapter 3), boil your message right down to just one point and express it as simply as you can.

The best political slogans do this brilliantly. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln used a vivid metaphor (chapter 13) to argue that voters should stick with him for a second term:[211]

Don’t change horses midstream.

You could use your soundbite as your title – or just part of it (for example, above a more informative subtitle). You could also feature it within the text as a pullout quote (chapter 20), or share it on social media.

Unless you’re writing for an audio format, like a podcast or a radio ad, your soundbite won’t actually be spoken out loud. However, the reader will still hear it in their head, and you can still give it the feel of speech, using the techniques we saw in chapter 11. (Imagine if Lincoln had run on ‘I implore you, my fellow citizens, to retain the self-same mount throughout your river crossing.’)

In chapter 11, we saw how important it is to hold a conversation with your reader through your writing. Phrasing your message as a rule of thumb, a guideline or a command (like Lincoln’s slogan) tells the reader that you’re talking to them, and that what you’re saying is something they need to listen to, remember and act on.

Almost any message takes on this proverb-like quality if you say it crisply enough. Let me try it with mine:

When you write it shorter, it’s remembered longer.

Since soundbites are inevitably simplified, they don’t suit every message. So don’t soundbite off more than you can chew. Instead, find an area where you have something really simple and forthright to say, and focus on that.

To boil your message down even further, you could create a mnemonic. This is where the initials of important points form a memorable sequence, or even another word – ideally, one that’s also relevant to your message. For example, the UK Stroke Association uses the acronym ‘FAST’ to capture what to do if you think someone is having a stroke: ‘Facial weakness, arm weakness, speech problems? Time to call 999’.[212]

To link your message to the reader’s own life, think about their situation, and their existing knowledge (chapters 2 and 14). What can you tell them that they can take away and put into practice?

The last point, about the source of the message, links back to authority (chapter 17). If you, or your organisation, don’t have enough clout to convince the reader, quote someone who does.

Link to life

‘No, of course Vision won’t be fighting Thanos, Dad! He died at the end of Infinity War, remember?’

‘Oh yeah, right.’

This tense exchange with my daughter was typical of several that occurred during our Marvel lockdown watchathon. I honestly liked the Marvel films. But the myriad characters and plot twists of the saga just would not stay in my brain.

Children generally learn more quickly and easily than adults, and the older we get, the harder it is to learn new things.[213] That’s why I can remember, 40 years on and without looking it up, that the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.[214]

However, the other problem is that New Asgard and the quantum realm aren’t just far from Earth – they’re light years away from my lived experience too. (If Captain America had shared some lawn-care knowledge with Tony Stark, you can bet I’d remember that.)

The principles of andragogy, or adult learning, suggest that grown-ups learn best when they know why they should learn something. They want their learning to be relevant to their own lives, or to problems that they face, and they want to direct their own learning as far as possible.[215] So aim to link your message to real-world situations whenever you can, so readers can see how to use the knowledge you’re giving them. This is particularly important for functional or ‘how to’ content (chapter 15).

Also, without being patronising, bear in mind that older readers might take longer to get their heads round your message than younger ones. So if your readership includes older readers, you may need to make your message ‘stickier’ than you otherwise would. One of the most important ways to do that is through repetition, which we’ll look at next.

Repetition

‘Again! Again!’

If you’ve ever watched Teletubbies with a young child – possibly one who inconsiderately woke you up at 5am – you already know what’s coming. Yes, the short film of kids playing in mud that you just watched on Tinky Winky’s belly-screen is about to be repeated in its entirety. You can be forgiven for momentarily closing your eyes and exhaling.

As the show’s creators explained, children like repetition because it gives them something secure and familiar when there are so many new things to understand. It also trains cognitive functions such as deduction, as they learn to predict what will happen next.[216]

However, children aren’t the only ones who learn this way. Adults also remember things better when they are repeated – particularly key points, or functional information (chapter 15).[217] Even false information can seem true if we’ve heard it before.[218]

Will repetition irritate your reader? Not necessarily. Repeating something actually makes people like it more – and older adults, in particular, are more likely to remember things they like. This is known as the mere exposure effect.[219]

So repetition helps your message to stick. However, too much word-for-word reiteration could still get on your reader’s nerves, or distract them from your message. As content marketer Stephanie Miller puts it, ‘Unintentional echoes are annoying, but intentional ones are persuasive.’[220] You need to artfully restate your message so that the repetition feels helpful and subtle, rather than patronising or inane.

Here are a few ideas:

Define your terms for key ideas, then use them consistently.

While keeping your key terms fixed, rephrase the same idea in different ways. Find different words for the same concept, so you can vary the way you describe the same thing. (A thesaurus might help, and so might an editor.)

Repetition works even better if some time passes between each instance – known as spaced repetition. See if you can find a way to restate key themes throughout your writing, or call back to learning from earlier sections.

Write a summary of your document at the start, so readers get the overall sense before they start reading. (This is often called an ‘executive summary’ or an ‘abstract’, but you don’t necessarily have to use those words.)

Create a mind map or concept map showing the key elements of your message and how they fit together. It will give the reader a mental framework to fit your message into.

Use informative headings that sum up the content that follows. Your headings could even be whole sentences.

Write an introductory paragraph that sets out what you’re about to say in each section. These are often put in bold type, and are known as ‘standfirsts’ or ‘ledes’ (see chapter 20).

On the same theme, use topic sentences (chapter 10) to pre-state your message in each paragraph.

Use running headers, where the title of the current section appears at the top of each page. They aren’t really meant to be read, but the reader will still see them.

Use pullout quotes to highlight key messages from your main text (chapter 20).

Summarise key points or takeaways at the end of each section, to recap what the reader has just learned.

Offer a checklist or a simple quiz for readers to test their knowledge, or set them a simple thought exercise to put the ideas into action.

Quote someone else to back up your message in different words. You can’t alter the content of published sources, but if you’re quoting someone you know, you might be able to suggest what they should say (or even write their quote for them).

To go deeper, you could explore the perspective that someone else might have on your message, or tell a story that illustrates it somehow. Both these are covered later in this chapter.

If you can, encourage the reader to talk to other people about your message, or discuss the points you’ve raised. Telling others about things we’ve learned reinforces our own memories of them.[221] (That’s why you should always ask, ‘What did you learn at school today?’)

Finally, you can use two or more of the communication styles we saw in chapter 15, to approach your message in ways that might suit different readers.

All these techniques appear to be helping hands for the reader – and they are, in a sense. But they’re also a way for you to restate your message several ways, if you use them in the right way. What’s easy for the reader is also effective for you.

Curiosity and intrigue

I’m fat because I’m greedy, and if my mind is fat it’s because I’m curious.

Stephen Fry

Curiosity is the hunger to find things out, or learn new things. By cultivating curiosity in your reader, you can give them the motivation to read, understand and remember your message.

There are two types of curiosity that you could target with your writing. First, there is needing to know. This is what the reader feels about their knowledge gaps (chapter 14). They have a job to do, a problem to sort out or an uncertainty to resolve, but they don’t yet know enough to do it. They feel this lack as a kind of pain, which they want to ease by learning.[222]

On the other hand, there’s wanting to know, or epistemic curiosity.[223] This is what the reader feels when their interest is piqued, and they want to find out more. As they learn, they feel the pleasure of exploration and discovery, which they might want to sustain.

These two types of curiosity can go together. For example, let’s say you’re going on a weekend break to Madrid. You need to know which trains to catch, where the hotel is and how to talk to a taxi driver. At the same time, you want to know the best spots for cerveza y patatas bravas. A city guide that covers all these areas would have a lot of value for you.

If you’re writing about things the reader needs and wants to know, your job is simply to respond to their user story (chapter 2). You need to answer their main questions first, and make sure they can find all the information they need. As long as you meet their needs, they should keep reading.

However, if your reader is less motivated, your job is a little trickier. Before you can get your message across, you need to make the reader want to know about it. And one way to do that is with intrigue.

Intrigue is a way to conjure curiosity out of nothing. To generate intrigue, you take a particularly interesting part of your message and highlight it, while withholding some other important information for the time being. That works as ‘bait’ to lure the reader in and make them want to read more. Since intrigue works by deferring the reader’s gratification, it’s best suited to titles, headlines or openings.

For example, check out this article title:

The powerful technique professional writers use… that you can learn too!

This shows the three essential ingredients of intrigue:

The title promises something of value in return for the reader’s attention. If they want the value, they have to read on.

The writing withholds the value for the time being. The reader understands that they’ll have to read the article in order to get the full value from it.

The promise is relevant to the reader. In other words, it speaks to their interests, or it builds on something they already know. The example above targets people who want to improve their writing skills.

Intrigue is a conversation starter. You grab the reader by the sleeve and say, ‘Hey, listen to this!’ If they respond positively, you can carry on talking to them.

Here are some of the reader reactions you could get, and how to achieve them:

‘Wait, what?’ What’s the weirdest or most surprising thing about your subject? What will make readers sit up, pay attention and want to know more?

‘I never knew that.’ What new information can you offer readers about your subject?

‘I never thought of it that way.’ What new perspective or insight can you offer on your subject? How can you challenge the reader’s preconceptions?

‘I wouldn’t have thought that.’ What’s the most unexpected or counterintuitive thing about your subject? What are people always surprised to learn?

‘I’ve always wondered about that.’ What’s the number-one question everybody has about your subject? How can you answer it?

‘I’ve always wanted to do that.’ What can you teach the reader to do? What task can you help them complete?

‘I need help with that.’ What problem can you offer to solve for the reader? What ‘pain point’ can you help them to address?

‘Yes, that’s me.’ How can you speak to the reader’s situation right now? How can you offer them helpful advice, insightful ideas or just some much-needed sympathy?

‘I want some too.’ How can you position your message as something important to other people, so the reader also wants to get involved? (This triggers social proof, which we saw in chapter 17.)

Note that all these techniques must have some link to your message, and promise value that you can actually deliver. Don’t use them as clickbait headlines, which are aimed at grabbing attention rather than helping the reader.

Borrowed interest

If you really can’t find in an intriguing angle on your message, you could ‘borrow interest’ from something the reader already knows or likes.

For example, let’s say I wanted to encourage you to get fit. If I drone on about my fitness routine, you’re bored stiff within the first paragraph. But if I promise to reveal Ryan Gosling’s routine, you perk up straight away. Just by mentioning Ryan’s name, I can stick his beautiful face on to my message, shamelessly exploiting your understandable interest in him for my own ends.

At this point, you might be asking, ‘Is this really clear writing?’ After all, instead of conveying information, you’re trying to entertain the reader, or tweak their emotions, or hijack their attention. Isn’t that one step away from a perfume advert?

Maybe. But I would still argue that it is clear, insofar as it’s the best way to reach your reader. On some projects, it might even be the only way.

Recall from chapter 1 that clear means clear to your reader, and clear in context. If the reader isn’t particularly interested in your message, that is the clay you have to work with. Wherever the reader is now, that is where you must begin. Because if the reader isn’t interested, they don’t read – and your message never gets off the ground.

Different readers have different preferences. Some will be delighted that you’ve made an effort to draw them in, or lighten the tone, or talk about the things they like. Others, meanwhile, might be infuriated that you’re prancing about like a jester instead of just giving them the facts they really need.

At the end of the day, you must make a judgement on how to balance clarity against memorability. Maybe it’s worth irritating a couple of serious readers if you can motivate a dozen reluctant ones.

Storytelling

There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.

Ursula K. Le Guin[224]

Stories are one of the most powerful tools for a non-fiction writer. They are…

Memorable. Your reader will find it much easier to remember the outline of a story than facts or descriptions. The events of a story are linked together in a way that (say) the items on a list just aren’t.[225] By hanging important points on your story, you can make them ‘stickier’.

Compelling. Once you draw your reader into a story, they will want to know how it turns out. And as we’ve seen, keeping the reader reading is job number one.

Concrete. Stories deal with people, things and events in the real world, so they’re easy for readers to visualise. If your subject involves a lot of abstract or technical ideas, a story lightens the reader’s cognitive load, giving them a much-needed break from conceptual thinking.

Instructive. Stories can teach the reader valuable lessons, but without directly telling them what to do. For example, ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ teaches us not to be alarmist without good cause.

Powerful. Stories can go places that other writing can’t. They can lead the reader into the darker areas of the human psyche, confronting them with hidden knowledge that defies rationality (chapter 14). Why do Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother put stones in the wolf’s belly?[226]

At a deeper level, stories are a vital tool for understanding the world around us. They are ‘potted experiences’. As we read or listen to them, we store up knowledge and insight that we can use later on. That helps us learn about the world as children – but it’s also how we make sense of the world as adults.

For example, people are sometimes puzzled as to why certain social or political realities never seem to ‘cut through’ to citizens, changing what they think or do. It’s not because people lack information, or that they don’t care about the truth. It’s because facts on their own don’t really mean that much; they only make sense when we fit them into a wider argument or narrative. In other words, the truth is a story.[227]

So stories have power. However, that power is only unleashed if the reader actually gets into your story. We’ve all been gripped by a page-turner – but we’ve all been bored stiff by a rambling, pointless anecdote, too. To hold the reader’s interest, your story needs to be:

Human. You can tell the story of literally anything – a product, a service, a company, an organisation, an idea. But whatever story you tell, you have to talk about the people behind it. Stories need characters, plots and relationships, not just objects and events.

Relatable. Stories make ideas and advice more human – but only if readers can link them to their own lives. They need to recognise events, situations, personalities, thoughts or emotions that they’ve experienced, for themselves – or at least witnessed.

Vivid. Readers create their own ‘movie’ of the story inside their head, based on their own experience and using the same parts of their brains as if they were actually living through the story.[228] However, your story has to give them the raw material they need: real-world description.

Dramatic. Your story should involve some challenge, threat or danger. Without some ‘ups and downs’, your story is just a procession along a dead-straight road that nobody will care about.

If you’ve only ever worked on non-fiction content, the idea of writing stories can seem daunting. But you don’t need to be Agatha Christie. You just need to find the story inside your message, and bring it out in a human way. For example:

This website was the brainchild of Ayesha Anand [human]. It was way back in 2005 when she first had the idea – but at that point, she was asking herself if she’d ever be able to make it work [dramatic]. Coding away in her home office night after night, sustained only by her mom’s delicious avial [vivid], Ayesha gradually brought her idea into the world [relatable]. Now you’re looking at the results.

See? It sure won’t win the Man Booker Prize, but it’s a world away from a dry description of a project, a technical spec or a working process. And in the context of most non-fiction writing, a little bit of story goes a long way.

To find a story you could tell, ask yourself:

What part do people play in my subject? What have they done to bring us to this point?

What challenges have they overcome? What tensions or oppositions did they have to resolve?

What emotions did they feel?

What relationships – both friendly and otherwise – were important?

The time period that you cover makes a big difference to your story. Start too early, or too late, and your story will be an endless sequence of ‘and then, and then’, like the ones children sometimes write. Choose a timeframe that throws the reader right into the action, follows a clearly defined arc and finishes on a high note.

Some authors have argued that there are only a handful of universal story shapes, which nearly every story follows – no matter what its subject. These shapes can be plotted on a graph showing the fortunes of the main character rising and falling over time. More recently, AI textual analysis has provided support for this theory.[229]

Here are some examples of story shapes and how you could apply them in non-fiction writing:

Story shape | What happens | Example in fiction | Example in non-fiction
Overcoming the monster | An evil force threatens the hero, or the world, and must be defeated | Saint George and the Dragon | ‘How writers can safeguard their jobs against Artificial Intelligence’
Rags to riches | Ordinary Joe is revealed as a hero | The Ugly Duckling | ‘The unlikely search for our new CEO’
The quest | Hero must venture out and find or do something | The Wizard of Oz | ‘How we helped Company X solve their database problem’
Voyage and return | Hero ventures out, is changed and returns | Frozen | ‘How the pandemic changed our working practices for ever’
Tragedy | Hero is overcome by loss or death | Macbeth | ‘How one family lost everything to gambling’
Rebirth | Hero falls under a spell but recovers | Sleeping Beauty | ‘How we restored the church to its former glory’

Think about how your story could be made to fit one of these shapes. Not by falsifying it, but by choosing a particular timeframe and bringing certain characters and events to the fore. Remember, the hero doesn’t have to be a person; it can be an organisation, a product or even an idea, as long as people still feature in the story.

If you can’t create a factual story, you could write a fictitious one that serves as an example, like a typical customer story. Or you could write an allegorical story that explains your message with reference to something else – like an extended metaphor (chapter 13).

As we saw in chapter 8, businesspeople sometimes shy away from using engaging, informal language, and they might have similar reservations about stories. For example, they might feel that certain details are too embarrassing to be revealed, or that struggling with challenges make the organisation look weak. Or they might just feel that stories themselves are somehow unprofessional or infantile.

If you face this problem, all I can suggest is that you point to the power of stories to engage the reader in a way that other writing just can’t. It might help to look at some examples of brands who have used storytelling to great effect.[230]

Humour

Since non-fiction is ‘serious’ writing, you might think that it’s no place for laughs. But a little bit of fun can make your message more engaging and memorable – as long as it’s at the right time, and about the right things.

As we saw in chapter 17, people sometimes remember their own reactions more clearly than actual content or events. So humour can leave a lasting positive impression. And if you can make it relevant, the reader should remember your message better too.[231] For example, people remember humorous TV ads better than serious ones.[232]

Using humour builds understanding with the reader. When social situations are tense or awkward, laughter can break the ice and establish a bond. After all, if you can share a joke, you probably share a similar worldview too. And if you crack a joke at your own expense, you can engage the pratfall effect, which we saw in chapter 16.

