The common theme of these two photos is they both contain masterpieces by the virtuosic artist Rembrandt.

Beyond that, the scenes couldn’t be more different.

On the left, we see a bunch of teenagers deeply hypnotised by digital distraction. They’re presumably unaware and certainly disinterested in what history and mastery lies behind them.

On the right, we see a woman propped up in a portable bed surrounded by medics and a museum guide. This woman was close to death, and it was her dying wish to see the work of Rembrandt one last time before such beauty couldn’t be captured by her eyes again.

Now, it is easy for us to conform to the clichés.

• “This generation doesn’t appreciate anything!”

• “How can they not be fascinated by this?!”

• “What disrespect to such a great artist’s work!”

I won’t lie — I couldn’t imagine myself peering into a screen when presented with an opportunity to witness something of such artistic magnitude.

However, I don’t think it’s as easy as saying this generation possesses the attention span of the goldfish.

Something deeper is at work.

I believe it lies in the reason we manifest creativity in the first place.

I recently watched an epic TED Talk from famous actor Ethan Hawke.

Hawke has held roles of varying prominence in over 75 films, as well as being an acclaimed stage actor. He has been unafraid of baring his naked soul before us for over 30 years.

He makes a beautifully poignant point when reflecting on his repetoire of character:

“I’ve played cops. I’ve played criminals. I’ve played priests. I’ve played sinners. The magic of this over a lifetime […] is that you start to see that my experiences […] are not nearly as unique as I thought.”

What Hawke touches on is, in my opinion, the fundamental point of creativity.

When we bare our souls on the page, we break down the mental barrier of solitude.

We aren’t alone on this Earth.

We go through the same bursts of joy and the same detonations of catastrophe. We have our heartstrings tugged so hard that you could play a symphony on them and our hearts shattered so hard that we’re still picking up the rose-tinted glass off the floor for years after.

That’s why when you listen to a song about love, heartbreak, joy, sorrow, gain, loss, euphoria, aimlessness — you pause.

You find yourself so entangled in the music and words that time ceases to pass as it would ordinarily.

The same goes for any authentic poem, painting, opera, play, book, film or TV show.

I got the opportunity not long ago to see an original Rembrandt in the Gulbenkian Museum here in Lisbon, Portugal.

The biggest shame of me showing you this through the Internet is you can’t see just how incredible the details of the shadows are.

When I saw this painting, I entered a trance. I couldn’t believe the detail in the image when it was painted to resemble low light conditions. The hand of Athena clenching a spear is almost blended to the background, but at the same time, perfectly seperate and quasi-three-dimensional.

It was after 10 minutes my girlfriend tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was OK.

Time ceased.

That is the power of creativity. It takes us out of our own heads and forces us to tap into, as Carl Jung would put it, the collective unconscious. While we use our experiences to pour out words or brushstrokes or notes, they are merely borrowing from the cauldron of human emotion and experience.

The biggest problem with social media is that it actually goes directly against the point of creativity.

It doesn’t make us feel connected, as ironic as that is.

It makes us feel lonelier.

Constant comparison by allowing us a peek through a window into the life of the richest or the most beautiful or the most outrageous. It has led to a solitary state of thinking. When we log into the digital slot machine, we aren’t connected to the fundamental melting pot of humanity. We’re plugged into a competition for our attention.

Art has never been about competition.

It’s about adding an extra branch to the tree of human existence. While we all spread off in different directions, we’re all still connected to the trunk.

When you spend hours on your phone staring at the life you wish you had or the people releasing music and writing books when you’ve been putting it off for years, you sacrifice that connection to the beauty of the natural world.

The arts are a reminder of a sheer miracle…

Against all the odds, we are here on this floating rock through space. With those sorts of odds, we should all be completely and utterly random creatures.

But we’re not.

We’re connected on a plain below reality.

Art is the medium that allows us to show that miracle of similarity in a world where entropy is the natural course of action.

Let’s not lose our connection to it, for we will lose our connection to ourselves.

Subscribe now

Before you go…

We’ve all had that embarrassing moment.

You know the one. You hit ‘Publish’, with fire in your eyes, expecting 100s of likes, tonnes of business and no possibility of your article failing… only for it to flop.

My writing journey was exactly like this. My first 6 months online, I got about 1000 impressions. I felt like a burning zeppelin on a crash course. I was days away from saying “Enough.”

That was until I met one of my greatest mentors.

He offered to edit one of my articles for me. No crazy rewrites. Just enhancing what was there.

That piece alone garnered over 500,000 impressions on Twitter.

I couldn’t believe it.

Since that moment, I’ve spent the last 3 years honing my craft and helping other writers do exactly the same. I’ve edited over 200 articles, and helped writers build their following online with words that truly connect to their audience, ensuring they get repeat readers and daily email signups.

Right now, I’m taking on clients who would like their work edited to turn it into hypnotic pieces that readers can’t ignore.

If you’re interested in getting your work looked over, shoot me a DM via the button below, or email me directly at willmylesroberts@gmail.com. This offer will only last until the end of October, so if you're ready to write words that make a difference, don’t hesitate to get in contact.

Until the next one, gang.

Will Myles

Despite being British, I have always been fascinated with the history of America.

From an early love of the Western genre to studying the political scene of the country from 1945-1990 as part of my history course, it is a country that has kept my eyes fixed and my mind curious.

Today, I want to pay homage to that fascination, as well as providing you with something that I believe can elevate your writing to the next level.

In my time cruising the highway of American history, I remember distinctly coming across the Gettysburg Address.

I’d heard about its prominence on Twitter. Curious, I headed to YouTube. I found someone reciting the speech and was mesmerised without hesitation. One can only imagine the potency of the speech when it was recited by Old Abe during the zeitgeist of the era it encapsulated.

But it isn’t just the time period. It isn’t just the message.

It is a perfect construction of writing.

In 3 minutes, one of the most beautiful assemblies of the English language was put forward into the world.

Today, I want to help break it down for you. I want to show you the reason why the words you hear in their specific order cause us to fall into a trance when we hear it recited. I want you to be able to take those ideas and run with them in your own writing, so you too can create hypnotic pieces.

Let’s take a look:

Repetition

A cornerstone of the Address is Lincoln’s repetitive use of the word ‘We’.

In the midst of a chaotic civil war, Lincoln made sure to place emphasis on the subject pronoun ‘We’. This was a nod to the notion that, despite being divided on a major issue, the country remained unbroken and united.

Some examples:

Now we are engaged in a great civil war,

We are met on a great battle-field of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field

Lincoln drives home this use of repetition with a specific method at the start of the second paragraph…

Anaphora

This kind of repetition is when you specifically repeat a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. Each one follows the other.

For the same reason people go to the club and put on parades of awkward dancing until 6 in the morning, the mind adores repetition in writing. It’s because we become familiar with the word or phrase — we know what to expect.

This is that beautiful example Lincoln uses to open the second paragraph:

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground.

It is no wonder that this technique finds its way into every great speech in history.

Just look at this example from Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have A Dream’

“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality”

However, we don’t have to restrict ourselves to purely the beginning of clauses to use repetition…

Epistrophe

We can also use repetition to end clauses as well.

The final line of the Gettysburg Address employs this rhetorical device to drive home the point being made.

“- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Check out another cool example from the film ‘The Breakfast Club’, when John is venting:

“Don’t you ever talk about my friends! 

You don’t know any of my friends. 

You don’t look at any of my friends. 

And you certainly wouldn’t condescend to speak to any of my friends.” 

Be it at the beginning, end or in the middle of a clause, repetition drives home any crucial point you wish to make in your writing.

Back to the Address…

Subscribe now

Contrast

We love repetition. But another thing we love is contrast.

When you create contrast, it opens up a 3 dimensional element to any value or concept you’re tackling in your writing.

Lincoln uses contrast beautifully as he describes the portion of Gettysburg field which will be used as a memorial:

…as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.

A classic contrast - life and death.

He continues to use this concept in a more obvious manner later in the speech:

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

In writing, we can use 4 main types of contrast to create this 3 dimensional effect:

• Visual Contrast - differing colours, shapes, sizes

• Social or Cultural Contrast - rich and poor; healthy and unhealthy; male and female

• Personal Contrast - differing habits; personalities; skills

• Emotional Contrast - courage and cowardice; love and anger

When you implement this, you create a picture that shows you consider the bigger scale of a concept. You don’t focus purely on one element and roll with it all the way down the hill.

Life is complex. While it is our jobs as writers to simplify where necessary, it doesn’t mean we should cut out the Yang to the proverbial Yin.

Metaphor

I still stand by a view that the best writers are the ones who notice the most unique patterns.

Metaphor is one avenue of us explaining these patterns we notice. We connotate two ideas by saying they are the same.

Throughout the speech, Lincoln makes multiple allusions to America through the lens of a biological metaphor.

He immediately fires this sentiment into the mind of the listener within the first line:

“…our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty…”

Along with multiple mentions of life and death regarding the men, Lincoln comes full circle and ties the metaphor all together with this line:

“…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…”

So, why does this work?

Words and ideas come with sentiment. Feelings associated to them. Characteristics associated to them.

When I mention the word ‘birth’, what comes to your mind?

Naturally, I imagine — a child, a mother, a father.

But it’s more than that.

It’s new life. Something fresh. Someone unseen before. Someone with potential. Someone who is fragile in their current state. Someone who needs nurturing and help to learn the way of the world.

When Lincoln utters ‘a new birth of freedom’, the word ‘birth’ doesn’t just force your mind to think of the nation as a child. It defaults to all the qualities and emotions it has associated to that word.

When we look deeper, it is the undertones of a word that allow us to unlock the power of metaphor.

Let’s look at a dead simple example from Canadian musician Tom Cochrane:

“Life is a highway.”

When you see the word ‘Life’, a bunch of characteristics pop out.

But what about the word ‘highway’? (or as I would say as a quirky Brit, motorway)

To me, I think of adventure. I think of moving. I think of moments of utter chaos and confusion. I think of moments of peace and I think of a long, winding track that leads somewhere.

When you hear this metaphor, your brains takes its “blueprint” of life and its “blueprint” of highway and overlaps them.

The more potent the similarities, the more effective the metaphor.

And even better yet…

The lesser mentioned, yet the more connected - the better.

I mentioned in a previous article on this topic about we could take the idea of personality and a volcano.

Unpredictable. Hot. Dangerous. Reactive.

Why couldn’t you describe someone as ‘volcanic’?

