Get a Fresh View of Your Writing

Perhaps the most important stage in the writing process is the “down” time: the time you’re not writing. Though you may have trouble justifying this to your boss, or to your spouse, it’s true. This important stage is the time between drafting and revising, when you should get away from your writing—for minutes, for hours, or (if possible) for days. It’s the time to take a break and change hats.

We business people usually wear two hats when we write: the writer’s rumpled fedora and the editor’s green eyeshade. Of course, they’re not really hats; they’re activities in the brain underneath.

One of those activities—occupying a big part of the brain—is the unbelievably complex job of converting ideas into hand movements. Watch it at work. You’re at your computer, writing up your travel expenses, and remembering the blue sedan you rented at O’Hare to get you around town. Your brain moves some muscles in the middle finger of your left hand, then the little finger, then the index. The word car appears on the screen.

In short, that part of your brain knows how to write—at least the mechanical operations. Call it your Internal Writer, in the rumpled fedora.

But psychologists tell us that another mental activity is also involved. It occupies the part of your brain that remembers the sedan and knows where you put the charge slip. It’s the part that knows how expense reports look and what you can include on them. It’s the part that also knows all those grammar and punctuation rules.

That part of your brain is like a newspaper editor, making assignments and reviewing the finished work. Call it your Internal Editor, in the green visor.

The biggest writing problem most of us have is trying to wear both hats at the same time. As you write a letter or memo or report, your Internal Writer has to work very hard to coordinate the muscles that form the words. But all the time it’s doing that, it also has to listen to your Internal Editor, hassling it about every word, every sentence.

And nobody hassles you like your Internal Editor does. It’s had great teachers: all the instructors and managers you’ve ever had. In fact, your Internal Editor is those instructors and managers, preserved intact in your mind long after they’ve left your life. As you write, that inner voice is always there, word by word, sentence by sentence, making you insecure about what you’re saying and how you’re saying it.

The answer: do what the pros do. Wear one hat a time. Before your Internal Writer goes to work, demand that your Internal Editor make the most complete assignment possible. In other words, use your Internal Editor to go through the “Plan” stage of the writing process, following the steps covered so far in this book:

1. Find the “We.” Identify the community to which you and your reader both belong; consider the ways you and your reader are alike and different in knowledge, attitudes, and circumstances.

2. Make Holes, Not Drills. Establish the purpose of your writing. Remember that most business writing either tells the reader about something or asks the reader to do something.

3. Get Your Stuff Together. Gather the information that you want to include in the letter, memo, or report. Decide how much goes in and how much stays out.

4. Get Your Ducks in a Row. Determine the order in which your reader should get your information. What should come first? Second? Last?

When your Internal Editor has made a complete assignment—has finished the planning stage of the process—then get him or her out of the way so your Internal Writer can work without interference.

That’s easier said than done, of course. Your Internal Editor won’t willingly shut up. But with discipline and practice, you can learn to turn off your Internal Editor while you produce the quick and dirty drafts recommended in the previous section of this book. As that section said, you can learn to “Do It Wrong the First Time.”

Then take a break. Literally, get away from your writing—overnight if possible, but at least five minutes—so that you can come back to it with a fresh perspective. That fresh perspective is important for three reasons: (1) it lets you see what you really wrote, not what you meant to write; (2) it helps you see the writing from the reader’s viewpoint, not the writer’s; and (3) it frees you from some of your ego investment in the work.

That last reason is especially important. Writing is like poker; if you think of the money you’ve put into the pot as yours, you’ll make bad betting decisions. And when you’ve invested time and effort in a piece of writing, you’re bound to be reluctant to change anything. But to be a good writer, you’ve got to lose that reluctance. Taking a break lets you fool yourself a little: “Hey, here’s that letter I’ve been putting off. Someone must have written it for me. Hmm—not bad, but not quite up to my standards. Let’s see what I can do.”

So now let your Internal Editor have a crack at the writing, always keeping the reader’s point of view in mind. For example, read these paragraphs, by a vice president for personnel at one of my client companies, a large financial firm:

I received the results from the Spring XXX examinations. I want to extend my congratulations to you for your success in passing Parts I & II. I know that to achieve this success took a special effort on your part.

I am pleased that you are interested in your personal development and have taken the initiative to improve your knowledge of the XXX business and to increase your value to the Company.

Not bad for a quick and dirty draft. But when the VP took a break and put on his editor’s hat, he realized that the letter was very “I-centered.” Each of the four sentences had “I” as the subject, as if the most important thing in the message was what the VP thought and felt. That kind of self-centeredness is very typical of first drafts; the Internal Writer knows how to write, but doesn’t know much about other people.

So the VP let his Internal Editor go to work, changing the letter’s emphasis. The result:

Congratulations on passing XXX Parts I & II. Your success reflects a special effort on your part.

Your interest in your personal development and the initiative to improve your knowledge of the XXX business certainly increase your value to the company.

While more could still be done, the letter has been greatly improved. Given the chance to work alone, the Internal Editor can do a pretty good job. So can the Internal Writer—freed from the Internal Editor’s hassling.

The rest of this book will contain sections on the revising stage of the writing process, with specific, powerful tools to help your Internal Editor improve your drafts. But even without those new tools, your Internal Editor can do good work—as long as it doesn’t have to work at the same time as your Internal Writer.

So give it a try. Wear one hat at a time. And watch your letters and memos get things done for you.

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