The best humour doesn’t need an explanation. You just get it, effortlessly. So if the rest of your writing is piling on the cognitive load, humour could help to take the pressure off the reader. Like a story, it allows them to switch into a different, easier way of thinking, just for a while.

However, at the same time, humour makes the reader listen. They enjoy the joke, but because they understand the context for it, they know it will lead into ‘But seriously…’ And if they like the laugh, they’ll probably like the learning that goes with it too.

A lot of humour plays on the gap between expectations and reality. We anticipate one thing, but hear something else instead. In non-fiction writing, that usually works by taking a light-hearted tone where the reader expects something more serious.

For example, in 2015, the UK Department of Work and Pensions launched a campaign to encourage small firms to sign up for the Workplace Pension scheme. In the TV ads, a large furry monster called Workie ambled into a range of workplaces, vainly trying to get people’s attention.[233] The slogan was:

Don’t ignore the Workplace Pension.

I quite liked Workie. But you might find them twee or embarrassing. In the end, all humour is subjective: what tickles one reader could leave another one cold. Feedback (chapter 23) will give you some idea of what will work, but you can never really know for sure. So using humour is always a risk.

Humour needs to be right for both content and context. You probably won’t want to crack too many gags in a guide to choosing a crematorium. Nor would you want to joke with a reader who urgently needs to find out about the lump on their neck.

Laughter can be cruel, so direct your humour at the right targets. Refrain from ‘punching down’ to vulnerable people or minorities. Aim to include everyone in the joke if you can.

To get a sense of what’s acceptable, picture yourself face-to-face with the reader, and imagine how your humour would be received if you said it out loud. Make it easier by creating a persona (chapter 2) or writing for someone you know (chapter 11).

Whatever humour you use, let it come naturally. Don’t force it into subjects or situations where it really doesn’t work. You don’t have to tell a joke as such. It can just be a word or a phrase that lightens the mood, like an aside during a business meeting.

Finally, bear in mind that humour may not be accessible to everyone. For example, non-native speakers may have trouble decoding puns, and people with autism sometimes take humorous remarks literally. If your humour doesn’t land, it will put up a barrier to the reader instead of drawing them in.

Perspective

‘What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?’

‘You ask a glass of water.’

Douglas Adams[234]

For the ancient Egyptians, art wasn’t a view of the world; it was a worldview. They drew objects to represent their importance, rather than their actual size or position.[235] Many centuries passed before Chinese and Italian artists attempted to reproduce the way we actually see the world on paper. [236]

The effect was electrifying. Now, looking at a painting could put you right inside the lion’s den with Daniel. It was virtual reality, Renaissance style.[237]

Today, that innovation is so familiar to us, we don’t even notice it anymore. It’s called perspective: the representation of a 3D reality on a 2D surface. While young children usually draw in 2D, more experienced artists know how to add depth to their images – as shown in the illustration.

In art, perspective lets you see something differently. And in writing, it lets you say something differently. A different perspective brings a new dimension to your writing, so your reader can see your subject in a new, perhaps unexpected, way.

In chapter 11, we saw how you can engage the reader with a two-way conversation. But what if you brought a third voice into the mix? Who else could speak about your subject, and offer an interesting new angle on it?

For example, Harley-Davidson ran a print ad showing a rider heading down a long straight road through a wide-open prairie.

Looking at the photo, you’d expect the ad to feature a headline like ‘own the road’ or ‘room to roam’. But instead, it says:

Somewhere on an airplane a man is trying to rip open a small bag of peanuts.

At first sight, it’s a throwaway joke. But when you look deeper, there’s a lot of meaning in there.

Peanut Man is rootless (‘somewhere’), confined (‘on an airplane’), passive (he’s a passenger) and puny (‘trying’). Plus he’s probably a vegetarian (‘peanuts’) and impotent too (‘small’). In contrast, Harley Man is earthy, free, masterful, strong and red-blooded. And the size of his nutbag is not in doubt.

What’s more, at some unconscious level, the male reader realises that Peanut Man is not really some nameless shmo flying Delta Air, but himself. Only by buying a Harley-Davidson can he resolve his cognitive dissonance, become Harley Man and start seeing the world through his flinty eyes.

To use perspective, consider what other views you could bring in to give your message more depth. Who else could speak about your subject? Who else has a view about it? How can you shift perspective in time, place, culture or mindset?

The table shows some examples.

Writing about… | Use the perspective of… | Example
A product | The product itself | ‘Your lawnmower will thank you for using these 10 maintenance tips’
A purchase | People who are thinking about buying, or should buy | ‘Why John really needs a fresh food delivery service’
A service | People who benefit from it | ‘Office workers aren’t cacti. Why not get them a water cooler?’
An issue or problem | Those who’ve experienced it first-hand | ‘The short, sad life of a battery chicken’
A process | The unseen or unknown parts of it | ‘What actually happens to your recycling?’[238]
A cause | Those who would benefit from it | ‘Nature can’t vote. You can!’[239]
A choice | Those who are affected by it | ‘Ever wondered who made your £1.99 leggings?’
A technical system | A component within it | ‘What your smart thermostat is thinking right now’

The Harley ad only uses perspective to promote a product. But in these examples, the alternative perspective is actually opening up new knowledge and insight for the reader. The promise of inhabiting someone (or something) else’s consciousness and seeing through their eyes gives the reader the impetus to learn.

Cultural references

Cultural references are a way to borrow some ‘stickiness’ from somewhere else. For example, you could refer to the plot of a film, compare someone to a character in a novel or quote a line from a song.

References can serve as precise and vivid metaphors (chapter 13) that are pre-installed in the reader’s brain. For example, the titles of many Aesop’s fables have become ultra-brief shorthand for moral lessons – ‘sour grapes’, ‘cry wolf’, ‘hare and tortoise’, ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ and so on.

If your reader knows your reference, you get a burst of life, colour and emotion in your writing. Ideally, though, it will still have some effect even if they don’t recognise it. For example, in chapter 17 I quoted a line from a famous scene in When Harry Met Sally (‘I’ll have what she’s having’). If you remember that scene, you might smile. But if not, the line still captures the emotion behind social proof.

The risk with references is the same as with metaphors: when you talk about something irrelevant to your message, you could end up confusing the reader. If they’re not really paying attention, they might think you’re talking about Groundhog Day when you’re actually talking about lockdown.

There’s also the risk that your reference is more interesting than your subject, so the reader drifts off into thinking about that instead. Or, on the other hand, your reference might go out of date, losing its effect, or age badly, so that it signifies something very different from what you originally meant. 

Takeaways from this chapter

To make your message memorable, know the SCORE: Short, Conversational, One-to-one, Relevant and Elevated.

Find ways to repeat your message without seeming to.

Cultivate and meet both types of curiosity: wanting and needing to know.

Generate intrigue by promising but withholding your juiciest facts.

Tell a story. Make it human, relatable, vivid and dramatic.

Use humour, as long as it works and it’s appropriate.

Take a different perspective on your message.

If all else fails, borrow interest from somewhere else.

19. User experience (UX) writing

Make the user’s experience smooth and hassle-free.

What is user experience?

User experience, or UX, is the experience that people have when they use something. The thing they use could be pretty much anything: a product, a place or a publication. But people usually talk about the UX of something digital, like a website or an app.

UX design puts the user first. Instead of designing around technical features or business processes, you put the user and their needs at the centre of every decision. Is it quick and easy for the user to do what they want? Or long and frustrating? How do they feel about their experience?

That’s very close to the ideas we’ve been exploring in this book. Just as we’ve been focusing on the reader, so UX focuses on the user.

All the techniques that we’ve seen so far apply just as well to UX. However, there are some important differences when writing online. It’s just that we’re so used to reading on a phone, or a laptop, that we don’t notice them anymore.

What does the user want?

Think back to the user stories we saw in chapter 2. When a user comes to a website, they often have a task that they want to get done. A good user experience is one that helps them do it.

For the project overall, and for each web page or text element within it, ask yourself:

What is the user trying to do here?

What information do they need?

What’s the best way to give it to them?

Answering these questions will help you stay focused on what the user needs right now. Don’t try to make every page do everything, or communicate your whole message. Instead, get the overall structure and navigation right, so users can easily navigate the site, then make sure each page within it plays its part.

Think context

Always remember that your users will see your text in a very different way from how you see it.

As you write, you’re sitting in a quiet office looking at a screen containing nothing but text, and giving it your full concentration.

Now picture your reader. They might be standing on a crowded train, peering at their phone as they do a quick bit of product research on the way to work, while wondering what to buy for dinner and checking Facebook. They’re dealing with a hundred distractions – in their head, on their device and all around. No wonder studies have found that users read as little as 20% of the text on a web page.[240]

What’s more, the user’s journey may have begun long before they arrive at your site. They may have already wasted time searching for the wrong phrase, or looking at irrelevant sites. So instead of trying to keep them on your site, aim to remove all obstacles from their way, so they can complete their task and move on.

Keep it simple

Online, users can choose what they do and where they go. So the best way to make your message clear is to keep that experience as simple as you can. The more you have going on, the greater the danger that the user will get lost, confused or frustrated. So make it easy for them with informative headings, short paragraphs, simple sentences and simple words.

With UX writing, every word should serve a purpose. It should only be there because the experience would be worse if it wasn’t. If there’s no need to say anything, say nothing.[241] (This can take some getting used to if you’re used to writing longer-form text.)

Also, remember how your writing fits into a broader user experience, which may have non-digital parts to it. For example, if the user can get in touch by phone to learn more, you don’t have to say everything online. You just need to explain that they’re in the right place, and what they need to do next.

Users don’t read in order

When people browse a website, they don’t necessarily start at the home page and work their way through the links in the menu, one after the other. They can arrive at any page within the site (from a Google search), move around at will and leave whenever they want.

Admittedly, some paper formats are used in a similar way. For example, people often flick through magazines, stopping to read whatever catches their eye. And as we’ve seen, there’s no guarantee that a reader will read every word you write, no matter what format you choose.

But with a website, you don’t really expect anyone to read all the pages from start to finish. That’s not the idea. Instead, the user shapes their own experience through the choices they make. So each page or screen needs to work on its own, regardless of what the user reads before or after it.

This is important to remember if you’re developing your text in one long document. For example, if you need to give a definition of a formal term, it may not be enough just to include it somewhere – not even the home page. You need to be sure users will definitely see it, whatever route they take. That could mean including it more than once, or using the design to keep it in view for most of the time. The ideas on repetition in chapter 18 may help.

If the site leads the user towards a particular action, you may want to keep the call to action (chapter 17) in view all the time – for example, as a big button near the menu at the top, or a phone number that’s always visible.

Users don’t read, they scan

As well as reading pages in any order, users don’t read the text within a page in order either. Instead, they jump around between different parts, and scan over text rather than reading it all the way through.

As we saw in chapter 8, readers use their cognitive resources wisely. When they’re online, they’ve learned that they can quickly get the gist of a web page without reading every word. They may also be undecided about whether the page will actually meet their needs. And with plenty more search results available with a click of the ‘back’ button, there’s no reason to hang around if it won’t.

Eye-tracking studies reveal that people use different patterns to scan the text of web pages, depending on how it’s presented to them:[242]

The layer-cake pattern. Users jump between headings – the frosting and jam in the cake – to find the part of the text they need. This is the most efficient scanning pattern. To support it, write plenty of informative headings that include key words towards the start, so readers can easily pick them out.

The spotted pattern. Users jump around between bits of text that catch their attention, like pullout quotes, bullet-point lists, bold text and links. They also focus on words that will help them achieve their goal (from the user story in chapter 2).[243] Highlighting key words will help them.

The F-pattern. If users can’t use the layer-cake or spotted patterns, they just look at the words at the top or left of the main content area. Since online text reflows to fill the space, these words will vary depending on what screen or window they’re using. The F-pattern is not very effective and is the user’s last resort – so offer them an easier way to scan instead.[244]

The committed pattern. A few users work through the content from start to finish, as if they were reading a book. However, they will only do this when they are very interested and motivated, and when they trust the site or writer. For example, if you need to return an item you’ve bought, you read the instructions with great care. However, you can’t count on – or demand – this level of commitment. So cater to the other patterns too.

No surprises

Good UX writing makes itself invisible. It’s so intuitive and frictionless that users just glide through the site without noticing it’s there.

When you write a page title or a subheading, it needs to tell readers exactly what they’ll get – and the text needs to deliver it. Mystery and intrigue are out of the question. For example:

What Happens to Your Body When You Drink Alcohol

When you’re writing online, words can embody both actions and information at the same time. For example, a text link allows the user to go somewhere or do something, but it also describes that action. With these functional elements, users need to know exactly what will happen, where they’ll go or what they’ll see before they click. For example:

Download our white paper on data security

Not all users can see. Think about how your links and layout work if the user is hearing them rather than seeing them. For example, if you say, ‘browse the links on the left’, will they know what you mean?[245]

Write for the screen

Wireframes are rough designs for web pages that developers create as a guide before they start work. These days, most will create them for both desktop and mobile screens.

Wireframes will give you a sense of how your words will look in the finished site or app. Notice in particular how many words will fit on a screen – or rather, how few. A phone screen will only display a few sentences at a time, particularly at larger font sizes.

Interestingly, studies suggest that users have actually got used to this, and now find it much easier to understand text when they can only see a small part of it.[246] However, it’s still better to be safe than sorry. Keep sections, paragraphs and sentences short, so you never cut your reader adrift on a sea of text.

Having looked at the wireframes, you might also find it helpful to create simple tables in Word that reflect the target design, then write your text in there. They’ll help you get the length right first time, instead of having to cut your text to fit. If the design of a page won’t accommodate everything you need to say, maybe you can argue for splitting it up into two or more pages.

These simple wireframes are also a good way to share your text for feedback (chapter 23). They make it very clear how little space you have available, and how users will actually encounter the text online. That could help to avoid feature creep or ‘kitchen sink syndrome’ (chapter 3), where people try to get individual pages to do too many jobs at once.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

FAQs are pages in question-and-answer format (chapter 6) that ostensibly deal with queries that users or customers often have.

FAQs can seem like a handy way to gather up bits of content that can’t find a home elsewhere, or issues that often come up when dealing with end users. Sometimes, people feel they should have an FAQs page, just because other sites do it. However, some experts argue that you should never use them at all.[247]

The main reason is that FAQs are a convenience for writers rather than readers – a ‘dumping ground’ that saves you having to build a user-centred structure. Or, even worse, the questions aren’t that frequently asked – they’re just things you want to say to the reader, dressed up as questions they supposedly ask.

In terms of UX, FAQs are a ‘last chance saloon’, where readers only go in desperation. Instead, they should be able to find what they need with the site’s navigation, or a search function. (FAQs often duplicate content that appears on other pages anyway.)

FAQs look service-focused, because you’re trying to help people with their questions. But they’re not all that reader-friendly. There isn’t much structure, so readers have to search through in the hope of finding their question. And, as we saw in chapter 6, questions are harder to scan than simple, informative headings, because they usually start with ‘what’ or ‘how’ rather than a key word.

To sum up, while FAQs may give the reader the information they need, they probably don’t offer it in the right way.

As these points also suggest, you should only use FAQs when they genuinely serve readers. If you provide all the information people need in a clear way, but they still consistently ask certain questions, an FAQs page might have a place in your site. Or people might always ask particular questions at a certain stage, so you could direct them to an FAQs page at that point. But if you’re only creating an FAQs page to save yourself work, build the pages that users really need instead.

Takeaways from this chapter

Think about the UX of your site overall, and for each page within it. What does the user want to do, and how can you help them?

Remember that users don’t read every page in order, but scan and click around instead. Give them headings and other ‘hand-holds’ so they can easily get to grips with your text.

The user should always know what will happen when they click.

Use wireframes to get yourself into the mindset of writing for the screen.

20. Design and format

Use visual formats and design to make your message more interesting and accessible.

Why looks matter

Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at.

Leo Burnett

With written communication, the most important thing is the words themselves. But design and presentation are vital too.

Imagine you’ve written a marketing brochure for your company. You worked hard on the text and you’re proud of it. But when it comes back from the designer, they’ve crammed your 10 pages of text into four, all in a ridiculously curly font, using green text on a black background.

Good design and clear communication go hand in hand, because content and form are two sides of the same coin. This is expressed in the idea of a gestalt (from the German for ‘shape’).[248] When people look at something – like a page of text – they understand it as a single, unified entity, rather than a bunch of unconnected elements. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

For example, people say ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover’. But of course, that’s exactly what we all do, every time we walk into a bookshop. In fact, that’s precisely what covers are for: to enable the reader to make a snap judgement that accurately reflects the experience of the book. Words, graphics and imagery must all come together to make that happen – and none of them can do it alone.

That’s why it’s worthwhile getting involved in design decisions, if you can. The way your text looks can affect how quickly and easily the reader reads, or how well they can find information. And that will affect how they respond to your writing, and how well they understand your message.

Another reason to think about design is because it affects the experience of reading. The easier the reader’s experience, and the more they enjoy it, the more likely they are to listen to your message. On the other hand, if they don’t like the experience, they may reject your message or just stop reading.

This starts before the reader even starts reading, with their perception of the reading experience. They look at your writing, in its finished design, and weigh up the reading experience they’re about to have. Then they carry those expectations, good or bad, into their actual reading.

Editing while designing

The most logical way to manage a publishing project is to get the text finalised first, then move on to the design. As a writer, you might hand your text to the designer, then never see it again until the project is done. But while this approach may be practical, it doesn’t necessarily get the best result.

Content, design and imagery all work together to create meaning. So you can’t really judge how well your text is working until you see it in its finished form. And when you do, you’ll often find that you want to add a sentence here, or rephrase a diagram caption there, to make things as clear as you can.

In my publishing days, this would often take us by surprise. Even though the text was written, and the pages designed, we still had to do several days of tweaking and optimising before the book could go to press. So allow some time to edit the text in its design, if you can.

Giving the reader hand-holds

When you work on a piece of writing, you’ll naturally end up with a load of text in a Word document. That’s fine as raw material, or a way to capture your ideas. But if you confront your readers with a solid wall of text, only those who are already fascinated by your subject will be committed enough to read it all. For everyone else, you need to provide a range of visual doorways, pathways and hand-holds so they can get into your message in the way they want.

In this chapter, we’ll look at some design and formatting techniques you can use to make your text more interesting, appealing and clear. In deciding which ones to use, keep your aims in mind: to keep the reader reading, help them find out what they need and make life as easy for them as you can.

Standfirsts

A standfirst or lede (pronounced ‘lead’, to rhyme with ‘need’) is a paragraph, usually in bold text, that appears at the beginning of a document or section, just after the title.

Standfirsts give the reader a summary of what you’re about to say. That helps to prepare the ground for new learning – and as we saw in chapter 18, the repetition is memorable in itself.

Standfirsts also help with pacing (chapter 16) by giving the reader some time and space to get up to speed with new ideas. Instead of stating your theme with the main heading and then just diving straight into detail, you consciously take things a little slower, so the reader’s brain has time to process what you’re saying.

Heading and subheadings

Headings tell your reader what each section of your text is about, allowing them to find the information they need or skim-read if they want to. They also serve to break up your text on the page or screen, giving it structure while also dividing it into more manageable chunks.

Headings are likely to follow the parts of your plan (chapter 3). You may find that each point in your plan simply becomes a heading, and that works fine. However, bear in mind that your thinking may have evolved since then, so the headings you had in mind don’t actually reflect what you’ve written.

The simplest approach for writing a heading is just to describe what the section is about, as simply as you can. However, you can also use questions (with the question-and-answer structure from chapter 6) or a soundbite distilled from your message (chapter 18). If you’re giving the reader instructions or advice in among other information, you could flag that up with a heading beginning ‘How to…’ or ‘What to do if…’.

Bear in mind that headings aren’t just containers or signposts – they’re a part of the text, and they can help readers to remember your message. You can use them to restate key points you’ve already made, or to tell readers in advance what you’re going to say.

Use intriguing headings (chapter 18) with care, and always remember the trade-off you are making: sacrificing accessibility in the hope of generating interest. A little intrigue may draw the reader in, but if you over-use it, they won’t be able to tell what your text is actually about.

For most projects, two levels of heading should be enough, even if the content is quite long. Three heading levels is the absolute max. If you use too many nested headings, the reader will lose track of what level they’re at, or what section they’re inside, so your headings wind up disorienting them rather than guiding them.

Lists

Use lists whenever you need to tell the reader about a whole set of similar items in one go.

Unordered or bullet-point lists are for when you just have a group of things that all have equal status. However, you should still order them logically, so they lead on to each other in a natural way.

Ordered or numbered lists are for when you want to communicate sequence, rank order or priority. For example, you might be talking about a series of steps the reader needs to take.

Keep your list items short – one or two sentences ideally, and three at the most. If they get much longer than that, you may need to ‘promote’ them to subheadings – or maybe allow yourself a third heading level here and there.

Panels

Sometimes, you may have a section that doesn’t really fit in the flow of your main document. It might be an optional extra that only certain readers will need. For example, you might want to explain a basic concept for readers who are new to a topic.

If so, you could put that text in a box or panel that is separated from the main text. This shows the reader that the section is, quite literally, ‘off to the side’ of the main text, like a branching path that they can follow if they need to.

You can also use panels for lists, diagrams, graphs, tables and other material that supports your message, but doesn’t need to be part of the main text flow.

Pullout quotes

Pullout quotes are short excerpts that are ‘pulled out’ from your text and highlighted visually – usually with a larger font.

Unlike panels, pullouts duplicate part of your main text. So they work like something between a heading and a teaser – telling skim-readers what you’re talking about in this section, while also aiming to pull them in.

Since readers may read pullout text twice, you should make it short and snappy. Think of pullouts as slogans or punchlines rather than direct quotes, and edit the original text down if you need to.

Pullouts have a magazine-like feel, so they may not be suitable for every type of content. However, they’re memorable: people remember text in larger fonts because they assume it must be important.[249] So this could be a valuable way to help readers remember your message – even for very serious subjects that you wouldn’t find in a magazine.

Diagrams

Diagrams show readers how things work. They can show how real-world things fit together, or how abstract ideas and concepts relate to each other. They can also show contrasts and comparisons, or how things are changing over time.

Some popular types include:

Exploded diagrams, which show the components of a device

Venn diagrams, which show two sets of things that have some members in common

Flowcharts, which show how events, stages or decisions fit together

Timelines, which show linear sequences of events over time

Graphs, which show how numbers compare to each other, or change over time

Maps and plans, which show the physical layout of areas as if seen from above

2x2 matrixes, also known as ‘four-blockers’ or ‘magic quadrants’, which categorise items based on binary values in two dimensions.[250] The conscious/competent framework from chapter 14 is an example

Infographics, which combine multiple formats of text and visual into one integrated design.

Diagrams work well when you want to show the reader something, instead of just telling them about it (or when you want to do both). In the communication styles we saw in chapter 15, they can offer the reader a functional perspective on part of your message, or an intuitive overview of the whole thing.

However, you can use a diagram for pretty much anything. It doesn’t have to be anything complex or impressive. If you feel like a quick sketch on a scrap of paper would help the reader understand, then make your diagram like that. Even the simplest diagram offers readers a way into your message.

People love to sneer at PowerPoint,[251] but its simple layout tools can be a great way to get important ideas on paper quickly and easily. It also has a ‘professional’ feel that a pencil sketch may lack – so businesspeople are more likely to take it seriously. That’s why top management consultants rely so heavily on PowerPoint slides to capture their clients’ most pressing problems and focus their minds on finding a solution.[252]

On a meta level, diagrams signal to the reader that you’re giving them a certain type of information. They say, ‘Engage your brain. These are important ideas that you need to think about in a logical way.’ So they could be a good choice for almost any point you want to highlight – even if you don’t really need a diagram to explain the ideas.

If your diagram will appear online, bear in mind that text embedded in image files is inaccessible to screen readers. The W3C accessibility initiative suggests that diagrams should always have a full-text description nearby. Purely decorative images can be tagged so the user knows they’re not part of the message.[253]

Images

Like diagrams, artwork and photos are useful for things that are easier to show than to describe. They can set the emotional tone, suggesting the sort of mood you’d like the reader to be in as they read. And they bring life and visual interest to the design, helping to break up long passages of text.

However, images also send a meta-message to the reader. By including them, you tell the reader that your message is worthy of illustration. Imagery implies that you care enough about your message to make it look good – so the reader should care, too.

Showing pictures of people can be more engaging than just talking about abstract things, and can help to create empathy (chapter 16). For example, if you’re describing a business service, you could talk about the people who will deliver it, and show pictures of them too. (However, this needs to be genuine – just sticking in some smiling faces from a photo library won’t have the same effect.)

Emojis

The word ‘emoji’ means ‘picture-word’, and emojis live on the border between language and imagery. They are pictures that we use like words.

In chapter 11, we saw how written words record the sound of spoken words. But emojis are ideograms: they directly represent objects or ideas, like some Chinese characters do.

Everyone can understand emojis. For example, psychologists have found that using emojis makes it easier for people to process social media messages.[254] And people of all ages use them – although women tend to use them more than men.[255]

Apart from their cheery visual appeal, people like emojis because they’re an ultra-concise way to convey relationships, feelings and reactions, transcending barriers of language and even literacy. Like children’s paintings, emojis speak directly to the reader’s pre-verbal mind, expressing things they saw and felt before they even knew the words for them. Emojis can say some things that words just can’t. (I used some myself in the printed editions of this book, but sadly they don’t work in ebooks :( .)

More specifically, emojis are an excellent way to convey our reactions – to events, to what other people say, or to what we’re saying ourselves. They’re the textual equivalent of our facial expressions and body language when we speak. And that’s how we use them in everyday life – to give our texts and emails the same emotional flavour as the things we say to each other face to face.[256]

Some people feel that emojis are inferior to ‘real’ writing, or that they’re destroying it somehow. Just as some people fear simple, direct language (chapter 8), others are afraid that using pictures to communicate will make them look childish or naïve.

Emojis certainly have a light-hearted, cartoonish tone that isn’t right for every project. One study found that people who use them at work are seen as less competent and professional.[257] And emojis are generally better at conveying neutral or positive emotions than they are at capturing negative ones.[258]

But in some situations, emojis might be ideal. As with all the other techniques in this book, it all depends on who you want to reach, about what subject, and in what context. If an emoji is the right way to reach your reader, I say go ahead and use it. After all, is an emoji really so different from a diagram, illustration, photo or any other visual element you might add to your text?

However, emojis do have their risks. Although they reflect our physical expressions, they’re not quite as easy to understand – and they can be open to multiple interpretations. For example, a red face might be taken to mean either embarrassment or anger.[259]

Like physical gestures, emojis may also have different cultural resonances – for example, while the thumbs-up emoji means ‘OK’ in the U.S. and elsewhere, in the Middle East it’s far ruder (with a meaning closer to giving someone ‘the finger’).[260] So use emojis with care, and get feedback on what readers think (chapter 23).

Takeaways from this chapter

Don’t just confront the reader with a ‘wall of text’. Take every opportunity to break it up.

Use text formats to give your writing visual structure and allow readers to use it the way they want.

Use images, diagrams and emojis to show readers what is hard to describe, and to give them alternative paths to meaning.

21. Beating the blank page

How to get unblocked when the words just won’t flow.

Why writing is so hard

To write is to venture into a labyrinth. Each word and sentence you choose is another step down a passageway. At every turn, you reject some options and open up new ones. And any path could lead you to a dead end – although you might not realise at first where it’s taking you.

Somehow, you need to find your way through that maze with your meaning intact – and make sure your reader comes along, too. No wonder the process of writing is so frustrating.

First you can’t get started. Then you get started, but you get stuck. You fix one problem, but it creates another. You realise you have to change everything round, or even start over.

I know hundreds of professional writers online. As my informal Twitter poll shows, nearly all of them feel frustration, bewilderment or self-doubt about their writing process at some point – and many feel that way a lot. But those feelings aren’t a bug – they’re a feature. They are part and parcel of a writer’s work.

I’m not telling you all this to make you feel bad. I’m telling you so you don’t feel too bad when things get tough. And sooner or later, they will.

Everyone finds writing hard. But others have been this way before, and they made it through. So will you.

The rest of this chapter has some ideas for breaking through the barriers.

Write through the bad to reach the good

If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.

Margaret Atwood

My house is 98 years old, and the bathroom is a long way from the boiler. So every time I take a shower, I have to turn the tap, then stand there in my dressing-gown for what feels like years, waiting for the hot water to make its way through the pipe.

Writing can be like that. You have to get the bad words out of the way before you can find the good ones. It would be nice to go straight to the juice – just like it would be nice if my shower was instantly hot. But that’s not the way it works. The more you sit there, busting a gut, willing yourself to come up with something really good, the less progress you’ll make.

So instead of beating yourself up, just turn on the tap and see what comes out.

Say to yourself, ‘I don’t care how bad this is. I don’t care how much editing it will need later on. I don’t even care if I have to delete it five minutes from now. I’m going to write it anyway.’

Once you get into that mindset, you are free. You can just start. You don’t have to sit there racking your brains for the perfect phrase or the ideal opening. All you have to do is write something that will get you off the mark.

Actually, your first ideas aren’t really bad – they’re just stepping-stones to the good stuff that comes later. As you get ideas out of your head and down on the page, your brain will start to see the patterns in your words. Before long, you’ll be able to work out what doesn’t work, and focus on what does.

Write for yourself first

As we’ve seen throughout this book, it’s vital to focus on the reader and their needs. But when you’re desperately trying to get your first draft off the ground, the sense that the reader is watching can be terrifying. You become so acutely self-conscious that everything you do seems wrong.

So, just for now, forget all about the reader and write your message in a way that works for you. You can turn it round to face the reader later on.

Remember, no-one needs to see these words just yet – or ever. You alone will decide what gets shared, and when.

Emergent writing

Every day, writing. No matter how bad. Something will come.

Sylvia Plath[262]

The famous Lord of the Rings trilogy tells the epic tale of Frodo’s quest to destroy the One Ring in the raging fires of Mount Doom. But when J.R.R. Tolkien started writing it, he had no idea about all that. All he had in his early drafts was Bilbo throwing a party and, er, leaving the Shire for some reason. It was years before it even occurred to Tolkien that he could link back to the ring that Bilbo had found in The Hobbit.[263]

When we read, we encounter one thought after another, in a logical and linear way, because that’s how language works. But a lot of the time, actually writing like that is almost impossible. What we call our ‘train of thought’ is actually more like a butterfly, flitting from one idea to another.

Maybe Tolkien could have worked out his plot just by rambling around Worcestershire and puffing on his pipe. But I doubt it. In order to think, he had to write. And in the same way, the best way to think through your own message might be to just dive in and start writing.

With this approach, you have a vague idea of the destination, but no route. You just start writing, and the more you write, the easier it is to see what to write next. One thing leads to another, ideas emerge naturally and your writing gradually ‘becomes itself’.

There’s nothing wrong with writing this way. It can be a positive and purposeful choice, and your writing process isn’t somehow inferior just because you start without a plan. In fact, you could get a better result that way. Not all those who wander are lost.

One strength of this approach is that it reveals problems that you can easily skip over when making a plan. When you see your words in the cold light of day, you quickly see what needs to change. For example, you might have gaps, contradictions, inconsistencies or things you don’t understand well enough (yet).

However, emergent writing can be messy, with some wasted effort and a longer timescale overall. Instead of doing your planning in a block up front, you cut it up into little pieces and mix it in with the hands-on work. So you’re constantly switching from writing to thinking, which can be tiring.

I’ve written all my books this way, including this one. I simply find it impossible to know what I want to say up front. So I just open a document, write a few headings and start. From then on, I hop around from chapter to chapter, writing whatever I can do that day, until it’s done. It’s hopelessly random and disorientating – but if you’re finding this book useful, it clearly works.

Write to learn

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write about it.

Benjamin Disraeli

Have you ever tried to deal with the relentless questions of a young child? It’s humbling. You think you know about the solar system, or how a toilet works – but when you have to actually explain them from scratch, you quickly realise how little you know.[264]

Writing can be very similar. You think you know about a topic, but when you start writing about it, you realise that your knowledge is patchier or shallower than you thought.

That’s fine. Just as you can write to think, so you can write to learn. Instead of trying to gather all the information you need before you start, just write down whatever you know already and then fill in the gaps.

Those gaps show you exactly what information you need to include. So you don’t waste time doing research that isn’t needed, and you don’t end up including information that’s interesting to you, but irrelevant to your reader.

Leave a gap and circle back

Douglas Adams, author of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, was a genius writer but a notorious procrastinator. If he made a mistake when typing a script, he’d redo the whole page again from the top, just to avoid thinking about what came next.[265]

That story may be exaggerated, but it does illustrate the problems you can run into if you try to write your draft in a linear sequence. Sooner or later, you’ll wind up stuck behind some idea you can’t quite express, or a word you can’t put your finger on. If you stay there too long, you might end up feeling frustrated, or miss out on some other good ideas that bubble up in the meantime.

So forget about writing in a straight line, and embrace disorder. Your writing process will be a lot less painful, and the end product will be better too.

Writing isn’t a test of strength. So if you hit a block, take the road of least resistance and go round it. In other words, if you can’t write a particular bit right now, or you just don’t want to, leave it for now and write another part.

The bit you leave could be a really knotty idea that you can’t express yet. If so, just park it, move on and let your unconscious go to work.

Or it could be a bit that you know you can easily write, but right at this moment, you need to capture another thought before it gets away. There’s no point fiddling with the phrasing of a familiar idea if you lose track of a more important one in the meantime.

I type an ellipsis (three dots: ‘…’) where I know I need to write more, or sometimes leave myself an instruction (like ‘add more detail here’). That way, I can follow my thoughts wherever they lead and keep moving forward, while leaving a trail of unfinished thoughts that I can pick up again later on.

Organic writing

How do I know what I think until I see what I say?

E.M. Forster[266]

‘Organic writing’ is the best name I can think of for the writing approach I use most of the time. Basically, you write the idea simply and briefly, then go back, find the holes and fill them in. As you do this over and over, your writing grows outward in all directions at once, like a tree. Instead of trying to write in sequence, you just keep looking for gaps where you need to add more stuff, until that section reaches the length or level of detail you want.

For example, you could start by writing a one-sentence summary of your message (like in chapter 6):

We’ve set up a new system for managing the squash courts, where you can book sessions and manage your membership.

Then you go back and expand the second half to add more detail:

We’ve set up a new system for managing the squash courts. You can book and cancel play sessions with the online calendar. You can also manage your membership, including sorting out your regular subscription payment and entering leagues.

As you write these points, you remember that you have more functions and options to describe. Looking at your draft, you realise that the first sentence you wrote actually made a good opening. So you reinstate that, then rework the other two sentences into paragraphs of their own:

We’ve set up a new system for managing the squash courts, where you can book sessions and manage your membership.

The system includes an online calendar that all members can access. You can use it to book play sessions, change sessions you’ve already booked and cancel sessions if it turns out you can’t make it.

