Dastardly Cleverness in the Service of Good | The site for people who make progress

How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 6: The Case of the Murdered Modifiers

Sherlock Holmes portrait by Sidney Paget, public domain

(Also published at Huffington Post.) “How will I ever learn to be a good writer?”

It's a scary question - and the hell of it is, the more you appreciate good writing, the scarier it gets.

But it turns out there's a non-scary answer to how to be good: just avoid being bad.

Think of it as the Sherlock Holmes technique: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” (The Sign of Four)

How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 5: An Ancient Lesson in Three Acts

Bust of Aristotle, By Copy of Lysippus (Jastrow (2006)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons-Aristotle_Altemps_Wikipedia_Public_Domain.jpg

(Also published at Huffington Post.) Last time, I showed you how to give your writing some shape by using the Inverted Pyramid format. As I said, this shape works well for news, because the reader finds more important material closer to the top. This has a downside, though: the farther you go into the piece, the less interesting it's likely to be. So it doesn't work too well when you want to build interest, such as in a story or a blog post.

To meet that challenge we can use another kind of shape, this one derived from ancient principles of drama.

How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 4: Flip Your Pyramid

Inverted Pyramid: what they care about most

(Also published at Huffington Post.) So far in this series, I've been helping you find out exactly what you want to say. I've argued that getting that right makes everything else easier, faster, and probably better.

Now I'll turn from what to say to how. The first thing to know: give your writing a shape.

How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 3: The One Point Rule

(Also published at Huffington Post.) In any one communication, you can only make one point.

Count on people forgetting everything else. That's because our minds throw away almost all new information -- by necessity, since we wouldn't be able to tote brains big enough to store a day's worth. Even the seven digits of a (US) phone number are hard to learn, requiring that we repeat them over and over to get them out of short term memory and into the long term version.*

This is why a good angle -- a simple, emotionally compelling idea -- is so important: if people are only going to remember one thing (and they are), you want it to be the right thing.

How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 2: Know What the Heck You Mean

Cloud-shaped thought bubble containing question marks

(Also published at Huffington Post.) Last time, I introduced the power of a good angle for both speeding and improving your writing. Today I'll go into more detail on how choose that angle. The most important question to ask yourself is the simplest: "What the heck am I actually trying to say?" As, it happens, this also is one of the hardest questions. That's because: (1) You must truly understand your subject. That means work, and (2) You must commit to an idea that may turn out to be wrong or unpopular. That means risk.

Creating Content Driving You Crazy? Here’s How to Write Both Fast and Well (Pt 1)

(Also published at Huffington Post.) Compared to our pre-digital forebears, we're expected to produce torrents of writing: emails, text messages, blog posts, social media, presentations.

That's because publishing all that stuff is easier than ever. The trouble is, the actual writing isn't -- especially if you care about quality.

"Easy reading is damn hard writing," as Nathaniel Hawthorne said.

So how to write both fast and well?

That'll Do, Pig: If You Care About Excellence, Stop Over-Praising

Also published at Huffington Post: In a meeting of nonprofit leaders the other day, I heard an executive praise some recent work done by his staff as "amazing" and "incredible".

I hear this kind of thing so often that, normally, it hardly registers -- it's become the equivalent of someone saying "thank you".

Inspiration on the Fly

Here's a great new tool for us creatives - Palettab - available as a Chrome extension. It works like this: Everytime you open a new tab in Chrome, a new combination of color palette and fonts appears in the browser window. If you see a color you like, simply click, and the hex number is copied to your clipboard. All the fonts are available via Google fonts. Simple to install, really easy use, find it here: Palettab

The World Isn't Flat, It's Hollow

This article is crossposted at The Huffington Post.

Back in 2005, Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat made a persuasive argument that the globe was coming together on a level playing field, thanks to the equalizing forces of technology and peaceful economic competition.

But nearly 10 years later, it looks instead like the world is falling part.

Shopping Made Psychic: No-Content Marketing Marches On

This article is crossposted at The Huffington Post.

A while back, I predicted the coming of no-content marketing: what comes next after the sheer volume of content drives its value below zero. That's the point at which we start paying to avoid content, no matter how compelling, shocking, funny, or celebrity- or puppy-laden.

That point is here.

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