Chapter 1 - Your Byline Goes Here

After studying the information presented here, you will be able to:

1. Recognize three reasons nurses should write for publication.
2. Identify a work that was rejected by a publisher.
3. Name a writing problem that shows up in term papers.
4. Identify some places a beginning writer could get published.

Nurses own many of the “greatest stories never told”—information that ought to be made public.¹ Writing for publication is particularly important in situations in which sharing knowledge can provide important learning opportunities for others.¹ Besides sharing knowledge, nurses who publish expand their own personal knowledge base and gain personal satisfaction.²

The publication market is more open to new writers than ever before. As a nurse, you have a head start over most aspiring writers. You both have access to and credentials in the healthcare field, which spawns daily breakthroughs and carries a high public demand for information.

 For the writer willing to work hard, the market is expansive indeed. In the United States, more than 22,000 periodicals were published in 2006.³ Only a smattering of these magazines appear on newsstands. The rest are publications catering to specific interests and industries—as diverse as mountain bikers, business executives, and new mothers. “Preventing Stress Fractures” for the mountain bikers, “10 Ways to Prevent Ulcers” for executives, and “More New Research on the Health Benefits of Breastfeeding” for new moms are examples of articles you could sell to magazines.

If your interest is scholarly writing or publishing your research, nursing journals are the direction you would head. Perhaps you have studied the ban on smoking in therapy groups and the effect on group processes and could pen an interesting piece on that. Or perhaps you’d like to publish a reflective essay, such as “Why Nursing is a Good Choice for Today’s College Graduate.”

Nursing journals also publish “better mousetrap” articles: Well-written articles on your team’s method for tracking patients or running a clinic are welcomed by journals. Maybe publication in a magazine or journal is your goal in this course; if so, we will cover the steps to achieve that.

No shortage of publishers

But perhaps you are a beginning writer—or a writer with less time on your hands— and are taking this course just to improve your skills. Great! Forge ahead on that plan.

Newspapers are always happy to receive a well-crafted opinion piece by a guest columnist—and there’s no shortage of controversial topics when it comes to health care.  Consider how gratifying it might be to have something published locally and to be stopped by neighbors in the street who say,  “I liked that piece you wrote.”

Another place to have your “voice” heard is in the newsletter of any local organization to which you belong. Easily produced with desktop publishing, newsletters are now everywhere. Publish your own or contribute a “health tips” column to a school, swim team, golf club, soccer group, marching band, or homeowner’s association newsletter.

The Internet is the latest publishing playground. Today anyone can be a writer by just setting up a website. And you don’t even have to do that; most website creators are desperate for free writing to keep their sites current.

The best news for you as an aspiring writer is that as a nurse you have that “RN” after your name, giving you the expertise to get you over the threshold of landing your first published piece.

That’s the good news about the publications marketplace. The bad news is that now you have to do some work and learn two major points:

•  How to improve your writing
•  How to market your work

Fortunately, we’ll be covering both points in this course.

 What your English teacher didn’t tell you

Before we go one step further with this course, let’s talk about fear. Fear is in the heart of every writer. Can that be? Big name writers too? Sure. 

Everyone who shares his or her words with someone else will sooner or later get slammed. Talent is not a factor. Books on writing are full of lore about famous books that were rejected by publisher after publisher. If you find it hard to believe, look at the discouraging words editors used to slam these works:

• The Diary of Anne Frank—“The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift the book above the curiosity level.”
•   Catch-22 by Joseph Heller—“A continual and unmitigated bore.”
•   Animal Farm by George Orwell—“It is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.”⁴

Every author has stories of such rejections, and all writers submit their written word in fear. To read more on the agonies of being a writer, try Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.³ Lamott, author of five successful novels, recounts with humor, but also with real pain, the fear of failure in the life of a writer. 

So, if writing scares you, you have some great company. But maybe it doesn’t scare you. Maybe you’re taking this course to add some spit and polish to your work. That’s where we’re heading in the following chapters. First, though, let’s do a little “unlearning.”

‘Unlearning’ those old writing rules

College professors complain a great deal over the fact that today’s students can’t write.  Employers share the same lament. Some of this can be blamed on grammar. Does anyone teach it these days?

Some adult writing deficiencies can also be blamed on how teachers teach writing, via the “term paper.” Term papers do, admittedly, teach a lot of skills that are essential to any writer. There’s no better way to teach researching, note taking, outlining, drafting rough copy, and planning a large project. However, term papers can encourage students to develop some of the worst writing habits.

