Episode Details

When you start writing articles, you get advice from all sides. But there's advice you don't want to hear. It's advice that goes against the grain. And yet, it's this advice that forms the hallmark of great writing. So how do you get from average to great? You take the road less-taken. It's harder and yet far more satisfying. Here's advice you probably don't want to hear.

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A friend wrote to me today and asked me what seemed like a pretty normal question.

She expected 5 lines, maybe 6.

Instead I ended up with 1800 words. So what was her question? What traits do you consider to be hallmarks of quality in a piece of content?

The answer is something that most writers may not want to hear. It's an answer that demands sacrifice, going against the grain and being persistent when things are going horribly wrong.

Still interested?

Well, here's the question again: What traits do you consider to be hallmarks of quality in a piece of content?

The answer

1- contrast 2- lack of pandering 3- the gap between style and ability.

———— 1) Let's start with contrast

It's the year 1986. John Heritage and David Greatbatch have an itch to scratch. They're studying applause and what causes it. So they embark on what could be considered one of the most boring tasks in the world: they analyse politician's speeches.

476 of them.

And what were these two poor souls looking for?

Applause, that's what they were keen to find. Why was it that one speech received total silence, while other speeches got applause? But not just applause, but applause twice per minute!

Nineteen thousand sentences later they had a clue

It was contrast. The moment the audience encountered applause, the brain was no longer dormant. Contrast brought a smile to their faces, and cheering followed.

Contrast requires you and me to work so much harder

But contrast also puts you in a strange and precarious position. If everyone says: You should go this way and there's a writer that says, "Nope, you're headed into sheep land. This is the way to go". Now that is going out on a limb. Contrast is scary. It's much easier to say what everyone else is saying.

If you want to start with the hallmark of quality, contrast is where you start.

Let's take an example of contrast

Let's say you're writing about a subject such as productivity, for example. Now productivity doesn't bring to mind any sort of rest or sleep does it? Instead the enduring message of productivity has almost always been one of focus and concentration.

It's always been one of working out astounding efficiencies to do more work than ever before. At this point in time, let's say your article talks about sleep. It talks about taking the weekends off. It even goes on to suggest that you take several months off in a year.

You've shaken up the force a bit, haven't you?

You've created a counter force that may at first seem impossible to defend. Yet, that's what great writing is about. Conceptually, it stands out and picks a topic that's contrarian. But not all topics need to be contrarian to have that hallmark, do they? You could write articles on topics that have none of this rebellious nature and still bring out the big guns.

This calls for a bit of a roller coaster in your writing

An article needs to have a flow so the reader can move forward, but just as important is a counterflow. So let's say you're writing about how to "grow a curry leaf tree", you also need to bring in the counterflow as you're writing.

That counterflow would be a possible glitch in the planting process. It could be a couple of mistakes you're about to make. To be able to speed ahead, brake and go in a counterflow direction isn't easy. Some writers do it while creating the material. Others create it later during an edit process.