Pardon my intentional grammatical mistake in the title -- it should be "writing well." "Good Writing" would have been correct (adjective modifying a noun), but "Writing Good" is incorrect (adjectives can't modify verbs; adverbs ["well"] modify verbs).
That grammatical error hopefully grabbed your attention for the point of this post: a lesson in writing well from Michael Masterson, a hugely successful copywriter (as cited by Bob Bly in his recent email newsletter). Masterson says writing is made stronger by focusing on "the power of one:"
•One big idea
•One appropriate emotion
•One purpose
•One audience
"The more ideas, emotions, objectives, and different types of readers you try to cover and reach out to in your copy, the more watered down and weaker it becomes."
Masterson also says, "Great writing is good thinking expressed as cleanly as possible." (From an AWAI tele-seminar, 1/8/08.) I have long thought that great writers ought to be called "great thinkers" instead, since nothing gets put down on paper that doesn't originate first in the mind. Granted, writing helps to refine thinking by slowing down the process, and re-writing creates re-thinking, which is helpful. But still, writing begins as thinking, so poor writing (whether grammatical mechanics or the realm of ideas) is a sign of poor thinking. And surely that has something to do with the quality of "thinking" to which we expose ourselves and our children. Minds that are continually exposed to "great thoughts" must surely stand a better chance of having great thoughts of their own. (That's a generalization, to which history offers exceptions -- deprived people who nonetheless produce great thoughts with little training or prompting.)
We were taught the "Big Idea" principle in seminary, applied to sermon preparation, but it applies equally to any kind of writing. My writing doesn't always measure up, obviously, but it's good to be reminded of what makes good writing better.
That grammatical error hopefully grabbed your attention for the point of this post: a lesson in writing well from Michael Masterson, a hugely successful copywriter (as cited by Bob Bly in his recent email newsletter). Masterson says writing is made stronger by focusing on "the power of one:"
•One big idea
•One appropriate emotion
•One purpose
•One audience
"The more ideas, emotions, objectives, and different types of readers you try to cover and reach out to in your copy, the more watered down and weaker it becomes."
Masterson also says, "Great writing is good thinking expressed as cleanly as possible." (From an AWAI tele-seminar, 1/8/08.) I have long thought that great writers ought to be called "great thinkers" instead, since nothing gets put down on paper that doesn't originate first in the mind. Granted, writing helps to refine thinking by slowing down the process, and re-writing creates re-thinking, which is helpful. But still, writing begins as thinking, so poor writing (whether grammatical mechanics or the realm of ideas) is a sign of poor thinking. And surely that has something to do with the quality of "thinking" to which we expose ourselves and our children. Minds that are continually exposed to "great thoughts" must surely stand a better chance of having great thoughts of their own. (That's a generalization, to which history offers exceptions -- deprived people who nonetheless produce great thoughts with little training or prompting.)
We were taught the "Big Idea" principle in seminary, applied to sermon preparation, but it applies equally to any kind of writing. My writing doesn't always measure up, obviously, but it's good to be reminded of what makes good writing better.
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