To me, that imagery is fascinating.

Metaphor truly gives you freedom to creative imagery in writing. If you ignore it or conform to cliché, you miss out on a crucial key to unlocking the door of style.

There are many great speeches that have graced our time.

But, to me, the Gettysburg address takes the fundamental concepts and applies them like masterful brushstrokes.

When you listen to that speech, and you picture yourself sat in a chair listening to Lincoln muster it, amidst the chaos that had unfolded and the uncertainty of what was to come — it ties together a package of truly ineffable beauty.

I love studying pieces like this that made my hairs stand on end. It highlights something incredible and comforting:

There are fundamental truths to great writing, and they are what connect the collective soul.

When you study these devices, you add your voice to this collective soul.

You get the keys to humanity’s heart.

What Makes Great Writing? is a publication specifically for people who want to improve their writing.

It is NOT for people who want to

• Hack the process,

• Replace themselves with AI,

• Find “super quick tips.”

If you’re in the first group, subscribe. If you’re in the second, begone foul beast.

Subscribe now

Share

The other day, I came across a tale describing the hilarious nature of being British.

While upholding several traditions and painting myself and other Brits in a humurous light, one thing had caught my eye by the end of the story.

It uses a narrative device that I don’t see talked about much online. Yet, it is one of the most crucial and curiosity-inducing techniques you can employ as a storyteller. So I’d like to share this story with you, and then break down just how it uses this specific device to pull you down the page effortlessly.

By the end, you’ll be able to incorporate this into your own work and maintain your audience’s valuable attention as if they fell into a honey pot.

This story’s origin is unknown, but the account I read was a take by author Douglas Adams.

It’s known as ‘The Train Station Biscuits Story’.

(Oh, and that is the British definition of biscuits. For y’all on the other side of the Pond, think of it as cookies.)

Let’s take a look:

The Train Station Biscuits Story

I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train.

I’d gotten the time of the train wrong. I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of biscuits. I went and sat at a table.

I want you to picture the scene. It’s very important that you get this very clear in your mind. Here’s the table, newspaper, cup of coffee and packet of biscuits.

There’s a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase.

It didn’t look like he was going to do anything weird.

What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of biscuits, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.

Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with.

There’s nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your biscuits.

You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. . .

But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do — I ignored it.

In the end I thought, Nothing for it, I’ll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened.

I took out a biscuit for myself. I thought, That settled him. But it hadn’t because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another biscuit.

Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice . . .” I mean, it doesn’t really work.

We went through the whole packet like this.

When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight biscuits, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one.

Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away. Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and then I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back.

A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my biscuits.

To say this spoke to my very core as a British person would be a gross understatement.

The British public have this bizarre tendency to avoid conflict, despite our ancestor’s best conquering efforts to convince the world otherwise.

After I read this story, I found myself wondering why it carries us down the page so effortlessly.

There is the humor and the tension involved, of course. But there’s actually a deep narrative element at play here. Another type of screwdriver for the storyteller’s toolbox.

It’s a little something known as ‘Chekhov’s Gun.’

Anton Chekhov was a renowned Russian playwright and author.

In a letter to one of his colleagues, Chekhov displayed the idea of his gun theory.

He wrote:

Don’t introduce anything to a story that doesn’t have relevance. Anything that is introduced should play a pivotal role to the development of the story.

So, what’s our Gun in Adams’ story?

The biscuits.

They’re introduced early on as a seemlessly mundane purchase. But, as the story unfolds, they become the captain of the ship. They drive the entire plot.

Another example of a Gun in the story?

The newspaper.

Even though its role isn’t as prominent as the biscuits, we discover at the end that it had been concealing the original pack of biscuits the entire time.

These 2 objects become crucial elements to the overall plot of the story.

Try thinking of it a different way…

When you’re watching a crime drama, what are we all constantly doing? Trying to work out the plot.

“It has to have been him!”

“He was with her at the time of the murder!”

“She was the one who kicked him out the house when he told her about his secret love of country music!”

But, as the shows go on, we begin to notice something — they never introduce a prop on a crime scene unless it bares some responsibility for driving the plot.

Every time they do, it always invariably ends up as the random hammer in the garage as the murder weapon or the lottery ticket someone found on the floor has the numbers to unlock the safe.

So, what’s the lesson among all this British fanfare?

When writing your articles or stories or emails or whichever medium you so may choose — beware of putting random, useless information inside your stories.

Instead, find an object in the story that carries your plot along.

It can possess a central theme like our biscuits tale, or it can quietly reside in the background. But, in the end, it closes such a massive loop that the reader can’t help but either laugh, gasp or remain fixed in shocked silence.

Find your Ring in Lord of the Rings.

Find your Invisibility Cloak in Harry Potter.

Find your Briefcase in Pulp Fiction.

Characters give our stories depth and intrigue. But the props and random objects of our world have the potential to play as crucial a role as any protagonist.

In writing, curiosity is king, and nothing opens nor closes the doors of uncertainty like a well-placed packet of biscuits.

What Makes Great Writing? is a publication specifically for people who want to improve their writing.

It is NOT for people who want to

• Hack the process,

• Replace themselves with AI,

• Find “super quick tips.”

If you’re in the first group, subscribe. If you’re in the second, begone foul beast.

Subscribe now

When I was 13, I became fascinated with one thing and one thing only…

Guitar.

It became my world. I would stay up until the early hours listening to the sonic greats and attempting to copy their style. My parent’s became all too familiar with the sounds of B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan as I’d blast them from my laptop speakers.

I was hypnotised. But I gradually hit a wall…

I was learning the solos from my favourite records and copying them note for note. I could play you the entirety of Pride and Joy by SRV without missing a beat.

Then, one day in 2008, I went into a guitar lesson with my teacher James.

“Will, you’re doing brilliantly. Now, we’re going to take it up a notch.”

“Umm… sure! Sounds interesting.”

He reached for a CD. For those of you who aren’t aware, that is a magic storage device that used to contain… wait for it… one whole album. I know, right?

Written on this silver CD in blue marker pen were 3 words and 1 number.

These words would forever change my understanding of how music, art, writing and all are supposed to be expressed…

Blues Backing Tracks #1

“What are those, James?”

“These are jam tracks. No vocals. Just instrumentation. I want you to create your own solo over the top of it.”

I froze like water on the first day of winter.

“I… urm… don’t really know how to do that.”

“Sure you do, come on, give it a try…”

He hits play. On comes a moderately fast tempo Texas blues style soundscape. I had no idea what to play. I took snippets of what I knew from the solos I’d learned note for note and tried to play them over this. Some worked. Some didn’t.

4 excruciating minutes passed by.

“Not a bad job, mate! Let’s go again…”

I was like a broken record. Same licks. Same ideas. Over and over and over. We did another one for a grand total of 3 solos.

At the end, James looks up to me with a grin on his face.

“Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.”

He sensed my anxiety immediately. And like a true sonic firefighter, he sought to extinguish the flames of my doubt.

“Why do you want to learn guitar, Will?”

“Because I love it and want to become a great player”

“Do you want to be in a cover band?”

“If you pay me handsomely! But honestly, I want to create my own mark.”

“Right… That’s why we must learn about this core concept of guitar playing — improvisation. You see, Will. You can’t just learn all your favourite solos and expect to hit your goal. You need to know why these players are playing each lick over each chord at each specific moment. Why does this combination of notes work here but it doesn’t work here? What are the common patterns you notice in each player? It all forms a jigsaw puzzle.”

I realised he couldn’t be more right. I had to start understanding why it all worked so I could break free and form my own style. 

This is where I’ll introduce a neat concept to you. Once you hear about it, it’ll change how you view your writing forever.

It’s known as The Chesterton Fence.

This is actually a term that comes from public policy making.

It is described as follows:

“The principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.”

In simpler terms? Learn the rules so you can then go and break them.

If you don’t learn the rules behind the games you’re playing, you never stand a chance. You float around aimlessly in your self-hypnotised state trying to succeed. You might even hit an odd win, much like I used to hit a nice note on the guitar. But you have no idea why. You can’t replicate it.

We need rules to create boundaries for us. As writers, this seems like the strangest phenomenon.

We learn from a young age that writing is this connection to education and putting knowledge down on a piece of paper.

But it isn’t.

It’s an art.

A beautiful, flowing, altering art.

It requires study and patience. You don’t pick up a paintbrush and expect to paint a Picasso. So why would you expect your writing to be good off the top just because you have interesting things to say?

We must hone our craft.

When I started out, I knew I had a sense of why some of my writing worked. But I had to dig deeper.

I began exploring concepts such as:

• Rhythm

• Rhetoric devices

• Narrative arcs

• Persuasive language

• The Hero’s Journey

And the more I dived into them, the more I realised where certain elements of my writing came from.

Once I understood this, I was able to do the one thing we must all do to form our own unique style… Break the rules.

I love to use ellipsis in my writing. Most writers will tell you it doesn’t serve a purpose. But, for my stream of conscious, it works perfectly. It’s my brushstroke to the page’s canvas. It won’t appeal to everyone, but it communicates the tension I desire to emulate.

Another one is the classic adage ‘Avoid all adverbs’

Well, apply Chesterton thinking to this. Why is that even a rule in the first place?

Because, in general, people’s use of adverbs dilutes their writing.

Describing something as ‘very very good’ is certainly not a creative masterpiece.

But what about if you want to describe the motion of personification?

‘His thoughts drifted down the river effortlessly’

Here, if I cut the adverb ‘effortlessly’, it loses all of its meaning.

It detracts from the ART I’m trying to create.

If you want to create your own unique style, don’t trust writers you look up to who say it’s just ‘some gift they have.’

Because it isn’t.

It’s a fundamental understanding of the rules. And it’s a fundamental understanding of themselves to know when to say fuck it to the rules.

This is how you progress as a writer.

Go away and learn the essential concepts. Then worry about style.

We cannot be afraid of being students to something we previously thought required no study.

Instead, we must embrace it with a callous fragility.

Once you do this, much like as the phoenix burns itself whole, you will emerge from the embers stronger and wiser. You’ll have a sense of exactly why you’re feeling a certain way when you read a certain text. And you’ll know exactly the effect you wish to communicate as you build up your repetoire.

You’ll become something that is worth more than gold in today’s digital age — unique.

Subscribe now

Share

The night was adolescent and my girlfriend and I were strolling the streets of London.

As we’re walking along, she takes a look up to the sky.

“Do you know if the moon is getting bigger or smaller this evening?”

