Myth 5: I can't become a better writer
By Allen Palmer
This is the last of a series of articles exploring widely held misconceptions that diminish many workplace writers’ efficiency and effectiveness.
Some people think they’ll always be rubbish at writing, and that’s rubbish. Others are supremely confident, rubbish the idea that they could possibly have anything left to learn, and I question that too. Simple tips can boost the confidence of those who think they can’t write, while even the best writers can generally get better – and almost always get faster.
1. If you think you can’t write, you’re wrong
Before our workshops, we ask participants to name their strengths, and many will say, ‘I don’t have any’. When we ask them to say what they’d like to gain, these people will generally choose ‘confidence’.
If this is you, you probably don’t expect that we can help you. You might have been telling yourself you can’t write for a long time, and you doubt that any course can ever change that. But let me tell you a story.
A guy who didn’t think he could write now believes he can
A few months back, I had a participant who hadn’t submitted a preworkshop questionnaire about his strengths. That could have meant he was busy, or that he saw the workshop as an obligation rather than an opportunity.
When he arrived, his body language made clear it was the latter. I quickly learned he had been an engineer for 27 years, loved the Bunnies in the NRL and hated writing.
At the end of the workshop, after everyone had left, he came up to me and said that in his final high school English exam, he’d scored only 47%.
‘That number’, he said, ‘has always stayed with me.’
He’d concluded, because of that score, that he couldn’t write. But he now thought that, after this workshop, maybe he could. What changed? He learned 3 things:
- If you can speak, you can write.
- Workplace writing should look closer to the way we speak.
- English has a simple, underlying structure (that no one told us about).
We find that if you can speak, you can write
Most people who come to our workshops can communicate just fine. They will ask good questions, and generally respond articulately when I pose questions to the room.
When I ask if they have any issues communicating verbally in the workplace, they’ll think it’s a strange question. No, of course not.
At this stage, I’ll point out that if they can speak, they should be able to write. And it’s true. After all, speaking is where it all began. Writing, originally at least, was simply recording the spoken word.
This is encouraging news for some, but many are still sceptical. If this is true, why are they confident at one but not the other?
Workplace writing should look closer to the way we speak
Most people have struggled with workplace writing because, for too long, it hasn’t resembled the way we speak. It’s been far more formal. The words have been longer, the sentences have been longer and the grammar has been just plain weird.
Of course, we’ve found it hard. It’s almost been like having to communicate in a different language. But things have changed.
Organisations have recognised that not only do people struggle to write like this, but also we struggle to read it. Now, almost every style guide will stress the importance of not writing in this excessively formal way that is hard to write and taxing to read.
Organisations want you to write in a way that we can easily understand, and that means making writing once again look more like the way we speak. This shift should make writing far easier for you.
You won’t be able to write down exactly what you’d say – it will need a little bit of tweaking. But if you first think about what you would say to the person, that will be a very good starting point.
English has a simple, underlying structure
I’d been writing or teaching writing for about 30 years and thought I knew a bit about it. So, I was very surprised to learn, only 5 years ago, that English has a simple underlying structure that I didn’t know about.
We all use it when we speak, but very few of us are aware of it. We don’t need to be because when we speak, it is so deeply ingrained.
But being aware of this simple underlying structure is very helpful as we seek to make our writing more closely resemble the way we speak.
In our workshops, you’ll discover this structure, and generally half the room will nominate this as their most useful takeaway.
2. If you think you can’t improve, I’d be surprised
In our preworkshop questionnaires, when asked to name their strengths, a participant once wrote, ‘Mastery of the English language’.
When asked where they want to improve, several have said, ‘Not sure’ or ‘NA’.
These responses don’t necessarily imply overconfidence, but they can suggest that some arrive with limited expectations. Like this person.
She wanted only to tick a box but left with a new box of tricks
I ran a workshop for a particularly talented group several months ago, and this writer was possibly the most highly skilled of them all.
When asked what she wanted out of the workshop, she wrote that she wanted to get a tick in the box on her attendance form, so she could ‘get back to my real job’.
She had a right to feel confident. She had a couple of masters degrees, including one in journalism. Under work pressure, it’s understandable that she might feel our workshop was more likely to hinder than help.
Yet, when she completed her feedback form the next morning, she wrote:
‘I went in cynical; I left a better writer. I literally stayed up overnight and improved a board paper that I have just handed in – it’s a MUCH better product for your workshop.’
What did she learn? I’d say 3 things:
- Planning saves time.
- Traditional structures aren’t logical for most readers.
- We can always get better.
Planning saves time
A workshop is helpful if it teaches us something we know we don’t know. But it can be revelatory if it teaches us something we didn’t know we didn’t know. I find that with planning.
For very good writers, this will be the thing that can take them to another level. They don’t necessarily need to get better, but almost everyone can get faster. And I can’t think of any change that boosts efficiency like planning.
For more on this, see my earlier article in this series I don’t have time to plan.
Traditional structures aren’t logical for most readers
I train a lot of people who say that they want help in transitioning from academic to workplace writing.
Many are surprised to learn that the major barrier to making that shift is the academic structure they’ve been using for so many years. It doesn’t suit most workplace readers.
For more on this, see my earlier article in this series My structure has a logical flow.
We can always get better
I’ve been guilty of this. I’ve thought, at different points, that I was a fairly decent writer. But I have kept testing my limits and have been humbled so many times by how quickly I’ve reached those limits.
With each humbling, though, I’ve learned fresh skills, and the key one is probably in not allowing ego to bar your way to higher skills. I now revel in the knowledge that there is still more I don’t know. That’s what keeps my job – and life – interesting.
I look forward to sharing what I currently don’t know I don’t know about writing in future posts. Until then, boost your writing skills with 1 of our ISO-aligned workshops or contact us to find out more.
3. If you want more myth busters, you’re in the right place
If you found value in this article, check out the other myths in the series:
