Three Ways to Improve Your Writing Overnight

We all want to become better writers, but sometimes it can feel like the path to becoming a better writer is a long and hard road. Not so! In this episode of the Writing Momentum podcast, Chris and Gena discuss three key points they’ve learned over the years that can make your writing better–overnight!

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episode 67 transcription:

[00:00:00] Gena: Hi, and welcome to the Writing Momentum Podcast. I'm Gena Maselli, and I'm here with my husband, Christopher Maselli. 

[[00:00:15] Christopher: Hey, yo! 

[[00:00:16] Gena: We are talking today about three ways to improve your writing overnight. 

[00:00:22] Christopher: Oh boy, can I use this? I'm ready for that. I want to be a better writer by tomorrow. 

[00:00:27] Gena: Better writer by tomorrow. That's the promise. And I think we can deliver. 

[00:00:32] Christopher: I think we can deliver. It really is funny how there are things when it comes to your writing that can make dramatic improvements just in a very short time, just by having the knowledge of it in your head as you're writing. And that's what we're gonna talk about today, are a few things that we have noticed, whether you're writing a book or you're writing an article or you're writing even a technical document, whatever you're writing, this can help improve your writing. These things can 

[00:01:00] in a very short time if you keep them in your mind while you're writing. 

[00:01:03] Gena: Absolutely. We're gonna jump right into the first one, and we're going to talk about. Working on your lead. Now your lead is your introduction. It's the 

[[00:01:13] Christopher: The opening. 

[00:01:14] Gena: The opening for your piece. And here's the thing, I don't have the statistic right in front of me, but the truth is that when you write, you have seconds. And I'm saying less than 10 seconds to grab a reader.

[00:01:27] Christopher: I wanna say it's three seconds really, that you have. Most people will glance at an article and they'll their eyes will brush across those first couple sentences, and if you don't grab them right away, they're moving on. 

[00:01:39] Gena: And here's the truth, it is getting shorter because we are living in a more digital world where people are reading quickly on their phones and tablets.

[00:01:48] Gena: And just, they're bombarded with digital material, they are making more, they're making quicker decisions about what they're going to spend their [00:02:00] time looking at. And so you really, when you're writing your lead, need to sharpen it in such a way that you can really grab their attention very quickly.

[[00:02:11] Christopher: Okay. So how we do that? 

[00:02:12] Gena: How do we do that? First of all, I would say when you are writing your lead, write your lead. I usually write my lead when I first begin a piece because I can't really get going on my piece. I know there are people that say, I don't write the lead until I'm completely done and I come back and do it.

[00:02:28] Gena: That's not really how I write. Is that how you write? 

[00:02:30] Christopher: No I think you have to have something down as your lead, as you're opening, because it helps focus you too on what you're writing. But here's the key. Always go back and rewrite it because when you write that article or you write that book, whatever you're writing, it will change the way you perceive what's in that lead.

[00:02:50] Christopher: By the time you finish it. So you're always gonna go back and rework it, but do put something down a direction you're going to go. So let's use an example. Let's say we're 

[00:03:00] writing an article, let's say, about how to teach an old dog new tricks. Okay? So what you want to do is, in that lead, you want to let people know that what you're gonna do is write about how to teach an old dog new tricks, right?

[00:03:14] Christopher: And you might, you are. Better language than that is gonna be more, have more flourish to it. But you want to reemphasize the fact after the title that this is what they're gonna learn in this article. 

[00:03:25] Gena: And you want to draw people in. There are some pretty typical ways that you can do that. One is with a statistic, one is with a quote that relates to what you're talking about. You can create a vignette, where you're creating this word picture, you can tell a story. I love to do stories, especially if I'm really getting somebody into something. If I can put a story in there, something that makes them feel like they're relating to me as an author or as a writer.

[00:03:52] Gena: And even if I'm doing a ghost written piece, I try to find that story from that person that I'm writing for. Something to make them 

[[00:04:00] relatable. To make people feel that connection. 

[00:04:03] Christopher: That's the key here is the relatability. You want people to feel connected to your article right away. You wanna establish that rapport with the reader.

[00:04:11] Christopher: So if you're talking about how to teach an old dog new tricks, you might bring in that feeling of how much you love your dog and you want the dog to be able to do great tricks, that sort of thing. Or, whatever it is that make good, makes that reader connect with you, that's what you want to have in there.