There’s also a section for managing your membership. This is where you set up your regular subscription payment and update your card details if you need to. You can also enter yourself into our regular leagues and tournaments, and pay your entry fees too.

As your draft expands, your additions become more detailed. You can start splitting up paragraphs and inserting new ones, or dividing the draft into sections and chapters. Use your learning from chapter 10 to keep your paragraphs well-structured as they grow.

The big advantage of organic writing is that you’re always moving forward. If you can’t write one bit, you write another. If a sentence occurs to you, you put it in. As long as you’re getting something down, it’s all good. So you always have a positive sense of progress.

Take a break

When you really need to get something written, it’s only natural to focus on the hands-on writing. After all, that’s the physical task that will result in a draft.

However, if your writing really isn’t coming together, staring furiously at the screen probably won’t help. Instead, you need to get away and let your mind work on the problem for a while.

You can focus on your writing mission, if it occurs to you, or just think about other random stuff. You can go and write something else, if you need to. But you’ll probably get better results if you do something completely different, like going for a walk or doing some cooking. And a good night’s sleep can work wonders too.

While you’re away, you’ll benefit from the incubation effect, which we saw in chapter 3. Your mind, both conscious and unconscious, will work through the problems with your writing. When you get back to your desk, you’ll usually find some answers waiting for you. In fact, you might find you need to write down some ideas before then.

Use your energy wisely

The first step in avoiding a trap is knowing of its existence.

Frank Herbert[267]

Writing can make big demands on your energy, both mental and physical. So aim to arrange your schedule to take advantage of the times when both are highest.

Most people have a time of day when they find the words just flow. Yours could be any time, but mine is first thing in the morning. So although it’s a bit weird, I often get out of bed, make a coffee and immediately sit down to write. In fact, I’m writing this at 6.13am on a Tuesday, having woken up and realised that this stuff on using your energy needs to be a section on its own.

Make a conscious effort to minimise distractions like email, news sites and social media. When you’re writing, quit your email app for a while, and block your favourite sites or apps if necessary. You can grind through your emails during that mid-afternoon energy dip, or reward yourself for finishing that tricky section with a burst of Facebook.

As I just argued, it’s often good to take a break. But the problem with online distractions is that they drain the exact same energies you need for your writing: careful reading, reasoned argument, emotional literacy, snappy phrasing. Instead of figuring out how to convince your reader, you’re obsessing over how to burn off some random reply guy on Twitter.[268]

Technology can be a trap because your tools and your toys are tied together. Whenever you write, your socials are right there on your machine. So when you bump up against a point that’s difficult to explain, or a paragraph that just won’t come together, it’s all too easy to click away and start aimlessly scrolling through a feed, searching for the dopamine hit of a few likes.[269] Even LinkedIn can start to look appealing in this situation.

You may find that you develop a sort of ‘distraction routine’, where you habitually carry out a certain sequence of actions, or click through a certain set of sites, just to avoid your writing. You might even go through the cycle more than once. And before you notice it, half an hour or more has slipped away.

The first step to avoiding these problems is to become aware of them. Notice how you choose to distract yourself, and next time you do it, try to sit with your thoughts for a little while instead, until the impulse passes and you can turn back to your task.

Sharpen the saw

To know what you know, and know what you don’t know, is the characteristic of one who knows.

Confucius

As a young writer and editor, I had the energy to crank out a draft in a few hours, and the sheer self-belief to think it was ready to use. Thanks to some patient mentoring from my elders and betters, I slowly realised where and how I needed to improve.

Now, at 50, I have more experience under my belt, so I’m probably better at relating the things I write about to readers’ lives. In terms of writing craft, I have more sense of what works and what doesn’t, and how every choice is a compromise. It’s always good to be reflective – but the problem is, it can so easily tip over into self-doubt.

Also, I’m more tortoise than hare these days.[270] I’m very aware of how my physical energy feeds into my writing, which in turn shapes the tone I take on the page. I sometimes struggle to get real zing in my writing, because I’m just not really feeling it myself.

Neither of these situations is better than the other. You can be an excellent writer at any age, and whatever you have going on in terms of knowledge, experience and outlook. But it always helps to know where you’re strong, and where you need to improve.

If you’re always bursting with ideas but struggle to follow through, work on that. Ask an editor to critique your stuff, and really listen to what they say. Believe the good points, which speak to your unique talent as a writer, and aim to improve on the weaker ones. Cultivate a reflective attitude, and be prepared to sit with your process for a while, instead of rushing to complete it.

On the other hand, if you’re feeling a bit old and tired, seek out the times, places and people that feed your energy. Change venue to get a sense of focus and renewal, and be ready for ideas to strike at any time. Since I’ve learned that early morning is a peak time for me, I deliberately work on difficult bits at that time, leaving lower-level tasks for the afternoon.

I guess any of these problems could affect you at any age; I’m just sharing my own experience. The basic idea is to reflect, learn what works for you and change what doesn’t.

Takeaways from this chapter

Don’t worry if you find writing hard. Everybody does.

To get started, just write anything. You can edit it later.

If you can’t nail down your plan, start without one.

Just for now, forget about finishing and write whatever you can in this moment.

Leave gaps, take breaks and direct your energy where it will help you most.

Know your own weak spots and aim to improve them.

22. Editing and rewriting

Getting ideas on paper is only half the battle. The rest is whipping them into shape.

Writing is just the start

You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.

Jodi Picoult

If you’re of a certain age, you might remember the video logo for Stephen J. Cannell productions, which appeared at the end of classic TV shows like The A-Team.

The 10-second clip showed Cannell himself, pipe in mouth, typing rapidly and with intent. Then, finishing his script, he yanked the paper out of the machine with a flourish, whereupon it floated gently down to form the ‘C’ of the logo.[271]

I’m sorry, but that logo lied. It taught nine-year-old me that writing was like surfing a wave of inspiration, where the words just tumbled out fully formed. And it really isn’t – as 50-year-old me knows all too well.

OK, it can be like that – sometimes. But even then, that outpouring is only the beginning. When you contemplate your ‘inspired’ draft in the cold light of day, you’ll usually realise that it’s an incoherent, gibbering brain-dump, with a few good ideas sticking out here and there. Inspiration may show you the way, but it doesn’t actually get you that far down the road.

You might expect things to start simple, then get more complex later on. But when you’re writing, it’s usually the other way round. Your writing starts out messy and complicated, and you work hard to simplify it. Your first draft is a mess of contradictions, repetition and murky thinking, which you painstakingly disentangle to make your message clear.

This can be hard to accept at the moment you complete your first draft. From a distance, it looks like the finished article: it’s the right length, and it probably has roughly the right structure. Unless you wrote with pen and paper, the neat spacing and elegant fonts make it look proper and professional. But when you look closer, it’s still more of a sketch than a painting.

Sometimes, what we call ‘writing’ is actually quite a short and unimportant part of the whole process. It’s really just a bridge to get you from thinking, where your ideas are first formed, to editing, where you find the best way to express them. And when your goal is to write clearly, that’s the most important part.

So try not to view editing as a tiresome chore, tagged on after the writing, that you should try to get through as quickly as you can. It’s not just clearing up after the show – it’s the main event.

The awesome power of rewriting

I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.

James A. Michener

Rewriting is where you go back over your draft, once or several times, to see if you can express the ideas more clearly than you did before.

That might sound like a fairly modest goal – just tinkering or tweaking here and there. But when you give rewriting the time and commitment it deserves, it rewards you with an awesome power. It lets you be a better writer than you are.

Rewriting is a micro task that has a mega impact. By making dozens, or even hundreds, of tiny improvements throughout your draft, you can transform it into something you didn’t think you were capable of. It’s like replacing the parts of a car one by one, until you eventually turn it from a Fiat into a Rolls-Royce.

Maybe you think your draft is pretty good to begin with. Well, believe me: it can always be better. If you have time, you can keep on polishing your draft until you honestly can’t improve it anymore. And if you choose to go down that road, you’ll probably be surprised at just how far it will take you.

You must remember this if you’re feeling overawed by someone else’s writing. That’s not their first draft you’re looking at. In fact, it could easily be their fourth or fifth. They’ve probably had help from at least one editor. And along the way, they’ve thrown out or replaced dozens of weak ideas, rambling paragraphs and ill-chosen words.

So if you’re feeling that your first draft just isn’t good enough, don’t despair. Through rewriting, you have the power to make it far better than it is now. And one way or another, every single minute you spend on that process will pay off.

How to edit

Editing is different from writing in two important ways. First, you stop trying to generate new material and start improving what you already have. Second, you stop thinking like a writer and aim to start thinking like a reader.

Editing involves reading through your draft and improving it as you go. You can make changes at every level we’ve seen in this book: words, sentences, paragraphs and structure. You can add in new bits that are needed, and take out those that aren’t. The checklist in the next section will help you spot the things you need to change.

To guide your editing, refer back to your mission and plan (chapter 3). Before you started, you decided what this writing needed to do. Now it’s time to consider whether you’ve achieved those aims.

Your edit should also help you pick up any errors in your text. To give yourself the best chance of success, make a printout and read from that. Studies consistently show that reading from a screen is less effective than reading from paper.[272]

Some editors also like to change the font for the printout, so the text feels newer and less familiar. To get a sense of how readers might encounter your text online, you could email it to yourself and read it on your phone. And in chapter 11, we saw how reading your text out loud, or having it read to you, can help you pick up problems with the sound, rhythm and meaning of your words.

Editing checklist

The earlier chapters of this book should give you a sense of what to look for in your edit. Here are some reminders:

Have you used simple, concrete and positive language wherever you can? (chapter 8)

If you use any specialised words, have you explained them to the reader? (chapter 12, jargon)

Is your writing accessible and inclusive to everyone who needs to read it? (chapters 8 and 16)

Is your structure working? Do your sections and paragraphs follow on logically from each other? Have you taken any detours? (chapter 6)

Have you used plenty of basic sentences, particularly for your most important points? (chapter 9)

Does each paragraph deal with a specific theme? Does it start with a key sentence and finish with a conclusion? (chapter 10)

Have you talked to the reader directly, when you need to? (chapter 11)

If you’ve used metaphors, do they genuinely make your meaning clearer? (chapter 13)

Have you told the reader everything they need to know – overall, and section by section? Have you linked new knowledge to their existing knowledge? (chapter 14)

Have you given the reader alternative ways to understand your message? (chapter 15)

Have you acknowledged what the reader might be feeling? (chapter 16)

Have you acknowledged the reader’s beliefs? And could your own beliefs have affected your writing? (chapter 17)

Have you found a way to make your message more memorable? (chapter 18)

If you’ve repeated yourself, is it deliberate and effective? (chapter 18)

Some of these problems can be hard to pick up in your own writing – and the longer you spend on it, the harder it gets. That’s why getting a second opinion can be so useful. We’ll look at that in the next chapter.

How many drafts?

You should edit your writing at least once, but you don’t have to stop there. Every time you go back to your text, you’ll almost certainly find some new way to improve it. That’s because of the incubation effect we first saw in chapter 3. Your unconscious mind is always thinking things over, even if you’re not aware of it – and you may be surprised at what problems it can solve while you’re doing something else.

So, if time allows, take every chance to re-examine at your text. The morning after your edit, have another quick glance through and see what jumps out at you. If you’re getting feedback from others (chapter 23), review the draft yourself as you reflect on what they say.

Leading content marketer and author Ann Handley goes through no fewer than four drafts of everything she writes – from an Instagram post right up to a book.[273] They are:

The ugly first draft. This is when you ‘write through the bad to reach the good’, as we saw in the previous chapter.

The chainsaw edit. Move whole sections and paragraphs around until your draft takes shape.

The surgical-tool edit. This is about fine-tuning at the level of individual words and sentences (chapters 8 and 9).

Read it out loud. Listen back to make sure your writing flows like everyday speech – and return to the previous stage if it doesn’t. We looked at this in chapter 11.

It’s fine if you jump around between these stages – for example, if you’re fine-tuning, but you suddenly realise that your structure just isn’t working. The more you write, the more you’ll discover what sort of editing approach works for you.

Write first, then edit

Write drunk, edit sober.

Misattributed to Ernest Hemingway[274]

Regardless of who actually said it, should we take this advice literally? Well, it never hurts to try – and you may find that stimulants do actually loosen up your writing, and allow you to find ways forward that were otherwise closed off.[275] But even if you don’t, you may still need to switch your mindset from free-spirited creation to cold-eyed criticism as you make the transition from writing to editing.

Admittedly, there isn’t always such a clear dividing line between the two tasks. But it’s worth separating them if you can, because it can be confusing to create and critique at the same time. The more distance you can achieve, the more objective you can be.

First, just write, without worrying or even thinking about the quality. Then, once you have some material to work with, switch over to editing.

It’s about time

Editing is powerful, but it takes time. It’s a gradual process where you improve your text in small steps rather than giant leaps. The deal on the table is very simple: the longer you spend improving your writing, the better it will be.

These days, we’re surrounded by technological tools that allow us to research, write and edit in seconds. But our brains haven’t evolved to the same level – and they still need time to think things through.

So give yourself some breathing room by building editing time into your plans. Ideally, you should expect to spend just as long revising your draft as writing it – if not longer. Stop yourself thinking that you’ll somehow luck out and land on a perfect draft first time. You won’t. Even if you feel your first try is pretty good, you’ll still find plenty of ways to improve it later on.

To get some perspective, wait a while between writing and editing. Take a night or a couple of days away from your draft and come back to it with fresh eyes. When you do this, editing becomes a collaboration between your past and present selves. While Monday-you thought that opening was pretty snazzy, Wednesday-you can see plenty of ways to improve it.

How do you know when you’re done editing? Well, the gold standard is that you can read through your whole draft with no doubts – no wish to change anything at all.

With a one-page letter, you could reach that point after a single productive day. But for a longer project like a book, it could take months. Also, you will face diminishing returns: you’re still making improvements, but they get smaller and smaller over time. So a reasonable deadline can sometimes be helpful, because it encourages you to be as clear as you can in the time available.

How to cut

All of my art has consisted of cutting away what other people would add.

Coco Chanel[276]

When we’re faced with a problem, we usually try to solve it by adding something new, even if it would be a better idea to take something away. Getting rid of things can feel negative or uncreative, or like we’re moving backwards. And once something is there, we naturally assume it must be there for a reason.[277]

It’s the same with writing. If your text isn’t working, your first thought may be that it lacks something. So you try to add in what’s missing. But sometimes, you can actually improve your text more by cutting it down.

The bits you need to cut include:

Preambles that just delay the start of the action (delete your first line or paragraph, and see how it sounds)

Diversions from the main message that don’t serve your original mission (chapter 3)

Things that may seem ‘nice to have’, but just increase the length without offering the reader enough value in return

Padding, uncertain language and anything else that dilutes your message (chapter 12)

Duplication that serves no purpose, and will just irritate the reader without helping them to remember (chapter 18)

Metaphors and analogies that you’ve taken too far, or that shouldn’t be there at all (chapter 13).

It may help to give yourself a length limit to aim for (chapter 5). When I’m cutting things for my clients, I can usually reduce the length by 15% without losing any detail at all. So set yourself a target of 25%, or even 50%, and see where that takes you. My guess is you’ll wind up with a tighter, leaner draft that you feel really proud of.

You might find it useful to save a new version of your document and do your cuts in that. It’s easier to be bold when you don’t feel like you’re throwing away valuable stuff. In practice, you probably won’t go back to your old version – but it’s nice to know it’s there. Word’s Track Changes feature also gives you a way to backtrack if you want to.

Learn to love cutting

Write without fear. Edit without mercy.

Cutting can be tough, even when you know it’s right. Once your text is done, in your mind it becomes like a treasured possession – and we always overvalue the things we already have, even if they’re no longer that useful.[278] And if we created the possession ourselves, the effect is even stronger.[279]

The sense of wasted effort can be heartbreaking. Did you really agonise over that paragraph for literally hours, only to trash it with a single keystroke now? I’m sorry, but the answer is yes. If you’re asking yourself whether you need to delete something, you probably do.

All the steps you take to reach your final draft are necessary. You had to do that writing back then to reach this point, and you have to cut it now to move forward once more. Maybe now, from the top of the hill, you can see a more direct route you could have taken. But down there, in among the trees, you did the best you could.

You might have a day where you grind out 1000 words, rage-delete the whole lot and then tentatively tap out half a page that you’re happy with. That is still a win. You had nothing, and now you have something. You learned more about what will work, and what won’t. The more you learn, the easier it gets.

Word counts don’t always help. It’s natural to see them as a measure of your progress, like the miles you’ve travelled, or the money you’ve saved, or your score in a video game. But unlike those things, word counts probably won’t increase in a straight line – and you shouldn’t expect them to. You may be winning even if the number goes down.

Keep your focus on the text as a whole, and how it will be stronger as a result of your cuts. Remember, if you get rid of the worst bits, the overall quality must improve. By cutting them out, you’re allowing your best writing to shine through.

Whatever happens, remember that you’re always moving forward. It may take a while, but you’ll get there in the end.

Kill your darlings

In writing, you must kill all your darlings.

Arthur Quiller-Couch[280]

It’s easy to get rid of the bits of your draft that obviously aren’t working. But what about the parts you really like?

Sometimes, you write something that excites you, but it’s still not right in context. When you’re really honest with yourself, it doesn’t make your writing any clearer. You need to ‘kill your darling’.

For example, remember the list of ways clear writing helps, way back in chapter 1? When I first wrote it, I put a metaphor after each one. For simplifying a complex idea, I said ‘words can be teachers’. For improving user experience, I said ‘words can be signposts’. And so on.