“Not really, dear, no…”

“It’s funny. We have a saying in Portuguese to know that immediately.”

“Is it one of those ones that will make me sound like I’m choking on a fur ball?”

“Probably.”

“Eh, who am I kidding, they all do. Go on then.”

She curls a little smile in the corner of her face.

“A lua é mentirosa.”

Translated in English…

The moon is a liar.

“Yeah, you’ll need to explain that one a bit further…”

In Portuguese, they have the verb ‘crescer’ which means to grow or get bigger. They also have the verb ‘descrescer’, the antonym, which means to shrink or get smaller.

Now, when you next look at the moon, try this.

The light of the moon will curve on the left side or the right side, forming something that resembles either the letter C or D.

Grow = Crescer
Shrink = Descrescer

Except there’s a small problem — they signify the opposite.

When the moon is growing, it forms a D shape.

When the moon is shrinking, it forms a C shape.

The opposite of the first letter of each verb.

So the saying is formed — The moon is a liar.

When I first heard this, I was bowled over by the beauty of that statement. From a linguistic perspective, it’s a case of personification - giving the moon human-like qualities. But it wasn’t just that.

It connected a way of seeing the world I’d never experienced before. Thinking of the moon as a liar ignited all kinds of imagery into my mind. All because of a phrase only possible to conceive in the Portuguese language.

This is one of the things I love about all languages.

They offer unique insights, not just into culture, but into how we literally view the world.

As a writer, this excites me beyond belief.

I’ve been learning Portuguese properly for about 4 years now, and some of their beautiful ways of constructing language have continued to fascinate me.

Why should we be shackled by the chains of our native language? Heck, it should be our duty as writers to explore linguistic frontiers — pioneers of the written word.

Portuguese has unearthed many gems for me, and I’ll share a few more instances with you now.

The first one is a word that can’t be translated perfectly into English:

Saudade.

The closest we can get to this in English is a state of intense nostalgia and longing for someone or something.

‘I miss you’ doesn’t come close to the passion this word conveys.

The word itself aims to encapsulate that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach. But what gets even more fascinating is when you study the grammatical structures around the word in use.

In English, we would use a Subject + Verb + Object structure

‘I miss you.’

But in Portuguese, they treat this state as a noun.

‘Eu tenho saudades para ti.’

I have ‘saudades’ for you.

What a fascinating way of treating emotions as not just something we express through action in the form of verbs, but as something tangible and concrete in the form of a noun.

Another example interestingly showcases the opposite.

‘He’s been sad recently.’

In Portuguese, they would typically say:

‘Ele anda triste.’

Translated literally…

‘He walks sad.’

I always smile at this, as if the Portuguese knew about the oh-so-cliché advice of Show, Don’t Tell and cooked it into their language.

Expressing sadness like it inhabits you and expels itself through your body; using that verbal structure to depict something we view as a descriptive emotion in English. They’re not just these random conjurations in our mind, but the driver behind the wheel.

One final example comes from a song by one of my favourite Portuguese musicians - Jorge Palma - a soulsman who deals in the finest figures of speech.

I could analyse any of his songs, but I’ll give you a couple of lines from one that touched my heart.

The song is called ‘Encosta-te a mim’ or ‘Lean On Me’.

In one of the verses, he sings the hauntingly beautiful lines:

Everything I saw

I'm sharing with you, and what I didn't live

I'll invent with you one day

Our brains grow to love patterns, and we typically associate the word ‘invent’ with machinery or technology or advancement.

But his use of it here objectifies the future. It turns it into something that could take on other actions. Why couldn’t the future burn or laugh or run away or tease? We suddenly begin to interact with the noun in a way that’s fresh and different — and our brains are imagery addicts who love a fresh fix.

These are just a few examples in Portuguese that have sparked my curiosity.

If I’d never started learning the language, I wouldn’t have discovered many ideas that influence my writing style today. But the benefits don’t just stop with writing…

They alter your fundamental character and brain chemistry, too.

One study at Northwestern University showed that bilingual individuals could better pick out a speaker's voice amidst distracting noises.

Another 2012 study performed by Behzad Ghonsooly and Sara Showqi concluded that learning a second language enhances our abilities in planning, cognitive flexibility and working memory, or in other words — the 3 pillars on which creativity operates.

Another showed that bilingual speakers have a signicantly higher amount of grey matter present in their brains. This is the tissue that processes and sends information to different parts of the body.

Learning a second language will literally make you experience the world more.

On top of all this comes the benefit of being able to immerse yourself in different cultures, learn about foreign history, understand the roots of native art and so much more.

I can’t advocate learning a second language enough. For me as a writer, it’s opened up a whole new den of ideas for me to dive deeper into. The more I go down this rabbit hole, the more fascinated I become, and the more I feel my writing evolve into something unique.

Your words will change lives when you change how you see the world.

Chess has exploded in the last couple of years.

Back in the 1980s, most people in the world couldn’t even name 1 chess player. Now, we see titans such as Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura all over social media. The online boom has even given rise to personalities like Levy Rozman (aka GothamChess) with over 4 million subscribers on YouTube.

Shows like The Queen’s Gambit with its exceptional storytelling pushed chess back into the mainstream, and the lockdowns from the pandemic provided a potent breeding ground for practice.

While I was playing a game the other day, a thought came across my mind…

‘What makes a great chess player?’

Skill? Creativity? Confidence in a position?

All of these things no doubt make the list.

But there’s one part of chess which great players possess that is also a skill of great writers.

It’s something that doesn’t get spoken about enough in the digital world, and I want to try and remedy that today.

It’s about a concept known as Pattern Recognition.

When you start playing chess, you learn a series of first moves known as an ‘opening’.

It’s relatively easy to memorise these first moves. But what happens when your opponent goes off the rails? They play some crazy moves you haven’t seen before. It completely throws you off your opening knowledge.

You have officially entered No Man’s Land.

Theory is gone and you rely purely on instinct. While you may not know the specific lines of a position, you can calculate forward. And if you manoeuvre your pieces in the right way, you can find yourself in a familiar pattern within the crazy forest you’ve entered.

The best chess players have incredible pattern recognition. They can spot when the right push is needed or if defensive reinforcements are required in the blink of an eye.

So, what on Earth has this got to do with writing?

You develop your unique style of writing by observing patterns in the world.

Whether it be between people, objects, concepts and more, the key to crafting words that hypnotise people is to help them connect the dots in a way they couldn’t do themselves. In other words - to recognize patterns.

I want to show you a few examples today, and give you my #1 tip for improving your own pattern recognition so your writing can continue to flourish.

Have you ever been to New York City?

You may have heard of a nickname for this sprawling metropolis —

‘Concrete Jungle’

Bob Marley used this term as a song title. Alicia Keys references it in the chorus of ‘New York State of Mind’.

Funnily enough, the term is thought to be a twist of the use of the phrase ‘asphalt jungle’ in Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’.

99% of people would never correlate New York to a jungle. Most would point out the distinct lack of monkeys or snakes roaming around the streets.

But that is where Pattern Recognition comes in.

If we choose to look at things on a surface level, the evident qualities shine through. However, we don’t think in literalities all the time. More often than not, we think in terms of imagery.

Take the word ‘jungle’.

Yes, it means a large area of natural habitation with tropical climate and creatures.

But what can a jungle signify?

• Potential to get lost.

• Filled with unexpected scenarios.

• Claustrophobia.

When we peel the layers back and look at the symbolism of a jungle, it’s easy to see where the phrase ‘Concrete Jungle’ emerges.

New York displays many of these characteristics too.

• Easy to get lost on the vast network of grids and buildings.

• Filled with strange characters and unexpected events.

• Claustrophobic… need I say more?

In this sense, it displays commonalities via symbolism to a jungle.

Let’s look at another example…

A volcano.

What does a volcano signify?

• Unpredictability.

• Danger.

• Chaos.

What else can you think of that displays these characteristics?

My mind immediately jumps to a person who hasn’t got their values in order, or someone who rushes into arguments over nothing, causing it all to spill over.

So… why couldn’t I describe someone’s personality as ‘volcanic’?

What about a Rolls Royce?

• Class.

• Elegance.

• Reliability.

I’m sure you might know a person who’s like this.

Could you describe them as ‘a Rolls Royce of a man’?

It might just work! It might not be for your palette.

But spotting these underlying characteristics and symbols of nouns and applying them to other nouns allows us to create unique imagery in the brain of our reader.

We act as a sort of neural tour guide, showing them connections they haven’t previously considered.

This is the origin of two, incredibly useful rhetorical devices:

Metaphor and Simile.

Both of these devices work due the principle of Pattern Recognition.

‘A heart of gold’

Think of the symbolism of gold:

• Valuable. 

• Reliable. 

• Durable.

‘Life is a rollercoaster’

• Fast-paced. 

• Changes quickly. 

• If you’re unlucky, you’ll get someone’s puke on your face.

It’s all pattern recognition.

“This is all well and good, Will. But how the hell do I start spotting patterns?”

My friend, the solution is so simple it still makes me smile.

Spend time observing the world.

When you’re walking through town, observe what is happening instead of staring blankly at the pavement.

Don’t wear headphones, but tune into conversations.

When you’re at Starbucks about to order your Caramel Maccafrappamegacino, don’t bury your face in your phone.

The more you observe, the more you can compare. And the more comparisons you make, the more interesting patterns you spot.

It’s our ability to bring together the underlying details of the world that brings us authenticity in our character and being. No two of us look at the world through the same lens. When you help others to connect the dots of an idea by giving them a unique image in their mind, you break through to them in a way that makes your writing totally memorable.

When we connect the dots, we connect to each other.

Will is now fully on board the What Makes Great Writing team.

That means the paid tier for this publication will go up this Friday.

He and I plan to add these things to the paid tier:

• Storytelling classes,

• Regular feedback on your articles,

• Regular Q&A

It’s possible the archive of this publication will also be reserved for paid members. Haven’t decided on that yet.

Bottom line:

If you want the perks of a paid subscription for the best price, join What Makes Great Writing now.

Use this link:

​https://www.whatmakesgreatwriting.com/subscribe

When I was 11, my family moved away from my hometown of Manchester to a completely alien corner of the UK called Devon.

I went from the familiar to the unknown in a matter of months. My parents wanted my brother and I to experience growing up in a more nature-filled part of the world. Of course, I didn’t understand this at the time.

To 11-year old me, we were leaving behind all I knew.