Remember teachers saying, “Your term paper must be 10 pages long”?  This teaches students to write l—o—n—g. Students learn to lengthen a paper by belaboring every point.  They learn to say one thing three different ways. This is poor writing.⁵

Students learn other techniques for padding a paper. Need two more pages to make that 10? Students then think, “Why not scribble up some paragraphs that may be somewhat related to the point I’m making but are really tangential and do not exactly support my point.” Lots of teachers will never notice, especially those who are eagle-eyeing papers to see that they weigh in at 10 pages.

Besides belaboring points and drifting away from focus, term papers, or school writing in general, encourages an inflated word problem. By fifth grade, smart students learn that the teacher likes to see big words.

This disease is progressive. By college level most students are no longer capable of writing in plain English, but write like this: “The conundrum of understanding Melville’s parallel symbolism lies in consideration of the dramatic implications of Moby-Dick’s tail as metaphor for the unpredictability of the physical universe.”  What?

This is not the kind of writing people will actually read, unless they are English teachers and must. If you write like this for your colleagues—no matter how brilliant they are—they’ll quickly plop that professional journal down. Nobody talks that way, and only those desperate to know about your subject matter will tough it through such puffed-up writing. In fact, a good way to learn how to write is to read what good writers write.

So you must unlearn those techniques garnered from term paper days. Good writing is not:

• Losing your reader in a maze of words
• Saying the same thing three different ways
• Going off on tangents
• Inflating your words

If this “unlearning” notion makes sense, the next step is to learn how to write short, simple, and to the point, and where you might publish your work.

Chapter 2 - Get the 'Lead' Out of That Lead 

After studying the information presented here, you will be able to:

1. Describe what a lead is.
2. Identify how long a reader looks at a piece of writing to decide whether to read it.
3. Name three types of leads and describe when to use them.

Do you know what’s the most important aspect of anything you write, whether it’s a book or a note to your dry cleaner? The first sentence is most important. You either “grab ‘em” with the first sentence, or you don’t. Like a barker standing out front in your story, promising something good inside, the first few sentences either pull readers in or lose them to the thousand other distractions of life.

The amount of time that the barker has to pull your reader into your piece is short, very short. Research shows writers get three seconds—three short seconds—to make their case that the reader should read on.

Three seconds is not much time. So before we go on to the nitty-gritty details of writing, let’s discuss those first critical sentences.

Lead on. . .

Journalists know the importance of the lead, the journalistic term for the first few sentences of a story. Sometimes reporters spend as much time writing and rewriting their lead as they do the rest of the story. They even ask one another for feedback. “Does this lead work?” one reporter will e-mail another across the newsroom.

To “work,” a lead must do two things. First, it must cue the reader: “This is what the story is about.” Second, the lead must snag the reader’s attention.

Hardworking leads

Let’s look at a few leads to see what it takes to do the job. Here’s one:

Carole Rowley sits behind a hefty walnut desk, the type a CEO might have. But that ceramic mug on her desk is no CEO accessory. The mug is shaped like a large plastic bandage, with “Tell me where it hurts” painted on it. Rowley is chief of nursing at  Harbor Medical Center.

Did that visual lead pull you into this profile of the nursing chief? Did the walnut desk and plastic bandage mug do it? 

Visual elements are a good way to interest a reader. We live in a visual world, and writers include details of what they see as an effective way of putting readers on the scene, helping them feel that they see it, too. This visual lead also does tell us what the story is about; we’re going to learn about Nursing Chief Carole Rowley.

Another way to write a lead is by playing with words a bit. For example, “There are 50 ways to love your liver” could be the lead for an article on preventing hepatitis and liver disease. The word play on the song “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” should come across with a chuckle. Journalists get playful with words when it is appropriate to the story.

The hazard with playful leads is trying too hard.  If the writer tries too hard to make it funny, the reader may be puzzled and not “get it” at all. If a playful lead backfires, readers shrug their shoulders and put the article down for good.

How about a question lead? “What can you do to keep ER patients calm?” Question leads get right to the point; they tell the reader what the article is about.

Question leads work well, but writers have to be careful not to overuse them. In the world of journalism, question leads are considered an “easy out,” and some editors forbid use of question leads altogether.