Every time I added another point to the list, I had to think of another metaphor to go with it. Admittedly, some were stronger than others. But I soldiered on.

I was so proud of my ingenious imagery – but that was the whole problem. My metaphors wouldn’t actually have made my message clearer to you. They were just a way for me to indulge myself and show off.

Always remember that you are not the reader. Your job is not to dazzle and impress, but to communicate and empower. Anything that doesn’t serve that aim has got to go. If you want to express yourself with a poem or a novel, go ahead – but that’s for another time, and another reader.

A tell-tale sign is that you half-consciously avert your gaze from your ‘darling’ while editing. You say to yourself, ‘Oh yes, that’s the really good bit, I can’t touch that.’ You can – and you must.

Rewrite from memory

One of a writer’s worst nightmares is losing hours of work in a computer glitch. Staring at a blank screen once more, you face the task of recreating what you had before. If the first draft was difficult and time-consuming, it can feel like you’ll never get it back.

However, when this has happened to me, I’ve found that the rewriting is actually quicker and easier than I feared – for shorter pieces, at least. Even though the words may have gone, the ideas behind them are still there. And while I obviously can’t compare the two drafts, the second one often feels like it’s better than the first.

So you might want to take this step deliberately. If you’re really struggling to edit a shorter piece, or you need to condense a longer one, just close the document, create a new one and see what you can write from scratch. Then, once you have a fresh version, you can refer back to see if there are any details you really need to add back in.

Incidentally, to avoid rewriting when you don’t want to, make sure you back up all your work. I keep all my current documents on a cloud service that saves every version I’ve saved, going back several weeks. This protects me against the files being corrupted or accidentally deleted, or an almost-finished book being stolen along with my laptop.

Takeaways from this chapter

Editing is a vital part of your writing process, not an optional extra or an afterthought.

Consciously separate writing and editing. Aim to switch from the writer’s mindset to the reader’s.

Learn to love cutting. Think of it as a form of creation, not just destruction.

23. Getting feedback

Get feedback on your writing to find out what’s working, and what you need to change.

How feedback helps

Write with the door closed. Edit with the door open.

Stephen King[281]

As we saw in chapter 1, writing isn’t like maths. There are no right answers; no fixed standard you can use to judge your work. The only results that count are in your reader’s head.

Feedback helps because it gives you a preview of how your reader might respond to your writing.

When you seek feedback, you ‘let people in’ to your text, probably for the first time. If you like to get your text right before anyone sees it – like I do – that will be a significant event. So it pays to be clear about who you’re going to approach, what you want from them and how you’ll make use of what they say.

Get close to your reader

Joe Biden has no time for fancy talk. ‘Pick up your phone, call your mother, read her what you just told me,’ he tells his team. ‘If she understands, we can keep talking.’ [282]

Now, your mom might have a master’s degree in political science, for all Joe knows. But what he really means is that if you want a clear sense of how your words come across, you need to step outside your bubble.

For example, if you’re writing a marketing email for work, it’s natural to ask your colleagues for feedback. But the problem is that they already know all about your company, its products and its culture. They already know why you’re writing the email, and who it’s for. And because they’re good colleagues, they won’t refuse to read your work, bail out part-way through or rip it to shreds with their feedback.

Basically, your colleagues are utterly unlike your target reader. Out there in the real world, your prospective customers might bring very different thoughts, knowledge and feelings to your writing – and react very differently too.

Aim to test your writing on a reviewer who’s as similar to your reader as possible. That could mean someone who has a similar profile (age, gender, job, etc), but it could also mean someone facing a particular situation. You could also go to someone who has faced that situation before, and can remember what it was like.

For example, existing customers might be well placed to judge marketing material aimed at new prospects. They can tell you whether it answers all the questions they had, when they were in the same position.

If you can’t find a reviewer who’s exactly like your reader, just look for one who’s a bit more like them than you are. For example, if you can’t ask a teenager, maybe a 20-year-old will do.

You might naturally want your reviewer to give your writing a ‘fair hearing’, by spending some time over it and giving it their full attention. But that might not be the context where your writing will ultimately be seen. If your reader is likely to be peering at their phone on a crowded train, maybe you should ask your reviewer to do the same. After all, if your text can work there, it will work anywhere.

What to ask

Everyone will have their own reaction to your writing, and their own way of expressing it. To get the most value from the process, guide them towards the sort of feedback that will be most helpful to you.

Ask them questions like:

Does the writing do its job? Does it deliver what it promises? (Based on the aim you chose in chapter 3)

Did you find the writing easy to understand?

What sort of person did the writer sound like? What was their personality and attitude like? (chapter 16)

Did you feel the writer was trying to help you?

Was anything missing? Did you still have questions at the end?

On the other hand, did the writing cover things you didn’t really need to know?

What would you change?

Would you be confident giving this writing to a friend, colleague or family member, and letting them read it on their own?

This last question about other people is useful because your reviewer may not want to admit they were confused, for fear of looking stupid.[283] Or they may be worried about offending you if they criticise your writing too directly. By framing their opinions as someone else’s, they can share them without any of those risks.

The least useful kind of feedback is ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’. Whichever one your reviewer says, you need to dig deeper.

If your reviewer doesn’t like your writing, you need to know what changes they would like to see. At the very least, you need some more detail on why they don’t like it. Or, failing that, maybe they could tell you about something they did like, so you can try to infer what would work better for them.

If they like it, that’s nice – but you still want to ask the questions above, to make sure they’re not just fobbing you off for fear of causing offence. Make it clear to them that you need constructive feedback to help you improve. Sometimes, ‘I like it’ turns out to mean ‘Well, I like most of it, but…’

Ask them to explain

Instead of asking your reviewer whether they understood your writing, ask them to briefly explain your message back to you. It doesn’t have to be a big, heavy interrogation – just an informal chat where they share what they took away from your writing.

As we saw in chapter 3, getting the reader to understand and remember are two different things. With this approach, you can test either or both. For example, if reader understanding is more important than remembering, you can help your reviewer along with their recall of the content, and concentrate on how they made sense of it.

Now, focus in on the areas where their understanding is at odds with your message. Why do they think that? How could they reach that conclusion, based on your words? Why did they miss this crucial point? These gaps and snags will point the way towards the things you need to add, change or improve in your text.

Remember, this is a test of your ability, not the reviewer’s. Since communication is your job, their ‘mistakes’ are on you: they point to weak spots in your draft. So make sure they understand that you’re not criticising them for ‘getting it wrong’ or ‘failing to understand’, but trying to improve your own work.

Favour first-time feedback

In the real world, your reader will come to your writing completely fresh. So you should listen very carefully to what reviewers say when they see it for the first time.

It’s easy to wriggle out of this. People give you honest feedback, and you tell yourself something like, ‘Oh yeah, but that’s only because they didn’t know A, B and C.’ That’s the whole point! If people need that information to make sense of your message, it needs to be right there in your text.

You may also decide to ask the same person to look at your draft again, once you’ve revised it. That’s fine – but bear in mind that they are no longer a first-time reader. Their understanding on the second reading is supported by their memory of the first. So if they say your draft is much improved, you should remember that pretty much anything seems clearer if you read it twice.[284]

That’s why it’s so important to seek feedback from first-time readers, and listen to it while you have the chance – because you’ll never be able to test this draft on this reviewer in quite the same way again.

Weighing up feedback

Feedback is a process of communication, just like writing – and it can involve the same pitfalls.

Bear in mind that your reviewers may not be used to reading text with a critical mindset, or expressing their feedback in a constructive and logical way. What’s more, they’re only human, and they have moods, preferences and hobbyhorses of their own.

As a result, the feedback you receive can sometimes be uneven, impulsive, contradictory or just plain wrong. So you have to interpret it, weigh it up and decide which points you’re going to act on.

As a general point, remember that no news is good news. People will rarely tell you that they really like your writing, just as they don’t write to the local council to thank them for building such a smooth road. Clear writing makes for easy reading – so if you’ve done your job well, your text becomes transparent, and readers take it for granted that they can understand it without effort.

For each piece of feedback, ask yourself:

Is it fair? Being honest with yourself, does the reviewer have a point?

Is it representative? Did anybody else make the same point?

Is it relevant? If you make this change, will it help you reach your target reader, or achieve the aims of this project?

Is it feasible? If you make this change, will it cause other problems that the reviewer hasn’t thought of?

So much for the reviewer’s input. On your side, you need to be aware of certain ways of thinking that are easy to fall into and could derail your use of feedback.

For example, you might be drawn to feedback that’s vivid, recent or easy to remember.[285] Or you might favour feedback from people you really like or respect.[286] To balance that out, you may need to make an effort to listen to all the feedback equally – even if it’s not that clear in itself, or it comes from a source you’re not that crazy about.

If one reviewer disagrees with the others, you may latch on to their feedback, seeing it as somehow more important just because it’s different.[287] Then you end up twisting your writing all out of shape to accommodate a minority view. So ask yourself: if you make this change that just one person wants, will it spoil something that nobody else had a problem with?

Feedback and your feelings

Hearing honest feedback on your writing can be tough, particularly if you’ve put a lot of time and effort into it.

If you find it hard to hear criticism, remember that the feedback is on your work, not you. Separate yourself from your writing – at least for now.

Get yourself into a mindset of collaboration, not confrontation. You and your reviewer are working together to make this draft as good as you can. It’s not a battle of wills, where you have to defend your draft against their attack. They’re on your side, even if it doesn’t always seem that way.

Remember, ‘bad’ feedback is actually good. Every piece of negative feedback is a signpost to improvement. So you should actively seek out challenging feedback, by asking people what they didn’t like about your text, or what they themselves would change. Receiving good feedback on your writing is like being given a cupcake – it’s nice at the time, but in the long run it doesn’t really help you.

A tough situation is when you get mostly positive feedback, but one person is critical. First, there’s a natural tendency to place too much weight on their views, even though they’re a minority of one.[288] Then, if you feel stung by the feedback, you go to one of two extremes: either ignoring the reviewer completely to get ‘revenge’, or doing everything they want as a way to make things right and move past the negative feeling.

Somehow, you’ve got to separate the content of the feedback from your emotional reaction to it. A few hours away from your desk, or a night’s sleep, will help a lot. Then, return to the feedback and reflect on it as objectively as you can.

Professional feedback

A professional editor will give you feedback on your text and suggest how to improve it. Or, if you prefer, they can simply make the changes themselves.

The feedback you get from an editor will go far beyond what a casual reviewer will give you. They’ll look at all the things on the list in chapter 22 and more. Crucially, they’ll consider what you didn’t say, as well as what you did, based on their understanding of your mission. Their feedback will be logical, consistent and clearly expressed. And they won’t pull any punches in telling you what needs to change.

The great thing about working with editors is that you pay the piper, so you call the tune. You’re not asking for a favour, but engaging a paid professional. So you can tell your editor exactly what you want them to focus on, and you can hire them to go back and look again as many times as you want.

However, that also highlights a downside. In the real world, your reader’s attention must be earned – but your editor’s time is paid-for. So they can’t really give you an accurate sense of how engaging your writing is, or whether real-world readers will stick with it to the end.

Also, your editor may not be that similar to your reader. Of course, it’s their job to put themselves in the reader’s position, and they have lots of experience of doing that. But that’s not the same as actually being an electrical engineer, or a teenage parent, or whoever it is you’re writing for.

Takeaways from this chapter

Feedback is a valuable way to improve your writing before your reader sees it.

Choose reviewers who are similar to your reader if you can.

Guide reviewers with open questions, or ask them to explain your message back to you after they read it.

Professional feedback can be very helpful.

Weigh up feedback to decide what changes to make, and be aware of how your own emotions come into play.

24. Over to you

Each of us must make our own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way. This is the mystery.

Shunryu Suzuki[289]

Writing about writing is a tough gig. Whatever advice you give, it needs to be consistent with itself – and you’d better follow it, too. Every step you take is on thin ice, threatening to plunge you into the same freezing water as your reader.

No doubt, I’ve gone against my own counsel at some points in this book. But in my defence, that’s because clear writing is always a compromise. At every stage, you must strike a balance between being comprehensive and concise, enticing and explicit, affecting and accessible. That’s why I promised at the start that I would give you ideas, not hard-and-fast rules.

I hope the ideas I’ve shared are useful – but they’re only the start. As you use them, and discover many more of your own, you’ll gradually become a better writer. The process of getting thoughts from your mind to the page will become quicker, easier and more direct. And the results will be clearer and more helpful to your readers as a result.

As you grow, you’ll decide what advice you want to follow, and which opinions to reject. You’ll decide which rules to obey, and which to break. And you’ll gain confidence in your abilities, so you can argue for your decisions if you have to.

But just as importantly, you’ll also find your own voice. You’ll discover how you want to write, as well as how you should write. Even if you’re writing on behalf of someone else, you’ll still make some choices from your own opinions, values and beliefs. Like an actor, you will play many roles, but there will always be something of yourself in everything you write.

Because non-fiction writing is factual, or descriptive, or neutral, some might see it as inferior to other, more expressive forms of writing, like poetry or fiction. To be honest, I sometimes feel that way myself – particularly when I’m seeing what other writers are doing on social media.

But non-fiction writing can still be creative. It can have colour and life. It can have humanity and emotion. And it can achieve real change in the world.

Besides, the desire to communicate clearly is an emotion in itself. ‘We read to know we are not alone,’ wrote William Nicholson.[290] As a writer, you’re trying to only connect[291] with the reader: to build a bridge between your mind and theirs. Through connections like those, people learn and grow.

Some writers entertain and thrill. Some challenge and provoke. Others inspire and heal. But clear writers have their place too, and it’s a vital one. Just to be clear is a noble aim – and if you reach it, a great achievement too. With the ideas in this book and your own ability, I’m sure you will.

Thanks for reading.

Please review!

If you found this book useful, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating or review on Amazon.

It would mean a lot to me, and it will help more writers like you discover the book.

Thank you!

[1] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Kegan Paul, 1922.

[2] This is one of the presuppositions of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP. See https://anlp.org/knowledge-base/presuppositions-of-nlp

[3] This is the state of deep focus and absorption that psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called cognitive flow. See his talk ‘Flow: the secret to happiness’. https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_flow_the_secret_to_happiness

[5] Wikipedia, ‘List of dictionaries by number of words’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dictionaries_by_number_of_words

[6] Capitalize My Title, ‘How Large Is the Average Person’s Vocabulary?’. 25 February 2021. https://numberofwords.com/blog/word-count/how-large-is-the-average-persons-vocabulary/

[7] Naked Scientists forum: ‘All Possible Sentences?’. 9 May 2012. https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=45484.0

[8] Clay Beckner, Richard Blythe, Joan Bybee, Morten Christiansen, William Croft, Nick Ellis, John Holland, Jinyun Ke, Diane Larsen-Freeman and Tom Schoenemann, ‘Language is a Complex Adaptive System’. Santa Fe Institute, 2008. https://www.santafe.edu/research/results/working-papers/language-is-a-complex-adaptive-system

[9] William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity. Chatto & Windus, 1930.

[10] Toby Litt, ‘What makes bad writing bad?’. The Guardian, 20 May 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/20/what-makes-bad-writing-bad-toby-litt

[11] Jennifer Havice, ‘How to Create Customer Personas (with Actual, Real-Life Data)’. CXL, 21 April 2019. https://cxl.com/blog/creating-customer-personas-using-data-driven-research/

[12] Ut Na Sio and Thomas C. Ormerod, ‘Does incubation enhance problem solving? A meta-analytic review’. Psychological Bulletin, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014212

[13] In the ‘View’ menu, select ‘Sidebar’ and then ‘Navigation’ to make it appear. You can choose how many heading levels you want to view, and expand the headings within individual sections. The method may differ depending on what version of Word you’re using. Also, to use this feature, you must use the standard style sheets (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc), or set the appropriate Outline level for your own style sheets if you prefer to use them.

[14] Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, ‘Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability’. Cognitive Psychology, 1973. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9

[15] This is the endowment effect: we value things we already have, even though we wouldn’t be bothered about acquiring them if we didn’t.

[16] See, for example, Richard P. Feynman, Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher. Helix Books, 1994.

[17] Engagement measured in more page views, lower bounce rate and longer time spent on site. Michael Marchese, ‘Why it’s important to add an estimated reading time’. Tempesta Media, 14 September 2020. https://www.tempestamedia.com/2020/09/14/why-its-important-to-add-an-estimated-reading-time/

[18] Marc Brysbaert, ‘How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate’. PsyArXiv, 12 April 2019. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/xynwg

[19] Kalpathy Ramaiyer Subramanian, ‘Myth and Mystery of Shrinking Attention Span’. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327367023_Myth_and_Mystery_of_Shrinking_Attention_Span

[20] Actually, this stat has been around since the early 2000s, so it could be even less now. I’m surprised you’re reading this footnote. See, for example, Kevin McSpadden, ‘You Now Have a Shorter Attention Span Than a Goldfish’. Time, 14 May 2005. https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/

[21] Simon Maybin, ‘Busting the attention span myth’. BBC, 10 March 2017. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38896790

[22] Joseph Firth et al., ‘The “online brain”: how the Internet may be changing our cognition’. World Psychiatry, 2019. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6502424/

[23] Blaise Pascal, Lettres Provinciales, 1657.

