How to Write When You Don’t Know What to Write and You’re Lazy
Typical mistakes I come across in the editing phase
Many people compare writing to some kind of creative process. This is a mistake.
We all know how to write by default. We first learned to write at school, then messengers came along and it became a daily habit.
But we talk more often than we write. That’s why, when you need to write a letter or explanatory article, you get lazy and want to explain everything verbally. To avoid being lazy, you need a systematic approach and a little patience. In this article, I’m going to talk about the algorithm that helps me write.
I don’t want to make a fuss and measure words, so I’ll be direct: this note is also a reason to highlight the Bad/Good channel, where I talk about editorial techniques without any subtlety.
1. Make a plan
The first thing you need to do is put a lot of information in order in your head.
It’s best to draw up a plan using the tree principle. Its essence is that in the story you go from the general to the specific. The main idea of the letter is a tree trunk. The details that follow are branches. Secondary information — leaves.
For example, we want to talk about a past event. The event is the trunk. The branches will be speaker presentations. Leaflets — information about each speaker, presentation, and main points.
Sasha Karepina writes more about the wood principle and other writing techniques in the book “The Art of Business Writing”.
In your plan, go from the general to the specific: first the main idea — then the details.
At this stage, you don’t need to worry about how to write everything down later. You just need to have structure. Also, you can’t just keep a plan in your head. Make sure you write it down in a notebook. You can draw it on paper or paint it directly in the editor.
When the plan is not in your head, but in front of your eyes, it’s clear which section is in its place and what needs to be moved. You can even write each item on cards and move them around as necessary. Cards with unnecessary information that distracts from the main idea can be safely discarded. Similar cards can be grouped.
2. Sketch
An outline is a rough version of the text. The outline can contain mistakes and cobbler’s tones. You simply take an item from your plan and describe it in your own words.
At first, there is a risk of getting stuck on a blank canvas and taking a while to find the first word. This is called “white sheet syndrome”.
To overcome the syndrome, start with the words “Hello, dear…” and then the name of the person you know. This could be a friend, sister, parent or grandparent. Ideally, this person should fit the description of your future readers.
I recommend two more books on getting started and writing in general:
- “Writing is easy”, Olga Solomatina
- “Author, paper scissors”, Nikolai Kononov
Another advantage of this method is that you tell a story to a real person, not to an abstract crowd of readers. It should be like this: although you write for a wide audience, people usually read alone.
When writing an outline, don’t think about how the text sounds. Maybe later that will change radically. Now you need to do it the way your voice dictates in your head: with tautology and unrelated paragraphs.
3. Read aloud and edit
The text can be compared to a statue, where the author is the sculptor. In the first stage, we built the frame of our statue. In the second, they added bold strokes and obtained a rough shape. Now we’re going to sharpen the silhouette and polish the irregularities.
The written sketch needs editing. It contains many inconsistencies, tautologies, crooked structures, and redundant information. The best way to fix all this is to read the text out loud. Loud enough to hear yourself.
Absurd constructions appear in the text because we write differently from what we say. By reading a text aloud, you understand where the reader might stumble. Such passages need to be reworded and checked again. Don’t be afraid to rewrite entire sentences and paragraphs — you’ll be amazed at the results.
And the same goes for the whole text: if you correct the sentence, read it out loud. It needs to be easy and natural to read. Easy means breathing at once and without pausing. Naturally — as in colloquial speech.
Typical mistakes I come across in the editing phase:
Repetition. When the same word is used in several sentences in a row. To avoid repetition, choose a synonym. If that doesn’t work, rewrite the whole sentence.
Bad:
I often use quotes from classics in my articles. These quotes add variety to the work and also look solid.
Good:
I often use quotes from classics in my articles. This adds variety to the work and also makes it seem solid.
An excess of pronouns. As in the previous case, but instead of common words — pronouns. Most of them can simply be removed without losing their meaning.
Bad:
We once commissioned logos from freelancers. We described our project in detail and indicated the cost.
Good:
Once we commissioned logos from freelancers, we described the project in detail and indicated the cost.
It’s not a natural order of words. Correcting a mistake is easy, just listen to your instinct.
Bad:
I had a couple breeding at home later.
Good:
I ordered a couple to breed at home later.
4. Drink tea and read again
When you pore over a text for a long time, it’s hard to evaluate it soberly. People say “My eyes are blurred”. This happens with both a short message and a long article. To regain sober vision, you need to distract yourself. You can drink tea, go for a walk, or talk to a colleague. Just forget about the text and do something else.
If deadlines are tight, it’s best to put off the final revision until the next day. Even in the army, they say that a soldier should sleep with his letter. This is very wise advice — the next day you can look at your article objectively and with a fresh head.
Before sending, be sure to check the text in the special services. You may not notice a typo or spelling mistake, and the reader will consider it illiteracy.
- Orthographer — spelling mistakes
- Glavred — complex structures and clichés
- Spelling — commas and typos