Reflect the tone with your lead

The type of publication for which you’re writing will influence what kind of lead you choose. For example, “50 Ways to Love Your Liver” is lighthearted and works well in a pamphlet or in a magazine article on new vaccines and treatments for healthy livers. But such an amusing lead would not set the right tone for an article in a research journal.

Writing for a research journal calls for a straightforward lead: “Hepatitis B vaccines continue to show a high level of efficacy as other new liver protections are developed.”  In a journal, a clear statement of what the article is about is sufficient since the assumption is that the healthcare worker is already interested in the subject.

However, professionals are as time deficient as anyone, so a more enticing lead might be an anecdotal lead, using a little story or anecdote to begin the piece on liver protections:

Mary Arnson travels frequently to Third World nations in her work as a UNICEF nurse. In the back of her mind, she has always worried about hepatitis dangers. But for the past year Arnson’s worries have eased. Vaccinated for hepatitis B a year ago, Arnson now says, “It’s one anxiety I can cross off my list.”

This anecdotal lead intrigues us with a story about a real person, and it cues us that this story is going to be about current hepatitis vaccines.

Tighten the focus

It’s hard work, writing leads. But there are some tricks to this business. Many writers follow a policy of not even trying to write a real lead until the entire piece has been written.

There’s good reason for writing the lead last. As you put together a piece of writing and organize it into something that makes sense, your focus starts to solidify. For the first time you begin to see what it is you want to say about the subject. You yourself can answer for the first time: “What is this story about?”

Here’s an exercise. Sit down and write what you did Saturday. As you begin writing, you might think, “That’s easy: I raked leaves, shopped for groceries, read the newspaper.” 

But chances are as you write, a different focus will form. You might end up writing about what a shame it was you did all those chores when it was such a beautiful day outside. You should have gone for a walk. Or you might write about what your mood was that day and some thoughts you had.

Bottom line: Chances are very good your piece won’t be about shopping for groceries.  This is the process that happens when we write. We do a lot of thinking and hone in on the most important thing we want to tell the reader.

 Even if you are writing an academic research piece and you think you are clear about what’s most important, as you write you will probably alter that notion. You will gain a better idea of what was most striking about the results of that research.

Finding the focus

So to review, by the time your piece is written, you should be able to answer the question “What is this article about?” in a short sentence. When you can answer that question, you can write a lead. Here are some lead writing tips:

Tip 1: Write the lead last

To get your writing rolling when you first sit down at the keyboard, just hammer out something that works for now. Writers call this a “working lead.”

Whatever appears on the screen is fine for right now. Don’t agonize or try to fine-tune the first few sentences at this point. Besides being the wrong time to write a lead, tinkering with those words now is a sure-fire prescription for writer’s block. It’s best just to start nailing words up on the screen—without your internal editor peering over your shoulder and intimidating you by commenting on everything.

With your “working lead” on the screen, write the entire article without looking back. Then, once the piece is written, go back and write a snappy lead. It will be much easier now that you know what the piece is about.

Tip 2: Accuse yourself of writing overly long leads

Once the lead is written, give yourself this warning: “In all likelihood, the lead is too long.” Nine leads out of 10 written by beginners, and even many experienced journalists, are neither snappy nor to the point. Usually the writer eases into the topic very slowly.  It’s only natural to want to “warm up” to the subject. See if you can determine how to fix this too-slow lead:

The Internet is available in so many places today. People find it helpful for doing research of all kinds. More and more people, including seniors and tiny children, enjoy using e-mail. In fact, there are ways to send and receive e-mail without owning a computer.

Look at that lead. Do the first three sentences tell you anything new? However, check out the last two sentences: free e-mail without even owning a computer? That’s the subject of the story, and an interesting one, too.

So, here’s the snappy lead version, pulled from the last lines:

Do you have e-mail tastes on a snail-mail budget? It’s easy to get a free e-mail account without even owning a computer. Companies like Yahoo! and Excite offer free e-mail, and you can use a library computer for access. Or you can check your e-mail at one of the Internet cafes springing up in many cities.

Tip 3:  Accuse yourself of burying the lead

Like professionals do, learn to accuse yourself of “burying” your lead. Go back and see whether you can lop off the first several sentences of what you wrote. Chop away at your lead.  Be ruthless until you find the line that says, “Here’s what this article is about.”

Editors are so familiar with the problem of “buried leads” that they often dig for the meat of a story four paragraphs down in a story.