[24] Brian Dean, ‘We Analyzed 11.8 Million Google Search Results: Here’s What We Learned About SEO’. Backlinko, 28 April 2020. https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking

[25] Helen Pollitt, ‘What Is the Best Word Count for SEO?’ Search Engine Journal, 8 June 2020. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-is-the-best-word-count-for-seo/

[26] Amy Schade, ‘Inverted Pyramid: Writing for Comprehension’. Nielsen Norman Group, 11 February 2018. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/inverted-pyramid/

[27] Kendra Cherry, ‘Priming and the Psychology of Memory’. VeryWellMind, 18 June 2021. https://www.verywellmind.com/priming-and-the-psychology-of-memory-4173092

[28] Adapted from Clare Lynch, ‘Easily structure your writing with this 5-minute technique’, Doris and Bertie, 7 January 2014. https://www.dorisandbertie.com/goodcopybadcopy/2014/01/07/writing-structure

[29] Joydeep Bhattacharya, ‘How To Boost SEO With Question Keywords Optimization’. Semrush, 14 January 2019. https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-to-boost-seo-with-question-keywords-optimization/

[30] Framing the issue in terms of multiculturalism gets more positive responses than talking in terms of victimisation. Linda Bos, Sophie Lecheler, Moniek Mewafi and Rens Vliegenthart, ‘It’s the frame that matters: Immigrant integration and media framing effects in the Netherlands’. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2016.10.002

[31] Find it at https://trends.google.com

[32] The title of an actual book by Steve Waksman (Harvard University Press, 2001).

[33] Pascal Covici Jr. (ed), Dear Master Wattie: The Mark Twain–David Watt Bowser Letters. Southern Methodist University Press, 1960.

[34] Annetta Cheek, ‘Defining plain language’, Clarity, November 2010. https://clarity.wildapricot.org/Resources/Documents/64_032111_04_final.pdf

[35] Christopher Trudeau, ‘The Public Speaks: An Empirical Study of Legal Communication’. Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, 121 (2011–2012). https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/scrib14&div=8&id=&page=

[36] Hoa Loranger, ‘Plain Language Is for Everyone, Even Experts’. Nielsen Norman Group, 8 October 2017. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/plain-language-experts/

[37] Rose Grotsky, ‘Plain Language: Its Effect on Organizational Performance’. Ontario Literacy Coalition Bulletin, September 2003. http://en.copian.ca/library/research/olc/wrkplace/wrkplace.pdf#page=52

[38] Michael Jefford and Rosemary Moore, ‘Improvement of informed consent and the quality of consent documents’. The Lancet Oncology, May 2008. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(08)70128-1

[39] Christopher Trudeau, ‘Plain Language in Healthcare: What Lawyers Need to Know About Health Literacy’. SSRN, 2016. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2877516

[40] Concepts and diagram adapted from Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin, ‘Human Memory: A Proposed System and its Control Processes’, In K.W. Spence and J.T. Spence, (eds.), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 1968. This view has since been refined and added to, but the basic concepts remain the same.

[41] Fatma Deniz, Anwar O. Nunez-Elizalde, Alexander G. Huth and Jack L. Gallant, ‘The Representation of Semantic Information Across Human Cerebral Cortex During Listening Versus Reading Is Invariant to Stimulus Modality’. Journal of Neuroscience, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0675-19.2019

[42] See the accessibility guidelines for web developers at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Tools_and_testing/Cross_browser_testing/Accessibility#screenreaders

[43] George A. Miller, ‘The magical number seven, plus-or-minus two, or some limits on our capacity for processing information’. In Brain Physiology and Psychology, University of California Press, 1966. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520318267-011

[44] John Sweller, ‘Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning’. Cognitive Science, 1988. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4. For a summary, see https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/cognitive-load-theory.htm

[45] Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums. The Viking Press, 1958.

[47] Sara Wilcox, ‘Pee and poo and the language of health’. NHS Digital blog, 5 February 2019. https://digital.nhs.uk/blog/transformation-blog/2019/pee-and-poo-and-the-language-of-health

[48] Benjamin Bergen, ‘Embodiment, simulation and meaning’, 2015. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282930310_Embodiment_simulation_and_meaning

[49] fMRI research shows that people use a different part of their brains to understand an idea when it’s expressed in spatial terms rather than abstract terms. Mikkel Wallentin, Svend Østergaard, Torben Ellegaard Lund, Leif Østergaard, Andreas Roepstorff, ‘Concrete spatial language: See what I mean?’ Brain and Language, vol. 92, no. 3, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2004.06.106

[50] Lingling Pan, Gerry McNamara, Jennifer J. Lee, Jerayr (John) Haleblian and Cynthia E. Devers, ‘Give it to us straight (most of the time): Top managers’ use of concrete language and its effect on investor reactions’. Strategic Management Journal, 3 August 2018. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2733

[51] W. Brooke Elliott, Kristina M. Rennekamp and Brian J. White, ‘Does concrete language in disclosures increase willingness to invest?’. Review of Accounting Studies, 2 December 2014. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-014-9315-6

[52] Grant Packard and Jonah Berger, ‘How Concrete Language Shapes Customer Satisfaction’. Journal of Consumer Research, February 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucaa038

[53] James Price Dillard and Michael Pfau, The Persuasion Handbook: Developments in Theory and Practice. SAGE Publications, 2002: 375.

[54] Learn more at https://www.lep.gov

[55] According to findings from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy. https://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp

[56] https://readabilityguidelines.co.uk/clear-language/low-literacy-users/

[57] People with autism sometimes have problems with irony, sarcasm, figurative language, rhetorical questions, idioms or exaggeration, because they take them literally. See these communication tips from the National Autistic Society: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/communication/tips

[58] See the readability checklist at https://readabilityguidelines.co.uk/readability-checklist/

[59] GOV.UK, Accessible communication formats. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inclusive-communication/accessible-communication-formats

[60] For an example, see the Access to Work guidance produced by the UK Department for Work & Pensions. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/easy-read-get-help-at-work-if-youre-disabled-or-have-a-health-condition-access-to-work/get-help-from-access-to-work-easy-read

[61] Browse and search the list at https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/wordlists/oxford3000-5000

[62] Reading level is given according to the CEFR scale, which grades skill in any language according to six levels: A1/A2 (basic), B1/B2 (independent) and C1/C2 (proficient). See https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/level-descriptions

[63] Test your text at https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/text-checker/

[64] To use this function, select ‘Check grammar with spelling’ and ‘Show readability statistics’ in Spelling & Grammar preferences. You have to check through the whole document before you can see the statistics, so it’s best to wait until your draft is in pretty good shape. There are also calculators you can use online, such as https://goodcalculators.com/flesch-kincaid-calculator/.

[65] Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, which gives a number corresponding to the grade level in the U.S. education system. To get the ‘reading age’, add five to the number. Dr Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham scores –1.3, meaning a three- or four-year-old can understand it.

[66] See https://www.see-a-voice.org/marketing-ad/effective-communication/readability/. Claims like this are widely quoted, but the ages given vary and hard evidence is scarce. However, academics have used an algorithm to assess the reading ease of UK newspapers: see David Cornish, ‘Algorithm deems The Sun easiest tabloid to read, comparable to CBBC’. Wired, 26 November 2012. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/analysis-of-news-articles

[67] NHS Digital Service Manual, ‘How we write’. https://service-manual.nhs.uk/content/how-we-write

[68] Sarah Winters (was Richards), Content Design, p. 37. Content Design London, 2017.

[69] E.F. Schumacher, ‘Small is Beautiful’. The Radical Humanist, vol. 37, p. 22.

[70] Liz Doig, ‘Why do some senior leaders resist engaging language?’. https://wordtree.com/why-do-some-senior-leaders-resist-engaging-language/

[71] Daniel M. Oppenheimer, ‘Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly’. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1178

[72] See, for example, June Casagrande, It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer’s Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences. Ten Speed Press, 2010.

[73] See, for example, Stephen Pinker, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. Viking Penguin, 2007.

[74] J.P. Kimball, ‘Seven principles of surface structure parsing in natural language’. Cognition, vol. 2, no. 15–47, 1973. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(72)90028-5

[75] E.B. Coleman, ‘Learning of prose written in four grammatical transformations’. Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 49, no. 332–341, 1965. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0022472

[76] C.S. Isakson and J.H. Spyridakis, ‘The influence of semantics and syntax on what readers remember’. Technical Communication, vol. 46, no.3, pp. 366–381, 1999. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233707638_The_Influence_of_Semantics_and_Syntax_on_What_Readers_Remember

[77] E.B. Coleman, ‘Improving comprehensibility by shortening sentences’. Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 48, no. 131, 1962. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0039740

[78] See, for example: https://readabilityguidelines.co.uk/clear-language/simple-sentences/#1-make-your-average-sentence-15-words-long

[79] Roy Peter Clark, ‘Branching Out Can Leave Verbs Out on a Limb’, Poynter, 12 August 2008. https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2008/branching-out-can-leave-verbs-out-on-a-limb-2/

[80] Benjamin Bergen and Kathryn Wheeler, ‘Grammatical aspect and mental simulation’, Brain & Language, 3 July 2009. https://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~bkbergen/papers/bergenwheelerBL.pdf

[81] Jackson Katz, ‘Violence against women – it’s a men’s issue’. TEDX, November 2012. https://www.ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue/transcript

[82] Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz, ‘If it’s easy to read, it’s easy to do, pretty, good, and true’. The Psychologist, February 2010. https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-23/edition-2/if-its-easy-read-its-easy-do-pretty-good-and-true

[83] Nixon was denying his involvement in the Watergate scandal, which ultimately led to his resignation from the U.S. Presidency. ‘Nixon insists that he is “not a crook”’, History.com, 16 November 2009. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nixon-insists-that-he-is-not-a-crook

[84] Neil Gaiman, Tumblr post, 7 February 2016. https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/138902856161/do-you-think-grammar-is-as-important-as-writing-a

[85] Steven Morris, ‘“Banksy of punctuation” puts full stop to bad grammar in Bristol’. The Guardian, 3 April 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/apr/03/banksy-of-punctuation-puts-full-stop-bad-grammar-bristol

[86] See, for example, Baiyun Chen and Atsusi Hirumi, ‘Investigating the Use of Advance Organizers as an Instructional Strategy for Web-based Distance Education’. https://members.aect.org/pdf/Proceedings/proceedings06/2006/06_3.pdf

[87] David E. Kieras, ‘Good and bad structure in simple paragraphs: Effects on apparent theme, reading time, and recall’. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, February 1978. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(78)90496-6

[88] Notably, copywriter and author Dave Trott uses this style for all his writing. See his blog at https://davetrott.co.uk or any of his books.

[89] Jules Renard, The Journal of Jules Renard (entry for 10 April 1895). Éditions Bernouard, 1925.

[90] Michael Balter, ‘Human language may have evolved to help our ancestors make tools’. Science, 13 January 2015. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/01/human-language-may-have-evolved-help-our-ancestors-make-tools

[91] Lydia Wilson, ‘Reading, That Strange and Uniquely Human Thing’. Nautilus, 23 December 2020. http://nautil.us/issue/94/evolving/reading-that-strange-and-uniquely-human-thing

[92] Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading, Chapter 2. Viking, 1996. https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Manguel/Silent_Readers.html

[93] Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz, ‘If It’s Difficult to Pronounce, It Must Be Risky: Fluency, Familiarity, and Risk Perception’. Psychological Science, 1 February 2009. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02267.x

[94] Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Minor, 30 August 1814. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0455

[95] Brian Logan, ‘Dylan Moran: “I’ve offended people, I regret it and I’ll probably do it again”’. The Guardian, 6 May 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/may/06/dylan-moran-comedian-dr-cosmos-stream

[96] Quark is QuarkXPress, the page layout software. Rainbow proofs were high-quality colour proofs. A drum scanner is a device for creating high-quality digital images from photo transparencies. SCSI (‘scuzzy’) Probe was an app for connecting to external removable disk drives (made by SyQuest), which never seemed to work first time.

[97] H. Tajfel, J.C. Turner, W.G. Austin and S. Worchel, ‘An integrative theory of intergroup conflict’. Organizational identity: A Reader, Oxford University Press, 2004.

[98] ‘143’ = ‘I love you’; ‘KPC’ = ‘Keeping parents clueless’. YW! Amy Morin, ‘The Secret Language of Teens: 116 Text and Social Media Acronyms’. Very Well Family, June 2020. https://www.verywellfamily.com/the-secret-language-of-teens-100-social-media-acronyms-2609651

[99] Zachariah C. Brown, Eric M. Anicich and Adam D. Galinsky, ‘Compensatory conspicuous communication: Low status increases jargon use’. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 161, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.07.001

[100] Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Macmillan, 1872. Alice says this in response to the nonsense poem ‘Jabberwocky’.

[101] Generate your own corporate BS at https://www.atrixnet.com/bs-generator.html and you can progressively engage your intellectual capital while holistically leveraging your end-to-end expertise.

[102] Camiel J. Beukeboom, Martin Tanis and Ivar E. Vermeulen, ‘The Language of Extraversion: Extraverted People Talk More Abstractly, Introverts Are More Concrete’. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 5 October 2012. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0261927X12460844

[103] Ernest Gowers and Rebecca Gowers (ed.), The Complete Plain Words. Penguin, 2015.

[104] For a more comprehensive list prepared by the U.S. government, see https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/words/use-simple-words-phrases/

[106] Jerry Weissman, ‘Replace Meaningless Words with Meaningful Ones’. Harvard Business Review, 7 December 2011. https://hbr.org/2011/12/replace-meaningless-words-with

[107] Bonnie Marcus, ‘Do You Sabotage Yourself by Using Weak Language?’ Forbes, 9 December 2011. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bonniemarcus/2011/12/09/do-you-sabotage-yourself-by-using-weak-language/?sh=7283f8c61987

[108] Yulia A. Strekalova and Vaughan S. James, ‘Language of Uncertainty: the Expression of Decisional Conflict Related to Skin Cancer Prevention Recommendations’. Journal of Cancer Education, September 2017. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26781777/

[109] Ultimately, from the Greek word μεταφορά (metaphorá).

[110] You can find an online database of explanatory metaphors at http://www.metamia.com, and some examples of technology metaphors at https://asburyandasbury.com/sideways-dictionary.

[111] Merriam-Webster, ‘Mixed metaphor’ (definition). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mixed%20metaphor

[112] Gabrielle Torre, ‘Reading: The Brain’s Best Hijacker’. Knowing Neurons, 26 July 2017. https://knowingneurons.com/2017/07/26/reading-brains-best-hijacker/

[113] The government is not like a household because it creates the money that everyone else uses. Its spending goes into the economy, where people spend it, generating more tax receipts. But when a household spends its budget, it’s gone. Richard Murphy, ‘The UK government is not like a household…’. Tax Research UK, 11 November 2019. https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/11/11/the-uk-government-is-not-like-a-household-and-does-not-have-a-household-type-budget-thats-because-it-quite-literally-makes-the-money-the-rest-of-us-use-so-lets-stop-pretending-it-has-a-credi/

[114] Josh Dzieza, ‘A history of metaphors for the internet’. The Verge, 20 August 2014. https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/20/6046003/a-history-of-metaphors-for-the-internet

[115] 11.3m and 4.8m people respectively, based on a total population of 68m in 2020. NHS Digital, ‘Definition of digital inclusion’. https://digital.nhs.uk/about-nhs-digital/our-work/digital-inclusion/what-digital-inclusion-is

[116] Lyrics to ‘You Are The Sunshine Of My Life’ by Stevie Wonder, from the album Talking Book (1972).

[117] Graeme Deans and Mary Larson, ‘Growth for Growth’s Sake: A Recipe for a Potential Disaster’. Ivey Business Journal, September/October 2008. https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/growth-for-growths-sake-a-recipe-for-a-potential-disaster/

[118] Paul Thibodeau, James L. McClelland and Lera Boroditsky, ‘When a bad metaphor may not be a victimless crime: The role of metaphor in social policy’. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2009. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5448914z

[119] In the ‘three worlds’ view of the universe proposed by philosopher Karl Popper, metaphors live in ‘world 3’, along with other shared systems of thought, while the ‘real’ or physical world is ‘world 1’. Karl Popper, Three Worlds. Tanner Lecture on Human Values, given at the University of Michigan, 1978. http://www.itc.org.ru/books/Three_Worlds.pdf

[120] These are three of the eight metaphors described in Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization. Sage, 1997. For a brief summary, see ‘How 8 Organizational Metaphors Impact Leadership’, NOBL Academy, 28 August 2019. https://academy.nobl.io/gareth-morgan-organizational-metaphors/

[121] Frank V. Cespedes, ‘Stop Using Battle Metaphors in Your Company Strategy’, Harvard Business Review, 19 December 19 2014. https://hbr.org/2014/12/stop-using-battle-metaphors-in-your-company-strategy

[122] Miles Brignall, ‘First there was Netflix. Now you can subscribe to an electric car’. The Guardian, 14 March 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/mar/14/first-there-was-netflix-now-you-can-subscribe-to-an-electric-car

[123] Frederic Charles Bartlett, Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge University Press 1932. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1995-98505-000

[124] Die Hard (1988), dir. John McTiernan; Under Siege (1992), dir. Andrew Davis. Seriously, watch Die Hard first. See Hugh Armitage, ‘8 films that are basically Die Hard, from planes to trains and automobiles’. Digital Spy, 21 February 2017. https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a821697/die-hard-rip-offs/

[125] Top Gun (1986); Days of Thunder (1990), both dir. Tony Scott. Eric D. Snider, ‘15 Fast Facts About Days of Thunder’. Mental Floss, 5 July 2015. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/65844/15-fast-facts-about-days-thunder

[126] Jeffrey Boakye, Black, Listed: Black British Culture Explored. Dialogue Books, 2019.