In Manchester, I used to walk to school in 5 minutes. At this new school in Devon, I had to ride the bus for an hour.

My first day, I made my way down to the bus stop at the local town hall. My Mum came with me, encouraging me it would be fine. The bus pulled around the corner. My feet felt glued to the concrete. A rickety 40-year-old double decker pulled up. Doors opened. I hopped on and looked up… where do I sit?

There were a few kids sitting together chatting. I shuffled myself down the aisle and picked out an empty seat. The bus left, and I proceeded to sit in silence for a full hour as the fields of maize and green rolled by effortlessly.

As I stepped into my new form classroom, 20 different pairs stared me down like wolves. I looked around like an innocent deer in the headlights.

Introduction time. Everyone shared a cool fact about themselves and which of the local primary schools they’d attended. Then it came to me.

I stood up slowly.

I could have said nothing. Never mind butterflies in the stomach — it felt like a cat loose with a ball of string in there. But I mustered what I had…

“My name is Will… and I don’t know anybody, I guess… I’m not from here. I didn’t go to a local school. About me… I like football and reading. I’m a bit shy but I hope we can get to know each other a bit better!”

I sat down. I thought I’d given it my best… but the other kids just didn’t seem interested. I was the black sheep among their pristine white flock.

I spent the first two breaks between lessons sitting on a brick wall outside the science block of my school. The third lesson before lunch went by as slowly as anything I could remember.

I was preparing myself to find an empty table in the canteen, then I got a tap on my shoulder…

“Hey, wanna come with me to grab some lunch?”

“Oh… um… yeah, I guess!”

“You’re Will, right?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Jake. Must be weird knowing no-one!”

“I guess.”

“What’s it like up in Manchester?”

“Oh… it’s alright. Different.”

“I bet… come on then!”

And just like that, I wasn’t so lonesome anymore.

On a day where I thought I’d never feel more excluded, all it took was one tap on the shoulder and one person’s curiosity to lift me out of that dark spell.

I sadly don’t speak to Jake anymore, but he left a resounding lesson in my mind.

One that happens to also be one of the most fundamental storytelling lessons you can learn.

Have you ever watched a film or read a book and felt like a different person afterwards?

You could read a horror book or watch an action-packed thriller movie… but it might not inspire you to take action.

Yet… we all know that some stories just have that special sauce.

You finish them and your motivation IGNITES.

Perhaps you watched ‘Yellowstone’ and, suddenly, you had the urge to buy a ranch in the middle of nowhere.

Perhaps you read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and felt inspired to take an adventure through the mountains and conquer your local town.

It’s kind of fascinating when you observe this.

Why do we feel motivated to move towards something after taking in a great story?

Well, it’s the magic glue that binds us together as people.

Empathy.

When I work with clients on how to utilise storytelling, I hear this a lot:

“I know I have to relate to my audience but I have no idea how to do it regularly.”

To understand how, we have to talk a little bit about brain chemistry.

You hear a lot about tension and release in storytelling. That’s because it causes our brains to secrete cortisol when tense and release dopamine when relaxed. It’s a continual see-saw of feeling uneasy and at peace.

As you go further down the narrative rabbit hole and the see-saw bounces back harder, something suddenly changes:

You are able to see yourself in a character’s shoes.

Even if you haven’t experienced exactly what they’re going through, you’re able to picture yourself in the story watching through their eyes.

This is due to a release of a third important chemical — oxytocin.

When oxytocin is released, we feel closer to our fellow humans. It’s there when you give someone a warm welcome with a huge hug. It’s there when you hit it off with that special someone on a first date or when you get married or have your first child.

A fantastic researcher by the name of Paul Zak wanted to test the effect of oxytocin in storytelling.

His research has led to some fascinating conclusions…

Zak’s work states that for a story to incentivise action, we have to undergo 2 stages:

1. Attention

2. Transformation

Creating tension and release in your writing gets you Step 1. It’s putting your foot in the proverbial door.

But it’s only once you’re inside the house that Step 2 can begin.

When we are fully immersed in a story, we enter a stage called Transformation.

This is when our brain begins to release oxytocin.

When you’re watching a James Bond film and he’s fighting on a crane with the bad guy, we’re stimulated and stressed by the moment. Then, we’re transformed. Our brains release oxytocin.

We begin to feel the emotions of Bond as if we were him.

That same rush of nervousness and adrenaline transports from the screen or page into our mind.

Zak wanted to show this effect in action, so he devised a study.

They took a story based around a 2 and a half-year old boy named Ben, and the rather sad twist is that Ben has brain cancer.

The story focuses on the perspective of Ben’s father. Ben is described as a loving, innocent child. The father struggles to witness this and plays with Ben, knowing his son’s inevitable fate on the horizon.

As Ben’s father tells the story of the cancer, he makes this statement:

“It’s an amazing thing to know how little time one has left.”

It’s as if he has merged with his child emotionally.

Zak wanted to see if we could predict this Transformation effect being induced through the lens of Ben’s father.

Zak’s team recorded one video of the father describing his experience with Ben while showing clips of the two of them playing and talking.

They recorded a second video, this time of Ben and his father at the zoo on a day out. This time, there is no narration of the story or context, but there are obvious allusions to Ben’s condition.

Each member of the trial was shown one of the two videos.

The members who saw the day out at the zoo footage? They began to tune out and find distraction half way through.

The ones who watched Ben’s father narrate the story? Completely engaged throughout.

Another incredible facet of this research is, at the end, participants were offered the chance to donate money to a cancer research charity.

The ones who watched Ben’s father donated significantly more than those who watched the zoo video.

The participants who watched and heard Ben’s father felt transported.

It leads to this fascinating conclusion…

You have the power to transform people with your story.

Of course, a trip to the shop to buy milk might not do the trick…

But your rags to riches tale?

Your experience with personal loss?

Your adventure that conquered your biggest fear?

People are crying out for connection in this world. They want to see examples of heroic and strong-minded action, so they too can take inspiration and make the bold choices required in their lives. Don’t be scared to take the plunge and share your tales online. Even more so, don’t be scared to dive into the emotional ocean that you’ve experienced.

You might just transport someone to exactly where they need to be.

Final note here.

I expect Will and I (Todd) to be fully in sync on this publication by the end of next week. When that happens, the price of this publication’s paid tier will go up.

He and I plan to add these things to the paid tier:

• Storytelling classes,

• Regular feedback on your articles,

• Regular Q&A

It’s possible the archive of this publication will also be reserved for paid members. Haven’t decided on that yet.

Bottom line:

If you want the perks of a paid subscription for the best price, join What Makes Great Writing now.

Use this link:

​https://www.whatmakesgreatwriting.com/subscribe

Last night, I’m sat out on my porch.

It’s a dry summer night here in Portugal. The sky is glistening. A dog howls in the distance. And my brain is rushing around a specific trail of thought…

Style in writing.

So many people struggle with finding their ‘voice’. They bounce back and forth around the topic, hoping to discover what makes them unique in the process. After writing several, terrible pieces, they end up banging their heads against the wall and think it’s pointless.

And that’s when the snake oil salesmen knock on the door…

What’s the biggest problem with writing online nowadays?

It’s cheap. Constant tricks employed for engagement. Crass words that carry zero authenticity in their brittle shells.

It ends up becoming hollow all too quickly. You feel like you can’t deviate from the algorithm’s preferences otherwise you run the risk of digital extinction.

It’s led to what I call The Digital Writing Exodus — countless people are realising these gimmicks force them to be something other than themselves and are now leaving the online writing space in droves.

So how do you navigate these tricky times?

It’s only when you come back to one fundamental lesson that this feeling of needing to copy people goes away:

Writing is art.

When we incorporate writing into our toolkit for the purposes of traction and remedial numbers online, it becomes a tool; a proverbial paintbrush.

‘I must write this giveaway because that’s what works. Ugh I hate how it sounds.’

Well, of course you do, because you’re treating your writing as a tool.

Writing isn’t the brush, it’s the damn painting.

When you think of writing as an art, you can compare it to other creative endeavours. Whenever someone says ‘I play the piano’ or ‘I paint watercolour paintings of country musicians’, we don’t associate them as people doing this with an end goal in mind.

It’s an extension of their consciousness pouring into the world.

It’s them going into the deeper limits of their perception and ability and throwing out whatever comes out, be it turgid tripe or glistening glory.

So why do we treat writing any differently?

Writing must primarily be a method of communication with the subconscious.

It should be an outlet for your thoughts; not something you do because it’s essential for growth.

This is also why the traditional school system fails us. It doesn’t teach us to treat writing as an art, but a method for achieving a standardised test result. No wonder people grow to hate it.

Most of us want writing to feel like a companion; a confidant; someone we can enjoy exploring with.

Let’s take it a step further…

When we take an art form like music or painting or dancing, these come from a place deep within us.

But there are techniques that we can use to hone these powers.

• A specific set of dance steps

• A certain chord arrangement

• A particular type of brushstroke

When writing, the same thing applies.

If you’re a copywriter, you’ll know concepts like The Rule of One and The Big Idea.

If you’re a storyteller, you’ll know about concepts like The Hero’s Journey and Archetypes.

But what happens if you follow these templates exclusively?

You don’t end up creating anything original.

The great writers know when to incorporate the rules of the game and when to venture outwards. If you’re a King, you can’t leave your kingdom to conquer new ones all the time. But you can’t just stay within the castles walls either hoping no new enemies appear on the horizon.

It’s in this balanced ritual that style is born.

It’s when you’re riding the precipice of what is known to work and hold true, while simultaneously letting go of any preconceptions and plunging into the unknown.

So, how on Earth do we practice this?

I picked up the guitar for the first time when I was 8 years old.

I had lessons at school but my teacher spent 6 months explaining the intricacies of the James Bond theme and I grew tired of 007.

Fast forward to when I was 13…

My Dad tells me about a song he loves, but rarely listens to. He will save it for special occasions, and he encourages me to listen to it.

It was ‘All Along The Watchtower’ by Jimi Hendrix.

And my mind melted when I heard this song…

The guitar work was unlike anything I’d ever heard. I was hypnotised in a trance of wah and fuzz. It captivated me so much that I had to know what he was doing.

So I picked up the guitar.

When a teacher was lecturing to me about a song that I had to play exactly the right way, it killed any fire my soul had burning. But when an influence graced my presence that couldn’t be ignored — I fell hypnotised.

THIS is how you make your own style in whatever creative endeavour.

