by James Dowd
Storytelling Structure
Connection: draw in the audience, make them care, make them feel like they relate. This can be something they understand, like a normal day or relationship they share, or it can be a shared or understood goal. For example, “I can relate to that farmer’s desire to go on an adventure. I’m bored and feel trapped at home. I could use some interesting shit in my life, too!”
Obstacle: create tension that threatens to take away the thing your audience relates to, and that makes them want to pay attention to see what happens next. Humans love drama and conflict, so instead of scaring them away, it will likely draw them closer. For example, “Oh no, the farmer and his friends are captured! What will happen next?!?” This tension can also be as simple as stating a problem in an email. The reader is drawn in by the tension and will want to see if or how you will overcome it.
Release: relieve them of the tension by providing solutions to the obstacle in unexpected ways. This rush of relief creates new drugs for the brain to enjoy. And who doesn’t like drugs?
Any story, at a high level, does those three things. That is your beginning, middle, and end, except it actually does something. And, if you dive deeper, you will see that within this story structure is the same exact structure, repeating over and over. It’s Fractal Storytelling — an endless pattern of story that repeats within itself. Ever trilogy, every movie, every act, every scene, every conversation, every line makes a connection, creates an obstacle, and then releases you from the tension, only to repeat again, keeping you hooked and sparking releases of pleasing drugs in your brain.
Understanding that three-part story structure to push and pull your audience, along with everything laid out into its template and form based on your desired medium, you probably have something that is beginning to look like a final piece of writing, yet it’s entirely ugly. The sentences don’t connect, the fonts and colors are probably not matching, it’s full of errors and mistakes, and it does not flow in any way. That’s ok though, because *SPOILER ALERT* the Heart is coming back soon, ba-by!
Dumb Writing Tip #25: Use the inverted pyramid.
No matter what you’re writing, you’re competing for someone’s attention. That’s why it’s important to give them enough of what they need early so as to provide them value, yet make it intriguing enough that they keep reading. A classic journalism technique for this is the use of the Inverted Pyramid. The wide base of the pyramid, upside down, represents the beginning of your work. Provide them the basics — the who, what, when, where, how — and then compel them to learn more. From emails to movies, effective writing happens when the reader receives your message. Great writing is when they receive your message but are also entertained, moved, and intrigued along the way. The pyramid hooks them and introduces the message. Getting the rest across is up to you.
Dumb Writing Tip #26: Know where you’re going.
Know where you want to go and getting there becomes easy. As an example, I’m driving, and you’re with me in the car. You are along for the ride, not knowing our destination. But, if I say, “Now, give me very clear directions on where to go,” you might wonder, “Well, shit, I don’t know where we’re going!” You can’t get anywhere unless you know where you’re going. You’ll be writing yourself in circles, never knowing when you’re actually finished. But, if I tell you to explain to me how to get to your house, your mind turns on and everything becomes clear. Your home is the destination, it’s the completion to our journey. And, that’s the point. Know where you are, know where you want to go. Then, plot your course, whether forward or backwards, as long as you complete the two points. That’s writing. That’s storytelling.
Dumb Writing Tip #27: Use existing structures.
If you wanted to build a house, you’re likely to utilize or learn from what others have already done, meaning you wouldn’t start from scratch, you’d use a pre-existing house structure and plans. Maybe it’s a colonial, or a Cape Cod, or a rambler, but whatever it is, there is an architecture already in place, which allows you to focus on making the house more of your own through smaller details and modifications. The same goes for writing. There are already countless structures, formats, templates, and examples out there. Why not use those to get started? Why reinvent and redesign a house every single time? Save your creative juices for the important stuff. Fix it later. This Edit of yours is merely a baseline, a blueprint to work from. You can change things later as you see fit, but at least you’re building. Your effort is rarely to re-invent the house, it’s to design your own. The house already exists and millions have already been created, so use what others have already built as a foundation for your work. That way, you’re not solving problems that have already been solved.
Dumb Writing Tip #28: Slow down.