[127] Derald Wing Sue, ‘The Invisible Whiteness of Being: Whiteness, White Supremacy, White Privilege, and Racism’. In M.G. Constantine and D.W. Sue (eds), Addressing racism: Facilitating cultural competence in mental health and educational settings, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2006. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-10123-002

[128] David Ausubel, Educational psychology: A cognitive view. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.

[129] W. Kintsch, Comprehension: A paradigm for cognition. Cambridge University Press, 1998. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-07128-000

[130] Kathrin F. Stanger-Hall and David W. Hall, ‘Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.S.’ PLOS ONE, 14 October 2011. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0024658

[131] Mario Livio, Why? What Makes Us Curious. Simon & Schuster, 2017.

[132] Pierre Leconte, ‘Conducting A Gap Analysis: A Four-Step Template’. ClearPoint Strategy. https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/gap-analysis-template/

[133] ‘Princess Diana interview: What did Martin Bashir and the BBC do?’ BBC News, 21 May 2021. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-57163815

[134] The station targets listeners aged 15–29. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/music_radio/performance_analysis.pdf

[135] D.L. Schacter, ‘Implicit memory: History and current status’. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 1987. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.13.3.501

[136] This is the modern term for what people call ‘repressed memories’. See https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/psychogenic-amnesia

[137] Dissociation is a sense of being disconnected from the self and the world, which some people experience in response to a traumatic event. See https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/dissociation-and-dissociative-disorders/about-dissociation/

[138] Kendra Cherry, ‘What Is the Unconscious?’. VeryWellMind, 20 July 2020. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-unconscious-2796004

[139] For Lacan, the unconscious is a particular form of symbolic knowledge that the subject does not know that it knows. See https://nosubject.com/Knowledge

[140] Written warnings about upcoming content that readers might find upsetting are known as trigger warnings or content warnings. See University of Michigan, ‘An Introduction to Content Warnings and Trigger Warnings’. https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/inclusive-teaching/an-introduction-to-content-warnings-and-trigger-warnings/

[141] This widely used system was first published as ‘the four levels of teaching’ by Martin M. Broadwell in ‘Teaching For Learning (XVI.)’. The Gospel Guardian, no. 41, 20 February 1969. http://www.wordsfitlyspoken.org/gospel_guardian/v20/v20n41p1-3a.html

[142] Robert B. Isler, Nicola J. Starkey and Peter Sheppard, ‘Effects of higher-order driving skill training on young, inexperienced drivers’ on-road driving performance’. Accident Analysis & Prevention, vol. 43, no. 5, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2011.04.017

[143] John Locke, Of the Conduct of the Understanding. Awnsham and John Churchill, 1706.

[144] Mark Murphy, ‘Which Of These 4 Communication Styles Are You?’, Forbes, 6 August 2015. https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2015/08/06/which-of-these-4-communication-styles-are-you

[145] Christian Jarrett, ‘All You Need to Know About the “Learning Styles” Myth, in Two Minutes’. Wired, 5 January 2015. https://www.wired.com/2015/01/need-know-learning-styles-myth-two-minutes/

[146] This is one of the five principles of persuasion discovered by researcher Robert Cialdini. We are more likely to listen to those we respect. Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Harper Business, 2006.

[147] This is an example of confirmation bias, when people search for, interpret, favour and recall information in a way that confirms or supports their prior beliefs or values.

[148] A heuristic is a practical approach to problem-solving that gets an OK result, but not necessarily the best one. Heuristics are decision-making shortcuts that reduce cognitive load when we have to deal with complex or unfamiliar situations. For example, a property investor might simplify a buying decision to, ‘If I believe I can get 20% return over five years, I invest.’

[149] Cara Giaimo, ‘The Case of the Disappearing Cicadas’. New York Times, 19 May 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/science/brood-x-cicadas.html

[150] Entry for ‘Empathy’ in Sara D. Hodges and Michael W. Myers, Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. Sage, 2007. https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/socialpsychology/n179.xml

[151] Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things. Random House, 1997.

[152] Sonia Zaccoletti, Gianmarco Altoè and Lucia Mason, ‘The interplay of reading‐related emotions and updating in reading comprehension performance’. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 26 October 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12324

[153] David Simpson, ‘Lying, Liars and Language’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 52, no. 3, 1992: 623–639. https://doi.org/10.2307/2108211

[154] Pamela Meyer, ‘10 Ways Liars Use Words To Obscure the Truth’. http://liespotting.com/liespotting-basics/words/

[155] This tactic is known as ‘topic shift’; the liar avoids answering a question by talking about something relevant but slightly different. See Chao Hu, Jinhao Huang, Qiandong Wang, Ethan Weare and Genyue Fu, ‘Truthful but Misleading: Advanced Linguistic Strategies for Lying Among Children’. Frontiers in Psychology, 24 April 2020. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00676

[156] Rolf Reber and Norbert Schwarz, ‘Effects of perceptual fluency on judgments of truth’. Consciousness and Cognition: An International Journal, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1006/ccog.1999.0386

[157] Chai M. Tyng, Hafeez U. Amin, Mohamad N. M. Saad and Aamir S. Malik, ‘The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory’. Frontiers in Psychology, 24 August 2007. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454/full

[158] University of California, Los Angeles, ‘Putting Feelings Into Words Produces Therapeutic Effects In The Brain.’ ScienceDaily, 22 June 2007. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070622090727.htm

[159] Eric Berne, Games People Play. Grove Press, 1964.

[160] Jack Brehm, A Theory of Psychological Reactance, 1966. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1967-08061-000

[161] Tobias Reynolds-Tylus, ‘Psychological Reactance and Persuasive Health Communication: A Review of the Literature’. Frontiers in Communication, 2019. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00056

[162] C.H. Miller, ‘Persuasion and psychological reactance: the effects of explicit, high-controlling language’. In R. Schulze and H. Pishwa (eds), The Exercise of Power in Communication, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

[163] Ruvanee P. Vilhauer, ‘Inner reading voices: An overlooked form of inner speech.’ Psychosis, 29 April 2015. https://doi.org/10.1080/17522439.2015.1028972

[164] This is another one of Robert Cialdini’s principles of persuasion (op. cit.).

[165] Robert Booth, ‘“An insult”: fury at claim ministers did all they could in Covid crisis’. The Guardian, 27 January 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/27/health-experts-bereaved-shocked-johnson-defence-uk-covid-crisis-handling

[166] Taly Reich and Sam J. Maglio, ‘Featuring Mistakes: The Persuasive Impact of Purchase Mistakes in Online Reviews’. Journal of Marketing, 23 October 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242919882428

[167] Elliot Aronson, Ben Willerman and Joanne Floyd, ‘The effect of a pratfall on increasing interpersonal attractiveness’. Psychonomic Science, 1966. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03342263

[168] Casey Miller and Kate Swift, The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing. The Women’s Press Ltd, 1995.

[169] Martin Cutts, Oxford Guide to Plain English. OUP, 2020.

[170] David Hauser, ‘The war on prevention II: Battle metaphors undermine cancer treatment and prevention and do not increase vigilance’. PsyArXiv, 4 August 2019. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/a6bvd

[171] Since the 14th century, to be precise. See the entry for ‘they’ in the Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, 2013. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/200700

[173] Richard E. Petty and John T. Cacioppo, ‘The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion’. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, December 1986. 19: 123–205. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270271600_The_Elaboration_Likelihood_Model_of_Persuasion

[174] If you want to know more about the other type of writing, read my book Copywriting Made Simple. ABC Business Communications, 2018. https://www.tomalbrighton.com/copywriting-made-simple/

[175] Clare Lynch, ‘This, right here, is the sole purpose of ALL business writing’. Doris and Bertie, 8 January 2021. https://www.dorisandbertie.com/goodcopybadcopy/2021/1/5/this-right-here-is-the-sole-purpose-of-all-business-writing

[176] This is called cognitive framing. We build a series of mental ‘filters’ based on biological and cultural factors, which we then use to make sense of the world. The choices we make are influenced by the frames we create. E. Goffman, Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press, 1974.

[177] Psychologists call this valence or hedonic tone. We have a sense of how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ everything is. Nico H. Frijda, The Emotions. Cambridge University Press, 1986.

[178] Tim Harford, ‘Facts v feelings: how to stop our emotions misleading us’. The Guardian, 10 September 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/10/facts-v-feelings-how-to-stop-emotions-misleading-us

[179] Ziva Kunda, ‘The Case for Motivated Reasoning’. Psychological Bulletin, November 1990. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480

[180] Molière, Les Femmes Savantes, 1672.

[181] Charles S. Taber and Milton Lodge, ‘Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs’. American Journal of Political Science, 21 June 2006. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00214.x

[182] Stephen R. Covey, 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. Simon & Schuster, 2004.

[183] Anthony G. Greenwald, ‘On Defining Attitude and Attitude Theory’, in Anthony G. Greenwald, Timothy C. Brock and Thomas M. Ostrom (eds.), Psychological Foundation of Attitude, 1968.

[184] The actual terms used are support argument, counterargument and source derogation. Peter Wright, ‘Message-Evoked Thoughts: Persuasion Research Using Thought Verbalizations’. Journal of Consumer Research, 7 September 1980. https://doi.org/10.1086/208804

[185] Authority is another of Robert C. Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion (op. cit.).

[186] Alaric Bourgoin and Nicolas Bencherki, ‘The performance of authority: How the sharing of action elicits compliance’. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2018. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2018.253

[187] Henry Mance, ‘Britain has had enough of experts, says Gove’. Financial Times, 3 June 2016. https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c

[188] James Strong, ‘Public opinion, legitimacy and Tony Blair’s war in Iraq’. Democratic Audit, 7 July 2017. https://www.democraticaudit.com/2017/07/07/long-read-public-opinion-legitimacy-and-tony-blairs-war-in-iraq/

[189] This is another of Robert C. Cialdini’s five principles of persuasion (op. cit.).

[190] Daniel J. Power and Gloria Phillips-Wren, ‘Impact of Social Media and Web 2.0 on Decision-Making’. Journal of Decision Systems, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.3166/jds.20.249-261

[191] Content posted on social media platforms belongs to the users themselves, and it can only be reused on (or by) the platform. Jean Murray, ‘How Copyright Works with Social Media’. The Balance Small Business, 23 July 2020. https://www.thebalancesmb.com/copyrights-and-social-media-issues-397821

[192] Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and James M. Cook, ‘Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks’. Annual Review of Sociology, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415

[193] See, for example, Sara Rosenthal and Kathleen McKeown, ‘Social Proof: The Impact of Author Traits on Influence Detection’, 2016. https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W16-5604.pdf

[194] The phrase originated in a cartoon strip by Arthur R. ‘Pop’ Momand that first appeared in the New York World in 1916. http://www.toonopedia.com/joneses.htm

[195] Carwow, ‘Which country is leading in the electric car race?’. 21 January 2021. https://www.carwow.co.uk/blog/which-country-is-leading-in-the-electric-car-race

[196] Alessandro Giacometto, ‘A nation apart. Why is British exceptionalism so exceptional?’ Grin, 2019. https://www.grin.com/document/502142

[197] Mohammad S. Razai, Tasnime Osama, Douglas G.J. McKechnie and Azeem Majeed, ‘Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy among ethnic minority groups’. British Medical Journal, 26 February 2021. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n513

[198] Public Health England, ‘Disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19’, 11 August 2020. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/908434/Disparities_in_the_risk_and_outcomes_of_COVID_August_2020_update.pdf

[199] Allan M. Brandt, ‘Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study’. The Hastings Center Report, 1978. https://doi.org/10.2307/3561468

[200] Mohammad S. Razai, Hadyn K.N. Kankam, Azeem Majeed, Aneez Esmail and David R. Williams, ‘Mitigating ethnic disparities in covid-19 and beyond’. British Medical Journal, 15 January 2021. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4921

[201] V.N. Gamble, ‘Under the shadow of Tuskegee: African Americans and health care’. American Journal of Public Health, 7 October 2011. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.87.11.1773

[202] Dr Sylvia Kama-Kieghe, ‘How GPs can tackle vaccine hesitancy in BAME communities’. GP, 22 February 2021. https://www.gponline.com/gps-tackle-vaccine-hesitancy-bame-communities/article/1707882

[203] Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Penguin, 2012.

[204] Carl Hovland, Irving Janis and Harold Kelley, Communication and persuasion; psychological studies of opinion change. Cambridge University Press, 1953.

[205] Leslie Baxter, ‘A dialectical perspective on communication strategies in relationship development’, in S. Duck (ed.), Handbook of personal relationships, 1988; Barbara Montgomery, ‘A Dialectical Analysis of the Tensions, Functions and Strategic Challenges of Communication in Young Adult Friendships’, in James A. Anderson (ed.), Communication Yearbook 12, 1988.

[206] Amos Tversky and Eldar Shafir, ‘The Disjunction Effect in Choice under Uncertainty’. Psychological Science, September 1992. https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1467-9280.1992.tb00678.x

[207] Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz, ‘If It’s Hard to Read, It’s Hard to Do: Processing Fluency Affects Effort Prediction and Motivation’. Psychological Science, 1 October 2008. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02189.x

[208] Ralph Hertwig, Stefan M. Herzog, Lael J. Schooler and Torsten Reimer, ‘Fluency heuristic: a model of how the mind exploits a by-product of information retrieval’. Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition, September 2008. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18763900/

[209] Turns out this is true – as long as you’re walking quite briskly. Georgia James, ‘Jogging Is Less Tiring Than Brisk Walking (And 9 More Reasons To Take Up Running)’. Huffington Post, 9 January 2012. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/09/10-benefits-of-running_n_1194376.html

[210] Angela Cooke-Jackson and Valerie Rubinsky, ‘Deeply Rooted in Memories: Toward a Comprehensive Overview of 30 Years of Memorable Message Literature’. Health Communication, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2016.1278491

[211] Mat Zucker, ‘Political Campaign Slogans: The Other Advertising’. Forbes, 7 September 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/matzucker/2020/09/07/campaign-slogans

[212] https://www.stroke.org.uk/what-is-stroke/what-are-the-symptoms-of-stroke

[213] Particularly before the age of 12. Karolina Janacsek, József Fiser and Dezso Nemeth, ‘The Best Time to Acquire New Skills: Age-related Differences in Implicit Sequence Learning across Human Life Span’. Development Science, 5 April 2012. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01150.x

[214] From Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), dir. George Lucas.

[215] Stephen Paul Forrest and Tim O. Peterson, ‘It’s Called Andragogy’. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 30 November 2017. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2006.20388390

[216] ‘To Teletubby or not to Teletubby…’. Independent, 23 October 2011. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/teletubby-or-not-teletubby-1235645.html

[217] B.K. Bromage and R.E. Mayer, ‘Quantitative and qualitative effects of repetition on learning from technical text’. Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 78 no. 4, 1986. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.78.4.271

[218] This is known as the illusory truth effect. Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein and Thomas Toppino, ‘Frequency and the Conference of Referential Validity’. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1977. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(77)80012-1

[219] Rocco Palumbo, Alberto Di Domenico, Beth Fairfield and Nicola Mammarella, ‘When twice is better than once: increased liking of repeated items influences memory in younger and older adults’. BMC Psychology, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-021-00531-8

[220] Posted on LinkedIn and used here by permission.

[221] Peter A. Cohen, James A. Kulik and Chen-Lin C. Kulik, ‘Educational Outcomes of Tutoring: A Meta-analysis of Findings’. American Educational Research Journal, 1982. https://doi.org/10.3102%2F00028312019002237

[222] George Loewenstein, ‘The psychology of curiosity: A review and reinterpretation’. Psychological Bulletin, 1994. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.116.1.75

[223] Jordan Litman, ‘Curiosity and the pleasures of learning: Wanting and liking new information’. Cognition and Emotion, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930541000101

[224] Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. Putnam Adult, 1979.

[225] Creating a storyline, however silly or absurd, can be a good way to remember things. See Ed Cooke, ‘How narratives can aid memory’. The Guardian, 15 January 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/15/story-lines-facts

[226] One theory is that the stones symbolise sterility, so the wolf’s predation is punished with castration. Or perhaps the wolf, Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood are three different aspects of the same person? Alan Dundes (ed.), Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook. University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.

[227] Nesrine Malik, ‘If nothing sticks to this government, it’s because nobody is making it stick’. The Guardian, 31 May 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/31/nothing-sticks-to-this-government-dominic-cummings

[228] Keith Oatley, Such Stuff as Dreams: The Psychology of Fiction. Wiley, 2011.

[229] J.D. Lasica, ‘Do Stories Have a Universal Shape?’, 2 February 2021. https://www.janefriedman.com/do-stories-have-a-universal-shape/

[230] See, for example, Sujan Patel, ‘11 Companies That Are Killing It With Brand-Driven Storytelling’. https://sujanpatel.com/marketing/7-companies-killing-brand-driven-storytelling/

[231] Tunku Saraa-Zawyah, Tunku Badli and Mariam Adawiah Dzulkifli, ‘The Effect of Humour and Mood on Memory Recall’. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 6 November 2013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.230

[232] Hwiman Chung and Xinshu Zhao, ‘Humour effect on memory and attitude: moderating role of product involvement’. International Journal of Advertising, 6 January 2015. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2003.11072842

[233] Press Association, ‘Behold Workie, “physical embodiment of the workplace pension”’. The Guardian, 21 October 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/21/workie-workplace-pension-dwp

[234] Dialogue from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Pan, 1980.