You follow your curiosities down a rabbit hole. You seek out what fascinates you and break it down into digestible pieces. Sometimes you won’t understand it immediately, but time is a gracious healer. In doing this, you find elements of each curiosity, bake them together and use them to expel your subconscious musings out in the world.

THIS is your style.

I studied Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Mayer mostly when learning guitar.

Did I copy their lines? Of course.

But I would take snippets of those lines and merge them together.

I would constantly ask myself —

“What line do you want to play right now?? Do you want this lick or possibly a different scale?”

When it comes to writing, you study the great writers.

You do this by reading and digesting as much as you can. Throw out the garbage, reread the joy-invoking. Then you begin to play with it…

I love Ernest Hemingway and experimented with writing in his style during my early blogging days online. I also love the style of Bill Bryson and will use my attempt at dry humour where necessary to make a story stick. I would never copy these writers word for word, but I’ll examine the effect their words had on me and try to replicate that in my own unique way.

That is how you form style, my friend.

You borrow from the greats that captivate you, but allow yourself the freedom to think originally and channel that energy through these influences.

When you do this, you’ll suddenly get people reaching out to you —

“I’ve never seen someone frame that idea in such a way before.”

You’ll be authentically yourself, backed by the greats before you and fueled by your curiosity.

Forget growth guides. Forget BS generic writing advice.

Simply follow what sets your soul alight. Read like books are sheep and you’re a hungry wolf. Spend your time actively listening instead of burying your face in a phone.

When you do this, your unique interpretation of all this beauty that lies in front of you begins to merge and, suddenly, style comes pouring out uncontrollably. Don’t listen to those snake oil salesmen trying to convince you that you need just one more magical guide and you’ll finally unique.

All it takes is the courage to put down the handbook.

Final note here.

I expect Will and I to be fully in sync on this publication in about 2 weeks. When that happens, the price of this publication’s paid tier will go up.

He and I plan to add these things to the paid tier:

• Storytelling classes,

• Regular feedback on your articles,

• Regular Q&A

It’s possible the back catalog of this publication will also only be available to paid members. Haven’t decided on that yet.

Bottom line:

If you want the perks of a paid subscription for the best price, join What Makes Great Writing now.

Use this link:

​https://www.whatmakesgreatwriting.com/subscribe​

The principles of great writing are fixed and eternal.

What worked for Shakespeare then works on TwiXter now, albeit each is wearing slightly different clothing. If someone claims to have found a “new” writing hack, you can be sure they are putting a new shade of lipstick on a reliable, steadfast pig.

So, no, I don’t care that Everything, Everywhere All At Once is 3 whole years old, and no, I don’t care that everyone on social media has stopped saying “look, it’s the kid from the Goonies!”, and no, I’m not concerned that the world has already forgotten the movie absolutely cleaned house at the Academy Awards, taking home 7 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

Far as I’m concerned, nobody has paid enough attention to the stellar writing in this film. 

The story is great, obviously, but let’s dig in to the dialog.

Here are my favorite 3 quotes from the film. Let’s talk about what they are, why they work, and how you can learn from them. 

Quote 1 — “You are getting fat”

“You are getting fat. And you never call me even though we have a family plan. And it's free. You only visit when you need something. And you got a tattoo, and I don't care if it's supposed to represent our family. You know I hate tattoos. And of all the places I could be, why would I want to be here with you?”

Two main rhetorical elements at play here. 

The first is a congeries. (Literally “a heap.”). It’s not enough for our main character to say “you’re awful.” She must add dimension to the dialog. With every new dimension added, the characters become more real and believable. 

(Consider going from a 2-Dimensional video to a 3-Dimensional one. Same effect)

The second element at play here is a balance of hypotaxis and parataxis. (Literally, short and long sentences.)

Look at the quote again, this time with word counts over each sentence. 

Quote 2 — Why I was looking for you

“I wasn't looking for you so I could kill you. I was just looking for someone who could see what I see, feel what I feel.”

The main rhetorical element at play here is parallel structure. 

Each sentence structurally identical, which makes it stick in our head. 

As an added bonus, these two lines have enormous contrast. 

The motivation isn’t murder. It’s connection. 

Quote 3 — “See the good side of things”

“When I choose to see the good side of things, I'm not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It's how I've learned to survive through everything. I don't know. The only thing I do know... is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind - especially when we don't know what's going on.”

Don’t get lost in the message yet. 

Let’s look at the structure. 

First, notice that the first sentence begins with an adverb clause. It grounds us in the topic at hand (Waymond’s annoying optimism), and keeps us hooked and waiting for the second half of the line. 

Second, notice the two descriptors: strategic and necessary. These two cold words create enormous contrast (and therefore interest) in Waymond’s “flaw” of warm naivety.

Lastly, the oldest rhetorical trick in the book — repetition — is deployed for one of the movies main points

“Be kind.” 

If you want people to remember something, say it twice. 

If you want to produce great writing, watch movies like this, read the scripts, and then read them again. 

And then read them again. 

What Makes Great Writing? is a publication specifically for people who want to improve their writing.

It is NOT for people who want to

• Hack the process,

• Replace themselves with AI,

• Find “super quick tips.”

If you’re in the first group, subscribe. If you’re in the second, begone foul beast.

Subscribe now

Lately, I’ve been listening to the High School Musical soundtrack on a loop.

Some bro on Instagram said it would make me live longer.

You’re thinking “oh yeah. That song ‘We’re All In This Together,’ right?” No. The deep tracks.

• Scream.

• Can I Have this Dance.

• Humuhumunukunukuapua’a.

I listened to HSM 2 in its entirety even though everyone knows that aside from Corbyn Bleu’s baseball diamond dance, the movie is total garbage.

Usually, the pop hits play in my headphones as I take my morning walk around town. This morning, in the middle of Everyday, I felt a fuming desire for silence.

I paused the music, took one deep breath, looked up at a maple tree, and started to cry.

Instead of the dulcet, studio-altered tones of Zac Efron, I heard…

934 birds screaming about the sunrise. A power saw spinning through brick at the old post office. Tires crunching on asphalt as commuters checked another drive off the calendar. The soft click of streetlights shutting off.

I felt…

The grit of my fingerprints rubbing against one another. My orange and blue Karhu shoes scuffling along the concrete. Discarded airpods thumping against my thigh. This odd tongue sitting awkwardly behind my molars. (Never think about your tongue too much, by the way.)

I smelled…

First, cigarettes from the rehab center across the street. Later, honeysuckle.

I saw…

A house numbered “700 1/2.” Georgia the golden retriever sticking her nose out of the window. Some stray cat sleeping in a dog pen. Two people — are they a couple or just co-workers? — stepping out of a blue Prius, pulling out work bags and packages and coffee. Our town’s 7-foot American flag flapping proudly in the wind above Main Street. It looks much more picturesque against the morning light than it does on the news.

But then, a lot of ideals look better than reality.

Here’s another sound bite I picked up on the Internet:

“There will be periods in your life where you learn and periods where you work.”

That idea disgusts me.

But the reality is — I’m busier than I’ve ever been. I have notes of Interesting Things waiting to be expanded on and shared. I have studies waiting to be connected.

The gravity of work is difficult to break. No, not work — tasks. Things that must be done as opposed to what probably should be done. And it is a physical gravity. As I rounded the last corner of my walk, there was an immediate shift in thinking.

Who has time for philosophy when there are emails to read?

Possibly a more urgent question is: why do I develop work tunnel vision within 100 yards of my house, the place that is supposed to give me peace and rest?

Habits, I suppose. I need new ones.

I want to live in Writerland, a world where adjectives beat charts and graphs, where a noun beats a well-done task, and where the right sentence arrangement beats growing profile engagement.

I’m not there yet.

But I’m walking that way.

What Makes Great Writing? is a publication specifically for people who want to improve their writing.

It is NOT for people who want to

• Hack the process,

• Replace themselves with AI,

• Find “super quick tips.”

If you’re in the first group, subscribe. If you’re in the second, begone foul beast.

Subscribe now

There is no such thing as “the best writer.” There are only writers who tell the truth, and those who don’t. 

Context: 

A couple weeks ago, I found myself on a phone call with one friend and one celebrity chef. The Chef made a living traveling and cooking, writing and teaching. He’s draped in James Beard Awards. Appeared alongside Martha Stewart. Wrote for the New York Times. Featured on the Today show. 

Impressive stuff. 

He came to us because Google slashed his website traffic. A site that once got nearly a million visitors per month was now “only” getting 250K or so. 

That context is mostly immaterial, but it helps you understand what happened next. 

My friend and I asked him a lot of questions. We wanted to help: 

“What’s your email list size?”

“What’s your product list?”

“What are your goals for the rest of this year?” 

And so on. 

One question we did not bother to ask: 

“Are you the best at what you do?”

There’s this scene in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris where Owen Wilson is sitting in the back of a time-traveling Rolls Royce with Ernest Hemingway. 

Hemingway says something to this effect: 

“Writers are competitive. If you're a writer, declare yourself the best writer - but you're not the best as long as I'm around. ” 

Owen Wilson nods politely.

Partially because he’s more interested chasing a woman than writing his novel. Partially because he knows there is no such thing as the “best writer.”

Even in Hemingway’s time, there wasn’t a best writer. To attempt to crown a “best” writer is to invite a pile of qualifying questions.

“The ‘best’ in what genre? In what time period? Are we defining ‘best’ by sales figures or critical reviews? By ‘best’ writer, do we mean ‘most prolific’ writer or is it ‘better’ to have written a single, phenomenal novel? While we’re at it, do you mean the ‘best’ across this fixed time period, or the ‘best’ of all time?”

Consider your high school English teacher. 

Was this person the “best?”

(I mean, mine was. So I know yours wasn’t. Unless you went to Dickson County High School in 2008 and sat through Dr. Jones’s deconstruction of Hamlet.)

So since your English teacher isn’t the best, does that mean they have no value? 

Of course not. 

Your English teacher just helped you get closer to the truth. 

And, vague as this sounds, that’s one “benefit” that all readers are after. Finding the truth. 

Defining truth is tricky. For our purposes today, we’ll define truth as something that helps you make sense of your world. 

Using that definition, I can give you a piece of truly optimistic information. 

You don’t need to be the “best” to help people find truth. 

You don’t need a niche. You don’t need a bio. You don’t need a book deal. You don’t need “Six Easy Copywriting Hacks!” 

You need to present the truth. Then present your evidence for that. 

