Hello,
I know some of you are getting more emails from me this week than usual. I did think twice about sending this week’s Thursday Brew but it’s the final part of my 3-part series on writing long reads.
It’s somewhat ironic that I’m writing about editing when the email I sent out on Tuesday had the wrong subject line on it. No one is perfect and sometimes those silly mistakes can be for the best.
Also out this week is a brand new podcast episode. I’m chatting to the wonderful Kayleigh Nicolaou from Kakadu Creative about sustainable websites. The episode is jammed packed with advice about how you can make your website more sustainable and also better for your customers and SEO. You can listen to it right here.
This has also been the week that I hacked off the COO of Thursday. Despite hundreds of copywriters having an opinion on their recent LinkedIn marketing campaign, it seems my comment on someone else’s post was enough to get the COO to respond. I suggested that perhaps we have a competition for the fastest hosting provider where they too get paid with exposure.
Snip, Snip! It’s the best bit
This is part 3 in the series of writing long-form articles
I absolutely love editing. It really is the best part of the process. If you have someone else edit your work, they are like a little word fairy, sprinkling magic dust over your words and making them sparkle.
Don’t get me wrong, there have been times I’ve submitted work and someone has come along and re-written it beyond recognition. That’s not editing. That’s interfering unless they are a fully trained sub-editor and have good reason to do so.
But editors are wonderful people and that is because the editing process is the most important part of any writing.
Remember last week when I said to never show anyone your first draft? This is because editing should take as long as writing if you’re doing it well.
So let’s start with some tips about the editing process.
1. Leave some time
If you’re editing a long-form article, like the kind we’ve been chatting about for the past few weeks, then you definitely need to create some distance between the writing and the editing.
For normal editing tasks, I’ll at the very least go get a brew, have a walk outside and clear my head a little. This is when I’m short on time. If I have the time - and I usually build it in - then I’ll wait a day or two before coming back to the copy. This lets it settle a little. You look at it differently.
This is why an external editor is so good. They can see things that you cannot. They are coming at it fresh with one hand on the brief.
2. Don’t tackle it all at once
The editing process is just that - a process. It’s not to be done all in one fell swoop. Tackle one thing at a time and then go back and do the next thing. Breaking it down will help you make your work the best it can be.
3. Save the headline until last
Tweaking or re-writing your headline last will help you make it better. This is the most important part of the page so get it right and give it time.
Alright. This is not an exhaustive list of things to check while editing and you don’t have to do it all in the same order. I’ll no doubt miss something (or add new stuff when I edit this newsletter). If there is something you check for when you edit, do reply and let me know.
Right now, the important thing I keep front of mind is Orwell’s rules of writing. If you’ve not seen them before they are:
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
So we’re going to start with using the first five of these as a checkpoint.
Check your copy for over-used phrases.
Go through and make sure you are not using any cliches. I once handed in a feature containing the phrase ‘Johnny-Come-Lately’. I got a stream of strongly-worded feedback about using cliches and being lazy. In my defence, I’d never actually heard the phrase before so it was new to me but I never did that again.
If you do find yourself ‘thinking outside of the box’ or being ‘as cheap as chips’ think of something else you can use in its place.
I did a wonderful writing exercise once around similes and metaphors where you take a colour like purple and an inanimate object like a key. Then you try to create some imagery from the two words. Such as, “the sound of the key turning in the lock sounded purple and bruised in my ear.”
Play around with your language and see if there is another way you can illustrate your words. Is there an analogy you can use instead?
Check your copy for long-words
We like to think that long words make us look smart. Usually, they just make us look like a prat. And make our readers feel stupid. No one likes having to look up the meaning of a word online.
At the same time, check for repetitive words. Common culprits are ‘so’ and ‘like’ and ‘nice’. The thesaurus is your friend. Go forth onto Google and type in “synonyms for [your word]” and it’ll bring up lots of alternatives.
Cut it out
Cutting out is far easier than adding it. First, you’re going to check if you need that first paragraph. If your intro still makes sense without it, delete it. You want to start in the action.
Then go through the rest of your copy. Does every sentence and paragraph add to the point you want to make? Remember, you’re writing in-depth with a long-form article, not writing to hit a word count.
