Yes. I could end the article there, but I expect you’ll need a bit more convincing.
If it’s not possible to train people to write well, then it wouldn’t be possible for anyone to improve their writing. Jane Austen’s first novel, Sense and Sensibility, would have sold just as many copies as her second, Pride and Prejudice. We would hold Hilary Mantel’s first novel, Every Day Is Mother’s Day, in the same esteem as Wolf Hall. Burmese Days would spring to mind just as much as 1984 when we think of George Orwell.
Of course, objectivity will be at play. I, for one, prefer Sense and Sensibility over Pride and Prejudice. But it is a truth universally acknowledged that there are hallmarks of good writing, and people can learn them. That applies whether you’re creating a snappy marketing email or the annual report. And on a more personal level, writing skills are particularly helpful when you’re crafting an email to ask for a pay rise…
Making everyone’s writing more impactful
We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what good writing actually is. You can feel when writing is effective, because it’s a genuine joy to read or it moves you. But which techniques are doing the emotional pushing and pulling?
After several years of working together and editing each other’s work (because we can’t help ourselves), we’ve put together our own list of essential ingredients for impactful writing. They’re all centred around storytelling. We see it as a mindset that looks further than word choice alone. It’s a way of gathering your thoughts and organising them in writing to convince your reader.
We’re using these techniques to help our clients think like storytellers too. And we’ll be running some webinars and other events to share them, sign up here.
Creating brand voice ambassadors
Everyone who works for your business writes for your business. They might be emailing clients, sending quick responses to customers via a chat function, replying to complaints (always tricky), creating proposals for winning new business.
While you might be happy for people to bring elements of their own personality to messages, you will want every communication to feel like a good reflection of your brand. Tone of voice guidelines help keep everyone on track, so you don’t get one person writing like Shakespeare and another casually dropping ‘mate’ into the opener.
When created for the layperson, the guidelines themselves act as training materials. But we often run training sessions too, which help everyone get off to a great start. It’s especially helpful for people who are not au fait with writing to gain some key techniques and learn, once and for all, that exclamation marks really aren’t needed. (Unless you’re saying ‘thank you’ to someone who intimidates you.)
Tackling bad habits
If you’re managing a team and finding that you’re having to give the same feedback over and over, some training could be the remedy. It stops you nagging or being accused of getting on at people. Frame it as training and it’s something people gain.
We’ve probably come across the issue that’s irritating you and know how to weed it out. Too much detail. Longwinded sentences. Unnecessary serial commas. Dangling modifiers.
Sigh.
Training can help people iron out niggles as well as more fundamental challenges, like not stepping into the readers’ shoes to understand their priorities and perspective. Even confident writers often find they learn something too.
Can two hours with us really create a team of brilliant writers?
Writing well doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Some people will take to the writing techniques more easily than others, but everyone will be able to make small changes to make their writing more persuasive.
We see writing as an essential skill that should be democratised, so everyone has the potential to convince others through the way their present their ideas. Not everyone needs to write poetry like Plath, but we should all be able make our emails come across well and communicate what we intend.