When they find it, they ask the writer to rewrite it in a catchy way, if appropriate to the tone of the piece.

Remember:

• Three seconds—that’s all the time writers have to catch their quarry.
•  Leads rule—that’s the rule.

Chapter 3 - Quick-Weight-Loss Diet for Flabby Prose

After studying the information presented here, you will be able to:

1. Explain how to look for redundant sentences.
2. Give some examples of redundant phrases.
3. Explain why adverbs and adjectives should be used sparingly.
4. Describe how to write descriptively with few adjectives and adverbs.
5. Explain what jargon is and why to avoid it in writing.
6. Give examples of common redundant phrases.

How do you keep your reader riveted? Just as you learned that you have only three seconds to pull your reader in with your lead, you now must face the challenge of holding your reader’s attention throughout the article.

Your writing must be spare and move swiftly. You can’t afford to give your readers the opportunity to remember the 100 other tasks to which they could turn their attention.

More is not better. How do you keep your reader riveted? By writing “lite.”  Writing lite means several things. First, it means writing tight, using as few words as possible to get your meaning across. William Strunk Jr., author of the classic The Elements of Style, wrote, “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the reader make all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”¹ The Elements of Style is a very short book that is packed with information about how to write in plain English. It is one of the few style manuals to ever appear on best seller lists.¹

For an excellent and witty review of English punctuation, pick up a copy of the 2004 British best seller Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. She points out that English punctuation has become an endangered species because of sloppy usage and low standards on the Internet, in e-mail, and in “txt msgs.”² If you need a practical grammar text, check out Write On! by Dan Mulvey or Writing Basics for Healthcare Professionals by Michele Benjamin Lesmeister.

Trimming the flab

What does writing tight mean to you as a writer? It means cut, cut, cut, cut, cut . . .  Editors of newspapers, magazines, and newsletters will routinely take a piece written by a beginner and cut half  the words without losing the meaning of the article.

That sounds horrifying to writers. After all, writing can be an agonizing process of getting those words on the page. When a piece is complete, each word seems precious.  But if you want to write well, get over it. Writing well means knowing when to slice.

Consider the words of novelist Peter De Vries: “When I see a paragraph shrinking under my eyes like a strip of bacon in a skillet, I know I’m on the right track.”³

So, what do editors cut? They look for words that repeat what has already been said.  And they whack out sentences that are tangential—addressing a slightly different topic that doesn’t fit in with the focus of the piece.

Out, damn sentence!

Let’s look for repetitive sentences. See if you can find the repetition here:

According to psychologists, infants who are not touched enough during the first six months of life may later show signs of mental retardation. Touch is important during the first six months as it is essential to development of the brain. Without adequate touch, an infant will not develop properly. Recent research at the Rocky Top University demonstrates that premature infants who are touched while incubated show normal development, whereas. . .

Can you see that the second and third sentences repeat what the first has said? Best to just hop right into the supportive research from that first line.

Test each and every sentence in your writing, asking, Does it add something substantially new or is it rehash?

Sometimes we writers think the reader didn’t quite understand, so we repeat. Our reader is smarter than that.  Our reader is easily bored by slow, plodding paragraphs. So—CUT, CUT, CUT!

Your turn to edit

With the gleam of tiny scissors in your eyes, look at the following paragraph:

John Smith has battled leukemia for most of his high school years. He has fought the disease since he was 14. Visiting the doctor during his freshman year, John learned he had leukemia. The doctor proceeded to treat the condition with a bone marrow transplant. John, now a senior, is in remission. (51 words)

Here we are told and retold of the onset age of John’s leukemia. Two sentences, with no new details. Here’s a better way to write it:

Now a high school senior, John Smith is in remission from the leukemia he has been treated for since age 14. The once underweight, sickly boy now plays football on the varsity squad.” (33 words)

See how you can toss out those two sentences? The word “treated” implied that John was under a physician’s care.

Here’s another example, this time with no repetitive sentences until the end.

An egg and a sperm meet in a petri dish... Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but for Dr. Paul Orchard and his assistants this is serious science. Orchard works with fertile sea urchins in an attempt to explain cell division.

And just what does Orchard hope to see? 

