Writing Is Architecture, Not Interior Decoration
Writers often have to let go of certain passages that they are fond of because they don’t fit well with the rest of the piece.
[The young writer] must train himself in ruthless intolerance. That is, to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph.- William Faulkner
Editing an article is more important than writing one.
When I started writing on this platform in April 2020, I didn’t even edit my articles. I read them two or three times, and that was it. I think it’s ok like this!
Recently, I scrolled my profile to find the first articles I wrote on Medium.
Can you believe I don’t understand what the main idea of most of my first articles was? Most paragraphs were unreadable. Some phrases I didn’t even realize what I meant to say. How could anyone read this shit?
Being a writer is like being an ultra marathonist. When you start running, everything seems to work the wrong way. Your lungs scream, your brain boils, your joints burst, your muscles collapse, you get a new walk for weeks, and right at the end, after a few months, only then, you start to feel the absolute pleasure of running.
Writing has the same standard. As a non-native writer, I always knew I had to work harder than a native one. Although my mother was an English teacher and my father was a reader addict, I had so much work ahead to match acceptable standards.
As I’m stubborn enough, I started analyzing every aspect of the top writers. Every detail they mentioned I wrote in my notebook, every technique, every tip, every new idea, there I was, with deep thinking, creating a portfolio of data that would help me understand the magic formula to succeed.
1) A goal without a plan is just a wish.
I didn’t realize planning an article was such a science, but it really is.
If you start writing a piece randomly, your thoughts are constantly betraying you, deviating the subject of your writing to trails outside the reasoning you promised to follow in the headline.
You end up writing about three or four different subjects in the same article, and at the end, the reader gets confused about the actual message you wanted to share.
So, planning an article takes part in the beginner’s journey. But where should I start? There are so many aspects to take care of.
Headlines
Write one headline. Then, write the entire article. Then, come up with 10 different options for your headline.
There’s one and probably the most critical thing in this industry. If your headline sucks, your content doesn’t even have a chance to be born for life.
Write headlines every single day. Study them like an obsessed person.
If your headline sucks, your story probably sucks too. It all starts with the headline.
As the creation of headlines is a somewhat tricky and tedious process, you only have to think about the structure of a sentence, and sometimes you go around trying to understand which system is more efficient; usually, young writers (I included) opt for the easiest solution. They don’t bother asking questions like:
1- Is it clear to the reader what is the message of this article?
2- What does the headline adds to the “conversation”?
3- Did I manage to create curiosity that makes the reader click on my article?
If you really want to invest your time with headlines, you can test some of their power on social media platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn. See how people react to some of your headlines and ideas. Maybe you’ll be surprised with the connectivity of some architectural structures you build.
Introduction
The first thing I do after I write the headline, subtitle, and select an appealing image is writing this:
Pain » Main Text » Solve
If you have an idea to share with the world, one of the most powerful ways to grab the reader is with a painful scenario. You don’t believe me? Here’s how a very famous writer started one of his novels:
Jacques Saunière, the renowned conservative, staggered through the vaulted arch of the Grand Gallery. He held out his hands for the nearest painting, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded wooden frame, he pulled it to himself until it pulled it off the wall, and then he fell on his back, curled up under the large canvas.- Dan Brown in The DaVinci Code
You don’t have to start all your articles with an assassination scene. But you can exercise your intros by sharing some painful struggles you have.
Even starting with an intrigued question is a powerful introduction. Remember, if you put some thought ahead that somehow creates curiosity for the readers, you already have something to write about.
Main Text
And even better than that, after you share your pains and doubts, you have the opportunity to solve those issues, doing some research, some benchmark, introducing links to substantiate your content.
Conclusion
In the end, you have to solve that problem, pain, or doubt, to deliver what you promised in the introduction.
You always have to solve the problem and deliver what you promised. Otherwise, the reader will feel you fail on your promise. It leaves you with less authority and you take the risk of that same reader not coming back again.
Apps that support you
As I was learning through my first online course with [arlie] PEYTON, not only I realized that there was an all-new universe behind writing online called brand journalism, I also realized I could have the support of technology to help me get my grammar and structure in proper ways.
I use Grammarly and Hemingway to support my structure and grammar. They really made a difference in the beginning.
As your writing gets better, you’ll see that these apps only work in specific details, and that’s good because it means your writing process has evolved to another level.
Before I submit my articles to publication, I use another fantastic app called Text to Speech, which offers you the opportunity to listen to an artificial intelligence voice reading your work. Listening to your own work is even better than reading out loud. You can always find new ways of writing better phrases by listening to your own drafts.
2 ) Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.
Editing is probably the most critical part of your writing process.
After the writing process, where you are focused on the ideas and deep thoughts, you have to edit your piece.
I usually do the editing work the next day I write an article. I never do it on the same day. I like to disconnect with the work I’ve done, and then, in the next day, I can see more clearly all the things that need correction.
After I wake up, I have my breakfast and my morning coffee, then sit down with the early energy to focus on hard work. I transform myself into a cynical writer, ready to find flaws. I want to cut as much as possible, correct all errors, discover new and more efficient ways to make the text as clear as water.
I look like a criminal investigation officer looking for the evidence left by the killer.
This attitude is crucial for you to transform many words into a fluent and beautiful wall of thoughts that take the reader to the end without realizing the passage of time.
Although this is my working method, you’ll learn that writers have unique perspectives in these matters. For example, one of my favorite writers, Jessica Lynn, says this about editing:
The more words you start with, the more you have to work with and cut. Don’t write and then edit. Write for a few hours, give your work a breather, go do something else and then edit. Edit with fresh eyes. Read your work aloud and cut out anything that lags. You’ll know instinctively which parts lag, those parts that bore you. Get rid of those.
In fact, by writing at least 1,000 words a day, you’ll find new things about yourself. Writing 1,000 words a day is not for everyone, only for writers, but being a writer is not just writing. Being a writer is planning, writing, and editing.
So, if you want to be a writer, first you have to become a planner and an editor. After a long walk with new discoveries about your own flow, just then, you can say to your friends I’m a writer.
Final Thoughts
It takes time for you to grab all the valuable information and take action. I read at least 6 articles from other writers every single day. There’s always something new to learn.
My favorite writers are Tim Denning, Niklas Göke, Jessica Wildfire, and Jessica Lynn. I guess they have some sort of messages I love to read, but they also write in a very unique way.
They have a singular architecture in their pieces that somehow attract me and make me search for their texts every day.
For you to create a particular group of fans who follow you, who seek you and admire you, you‘ll have to make your articles appealing, without typos, with a light, fun, sometimes mysterious structure, so that more and more readers feel tempted to click.
Your articles are like pieces of art.
When Michael Angelo created the David statue, it was just a block of marble in the beginning. The sculptor was sculpting until he reached perfection.
A draft is a marble block, misshapen, amorphous, cold.
It’s up to you to pick up the hammer and start blasting, blow after blow, until the final shape, the one that has always been on your mind, appears in front of your eyes, shiny, beautiful, and appealing.
Now let me ask you:
Have you written your 1,000 words today?
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