I usually go through and check for “also”, “just” and all those “ands”. Next, I’ll look out for anywhere I’m making the same point but with different words. They can all go as well.
The more you do this with your work, the better you will get at spotting where you can edit it down.
Use the active phrase
This isn’t simply SEO-pleasing. The active sentence will make your writing have more urgency and presence. It will read better as a result.
For example, “I write this email on Tuesdays,” sounds better than “this email gets written every Tuesday.”
The way you phrase your sentences can put your reader in the moment, in the middle of the action. Rather than watching it after it’s passed.
Don’t use jargon
This is for those of you who are super passionate about what you do. It’s so easy to slip into using industry-specific words. I might harp on about CTAs, metrics, conversion rates, UI and all that but it’s not exactly plain English.
You want to write in plain English and adjust anything that isn’t. This used to be called simple English but there was a connotation that simple English meant simple minds. That’s not true at all. You’re trying to reduce the friction between your words and the reader.
BTW, I stuck ‘connotation’ in there on purpose. This is the kind of word you can replace with something else.
Science writers have a tough job. Scientists and medical folks are hugely passionate about their area of work. Rightly so. But the rest of us cannot understand scientific language.
This week I was reading instructions in a crystal making kit for my 11-year-old. Mr B commented that I was reading a word as I’d never heard it before. I hadn’t! I had no idea what it was or how to pronounce it. You can never know what your reader knows. Take out those subject-specific words and either explain or change them.
Sentence length and flow
Use short sentences. This is hard if you’re writing lessons stopped in school. The way we learn to write in school is often not how we write in the real world. People skim read so keep those sentences short.
However, you are also writing a long read so you need to think about flow. You don’t need every sentence to be short. Look at your paragraphs, are they flowing properly? Have you got a mix of long and short sentences?
Read it out loud and see how it sounds. It’s far easier to accidentally write a long sentence than too many short ones. Go back and re-write those wordy sentences.
Fact-check
How often do you fact-check what you write? Follow the reference links back to the source and check they are still there and still relevant.
You can probably find a source to argue any position online but that doesn’t mean you should hunt sources that only support your view. If you find contradictory evidence, include this.
Other things to fact check are name spellings, locations, and dates. These can easily go wrong.
Is there a better way to communicate this?
For each point that you are trying to make, ask yourself if there is a better way to communicate it. While we like to think that lots of lovely blocks of paragraphs are great, we might be playing the word count game rather than making it good for someone to read.
Would an infographic work better? A list or bullets? Could you say it in a different way?
The same is true for quotes. Quotes should add colour to the story not be the story.
Check the tone of voice
It’s so easy when going through all this editing to lose a sense of your voice from your writing. Give it another check and make sure your little idiosyncrasies are still there.
If you have been making tone of voice notes, now is the chance to take them out and check your copy against them.
Check against your one takeaway
Remember last week when I said you keep one thing in mind when writing that you want someone to take away? Right, now you need to read through your copy one more time and check they are getting this outcome.
If not, go back and re-write until they do.
Spelling and grammar
Before you’re ready to publish, check the spelling and grammar. The rule of spelling is that you’ll notice your next error 10 minutes after pressing publish.
I sent out an email yesterday with the wrong subject line that made no sense. It got good open rates because it was ridiculous. I can’t say if my original subject line would have done better but everyone sends stuff with mistakes on it. Unless they are a robot.
Other ways to spot errors are to use Grammarly, change the font, change the colour, check after a good night’s sleep, and get someone else to check.
Basic elements
Almost there. Next, you want to check you have the basic elements of your copy. Does it have a call-to-action where you ask someone to do something? Do your headers help tell the story to all those skim-readers? Is your headline compelling enough to make someone want to read it? Have you got a proper conclusion?
Check all of these things. Then go get another brew and have one final read-through and hit publish.
If you write a lovely long-form article after reading this series, please let me know. I would LOVE to come and read it.
Read to the bottom? As a thank you, I’m offering 30% off my Pimp My Content programme because not everyone reads this far down. If you’re interested, go book a call and use the code words ‘Editing Is Fun’.
Email frequency will be back to normal next week.
I’ll see you next Thursday!
Fiona