“We hope to be able to identify what a particular cell does when it splits,” says Orchard. He peers at urchin embryos under a high-powered microscope, trying to figure out why one cell goes on to become a nerve cell and another cell chooses a muscle as its destiny. From this research he hopes to gain a better understanding of what controls certain cell division.³

Nicely written with no repetition until—ooops! that last sentence. It says what has already been said, and so well.  Just lop that last sentence off. But do you cut the sentence “trying figure out why one cell goes on to become a nerve cell and another cell chooses a muscle as its destiny?” In this case, no. Here the repetition gives us a visual image that livens the article, moving from the general to the specific. This adds interest to the piece.

Lopping off little words

Little words go under the knife too. You might not think that little words, like “that,” would create much excess in a piece. Surprisingly, little words trimmed from a piece can add up to a few sentences or a paragraph, a big chunk of space in the publishing world.

Here’s a sentence that could use trimming. Find the excess:

The carpenters left at 6 PM that evening after completely finishing the job that they had started at dawn.

Did you trim it to this?

The carpenters left at 6 PM after finishing the job they started at dawn.

Be a lean, mean writing machine

Writing is a space game. In newspapers and magazines, the amount of space for articles is determined by how much advertising is sold. It’s not the amount of newsworthy incidents that determines the amount of news. It’s the advertising.  Surprising, isn’t it?

In newspapers, ads are laid out first. Holes left on each page belong to the news.  For this reason, journalists always feel pressed for space. They have more to tell the reader than there is room for.

This is also true for magazine journalists. To gain every nugget of space, professional writers learn to write spare and lean. It’s a victory for both writer and editor when an editor trims out enough to allow a writer to squeeze in two more sentences of something the reader might want to know.

Lighten up on adverbs and adjectives

Adverbs and adjectives are among the little demon words ripe for chopping.  Consider this sentence:

Most adverbs are totally unnecessary.

Can you cut “totally” without changing the meaning?  Get the point?

And it’s true. Adverbs, though we use them a lot in speaking for emphasis, rarely add much when written. The occasional well-placed adverb stands out when you do add it.

Let’s look at some other adverb excess:

Sally said she would seriously consider the job offer.

Axe “seriously.” If someone is considering a job offer, surely that person is doing so in a serious way?

Here’s another example:

Paul said he was absolutely certain no one was hiding in the closet.

Is there really any doubt how well Paul checks closets? If Paul is certain, let’s take his word for it. However, if you quote Paul: “I’m absolutely certain there is no one hiding in the closet,” you must leave “absolutely” in. You absolutely cannot change wording in quotes. Ooops! Scratch “absolutely”; the word “cannot” is absolute already.

‘Suddenly Susan’—the occasional use of adverbs

Use adverbs only when they add meaning. Used sparingly, adverbs can be powerful.  The sentence would lose meaning without them. In the following sentences, we don’t have a clue what’s going on if we drop off the adverb.

As the doctor gave her the news, Susan looked up at him disconsolately.  (A bad prognosis?)

As the doctor gave her the news, Susan looked up at him joyfully.  (She got the job?)

As the doctor gave her the news, Susan looked up at him, aghast.  (The doctor has created Frankenstein?)

Allocating adjectives

Adjectives can be overused, too. If you use an adjective only now and then in your writing, it can help set a scene or create a mood.

But be a skinflint when handing out adjectives. When a rose is red, say so and your reader will see it. Avoid general adjectives, such as “beautiful” and “wonderful” and “enormous.”  They say so little.

Tell us just how beautiful in another way. Let us see how enormous—was that injection needle as enormous as a darning needle or a jackhammer?

The best way to create description is not with adjectives, but to set a little scene. Say what people are doing. Say what something looks, smells, sounds, feels like.

Look at these two examples:

The gracious older home in New Orleans was very beautiful.

The two-story New Orleans mansion, set back on a green lawn bursting with flowers, was like a Southern belle with her gown spread before her.

Which do you like best?

Department of redundancy department

Another trick writers use to slim down their writing is to watch out for the repetitive phrases we often use in speaking .

Watch Out for Redundancies acute crisis basic essentials burned down (or up) climb up commute back and forth completely destroyed consensus of opinion depreciate in value end result fell down few in number final outcome follow after large in size pair of twins possibly might proceeded to reason is because resulting effect reverted back red in color true fact total effect very unique whether or not 7 a.m. this morning

Look at each one and note which word can be dropped. In the first example, if it’s a “crisis,” by definition it is acute. Next, “consensus” means opinions have been polled. In the next example, “commuting” by nature means traveling back and forth from work to home. Beginning writers seem particularly fond of the phrase: “proceeded to.”