[00:04:26] Christopher: Now I see a lot of people will start with a question in that opening paragraph, right? They'll start, have you ever wanted to teach your old dog new tricks, but don't know where to start? This article's gonna show you how. Okay, that is really overused and you can do it. And I've done it. Every once in a while I'll do that, but I try to keep it really rare because it's so overdone.

[00:04:49] Christopher: So many people do that, that it just becomes boring, doesn't it? 

[00:04:53] Gena: It does. And. I will admit I have used that, especially if I'm writing for an online piece and I, 

[00:05:00] and they're, I'm writing for a client. And I need to get in quick and I've got to use a long tail keywords. I've gotta use a string of keywords that they're wanting to see in that first sentence.

[[00:05:13] Christopher: Makes Google find it that kinda thing?

[00:05:15] Gena: Makes Google find it, then yes, I will do. It is not the best or the most creative way, but there are times when you have to use it. If you're using, if you're trying to get it for for Google, you're trying to get found by Google or whatever, you might be able to use it.

[[00:05:30] Gena: But yes, there are definitely some stronger ways to creating a strong lead. 

[[00:05:35] Christopher: So more often than not, if you see you have a question as the main lead of your article or of your book or your chapter, whatever it is do go back and ask yourself if you can be more creative there, cuz I bet you can find a better way to get people into that article.

[[00:05:49] Gena: And let me add one more thing that you wanna do in this piece in, in your lead is you want to establish some credibility. If you are writing about how to [[00:06:00] teach an old dog new tricks, if you are writing from that as a trainer with 25 years of experience, by all means say it, put that in there. 

[00:06:08] Gena: If you are writing as a dog owner who has had a dog that you could not train until you did xyz, put that in there. That again, establishes that relatability. People know that you know what you're talking about. So it's that credibility. So go ahead and establish your authority in that first paragraph or in that first opening section in your lead.

[00:06:32] Christopher: Absolutely. Okay. So the first thing is to work on your lead. The second way to improve your writing overnight is to work on your transitions and your progression through the article. So the transitions are really key as you're writing from paragraph to paragraph, even sentence to sentence, make sure that flow is logical.

[00:06:50] Christopher: Don't ever jump from one paragraph to another that makes the reader not follow where you're going. 

[00:06:57] Gena: It's a pretty easy thing to 

[00:07:00] catch if you really slow down and sometimes you gotta put your work away, for a day or for a few hours or something. Come back and you can see that, oh, I've made this jump here and I've got to add.

[00:07:10] Gena: A lot of times it can be fixed with a sentence, but that sentence is gold. It is the thing that will really help your reader follow along and make sure that they're tracking with where you're going. And I also wanna point out with these transitions and progressions, and I have I do this myself.

[00:07:28] Gena: So this is not, we're not talking from a, oh, we've never done this, or we've moved beyond this. We're talking about things that we have to catch ourselves. When you are writing, it is really common that you're trying to make a point and you write something, you write a paragraph, you write a couple of lines, you write a paragraph, and then you end up coming back to it.

[00:07:49] Gena: And when you're writing it, you can think, oh, I'm expounding on it, but if you really set that thing aside, that piece aside, and you come back to it, what you'll 

[00:08:00] find is that you're repeating yourself. You're repeating yourself in a little bit different way, and a lot of times what I find is that second one, is the one you keep. The first one that you touched on the first time and kept moving through.

[00:08:13] Gena: That's the thing that you can delete and your piece is no worse. And in fact, it's gonna be tighter if you get rid of it. Would you agree? 

[[00:08:20] Christopher: Absolutely. Good stuff. 

[00:08:21] Gena: I think there's a lot of times that you, even as your editing me. That I have seen you do that, that you will be like, you don't need that line. You make that point already. 

[[00:08:30] Christopher: Although most of the time your stuff is perfect. 

[00:08:32] Gena: It's perfect. It's absolutely perfect. 

[00:08:34] Christopher: All right, so work on your lead, work on your transitions, and then finally, work on your conclusion. I think the lead and the conclusion are the two hardest parts of any article. The lead is that item that gets the reader reading. It gets them into it, right? The conclusion is the way that they're going to go away from the article feeling. So if you want them to leave the article feeling of satisfaction, just 

[00:09:00] like when you go to a movie, right? If you see a movie that's messed up and all over the place and you leave frustrated.