If you read ’s Substack publication, you’ll find some truth in there. If you read Neil Gaiman’s novels, you’ll find some there. If you read Maggie Smith’s poetry, you’ll find truth in there as well.

You’re also likely to find some truth in:

• Elon Musk’s Tweets

• Elon Musk’s critics

• Brené Brown’s books

• Terry Pratchett’s satire

• Paul Graham’s essays

• Call Her Daddy’s Instagram posts

Are any of these people “the best” writer?

No. 

As mentioned, that trophy is impossible to award. 

But they all tell the truth. They help their readers make sense of the world in some way. 

That’s enough. 

What Makes Great Writing? is a publication specifically for people who want to improve their writing.

It is NOT for people who want to

• Hack the process,

• Replace themselves with AI,

• Find “super quick tips.”

If you’re in the first group, subscribe. If you’re in the second, begone foul beast.

Subscribe now

Last week, I was struggling to write a sentence.

Despite the decade I’ve spent writing professionally (from journalist to tech writer to educator to author… and from speech writer to blogger to editor to copywriter) this is shockingly common.

I write for a living. I still find it difficult to write sentences I’m pleased with.

So, today we’re doing something a little weird. I thought it might be helpful to show you my step-by-step process for editing ONE SINGLE sentence.

Be warned, what you’re about to read is a live peek at a writer’s brain…

It is a dark and scary place.

I write this sentence:

I read it and think “this feels wrong.”

Whenever that thought stabs at my consciousness, I strip down the individual elements of whatever I’m looking at. My first move is to break this single sentence apart into separate sections using shift +enter.

I’m fine with the opening phrase (“I could have been”) so I immediately drop down. This sentence demands parallel structure, so I look at the verbs first.

This works. Each word has three syllables and ends with “-ing.” Although their stressed syllables do not match (TUM-te-te, and then te-TUM-te), I’m okay with it.

I stare at the middle section of each phrase.

Ugh.​

Even before I count the syllables in these two phrases, I know they aren’t right. Stacking the phrases on top of one another has helped me see the two descriptors don’t match. “Plump treat baskets” has 4 syllables while “high-level strategy plans” inflates to 7.

I think: “What’s a phrase with fewer syllables that means something similar to high-level strategy plans?”

I change the line…​

Okay the additional M in “moves” helps that alliteration in “make millions,” but I think I can do a little better. There’s something fun about the rhythm of that first phrase about baskets (TUM-TUM-TUM-te) that loses a little steam in the second (TUM-TUM-te-te-TUM).

Maybe it’s just the word “plump” that I love.

Plump.

Plump.

Plump.

It sounds like itself. Majestic. I should use plump more often.

Wait, what was I doing?

Oh right. Trying to find word better than plump.

(Plump chance.)

Let’s try…​

“Sharp new tactics” matches the rhythm of “plump treat baskets,” and as an added bonus, the new assonance between “tactics” and “baskets” makes me drool a little.

But.

Now I’m doubting another part of the sentence. “Design” doesn’t work as well with “sharp new tactics.” Do you really “design” a sharp new tactic? More likely you’d “discovering” it, but “discovering” has four syllables. Darn. Also, this sentence is about my addiction to compliments, but “discovering” is an act nobody would see.

I try another tweak…

Oops. Although “Sharing” and “sharp” are now alliterative, but now the two -ing verbs have a different number of syllables. Do I care? Sometimes, no. This time, yes.

I don’t want to change “sharing,” though, so I make a different swap.​

My brain is hurting, but I’ve got to address the final adjective and noun. By the grace of Caliope (or pure dumb luck), a matching phrase pops into my head immediately.​

I getting close to committing the sin of OVERworking a line, which is why I’d rather have the springy alliteration from “raise revenue” than match the syllable structure with something like “increase revenue.”

Besides (I remind myself), this is nonfiction, not poetry. Our sentence will be parsed back out to a full line, which makes the syllable mismatch less overt.​

All done.

Except I’m not.

Damn it.

I notice an issue with my infinitives at the end of each phrase that keeps me from quitting and going to breakfast. It happened when I rolled out “raise revenue.”

Do you see the problem?

“to hungry coworkers”

“to raise revenue”

In the first version, I’m giving a (noun) to an (adjective)(noun). In the second, I’m sharing a (noun) in order to (verb) (noun).

Will there be riots in the street because of this? Probably not.

Is it worth the change? Yes.

The whole goal of editing is so we leave zero friction between our idea and the reader’s understanding. At the very least, I’d like to have the same category of noun (people) at the end. It makes for easier reading.

I dive back in…​

The astute reader will notice the structures are not identical, but that reader can also bugger off. I need pancakes.

(12 pancakes, 3 strips of bacon, and one egg later…)

It’s worth mentioning I don’t do this for every sentence I write.

Can you imagine? My wife Kate would come home one day to find me curled up in the fetal position on the floor of my office, clutching a battered style book, frothing at the mouth, and babbling something about the gross mistreatment of the oxford comma.

Usually, these surgeries take place within a line at the beginning or end of a post. If I grab a person when they start reading and leave them wowed once they finish, I’m doing my job.

And if you’re giving even half this attention to the words coming off your fingers, you’re doing yours.

What Makes Great Writing? is a publication specifically for people who want to improve their writing.

It is NOT for people who want to

• Hack the process,

• Replace themselves with AI,

• Find “super quick tips.”

If you’re in the first group, subscribe. If you’re in the second, begone foul beast.

Subscribe now

OK, watch.

I’m going to show you a few sentences. You’re going to observe the differences.

There’s an obvious (to me) error that keeps cropping up the work of my clients, my students, and my friends. Considering how simple the fix is, it feels criminal not to address it.

Now then. 

The first sentence:

“I sat still in the chair. This was taking longer than I thought. I wondered how much longer it would last.”

Got it?

Digested?

OK, here’s the second sentence.

“Two weeks ago, I was sitting still in a chair. This was taking longer than I thought. I wondered how much longer it would last.“

I’ve added an adverb phrase. Nothing more. A temporal description: “Two weeks ago.”

Already, this improves the sentence.

Of the billion or so attempts at stories posted online every day, 99% of them would be better with a phrase like this. (That “99%”  is not a nonsense figure to grab your attention. I REALLY DO think that AT LEAST 99% of story attempts fail at this) 

Now then. 

With three words, you’ve grounded your story in reality. Plus, you’ve added a pinch of intrigue. (Why would you tell us about an event that happened in the past unless it is relevant today?)

I said this sentence was improved. It’s not yet “good.” 

What else can we do? 

“Two weeks ago, I was sitting still in a hospital chair. This was taking longer than I thought. I wondered how much longer it would last.“

I’ve added one adjective. Nothing more. A description: “hospital.” 

In total, we’ve added four words to this sloppy sentence. 

Yet the initial sentence is floating in space, an unrelatable non-event, and the latest sentence is clearly the beginning of a very real story. 

We’ve added a time. We’ve added a place. 

This is not hard. 

Because it’s not hard, many people skip over it. Instead, they vomit out purple prose (illuminating us with thrilling details concerning the color of the chair, the texture of the arm rest, the feel of the butt pad, the wood used to make the legs) or they blaze past the story altogether (eliminating the drama and robbing us of any emotional punch the story’s moral might provide).

You may think this is amateur stuff. Surely “real writers” would do it better.

And I would ask you — what “real writer” are you referring to?

George Orwell maybe?…

It was a bright cold day in April (time), and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the bend, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions (place)… — 1984

Oh I know! Maybe JK Rowling…

“Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast (time) at number four, Privet Drive (place).” — Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Hmph. What about Neil Gaiman…?

“It was a nice day (time). All the days had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn’t been invented yet. But clouds massing east of Eden (place) suggested the first thunderstorm was on its way…” — Good Omens

Gosh! Surely Jane Austen…

“About thirty years ago (time) Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton (place), and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.” — Mansfield Park

Gulp. Hemingway…?

“It was now lunch time (time) and they were all sitting under the double green fly (place) of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened.” — The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

Speaking of Hemingway, I’m now compelled to give advice he would have backed.

Just tell the damn story.

Tell it sentence by sentence.

Don’t be cute. Don’t be clever. Tell us when the story takes place. Tell us where the story takes place. Then us tell the story.

Obviously you could make this topic more complex. 

But why bother?

P.S. I’d make at least one more edit to our practice sentence. Comment below and tell me what you think it is.

Reminder of the sentence:

“Two weeks ago, I was sitting still in a hospital chair. This was taking longer than I thought. I wondered how much longer it would last.”

What Makes Great Writing? is a publication specifically for people who want to improve their writing.

It is NOT for people who want to

• “hack” the process,

• replace themselves with AI,

• find “super quick tips.”

If you’re in the first group, subscribe. If you’re in the second, begone foul beast.

Subscribe now

Anyone can write. 

Once, twice. A couple posts every couple weeks. But to become a writer requires more than a whim, a keyboard, and a random spare hour now and again. To become a writer is to live a writer’s lifestyle. 

In high school, I wrote. Once, twice. A smattering of journal entries.

In college, I became a writer. Posting on my blog Friday mornings. Locking myself in the computer lab all Sunday. Covering women’s basketball on Tuesday.

The basketball games paid $8.50 per story. So roughly $2.12 per hour. Worth it. 

During my first job, I became a writer. Not from 9-5. In the morning before Kate woke up. On my 1-hour lunch break after shoveling down leftover tuna casserole. During the commute home. 

I forged my routines when there was still time to fill. That’s the ideal way to find writing time: do it before your schedule is crammed full.  

Really, there are only 2 other ways to “find time” to write. 

Option 1 for making time to write: perform your current commitments faster. 

You have an 8-hour shift. Can you do your work in 6 hours and use the other 2 for writing? 

You cook breakfast for your family. Can you prep the night before? 

You work out at the gym for an hour. Can you jot down ideas between sets? 

I’m really asking you here. 

Option 2 for making time to write: is eliminating your current commitments. 

You have an 8-hour shift. Do you need it? 

You cook breakfast for your family. Can they maybe fend for themselves twice a week? 

You need to go to the gym for an hour. Can you walk for 45 minutes instead? 

I’m really asking you here. 

You need motivation to write? Ok.

There’s a familiar little parable that gets passed around the personal development space. It goes something like this: 

“There is no such thing as procrastination. You would not procrastinate on something if you had the proper motivation. If I told you that I’d give you a million dollars for showing up at a parking lot on Main Street at 6 AM tomorrow, you’d magically find a way not to procrastinate.” 

