I could have also titled this post, “Make Your Words Count and Make Sure to Count Your Words”.
Oftentimes we we write too much for fear that we’ll look lazy if a document is too short. On the opposite end, too much is just excess. As a refresher, I read an article on succinct writing today and thought I’d share it. I’ll list out the top tips directly from the article and if you have a few more minutes go right to the source and read the entire article.
The tips here were taken from Jon Franklin’s book “Writing for Story: Craft Secrets of Dramatic Nonfiction,” published in 1986. Jon was a writer for the Baltimore Sun. Regardless of the time of writing you’re doing, there tips can help make your writing stronger.
1. Pick your spots. Not every story deserves the feature treatment, and in corporate communications, the list is even shorter. The story must be worth the time and effort, for the writer as well as the audience, Franklin tells us.
2. Find the complication and the tension. The elements of a good feature are a person, typically a sympathetic one, who encounters a problem (the complication) and works to overcome obstacles (the tension) to solve it.
3. Begin with the resolution and work backwards. Most news stories are endings without beginnings attached. The feature story focuses more on what it took to get to that end. As Franklin writes, “While many complications don’t have resolutions, resolutions almost always have complications.”
Too many corporate stories begin and end with a resolution: a new CEO is hired, a company engineer wins a major award, an organization holds a press conference to announce a breakthrough or a new product. Those are news stories; how we got there is a feature.
4. Outline before you write, but not the way you were taught. Franklin hated the outline format most of us learned in school, with all those Roman numerals and letters. He called it the “English Teacher’s Revenge.”
His approach is far simpler and forces you to think your story through: Take a complication—a design flaw, a supply chain issue, a crisis—and tell the story of how it developed and how it was solved.
5. Write the lede last. In a news story, the lede is, well, the news. In the inverted pyramid style, you’ll get everything you need in those first few paragraphs. Features are quite the opposite. Franklin writes, “Beginning at the beginning of a story is like trying to aim a spaceship at a particular crater and having it hit the target without even knowing what or where it is.”
In 2019, Pittsburgh International Airport opened a sensory room for children and adults with autism and other sensory sensitivities. Here’s a news story about the trend in airports and a feature about the airport’s new “quiet place.”
6. A rough draft is not a product, but a process. Writing a first, or rough draft of a feature story doesn’t mean it’s a sloppy version of the story. Focus on the organization of the piece. Are the sections of the story in the right order? Does each have a beginning, middle and end? And does each section lead you to the next?
7. Stories should flow, but not like calm rivers. A smooth flow from beginning to end would be boring. Stories should rise and fall. In a corporate profile, it’s not about how the CEO went to an Ivy League school, won some awards and got hired to run the firm.
No one’s life is a straight line. There are twists and turns along the way, the proverbial forks in the road, and the boulders that block the path. That’s where the stories live. Tell a few of those, to show how your subject’s current position and outlook were shaped by their experiences, good and bad.
8. Throw stuff away. We all tend to fall in love with our words. They’re ours, after all, and they’re beautiful. But do they help to advance the story or get in the way? Readers want to know that your cleverness will help them understand the resolution of the story.
I agree with all his tips, but #8 is oftentimes the most difficult. Don’t be afraid to cut words that don’t matter.