The doctor proceeded to perform the surgery. (The doctor performed the surgery.)

Just by being watchful, you can catch yourself writing repetitive phrases.

Watch out for ‘nursespeak’

Just as writers need to write short, they also need to write simple. Yet much of the writing done by professionals is infected with jargon.

Jargon is the code language of every workplace. Business people talk about “downsizing” and “outsourcing” and “interfacing.” They use jargon instead of using “laid people off” or  “contracting with outside firms” or “getting together and talking with people.”

This set of business terms is understood by most. But much business speak would be just plain puzzling to a reader. So too with medical jargon. Yet nursespeak is often the quickest and most accurate way of saying something in the workplace.

But be wary of shop talk when you write. If you write “premature ventricular contractions,” a lay reader may not even know what part of the body you are referring to.  But if you write “erratic heart beat,” even though it is less descriptive, your general audience will understand. Then you can define “premature ventricular contraction” if that is what your piece is about.

Even words that might seem commonly understood, such as “gerontologist” and “anemia,” do require a phrase of explanation for general readers. Many studies show that medical literacy is far lower than practitioners assume.

But let’s say you’re writing for a nursing journal. Everyone out there is plenty smart, right? Well, yes. But if you are writing about new procedures or technologies or anything complex, stick to plain English when possible. The fact is, plain and simple writing is more inviting reading.

There is this oddity, though, that seems to run across all professions. Writing in plain words seems difficult. People with a certain level of academic achievement seem to need to prove it. So they try to sound scholarly. And yet the words of the truly brilliant—like Thomas Jefferson or scientist Carl Sagan—are simple and a pleasure to read.

‘Tis a gift to be simple

Even besides nursing jargon, watch out for using the big work when the little word will do (see below).

We all tend to unconsciously select more formal words when writing—probably as schoolchildren we thought they pleased our many teachers.

So we write things such as:

In a few days, the journey will commence. (The trip will start in a few days.)

The best indicator of garbage that has commenced to decay is the odor. (Hey, the garbage stinks. Take it out!)

At the present time during this labor dispute, managers will endeavor to facilitate an optimal work environment. (Now, and throughout the strike, managers will try to keep things running smoothly.)

Oh, and by the way—does the last jargonistic sentence remind you of any memos you’ve ever read? Do you find that the stilted language of such a memo is alienating?

Look at the simple version:

Now, and throughout the strike, managers will try to keep things running smoothly.

Not so annoying, is it? It avoids the haughty attitude that comes across in so many office memos, a tone rarely intended by the writer.

Of course, we all get regular chuckles over the government’s use of jargon. The federal government is the grand master of jargon, as anyone who has ever filled out a tax form will agree.

However, in times of national crises, the federal government can produce information that is clear, concise, and cogent. The 9/11 Commission received rave reviews for the clarity of its written report. The following example appears on page 46 of the report: “But the conflict did not begin on 9/11. It had been publically declared, years earlier, most notably in a declaration faxed early in 1998 to an Arabic-language newspaper in London. Few Americans had noticed it. The fax had been sent from thousands of miles away by the followers of a Saudi exile in one of the most remote and impoverished countries on earth.”⁴

The 2006 Iraq Study Group Report also presented complex information in a straightforward way: “The U.S. deals primarily with the Iraqi government, but the most powerful Shia figures in Iraq do not hold political office.”⁵ This powerful sentence conveys its message using only 22 words. There is no substitute for clear and simple language. A remarkable example of this is Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, a document of only 265 words, 75% of them with just one syllable.⁶

Chapter 4 - But Wait! How Do I Get Started?

After studying the information presented here, you will be able to:

1. Name a way to break a writing project into manageable tasks.
2. Describe how professional writers feel about writing.
3. Describe what “angle” and “focus” are, and their importance in writing.

 Now you’ve learned the power of leads. And you’ve learned about trim, spare writing. Now we need to address the overall scope of your work. If you have a particular piece in mind, how will you make it take shape?

For professional writers and beginners alike, starting a piece is a daunting task. Even writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper can be overwhelming if you are a beginning writer. Take heart. There are tricks.

Baby steps

First trick: Don’t torture yourself with thoughts of the entire project before you. Writers would never get a word on paper if they thought of writing that way.

You need to think of writing more the way you approach housecleaning. “Well, I’ll just scrub out this sink now,” you say to yourself when the entire house needs cleaning.  Sometimes that sink rolls onward to sweeping, vacuuming, and so on. Sometimes it doesn’t, but isn’t it nice to have a clean sink?

