You can’t put a process on writing!

When you think of a writer, you may imagine a tortured soul with a faraway look, wandering lonely heaths in search of inspiration.

The reality is that writing is a job like any other. And to get consistent results, you need a process. Here’s mine:

A brief, a brief, my kingdom for a brief!

You must fill in a brief before we do our Zoom call. A brief helps you organise your thoughts. You’ll need to answer questions like: What’s your goal? What does a successful project look like? What do you want to say to your reader? Can you say it in 1 sentence?

A brief also gives me a clear goal to aim for, and a clear benchmark for you to judge my work against. If you’re stuck on any part of the brief, let me know.

Zoom call

This is when we flesh out your needs and gauge our alignment.

“Gauge our alignment”? Sounds a bit New Agey! 🤭

Maybe it does. But establishing trust is the only way to make your project a success. And the only way to do that is for us to meet and chat.

Will we be a good fit? Only a Zoom can tell.

Interviews

If I write for you, then I’ll want to conduct some short interviews.

Just so we’re clear, these interviews are not the same as the brief and the Zoom call. Those tell me what your project is about. The interviews tell me how to turn your project into a piece of writing.

Who I interview depends on the project. If it’s a landing page, I might interview your best client. If it’s a blog post, I might speak to an expert. If it’s an about page, I’ll probably come to you.

Couldn’t I just do research and not bother anyone? I could. But no amount of research can replace the unique perspective of a real-world buyer, an expert, or a business owner or founder. I’m always astounded at the insights that come up. Things I would never think of. Not in a million years.

So … what about research?

Of course I do research! Tons of it – throughout the project. Especially before brainstorming and after the developmental edit. But if there is a dedicated research phase, it happens now.

Brainstorm

Now I dump my ideas on paper. I keep going until the ideas dry up. I often walk away for a while to let the ideas build up again. Then I dump some more.

There’s no sentence-making at this point. Just a frantic scribbling of words and phrases and arrows and triple underlines.

Next , I circle the related ideas. I give each circle of ideas a short, descriptive title. Then I shuffle the titles until they read like a concise version of the message you want to convey.

Next, I turn the title of each circle into a heading. And the ideas inside each circle into bullet points.

First draft

Now that we’ve got an outline, it’s time to get writing.

I open my dictation software. And then I simply speak out everything I want to say about the bullet points under each heading.

Why dictate my writing? Because natural spoken language is easy to understand. Whereas convoluted or bloated writing is not.

All writers know this. That’s why some say “Make your writing speakable!” I go further. I speak my writing. Trust me, your reader will thank you.

Leave to simmer

I always schedule other work or take a break at this stage. I want to step away from your project. I want to forget what I’ve written, so that I come back to it with fresh eyes.

Don’t worry. Studies show that my brain is still working away on your project in the background.

Now come 4 rounds of edits

  • First, I zoom out and look at the big picture. Is this block of text relevant? Does it belong here? Is anything missing? Is the connection between these blocks obvious? Have I dealt with every objection?

    I don’t make any edits as I work. I simply jot down impressions, questions and ideas. Then I add, delete and rearrange blocks of text as necessary.

  • Now I zoom in on each sentence. I read out loud, quickly, to check that I don’t stumble on any wordy bits.

    Sentence after sentence, I pull out and rearrange words to shorten and sharpen my writing. I’m on the hunt for anything that’s loose or off-topic. If a sentence doesn’t add some crucial information to the block of text, it gets mushed.

  • Next, I clear up readability and typos with Hemingway Editor and Grammarly. If a job calls for it, I also use Headline Studio, Semrush, Your Text Guru and a SERP simulator.

  • Now I read for nitty-gritty details like grammar, spelling, punctuation, typos and consistency. If a single apostrophe is straight instead of curly, I’m on it like a bee that’s just found the first flower in spring.

    Last of all, I zoom back out to check scannability. I’m looking at headings, subheadings, white space, bullet points, bold, italics – every visual clue thing helps our online reader navigate the text quickly.

Does all this sound like overkill?

It should – it is overkill. But if I write for you, there’s no guesswork. No moping around waiting for inspiration. What there is is structure. Method. A clear process that squeezes the best out of me. Every single time.

This process has evolved out of 12+ years of critical reflection and learning. Much of it is drawn from books and courses on copywriting, copy editing and creativity. But there’s a healthy dose of me in there.

Got questions?

I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s a lot to take in if you’re not used to writing. If there’s any aspect of my process you’re not sure of, my eyes and ears are yours.