[00:09:05] Christopher: That's not one how you wanna leave your readers, but if you see a movie and everything's in place and it has a really satisfying ending and you leave happy, that's how you wanna leave your readers. So the conclusion is super important and I like to one thing I like to do in a conclusion is I like to have callbacks to whatever was in that opening paragraph.

[00:09:24] Christopher: So what, the way you let off the article. So maybe in this article about how to teach an old dog new tricks, you have a line that says something like maybe your frisky and fluffy doesn't know how to do tricks. Okay. So then I might bring those words frisky and fluffy back into the conclusion because it makes this nice bow tie between the two parts of the article.

[[00:09:46] Christopher: And it helps to your, somehow your mind brings everything together and it just gives you that feeling of satisfaction. 

[00:09:52] Gena: I would even say some of those callbacks. And you can work this in after the fact. This is in the editing process. But you will if you're talking 

[00:10:00] about trick. You're talking about old dog new tricks.

[00:10:02] Gena: You've introduced it in your introduction. You've wrapped it up in the conclusion. There might be some ways that you can maybe tie that in throughout. There's something that you can bring, however your mind works, that you can bring in something creative that kind of references, it doesn't necessarily have to overdo it or beat a dead horse where you're saying the same exact phrase, but somehow so that you're getting that idea woven through, it creates this beautiful tapestry.

[00:10:34] Christopher: If you wanna learn a lot about callbacks you'll find that everything that you write will get a little better. It's kinda like a little magic that you can put in those. When we talked about our favorite movies and movies you should see as a writer, I talked about B ack to the Future because it is full chock full of callbacks. I encourage you to watch that movie and listen to the script as you go through, and you'll hear callbacks throughout that entire movie and really the whole series. You can do that even in an article, and it'll just make it that much [[00:11:00] stronger.

[00:11:00] Gena: It really does. It pulls it together. And then I wanted to, when we were talking about doing conclusions and we're talking about how to improve your writing overnight, I wanted to make sure that when we're talking about conclusions. You want to remember what the point of your conclusion is, so the point of your conclusion, like Chris said, you, this is what you're leaving your people with.

[00:11:22] Gena: Your readers are going to be left with something here and they're going to be left with a feeling of satisfaction. A feeling of completion or they're going to be left. And I have certainly read articles that didn't really have a conclusion and it like dropped off and I'm scrolling to try to find out where it was going.

[00:11:41] Gena: And it just wasn't, it just ended. I was like, this thing just got lopped off. I don't know. I always wonder where the editors are on something like that. But when you're talking about your conclusion, you want to revisit your topic. You don't have to use the exact same words, but you want to revisit your 

[[00:12:00] topic of what the whole point of this article was or your article, devotion, affirmation.

[[00:12:07] Gena: Whatever it is. You want to revisit what the topic is, what your goal is or your goal was with it, but then you also want to answer this important question of why it matters or as I like to say, who cares? 

[[00:12:21] Christopher: Who cares? 

[00:12:22] Gena: Who cares? If you're talking about teaching your old dog new who does that apply to? You've talked about it. Maybe in your introduction, you might have touched on it, but who's gonna benefit from that? Leave that in your conclusion. Answer that question. Why does this matter? 

[00:12:37] Christopher: And again, remember the person who's stuck with you through this entire article. They want to care. They want to know that time that they just spent subconsciously, they want to know. Did this matter, right? Was this a good use of my time? So leave them feeling that feeling of satisfaction like this was a good thing and they will be happy. 

[[00:12:56] Gena: Awesome. 

[[00:12:57] Christopher: All right, so work on the lead, work on your 

[00:13:00] transitions, that progression through the article and work on your conclusion. You'll find that everything you write will be a great improvement overnight. 

[00:13:09] Christopher: Hey, if you've enjoyed this podcast, we thank you, thank you so much for listening. We hope that this has been beneficial to you, and we ask that if you want to just give back a little bit, please rate, review, subscribe so you never missed another episode, and share it with someone else who's enjoys writing, because we can't we're not really into this writing thing alone, right?

[00:13:29] Christopher: We're in this together. Why Gena? 

[[00:13:32] Gena: Because together we have writing momentum. 

[[00:13:35] Christopher: Thanks for viewing and listening. Bye.