First:

Some people really would find a way to fumble this imaginary opportunity. They have been carrying bad habits for so many decades that they don’t have a free hand to pick up good opportunities.

Let’s assume you aren’t part of that sad crowd. 

What’s a good motivation for writing? 

The motivation for writing might be “to see my words on a page and publish them.” 

ChadGPT and friends generate words faster than you’ve ever dreamed. 

And you can say that “you” wrote them. If you’re short on time, probably this motivation will not last when life gets busy.

The motivation for writing might be “to become famous.” 

That’s an empty motivation. I’ve been there.

Got famous. Then got ignored. Then moaned and cried and nearly quit. Then found a better motivation.

(More on that later)

The motivation for writing might be “to become rich” 

Did you not read how little money I made at the newspaper?????

But ok, fair. That was traditional journalism: one news outlet covering many topics. Back then, it was a dying field. These days, it’s a rotting corpse.

Plenty of reasons why that is. One piece of proof is this:

Yesterday, I got my news from the sidebar on X. That sidebar sourced that news from the 500 million new posts published each day. Then, it checked my user history to see what I’m interested in. Then, it showed me news items with coherent headlines.

Much “journalism” now comes from average citizens, reporting on live events. They do this for $0.

Who needs journalists? 

(You may ask — “But Todd, what about the stories that average citizens don’t know about? Secret deals behind closed doors? Political moves intentionally hidden from the public? Shouldn’t journalists tell us about those?” 

The answer, of course, is yes. 

The solution requires far more time than I have here) 

Where were we?

Ah yes. The whole “getting rich by writing” thing. 

Traditional journalism is out.

This means if your motivation for writing is getting rich, you must write to accomplish some business objective. 

• Writing copy. 

• Writing content. 

• Writing online courses. 

• Writing niche newsletters. (Modern journalism) 

Any of these can be a tremendously lucrative pursuit. 

The catch is that your topic, post length, and objectives are dictated to you. Your curiosity is boxed in. 

(Good for the bank account. Not great for the soul.) 

The motivation for writing might be “to understand yourself and the world.”

This is the best reason to write, although I don’t feel very confident in my ability to convince you of that. It feels like trying to introduce you to my imaginary friend. 

Best I can offer is this: 

When you understand yourself and the world, you make better choices. 

Better career choices.

Better money choices.

Better relationship choices. 

To write is to hold a little conference with yourself. To say “ok self, how can we make our existence less awful?” 

Self always has an answer. It’s just shy. It’s waiting for a page, a pen, and a consistent quiet time to reveal the truth.

It wants you to make the time to write.

Growing up, I wasn’t the “adventure hero” kind of guy.

I played golf.

Sang in the choir.

Read poems with theatre kids.

Now, two decades later, I’ve found the joy of hyper-masculine heroes. Dudes who rush the scene, punch out the bad guy, and get the girl.

“Hyper masculine” characters are more than just actions, of course. You can’t understand a character without including the way an author presents him to you. The author’s writing voice helps you “see” the character.

John Green’s teenagers, are thoughtful, quirky, and honest because John Green’s sentences are thoughtful, quirky, and honest

Terry Pratchett’s monsters are chaotic, rambling, and hysterical because Terry Pratchett’s sentences are chaotic, rambling, and hysterical.

Lee Child’s hero — Jack Reacher — is a brutal, no-nonsense hero. So, guess what the sentences sound like?

Read these 3 passages from Reacher’s first novel, Killing Floor.

They hold keys to giving you writing a sharp and decisive voice.

Lesson 1 — Establish your style early

This is Jack Reacher’s first-ever paragraph.

Notice two things:

1. It’s first person narration (using the pronoun “I”).

2. The sentences are choppy, and often incomplete.

Your English teacher would scribble through this paragraph with red pen. 3 of these 6 sentences are incomplete. Meaning they are technically wrong.

But they are stylistically perfect.

Takeaway: Great writing doesn’t always follow the rules. After you’ve written something, read it out loud to see if it “feels” right. 

Lesson 2 — Use More Nouns and Verb than Adjectives 

There is only one descriptor in this whole paragraph. The word “one”.

No “sickening crack” of the fingers. No “agonizing scream” from the victim. Not even a “firm grip” around the hands. 

In this style, there’s no need for that. 

Reacher communicates everything with cold nouns and unfeeling verbs.

Takeaway: Great writing isn’t always flowery. Next time you write, try stripping out all the adjectives 

Lesson 3 — Save your metaphors for when it counts 

This is not a lesson in metaphor, really.

It’s a lesson in contrast.

Up to this point, Jack doesn’t have much need for metaphor. He is plain and simple. The stereotypical man of few words. 

When he suddenly throws in a phrase like “the sky crashed in on me,” we know doomsday is nigh.

What could have possibly happened to drive reacher out of his straightforward storytelling?

We find out on the next page.

(And boy, is it a doozy.)

Takeaway: Great writing subtly shifts its style throughout to “wake up” the reader. 

Reflecting on all this, I can’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for an odd group:

High school English students.

We stuff these teenagers in sterile classrooms and force them to read things like Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Flannery O’Connor.

Yes, these are all brilliant writers.

All brilliant writers who mostly wrote things high school students are completely disinterested in. 

Clearly Lee Child has created something great here too. A truth-seeking, justice-dealing, butt-kicking hero. He also deals with many of the “real life” themes that our traditional literary heroes address

“But Todd! High schoolers don’t read anyways!”

Yeah, well maybe they would if you gave them more interesting books. 

That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?

You don’t have writer’s block, procrastination, or imposter syndrome. You aren’t out of ideas. You haven’t pissed off the wrong muse. 

You’re scared to be deemed unworthy by readers.

This seems to be a curse on all who hold a pen (or keyboard).

If writer should have ever been free of this fear, it’s Terry Pratchett. Terry was an English fantasy satire author who sold 100 million books in his career. 50 of his titles were bestsellers. But if his late work is any indication, even he grappled with his own worth.

Pratchett was diagnosed was Alzheimer’s in 2007. By 2009, his assistant was typing his books. One of those books is titled Unseen Academicals.

The new character of this book is named Mr. Nutt. He is a goblin (we think). He works at the wizard university. He is obsessed with worth.

“Am I worthy?” Mr. Nutt asks, over and over.

The climax to Mr. Nutt’s story is a teeth-tingling bite into a 95% chocolate bar. Bitter on the tongue. Barely any sugar.

The bitterness mostly comes from Pratchett’s unflinching stare at worth’s opposite: 

Worthlessness.

I won’t spoil the climax here. However, after reading it, I am forced to give you my own bitter bites.

Here, a bitter bite

It is possible for a person to be worthless.

Worthless, meaning absent of worth. Worthless, meaning the world is worse off because you are in it. 

Here, a bitter bite:

Whether a person is worthy or worthless is objective. It is not up for debate. If such a scale could be built, worth could be measured.

Worth is not determined independently. It is determined communally.

That means if you say you are worthy, but the vast majority decide you are not, they are correct. 

Here, a bitter bite. 

Social media — at least in part — is that scale of worth. The judgement of all mankind, hot against every word you write. Or cold and indifferent.

Yes, it is fickle. Yes, it is abused and abusive. Yes, a like, share, or comment can mean something other than “you are worthy.” Yes, people can find you worthy without clicking a button to indicate such.*

But for better or worse, our platforms (imperfectly) measure worth. 

Here, a bitter bite. 

Given this, you can write something worthless.

“But everything is worthy to someone!” 

Not always.

Why are we talking about “life” instead of writing?

What difference is there, really? Your writing cannot be any greater than some total of your experiences, your reading, and your thought. 

Is there any “sweet” to this bitterness?

It’s unclear.

Presumably, I should finish this off with advice. For that, you can read any of the other posts from this publication, written when my mood was less bleak. 

Presumably, you want a guarantee for worthy writing.

I’m not sure there is one. I’m not even sure if this post is worthy. You’ll have to be the judge of that.

For today, the closest thing to “advice” I can give you is this: 

When you write, seek truth. Then try to say it in a way that people haven’t heard it before.

Then try again tomorrow.

*To the lurkers. If you like someone’s work, click a button that tells them so. It’s the literal least you can do.

It's a shame that early death is such good marketing.

We remember the death. We forget the work.

Kurt Cobain’s lyrics wilt next to his freshly fired shotgun. Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black is consumed by ascending beehive and crack intake hairdo. Poe’s genius gets swamped by a vision of his staggering collapse in an alley.

These artists died of their own actions. Suicides of various lengths. 

Then, there’s Marina Keegan — a budding writer who went for a drive with her boyfriend after eating brunch, then never came back.

That car crash is detailed in Marina’s posthumous collection of writing: The Opposite of Loneliness. After her death and its publication, nearly every news outlet – from the Boston Globe to POPSUGAR — heaped praise on the book. It became an instant New York Times Bestseller.

The book is, frankly, underrated.

If you've heard of Marina, it's likely from her viral commencement speech. Today, we are looking at a lesser-known essay called Why We Care About Whales.

Let’s dig in.

Lesson 1 — Personify

When the moon gets bored, it kills whales. Blue whales and fin whales and humpback, sperm and orca whales: centrifugal forces don't discriminate.

Personification is giving human attributes to a non-human thing. Our moon is a chunk of rock. It is incapable of boredom or murder. Marina violates all these facts in exchange for a great opening line.

The follow up congeries (list) of whales that follows both anchors us in the topics, and gives Marina credibility. Who can name that many types of whales? Only an expert. And like Neil Gaiman did in Ocean at the End of the Lane, Marina deploys multiple conjunctions here* before transitioning to the serial comma for an odd but effective rhythm.

Also, I dare you to find a more thrilling sentence that uses "centrifugal forces" as its subject.

*this is called polysyndeton.

Lesson 2 — Balance short and long sentences

(3 paragraphs later)

The death is slow. As mammals of the Cetacea order, whales are conscious breathers. Inhalation is a choice, an occasional rise to the ocean surface. Although their ancestors lived on land, constant oxygen exposure overwhelms today's creatures.

Our solemn opener is a parataxic (short) declarative sentence, the brevity of its structure reflecting the gravity of its content. Marina then slides back into expert mode, telling you something you probably didn't know about whales – their scientific order.

There is an alliteration (repeated consonant sounds) and some assonance (repeated vowel sounds) hiding in the last sentence, but you miss that for the content: death by oxygen is ironic and unfair.

