Audition your words to go in, not out
When Lynn Wylie, aka Best Sister Ever, sent me an Unfancy blog post arguing that all you need to look great every day is a capsule wardrobe of 37 items per season, I scoffed.… Read the full article
Writing workshops, communication consulting and writing services
When Lynn Wylie, aka Best Sister Ever, sent me an Unfancy blog post arguing that all you need to look great every day is a capsule wardrobe of 37 items per season, I scoffed.… Read the full article
Before you start writing, find your focus. Summarize your story angle in:
Say your biggest prospect joins you on the elevator in the lobby.… Read the full article
Writers measure copy in words, inches or pages. Readers use a different measure: time.
So instead of using writer-centric measures, think like your reader.… Read the full article
Here’s a famous story among persuasion researchers and Malcolm Gladwell fans:
When a researcher offered shoppers 24 types of jam, many customers stopped by for a sample, but only 3% made a purchase.… Read the full article
The more information you have, the better decisions you can make, right?
Wrong.
Yes, your digital marketing messages are more likely to climb higher in search results when the length of your content is 1,000 words or more.… Read the full article
Size does matter.
The longer your story, the less of it your readers will read — and the less likely they are to understand and act on it.… Read the full article
In The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee shares this tiny tale:
“In 2005, a man diagnosed with multiple myeloma asked me if he would be alive to watch his daughter graduate from high school in a few months.… Read the full article
Talk about brief: The New York Times packs 13 stories onto its briefs page, called The (One-Page) Magazine.
Notice the combination of:
How brief are your briefs?… Read the full article
Last month, in honor of Students First’s six-word essay contest to best describe what it means to be a great teacher, we asked readers to send us their writing tips in six words.… Read the full article
When Don Murray arrived in the newsroom for his first day on the job as writing coach for the Boston Globe, he turned to his new boss and said: “I can tell you who your three best writers are.”… Read the full article