Episodes

(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 … [Read more...] about How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 6: The Case of the Murdered Modifiers

(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 … [Read more...] about How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 5: An Ancient Lesson in Three Acts

(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. One of the most common weaknesses of amateur writing is its lack of a … [Read more...] about How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 4: Flip Your Pyramid

Also published at Huffington Post. In part 1 and part 2 of this series, I talked about the power of choosing a good angle. Now, we'll look at how to put that angle to use, via what I call The One Point Rule: 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 … [Read more...] about How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 3: The One Point Rule

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: You … [Read more...] about How to Write Both Fast & Well, Part 2: Know What the Heck You Mean