How to Improve Your Medium Content

Advice from an actor, a professional speaker, and another smart Medium blogger. No, wait. Two Medium bloggers.

In response to another invitation (so many parties!) from Illumination I’d like to offer some superb advice from folks I like on this platform.

Here’s the invitation that we all got:

If I may, as someone who has written professionally for years, just a thought. Dr. Y has offered that we might want to produce between, say, 300–500 words per piece. While that may sound easier on the surface, any of us who speaks for a living will tell you that producing an all-day or even a multi-day seminar is one hell of a lot easier than writing a twenty-minute speech. You and I have to create the story arc in far less time, be far more succinct and clear, and it’s much much harder to discipline ourselves.

So, while I think it’s a great idea, just be aware. Short form is a high art; some are good at it effortlessly. I took almost two years writing some five hundred articles on Linked In to learn the short form. I do this for a living. It’s hard work. And I’m still crappy at it. To wit: this is NOT a short piece.

So please be patient with your process and utilize other eyeballs when you can. There is nothing so powerful as having other smart folks check your work. And nothing so humbling (my hand is up) to realize that what you wrote belongs in the compost, which I made clear in my Illumination introduction. My material has fertilized a great many flower beds.

Here is some input which may or may not be useful.

First: your voice. Writers who are still new at this might not know how to develop theirs. It comes with practice and time. Mine is irreverent, funny, rude, crude, kind, loving, supportive, derisive; it depends on the topic. But it’s very distinct, it is my own, and I do not copy anyone else’s. If I take from someone else I always name my source, and link to their stuff, or at least help people find them. This is how you make friends on Medium. More on that in another article.

Last December I got a compliment from one of my readers who said that he felt as though I was talking to him across a table in his dining room.

BINGO.

That’s what I’m after. I got this piece of superb advice from someone who teaches people how to write a book:

Imagine, as you write, that there is a person sitting across from you. You might want to describe this person: age, gender, race, job, culture, background. This person represents your target audience, the person who will read your material. By taking the time to carefully create this profile, you will know how to speak to this person as you write. Every single time you sit down, that person’s sitting across from you, having coffee. You’re in a conversation with a very real human being. That helps you write the way you’d normally speak.

Here’s why this is such great advice:

You wouldn’t talk to someone you care about with the arch air of someone dispensing advice to an idiot. Well, maybe you would, but you won’t be friends for long and they won’t likely have coffee with you again. If you scan some of the material on Medium, it comes across just that way. I never read that writer again the second I feel condescension. You’re talking to people you care about. People whose opinions matter to you. These are potentially friends (and a number of my readers have morphed into friends, for just this reason. I treat them that way.)

Write like you give a damn about who is reading your stuff.

Now. Next step.

So, how do I sound?

My Medium Peep Eric Guisinger, who is also an actor, penned this smart comment to me yesterday on a piece I wrote for Illumination:

This reminded me of a rule I employ before I hit the publish button:

I read the piece out loud and very conversationally. If, and I mean IF, it sounds like there’s too much “me” in it, I realize I may have only been venting and reconsider publishing at all, and moving on to the next project.

If it sounds like I’m conveying information with the right emotive backstopping, then I turn it loose. I also try to make sure the content delivers what the title promises — that’s a tough one sometimes, but critical. (author bolded)

In conversations, I’ve learned over the years to “listen more and speak less.”

Even though that seems rather odd to apply to writing efforts, it seems to work in some intuitive way. I want to hear in my head what my reader is thinking (saying?) as they read.

Eric is right. When we say our words our loud- and I often do (which simply goes to show that I really am mad as a Hatter, but that’s another story)- I will make corrections as I go. For example, I often write out I AM, rather than I’m, which is more natural. Easy to change. Sounds more real, less formal.

Reading our stuff out loud gives it light and life. This practice also hangs our words out onto the clothesline so that we can experience them. While most of us, again my hand is up here, love our own voices, you will learn to listen for authenticity, braggadocio, and other characteristics that you either love or hate. It’s hard to self-edit, but we must.

One of the funniest lines I ever read on Medium was about how an article by a food writer promised a GREAT recipe, but the reader had to suffer through endless paragraphs of mindless pap before she got to the good stuff. The reason this was so funny is that I do that. LET’S GET OVER OURSELVES already. Give people what we promise. And just in case you missed this the first time I put it in an article ( You ARE avidly reading EVERYTHING I write, are you not? of course you are):

Finally, there are just millions of how-tos on Medium. What I do is NOT going to work for you. Guaranteed. Because my body wakes me up at or around 3 am, when sane people are sleeping, and I leap like an idiot clown into my kitchen for caffeine. I usually startle the living shit out of whatever sleeping bird might be right outside my kitchen window, but at least if I’ve forgotten to put a shirt on, nobody is usually up that early taking photos.

Look, if deflated balloons are your thing, be my guest.

Early, early, EARLY morning is my time. I gave up trying to force myself to sleep later years ago. So now I revel in the hours before sunup, am always there to greet the sunrise (if not traveling) and it is by far the most creative part of the day. By noon, I am nine hours in, and by 3 pm I am DONE for the day. I can’t work with noise or music, other than nature’s white noise. Some of of you are holed up with what used to be your little darlings that you could send off to school. Now they are the hellions from hellfire, mad with being cooped up, and strengthening their considerable vocal chords right next to your eardrums.

Hm. Sounds like a 3 am rise might do you good. Then you can collapse in a comatose heap by mid-afternoon and doze the rest of the day away.

But I digress. You will find your best rhythm on your own. How to write is another story. If this is all still fairly new to you, the below piece might help. However, I am very wary of any other creative person’s telling me what works. You and I have no clue. We have to try, fail, try, fail, and find that for ourselves. Still, this might help, and I like that much of what she writes seems to support and dovetail the Illumination invitation above.

From Zita Fontaine:

There you are. Hope that helps. Above all, HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR. I got a PM from a reader who kindly shared that she’s gotten way too serious lately. The most effective arrow in your quiver is to learn how to see through the eyes of your favorite comedian. That’s another article.