[235] Lumen Learning, ‘Ancient Egyptian Art’. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory/chapter/ancient-egyptian-art/

[236] Jan Krikke, ‘Why the world relies on a Chinese “perspective”’. Medium, 2 January 2018. https://jankrikke2020.medium.com/why-the-world-relies-on-a-chinese-perspective-cf3122caf67f and Jonathan Janson, ‘The History of Perspective’. http://www.essentialvermeer.com/technique/perspective/history.html

[237] Margaret Wertheim, ‘The Illusionistic Magic of Geometric Figuring’. Cabinet, Summer 2007. https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/26/wertheim.php

[238] The truth is both alarming and depressing. See Oliver Franklin-Wallis, ‘“Plastic recycling is a myth”: what really happens to your rubbish?’ The Guardian, 17 August 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-your-rubbish

[239] Slogan used by the European Greens for Biodiversity Day in 2019. https://twitter.com/europeangreens/status/1131206021135912960

[240] Harald Weinreich, Hartmut Obendorf, Eelco Herder and Matthias Mayer, ‘Not quite the average: an empirical study of web use’. ACM Transactions on the Web, vol. 2, no. 1, February 2008. https://doi.org/10.1145/1326561.1326566

[241] Nick DiLallo, ‘This is good UX writing’. UX Collective, 22 September 2020. https://uxdesign.cc/this-is-good-ux-writing-10c4b956a6c3

[242] Kara Pernice, ‘Text Scanning Patterns: Eyetracking Evidence’. Nielsen Norman Group, 25 August 2019. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/text-scanning-patterns-eyetracking/

[243] Kara Pernice, ‘Scanning Patterns on the Web Are Optimized for the Current Task’. Nielsen Norman Group, 19 March 2017. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/eyetracking-tasks-efficient-scanning/

[244] Kara Pernice, ‘F-Shaped Pattern of Reading on the Web: Misunderstood, But Still Relevant (Even on Mobile)’. Nielsen Norman Group, 12 November 2017. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/

[245] Sandy Lim, ‘Writing effective, user-centered content’. Humaan, 17 August 2018. https://humaan.com/blog/writing-effective-user-centered-content/

[246] Kate Moran, ‘Reading Content on Mobile Devices’. Nielsen Norman Group, 11 December 2016. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-content/

[247] See, for example: Sarah Winters, ‘Frequently asked questions (FAQs)’. Content Design London, 23 December 2014. https://contentdesign.london/content-design/frequently-asked-questions-faqs/

[248] Interaction Design Foundation, ‘Gestalt Principles’. https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/gestalt-principles

[249] Karlos Luna, Marlene Nogueira and Pedro B. Albuquerque, ‘Words in larger font are perceived as more important: explaining the belief that font size affects memory’. Memory, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2018.1529797

[250] University of Cambridge, ‘Decision Support Tools: 2x2 Matrix’. https://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/research/dstools/2x2-matrix/

[251] See, for example, Edward Tufte, ‘PowerPoint is Evil’. Wired, 1 September 2003. Now available at https://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/HO_SNOW_2014_PowerPoint-Is-Evil.pdf

[252] Alaric Bourgoin and Fabian Muniesa, ‘Building a Rock-Solid Slide: Management Consulting, PowerPoint, and the Craft of Signification’. Management Communication Quarterly, 9 February 2016. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318916629562

[253] W3C Web Accessibility Tutorials: Images. https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/

[254] T.A. Daniel and A.L. Camp, ‘Emojis affect processing fluency on social media’. Psychology of Popular Media, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000219

[255] Esme Cribb, ‘Study: When to Use Emojis (and When to Avoid Them)’. Contently, 18 November 2015. https://contently.com/2015/11/18/study-when-to-use-emojis-and-when-to-avoid-them/

[256] Vyvyan Evans, ‘Emojis actually make our language better’. New York Post, 12 August 2017. https://nypost.com/2017/08/12/emojis-actually-make-our-language-way-better/

[257] Ella Glikson, Arik Cheshin and Gerben A. van Kleef, ‘The Dark Side of a Smiley: Effects of Smiling Emoticons on Virtual First Impressions’. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 31 July 2017. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617720269

[258] Esme Cribb, ibid.

[259] Sean Peek, ‘Put a Smiley on It: Should You Use Emojis in Business Communication?’. Business.com, 8 May 2020. https://www.business.com/articles/put-an-emoji-on-it-should-you-use-emojis-in-business-communication/

[260] David Anderson, Matthew Stuart, Mark Abadi and Shayanne Gal, ‘5 everyday hand gestures that can get you in serious trouble outside the US’. Business Insider, 5 January 2019. https://www.businessinsider.com/hand-gestures-offensive-different-countries-2018-6?r=US&IR=T

[262] Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. Faber & Faber, 2011.

[263] See the Twitter thread by @mytholder at https://twitter.com/mytholder/status/1320701372900192258, which summarises points from the 12-volume History of Middle-earth series by Christopher Tolkien (originally published 1983–1996).

[264] Philip Fernbach and Steven Sloman, The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone. Picador, 2017.

[265] Douglas Adams and Geoffrey Perkins (ed.), The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts. Pan Books, 1985: 8.

[266] E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel. Edward Arnold, 1927.

[267] From the screenplay of Dune (1984), written and directed by David Lynch. Herbert’s original dialogue reads, ‘Knowing where the trap is – that’s the first step in evading it.’ Frank Herbert, Dune. Chilton Books, 1965.

[268] Chris Black, ‘The Reply Guys Are More Online Than Ever’. GQ, 14 May 2020. https://www.gq.com/story/coronavirus-reply-guys

[269] Rasan Burhan and Jalal Moradzadeh, ‘Neurotransmitter Dopamine (DA) and its Role in the Development of Social Media Addiction’. Journal of Neurology & Neurophysiology, 2020. https://www.iomcworld.org/open-access/neurotransmitter-dopamine-da-and-its-role-in-the-development-of-social-media-addiction-59222.html

[270] This is probably inevitable, due to the physical effects of ageing. Heather Walker, ‘What Causes the Brain to Have Slow Processing Speed, and How Can the Rate Be Improved?’ Scientific American, March 1 2014. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-causes-the-brain-to-have-slow-processing-speed-and-how-can-the-rate-be-improved/

[271] Cannell, who had his own TV studio, was determined to be regarded as a writer rather than a showbiz mogul. There were several variants of his logo over the years.

[272] Yiren Kong, Young Sik Seo and Ling Zhaia, ‘Comparison of reading performance on screen and on paper: A meta-analysis’. Computers & Education, August 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.05.005

[273] See the ‘micro-interview’ with copywriter Eddie Shleyner of Very Good Copy at https://www.verygoodcopy.com/microinterviews-2/ann-handley

[274] Hemingway never drank while writing. William Faulkner, who sometimes did, is also supposed to have said something similar. See Quote Investigator, ‘Write Drunk, Revise Sober’. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/09/21/write-drunk/

[275] Research backs this up: alcohol seems to enhance some phases of the creative process, while inhibiting others. Torsten Norlander, ‘Inebriation and Inspiration? A Review of the Research on Alcohol and Creativity’. Journal of Creative Behavior, 22 December 2011. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1999.tb01036.x The evidence for cannabis is less conclusive, suggesting it makes people feel creative, but without necessarily enhancing their ideas. Mikael A. Kowal et al., ‘Cannabis and creativity: highly potent cannabis impairs divergent thinking in regular cannabis users’. Psychopharmacology, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-014-3749-1

[276] Jean-Christophe Napias and Patrick Mauriès (eds), The World According to Coco: The Wit and Wisdom of Coco Chanel. Thames and Hudson, 2020.

[277] Tom Meyvis and Heeyoung Yoon, ‘Adding is favoured over subtracting in problem solving’. Nature, 7 April 2021. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00592-0

[278] Psychologists call this the endowment effect. It’s why you find it so hard to throw away all that junk in your garage, even though you have no use for it and would never buy it today.

[279] For example, people overvalue computer passwords they’ve created themselves, even when it compromises their security to keep on using them. Karen Renaud, Robert Otondo and Merrill Warkentin, ‘“This is the way ‘I’ create my passwords” ... does the endowment effect deter people from changing the way they create their passwords?’. Computers & Security, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2018.12.018

[280] Many others have said something similar, but he seems to have been the first. Arthur Quiller-Couch, On the Art of Writing, 1914. https://www.bartleby.com/190/

[281] Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Scribner, 2000.

[282] Michael D. Shear and Peter Baker, ‘Biden Seeks Quick Start With Executive Actions and Aggressive Legislation’. New York Times, 16 January 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/16/us/politics/biden-administration-executive-action-legislation.html

[283] Karen Schriver, Annetta L. Cheek and Melodee Mercer, ‘The research basis of plain language techniques: Implications for establishing standards’. Clarity no. 63, May 2010.

[284] Repeated reading has been shown to improve both recall and comprehension. Bruce K. Bromage and Richard E. Mayer, ‘Quantitative and qualitative effects of repetition on learning from technical text’. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1986. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.78.4.271

[285] Because of the availability heuristic, or availability bias. We think that if we can remember something easily, it must be important.

[286] The principle of liking, another of Robert B. Cialdini’s five principles of persuasion (op. cit.).

[287] Because of the Von Restorff effect. When we see a group of similar things where one stands out, we remember the one that’s different. Hedwig von Restorff, (1933). ‘Über die Wirkung von Bereichsbildungen im Spurenfeld’ [The effects of field formation in the trace field]. Psychologische Forschung [Psychological Research], 1933. https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF02409636

[288] Negativity bias. We let one piece of bad news crowd out a hundred pieces of good news.

[289] Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Weatherhill, 1970.

[290] C.S. Lewis says this in Nicholson’s play Shadowlands, 1989.

[291] E.M. Forster, Howards End. Edward Arnold, 1910.

About The Author

Tom Albrighton

Tom Albrighton has been a freelance copywriter for over 15 years.

In that time, he’s written about everything from cupcakes and cameras to spectacles and solar panels, working for household names like Prudential, Jeyes and Fuji, as well as dozens of small businesses and marketing agencies.

Tom was an original co-founder of ProCopywriters, the UK alliance of commercial writers. In a 2015 DMA survey, he was ranked the #7 ‘Copywriter rated by copywriters’.

His other books are Copywriting Made Simple, The Freelance Introvert and Cash Money Freelancing.

Learn more at http://www.tomalbrighton.com.

Books By This Author

Copywriting Made Simple

"This book is gold" - "Excellent introduction" - "I love this book" - "So easy to read" - "Absolute must-have" - "Buy it now"

Copywriting is writing with purpose.
It’s about using words to reach people and change what they think, feel and do.

This easy-to-read guide will teach you all the essentials of copywriting, from understanding products, readers and benefits to closing the sale.

It’s packed with real-life examples that will show you exactly how the ideas and techniques will work in the real world. And with dozens of useful illustrations and diagrams, Copywriting Made Simple shows you the ideas that other books just talk about.

Plus there's a whole chapter of handy tips on writing ads, websites, broadcast media, direct mail, social media and print.

Copywriting Made Simple is the perfect introduction to copywriting today. No wonder it hit the #1 spot in Marketing & Sales at Amazon UK, Canada and Australia, and is featured on the BA Advertising course at the University for the Creative Arts.

What you’ll learn…

Understand the product and its benefits
• Pinpoint how the product helps people.
• Turn features into benefits and seek out USPs.
• Identify tangible and intangible benefits.

Get to know your reader
• Uncover your reader’s inner fears and desires.
• Use empathy to get inside the reader’s feelings.
• Decide how your copy will change how they think, feel or act.
• Capture your aims in the brief.

Engage the reader in your message
• Talk to the reader and make your copy more like a conversation.
• Use the same words that the reader uses.
• Bring the product to life with rich, sensory language.
• Make your copy active, positive and specific.

Craft compelling copy
• Learn eight proven formulas for enticing headlines.
• Choose a rock-solid structure.
• Create powerful calls to action

Use 20 proven strategies for creative copy
• Show the product in a new light.
• Use humour, wordplay, metaphors and contrasts.
• Turn weakness into strength.

Make persuasion and psychology work for you
• Learn the six proven principles of persuasion.
• Overcome the reader’s objections.
• Exploit cognitive biases to nudge the reader into action.

What industry experts say…
'Where was this book when I started copywriting? A must for every newbie copywriter (and a few old copy dogs too).'
Kate Toon, Co-host of the Hot Copy Podcast

'Impressively thorough without ever losing its rhythm. Deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the copywriting classics.'
Ryan Wallman, author of Delusions of Brandeur

‘Tom’s put a lifetime of learning into this book.’
Dave Trott, Creative legend, agency founder and author of Creative Mischief, One and One Make Three and Predatory Thinking

‘From insights gleaned from NLP and psychology to real-world examples of great, effective copy - this is educational, entertaining and energetic. Prepare to dig deep, enjoy and see your results skyrocket!’
Katherine Wildman, Host, The Writing Desk

‘Tom has written the best all-round introduction to copywriting available today.’
Leif Kendall, Director of ProCopywriters, copywriter and author of Brilliant Freelancer

‘I didn’t think you could teach copywriting. Turns out, @tomcopy can. What a terrific book.’
Doug Kessler, Creative Director & Co-founder of Velocity

The Freelance Introvert

"Changed my life" - "Essential reading" - "Easy and enjoyable read" – "Highly recommended (even if you're not an introvert!)"

Are you an introvert?
If you're happy in your own company most of the time, have just a few really close friends and prefer to work alone, the answer is probably yes.

Introverts find external stimulation overwhelming, so they look for ways to retreat from it. A situation that’s easy or fun for one person can be way too much for an introvert.

That's fine as long as they have a choice. But that can change when they go to work.

Modern working styles like open-plan offices, brainstorming and teamwork can be really hard on introverts. The hands-on work is OK, but the emotional labour of working with others can be draining.

Freelancing offers introverts a way out – a chance to work alone, control their workload and create their own workspace. It can be ideal.

However, it also takes work.

Going freelance means running a one-person business. It means setting direction, organizing your schedule and setting priorities. It means hustling for work and setting prices. And it means building a network that will offer vital support.

Doing all that is hard enough for anyone - but particularly for introverts. To make a success of freelancing, you'll need to learn some new skills, push yourself to meet some challenges and build up your confidence.

The Freelance Introvert will show you how to make that happen. It will teach you all about creating and managing your freelance business, from setting aims and getting set up to time management, working with clients and marketing.

Written by Tom Albrighton - author, veteran freelancer, ProCopywriters co-founder and a confirmed introvert - The Freelance Introvert is the book you need for the life you want.

What you’ll learn…

Getting started
• How to tell if you're an introvert
• Why work is tough on introverts, and how freelancing can help
• Why introversion is a strength, not a weakness
• Choosing your future
• Deciding what you want
• Identifying all your skills and qualities
• Building your freelance work
• Identifying your clients
• Setting an earnings target

Getting set up
• Getting the right workspace and equipment
• Taking care of your physical and mental health
• Building a network of collaborators and suppliers
• Setting boundaries – physical, temporal and psychological
Managing your time
• The three time horizons you need to watch
• How to steer clear of 'time suckers'
• How to balance exploration and exploitation

Working with clients
• What makes a good client?
• Why saying 'no' is so important - and how to do it
• How to spot rogue clients
• What to do when clients move on

Marketing yourself
• The best ways to find new clients
• Building a marketing mix that works for you
• Creating your website, testimonials and personal pitch
• How to survive a networking event

Setting and agreeing prices
• How to shoot for the top of the 'deal zone'
• How to set and frame your prices
• How to stop self-sabotaging when quoting for work

Building your confidence
• How to build confidence
• When to go beyond your comfort zone
• Understanding your explanatory style
• How to overcome impostor syndrome
• Choosing self-supporting beliefs
• Letting go of self-limiting beliefs

You can build a thriving freelance career and enjoy the lifestyle you want without changing who you are. And The Freelance Introvert will show you how.

Cash Money Freelancing

"A true gift to every freelancer" - "Highly recommended" - "Refreshing, practical, and inspirational" - "So much fun to read" - "Packed with good, solid advice" - "Any freelancer would benefit from this book"

So, you've gone freelance. And you're making a living. But have you made yourself a life?

Freelancing should set you free. But for some, it's more like a prison sentence - because they just don't make enough money.

Cash Money Freelancing will show you how to turn your freelance business into a bona fide money-making machine.

It's packed with ideas to turbo-charge your freelancing, from setting your goals through to making better deals, earning higher fees and exploring new ways to grow.

Here's what you'll learn…

Understanding work, wealth and money mind
• What does wealth mean to you? (It's more than just money…)
• Why you need a 'money mind' as well as a 'work mind'
• Why 'just doing the work' isn't enough
• Why earning more money needn't mean tossing your principles overboard

Setting direction
• Knowing your purpose
• How to set an earnings target
• Why you have to leave your past behind
• Identifying your ideal client
• Why you need to build a financial cushion

Setting and presenting your prices
• How to understand the unique value you offer
• The best ways to charge - and what you should charge for
• Why precedents are so powerful - and profitable
• How to present your prices more persuasively

Negotiating deals like a pro
• Why you need to keep emotion out of negotiations
• How to set your topline and baseline prices
• Knowing your best alternative to a deal - and your prospect's
• Why introductory discounts and free samples make no sense

Proven techniques for increasing your rates
• Why you have to charge more - not just work more
• How to charge more to new and existing clients
• Should you keep pace with inflation - or just double your rates overnight?

Ways to be more entrepreneurial
• Build a menu of service packages to help clients buy from you
• Work on retainer or sell service subscriptions
• Specialize, semi-specialize or generalize?
• Get some help by buddying up or delegating
• Broaden your business by diversifying or moving along the value chain.

If you've got the skills, the work and the clients, but your freelance business still isn't jumping the way it should, Cash Money Freelancing has the answers you need. It's like a double espresso for your freelance business!