All this nonsense I offer probably doesn’t seem like the fastest way. After all, at this stage in the writing process, you’ve just spent hours, days, or even months doing nothing but putting thoughts onto a page — words and thoughts that may never exist in writing on the actual page! You’re writing and typing and researching and seemingly spinning your wheels for what? Maybe nothing, it seems. All that Braindumping and now you have to spend just as much time cleaning up all this nonsense. I hear you, but you’re wrong to think that. Remember that we’re here to be dumb, to stop overthinking it all, because the truth is that you were always moving forward with your Dump. You were just moving slowly. But, as the Navy SEALs say, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. It’s a saying that speaks to how they operate as a team. First, hey do things slowly. Then, they learn to be smooth and methodical and precise until they better understand their process. Once they’ve done that they can become fast. It’s no different with Writers. You must be patient and take your time, because no great writing was done in a moment. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Remember this when you are faced with a seemingly impossible deadline. A client might want an ad, or to be rebranded, by tomorrow. You’d think the fastest way to get it done is just to write it, to put it right into a template and hurry it out the door. But then, that’s all you have — an unthought-out templated thing you call writing. But, people will know that. They will feel it. You’re putting what seems to be all the correct information into it, and you’re doing it in a smart, mindful way with your fancy templatization. But, you’re wrong, because you think too much and feel too little. That speed will more likely draw you into a rumination cycle, introducing fear and anxiety. The fastest way to finished is not by quickly throwing words into a template, it’s to slow down, breath, follow your process, and believe that the journey will get you to where you need to go. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Writing Your Draft
You’ve dumped with Heart, edited with Head, and now you come back around again with more Heart to creatively put the pieces together with flavor. This is where you take the formatted and structured mess at the top of your Edit and move it into your Draft document. Now, all that remains in your Edit is all the seemingly useless junk down below. This remains in case you need to build on something later. Everything still exists in the Dump, but this excess in the Edit becomes an edited-down, unused collection of thoughts and words for you to consider using later.
In your Draft, the Heart returns to find creative solutions for bringing the ideas together and to life. Your effort is to build upon what is there, not remove or delete. You have a basis to work from, and can see what the structure will ultimately be, so now you use emotion and energy to write yourself closer to the final piece, connecting dots, building upon ideas, adding flourishes — making it sing! Don’t think about grammar, spelling, or rules. In fact, don’t think at all; just feel the writing, listen to the little Writer in your brain, and go where it takes you.
So much of the work has already been completed, so now you can infuse more Blood and energy to the work, considering things like alliteration, anaphora, chiasmus, and other valuable rhetorical techniques that hook your reader, while creative
ly linking sentences, ideas, and paragraphs together so as to make the entire piece work together. Now, you’re building upon what already exists to find the real music in your writing. You’re taking seemingly disparate ideas and finding a through-line that connects it all. That singular line that links them, beginning to end, should tie back to the one thing this was all about — that singular thing that started this journey. It guided your Braindump, but also make sure it comes through in the final product as well. It is not to be abandoned. You ideated toward one clear goal, so if it’s no longer valid, then all of your upfront work is no longer valid. If it’s an email trying to get a client to sign off on something, every touchpoint, sentence, question, or joke should be tied together with a thread that ties your email to your intention. This is where you see how Heart and Head are separate yet one within each other. As you build upon your draft, infusing magic, Blood, and energy into the writing, you are also carefully considering the focus of the piece using your Head. You are doing one thing (writing with Heart), and not the other (editing with Head), yet each is at work in a mindless, unintentional way.
Dumb Writing Tip #29: Give yourself credit.
So simple, so dumb, but so effective: just put your name on the top of the page — your byline — to remind yourself that you are the Writer and no one else. Take credit and take pride in what is happening. This is your space to fill, no one else’s. It’s your vision, your voice. The reader will take the journey you lay out for them, so if you give them nothing, they get nothing. That’s daunting. But, by seeing your name on the top of the page, it’s a constant reminder that you are in charge of this journey.
Finalizing Your Draft
With the writing elevated through Heart, it’s time to put the creative mind aside in order to finish your draft with an edit and polish. This is where you can, if you want, finally worry about grammar, spelling, and any rules you might be breaking. This is also the boring part, and one of the most difficult aspects of the writing process because your brain will inevitably fail to see all the mistakes you made. So, put the work aside for a bit, or get someone else to help proof and edit your writing.
Even though now is the time to consider the rules of writing, don’t overthink it. Get it out to that other person to read, review, and edit. If you try to make it perfect before you do so, you will never get there. By sharing your writing, you’re forced to accept that it is not, and never will be, perfect. So, accept that you made mistakes. Accept that even though you have spell-check, it may still be riddled with errors. Accept that there are countless rules and writing concepts that you don’t know — nor should you. You are most likely not an English professor, and you are most likely not writing for one. Neither you nor I will be honored in the halls of Yale or Harvard. Who cares? Don’t worry about imperative verbs and oxford commas. Don’t worry about semicolons and interrobangs. Just write, and send it out into the world without overthinking it all.