Lesson 3 - Embrace the Adverb

Beached whales become frantic, captives to their hyperventilation. Most die of dehydration. The salty air shrinks their oily pores, capturing their moisture. Deprived of the buoyancy of water provides, whales can literally crush themselves to death. Some collapse before they dry out – their lungs suffocating under their massive bodies – or drown when high tides cover their blowholes, filling them slowly while they are too weak to move. The average whale can't last more than twenty four hours on land.

“At once compassionate and dispassionate.” That’s how literary critic and teacher Francis Prose describes Anton Chekov’s work. Marina’s paragraph here also fits that description. Her compassion necessitates these awful details. No flinching.

We’ve got the alliteration in “die of dehydration,” the parallel structure with the adjective noun-combo in the third sentence: “salty air… oily pores”. (Marissa Errico did this well in her NYT essay too).

And although Stephen King says adverbs damn writers to hell (or something like that), Marina deploys two crippling ones here for emphasis.

• “whales can literally crush themselves.”

• “high tides cover their blowholes, filling them slowly while…”

Tough stuff.

Lesson 4 — Use a pronoun to transition

In their final moments, they begin belching and erupting in violent thrashing. Finally, their jaws open slowly – not all the way, but just enough that the characteristic illusion of a perpetual smile disappears. This means it's over. I know this because I watched as 23 whale mouths unhinged. As 23 pairs of whale eyes glazed over.

Transitions confound even the most experienced writers. How do you seamlessly shift the reader’s mind to a new idea?

Marina’s solution: a tense shift into first person.

This is the equivalent of a narrator stepping out from behind the scenes (much like Jesse Plemon’s character does in the movie Vice). It’s only at this point we discover Marina’s real credibility: she watched whales die.

The personal pronoun “I” is sharp corner, turning our attention from whales as a whole to Marina herself. 

Marina, who will go on to rescue some of the whales in this story. Marina, who will be refused from Yale greek life and instead spend her time writing and writing and writing. Marina, who heard her dad say “you should be a lawyer instead.”

Thank God she ignored him.

Writing a sentence should be easy.

“Jack ran.”

See there? We’ve done it. Two words. Subject->verb.

Kindergarten students do this.

As the years go by, we pack more information in between full stops. You learn about coordinating conjunctions…

“Jack and Jill ran.”

Followed by prepositional phrases…

“Jack and Jill ran up the hill.”

Then, you tack on an infinitive phrase…

“Jack and Jill ran up the hill to fetch a pail of water.”

All of this is very straightforward because in grade school, you write to be understood.

(Perhaps this is why we tell people to “write like 3rd graders”… even though I hate that advice.)

Why sentences fall apart

“Higher level” writing is not about being understood. It is about forced word goals and arbitrary page counts.Papers that reach the five-page mark will receive a passing grade. Papers that don’t get marked as “incomplete.”

Results follow incentives. The shift turns concise scholars into obtuse windbags.

“Concerning the objectives of a young boy, Jack, and a young girl, Jill, they depart across the lawns of their own homes in order to physically thrust themselves, using their legs, from a lower place of elevation to a higher one. Upon reaching their destination, the two individuals must fill their fluid-fetching receptacle with proper drinking material.”

Most young people walk off the graduation stage with the false assumption that more words is always better.

Writers forget their earliest teaching: writing simple, declarative sentences that can be easily understood.

That’s what I want to talk about today: simple, declarative sentences.

Two notes before we get to the examples:

1. Don’t be scared off by that term “declarative.” It simply means you are declaring a truth. You are making a statement.

2. That word “simple” is not a synonym for “easy.” It’s a type of declarative sentence: the opposite of “complex.” (We'll get into complex sentences another time).

Here’s an example of a simple, declarative sentence:

“I used to work hard.”

This is the opening line to Joe Karbo’s legendary sales letter, The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches. Can you imagine a more straightforward sentence? 5 words: subject->verb->infinitive.

Simple, simple, simple.

​Yancey Strickler’s 5-word first line in his book, This Could Be Our Future, is just as simple:

“It started with a headline.”

Writers often use the word “it” lazily, but this sentence works as a first line. We immediately want to read the next line and find out what exactly “it” is.

String a few declarative sentences together, and now you’re developing a story, as Sunil Rajaraman does in one of my all-time favorite Medium posts: Everybody is Rich But You.

“It’s Monday morning at 8:00. You are on a sales call with an East Coast customer. You’re normally at the office at 10:00. You’re grumpy. You need a personal day.”

There are no commas in those sentences. You still get the picture.

All these examples have short, third-grade level subjects.

“I.” “It.” “You.”

These are the first pronouns we learn.

A different choice of word can add intrigue to an ordinary sentence. My friend Tim Denning is an expert at writing surprising sentence subjects.

• “A polar bear can change your life.”

• “Online writing is an illusion.”

• “His potatoes helped soldiers survive WWII.”

Tim is a self-taught writer, so it’s worth bringing in an example from the other pole. Washington Post journalist Shira Ovide let this declarative sentence loose in her On Tech newsletter.

Read each well-chosen word one at a time:

“Laws are not a cure-all for our digital privacy mess.”

Incredible.

Notice how even though Shira is using a similar structure (subject->verb->adjective->preposition), the vocabulary changes drastically. Heavy topics often require heavy words.

One more example, and then we’re going to pull out the big lesson.

The last example is from Shonda Rhimes hit show, Bridgerton. Between string renditions of Taylor Swift songs and close up shots of Regé-Jean Page's… um… glutes, you'll find this nifty isocolon tucked in Season 1, Episode 6.

The speaker is trying to make a distinction between how the Duke of Hastings feels about children compared to his duchess.

“He wanted an heir.”
“She wanted a child.”

This is fabulous writing from Chris Van Dusen. Two sentences. Four words each. Heartache and heartbreak wrapped up in a neat, unflinching package.

Now, here’s the big key for you to practice.

When writing declarative sentences, the first two words of each sentence are very often the subject and verb.

Look again at the examples. I've bolded each subject and verb.

• “I used to work hard.”

• ”It started with a headline."

• “It (is) Monday morning…”

• “You are on a sales call…”

• "You (are) normally at the office…”

• “You (are) grumpy."

• “You need a personal day.”

• “A polar bear can change your life.”

• “Online writing is an illusion.”

• “His potatoes helped soldiers survive WWII.”

• “Laws are not a cure-all for our digital privacy mess.”​

And of course:

• "He wanted an heir."

• "She wanted a child."

When struggling to write, it’s helpful to declare something you know to be true. Do it as simply as possible.

Then, you can proceed to the next sentence.

Whether it was half-plagiarized or not, I adored The Holdovers.

Vices. Hypocrisy. Secret motives. Each element of the screenplay — from plot to character to dialogue — is so tightly woven that it almost feels criminal to rip out the individual parts here and put them under a microscope. 

Great writing is tower of cards. Ace of spades here. Diamond there. They build on one another until you realize you are laughing only because the main character said “candy cane.”

This question here is, as always, what can we writers learn from the film? 

Here’s what I took:

1. Use more attention-grabbing words

Writers tell stories. Sadly, we tell them to inattentive human beings with flawed human brains.

Average words are often dismissed by the vigilant guard of our minds. 

How do you pass this guard? A robust vocabulary.

Throw in a few words we rarely, if ever, hear.

2. Find exactly-right comparisons

If a picture is worth a thousand words, the right comparison has to at least be worth several hundred. “Blue” eyes are no match for sapphire. A “treacherous” journey can’t match the terror of walking into the mouth of Hell. 

Holdover Screenwriter David Hemingson (formerly of Nickelodeon) knows this, which is likely why his movie is saturated with ripe similes and metaphors. 

Through the mouth of our main character, these pack a serious punch. 

3. Allow meaning to change over time

Toward the end of the movie, our impression of the main character — a highfalutin, do-gooding, above-it-all teacher — rapidly disintegrates. 

He scolds a student for lying. Then, he turns around and lies to a stranger.

The student wants to know why. 

Here’s what plays out: 

Lastly, a confession.

In many ways, this newsletter writes itself. 

It’s hardly risky to applaud a film which has already been awarded Best Original Screenplay by the most prestigious organization in cinema. 

The hard part, of course, is implementing the lessons. 

By making these observations, I have given myself homework. By reading them, you have accepted the assignment as well.

1. Use more attention-grabbing words

2. Hunt for better companions

3. Let the meaning of your work change over time

All of these require a level of patience and dedication the average writer does not have. 

The great ones, however, find the time to transcend average. 

More importantly, they decide to do so each day. 

Most DMs make me sick.

The over-friendliness. The forced joke. The vague promises.

At least when you get physical junk mail, there’s an envelope to scare you off. With DM’s, it’s only one click between the news feed and “HELLO SIR CAN I SHOW—.”

Obnoxious.

Consider this, though: Direct messages, like unsolicited direct mail, sometimes works. In fact, it works enough to justify the cost — both the time and the money — of sending it.

That means, if you look hard enough, you’ll find diamonds hidden in the rough.

Or, in this case, you’ll find great writing hidden in a big, steaming pile of…

Well…

Bad writing.

For the last 6 months or so, I’ve collected a heaping pile of digital junk mail. Let’s take a look at what we can learn from the good, the bad, and the heinous.

Lesson 1 — Be Specific (The Right Way)

Neil Gaiman once said this about writing: “If you’re going to tell your teacher that your dog ate your homework, you’ve got to get the color of the dog right.”

Great writing, just like lying, depends on the details.

This message TRIES to land me with specific details, but the problem is… they’ve provided no context. Do I want to scale past 10k...in what timeframe Week? Month? Day?

I am confused; therefore I will ignore.

Lesson 2 — Be Credible

Here is a question your reader will always ask, though never out loud: Why should I trust you?

If you assume trust, you lose readers.

If you have no reason to be trusted, you lose readers.

This one is tough for the “aww shucks”-ing, polite folks like me. You’ve likely had years of small-town training to keep your head down, your hands in your pockets, and your mouth shut.

If it helps, remember — you’re not trying to promote yourself. You’re trying to be trustworthy.

The former is obnoxious. The latter is required.

Lesson 3 — Be Empathetic

Humans are “no” machines.

I don’t care if you are trying to teach me something, sell me something, or give me something. My mind will reject every new proposal. New means change. Change means pain.

How do you get past “no?”

Answer: predict it, deflect it. The last 3 lines here are stiff-arming “no’s” harder than Derrick Henry running downhill.

This is empathy at its finest.

You can’t help someone with your writing until you understand them first.