While I’m most often asked about the starting stages of writing, the next most common point is right here — the end. The person has an idea, they’ve expressed it through written word, and despite working on it, they now believe it to be terrible and embarrassing, so they sit on it. CEO of the brand consultancy Digital Surgeons, Pete Sena, came to me with this very problem. He’s a brilliant guy and a brilliant Writer, but he doesn’t see himself as such. He’s a visual thinker, yet he writes passionately — with Blood. He, however, then leaves the work in an abandoned draft, never to be seen again. He gets in his own way, worrying about what others think about his writing before he even gives them a chance to think about it. When explaining why this was happening, he offered that it was because he was worried about active and passive voice. This is a rule of writing that many are quick to point out, but let me tell you — fuck it. Don’t worry about passive voice — just write. If you can express yourself the way you want, and it has a certain ring to it in your ears and inside your brain, then do not worry about things like active and passive voice, or all the other crap. It’s quite unlikely the person reading it will notice. In fact, I’ve been writing professionally for nearly two decades and I’m not entirely sure what active and passive voice are, because I don’t care. I don’t worry about it, I don’t think about it, and no one’s called me on it yet. So, be dumb like me. Just write.
Final Tips
Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown
out your own inner voice.
Have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition
— Steve Jobs
You’ve come so far and whether you’re turning an Edit into a Draft — infusing more of your voice with Heart — or are now working your way through your Draft — balancing rules of format with Head — consider some final oh-so-dumb tips to help you see your work through to the end:
Dumb Writing Tip #30: Feel your words.
Use words you can hear inside your brain. Don’t say that someone spoke loudly, say they shouted. Loudly plays subtly in your brain, but shouting...that you can hear and feel smacking against the inside of your skull. The word itself shouts, so utilize words that evoke imagery, feeling, and meaning.
Dumb Writing Tip #31: Notice notorious mistakes.
The sad reality is that most readers are terrible Writers, which means they don’t care about mistakes. However, if you get those few readers that do care, they might, at the sight of glaring mistakes, stop reading altogether. In worse cases, they might not want to hire you or work with you. Simply, mistakes in your writing can result in a loss of opportunity, reputation, and money. But, you know that, or why else would you still be reading a book about writing?
To avoid mistakes, you could get everything proofread by another set of eyes, but that takes time and money, so the simplest way to avoid making mistakes is to just watch the simple stuff that can have a huge impact. Think of those ones you see often that get people the most annoyed: “They’re, their, or there? Your or you’re? It’s or its? Me, myself, or I? Who or whom? Affect or effect?” If you’re unsure which to use, just write your sentence another way. It’s better to play it safe than make the glaring error.
Dumb Writing Tip #32: Give your writing rhythm.
Writing is music, and everything you write is a song. So, give it rhythm and flow so it can appeal to the audience’s ears and soul. Sometimes write long verbose sentences with beautiful points, punctuation, and perspective. Sometimes write short ones. You’re the maestro. And, to find this rhythm, try reading your work out loud. Once spoken, you’re more likely to hear the music in it. Does it come across as repetitive? Change sentence length, move pauses around, utilize rhetorical techniques to establish patterns that appeal to the ear. Write your song and let it sing.
Dumb Writing Tip #33: Say one thing per sentence.
There have been a lot of One Things in this book. That’s because complexity and confusion bog down most writing. We try to jam too many thoughts into every sentence. We rarely give ourselves the time to stop, slow down, and figure out what it is we’re even trying to say. And so if your sentence is trying to make more than one point, if it’s saying more than one thing, it’s most likely bloated or confusing to the reader. Simplify.
Dumb Writing Tip #34: Punctuate properly.
Know the difference between em dashes, hyphens, colons, commas, and semicolons. Google is your friend here. Each piece of punctuation has a specific, correct usage and each is often misused. But, using the correct punctuation allows you to write for the read, to control the speed of the writer. To stop. Consider. And to carry on again as if rushing down a water slide of ideas without stopping. Done right, punctuation represents that elements of communication left out of writing, like timing, a look, a pause, an inflection. So, use punctuation that speeds and slows the read at the right spots. Use those weird shapes to make it human.
Dumb Writing Tip #35: It’s not what you write, it’s what they read.
Know your reader. Keep their perspective in mind and
how they can translate your writing to mean something else entirely. Watch out for multiple meanings in your words, as well as idioms that could mean something more than what you think — especially regional ones. It might sound fine to you, but when you consider how someone else might read it, you might see that it is in fact fairly similar to a popular phrase that offends. For example, if you wanted to express that the words you use really matter, and therefore require consideration and respect, you might say, “#WordsMatter” But, what you might not be considering is that the reader may make an association to the Black Lives Matter cause, and therefore they may see you as trying to downplay their message. What might sound clever to you might be downright insulting to someone else. It’s a challenging and confusing thing to consider, but it is your job as the Writer to do it.
Dumb Writing Tip #36: Forget English class.
Focus less on rules and more on the best reading experience. As long as it’s a simple yet engaging read, you can break some rules now and then. Though, it’s likely the things you remember from class are actually outdated and no longer followed.