Writing is the same way. Writers train themselves to sit down at their desk at the same time every day, and they promise themselves: “I’ll just sketch out one page anyway.” The page may stretch to six, or it may not.

There is a popular mythology that for professional writers, words just bubble from their fingertips like water from a spring. That does happen occasionally—a writing moment to live for. But most often professionals feel just as you do: When the time to write arrives, they would rather be scrubbing that sink. So as with any project, you have to break it into bite-size bits.

Novelist Anne Lamott describes this process in her book on writing, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.¹ She tells the tale of her brother at grade school age, surrounded by books and frozen by the immensity of the term paper due the next day. His term paper is on birds. Along comes his father with this sage advice: “Just take it bird by bird, son.”

“Bird by bird” is the way to go.  Break it down into pieces you can handle.

Play with it

A freeing way to begin writing is to start with a free-form session on scratch paper.  Just jot down your thoughts. No complete sentences allowed—just phrases and thought fragments. No sequence. Scrawl all over the page in different directions; don’t try to be tidy. No idea is wrong or a poor fit. This is brainstorming. This kind of session warms your subconscious to the topic.

Almost all writers use techniques to prompt their subconscious to help out, as if to have a working partner to share the labor.

Many writers come to the keyboard with ideas scrawled on the backs of envelopes or grocery lists that turned into writing notes. Funny thing—ideas for your writing love to jump into your head when you need them the least. Leave notepads lying around, for thoughts will hit you in the shower or while driving or cooking. Make sure you write the idea down then, for these brilliant strokes of genius are famous for evaporating by the time we sit down at the keyboard.

Writers also call on the subconscious to help them through logjams. A common technique is to pose the problem directly to the subconscious before falling asleep: “OK, help me out here.  My character Mary is just too dull.” Z-z-z-z-z. . .

Next day, writer sits down at the keyboard, and Mary springs to life with a character the writer never imagined.

That is the magic writing sometimes evokes. But mostly, it’s just hard work. Writing coach William Zinsser says: “Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this as consolation in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.  It’s one of the hardest things that people do.”²

Choose an angle

One of the most important aspects of organizing a written piece is “choosing an angle.”  This is a step beginning writers miss, and editors often call them on it. For example, the new reporter wants to write about homelessness. The editor says, “What’s your angle?”  The editor knows that a general article on homelessness will lack tight focus. It will be broad and rambling. But, will there suddenly be more homeless wandering the streets because the city’s budget was just cut? That’s an angle.

Or did the reporter learn that although homeless shelters are adequate in supply, in fact many people prefer not to say in the shelters because their possessions are stolen there? Now that’s an interesting focus.

Narrowing your angle is what will make your piece readable and fresh.

A way to check whether you have a narrow enough angle is to see whether every single paragraph of what you wrote addresses the same question. Perhaps the question is:  “Does it make a difference to give medication to patients according to their biological clocks?” Your article includes recent research that shows that, in fact, the circadian rhythms—the 24-hour cycle controlled by the hypothalamus—do affect the efficacy of meds.

So, you’re the editor. Does the following belong in this article?

Circadian rhythms are interesting in that they affect many occupations. Airline pilots must pay attention to them. A study of overseas airline pilots showed that they are more at risk for making errors during times they would ordinarily be sleeping.

Certainly interesting. But it doesn’t fit your focus, so leave it out.

Lights, camera, focus

Another way to understand narrowing the angle is to think of it as “focus,” as we do with a camera. Focus in writing is as important as it is to photography.

Think about this. You want to shoot a photo that conveys a sense of how massive redwood trees are. You shoot a picture of a grove of redwoods. But because you haven’t narrowed your focus, the viewer looks at the grove, and his or her gaze wanders all over the photo, not finding a particular point to take an impression from. The sense of “massive redwood” does not come across.

Now focus on a giant redwood and take a shot.

This time the viewer knows where to look: at the redwood. The photo has far greater impact because it says one thing: big redwood tree.

Writing is like photography in this sense. The writer needs to learn to say one thing.

This is downright painful sometimes. Journalists often use one-third or less of what’s in their notes. Precious time spent reporting, and great quotes and interesting information are destined to never see ink.

How to narrow your focus

Narrow your angle, or focus, before you start. The poor boy struggling to write a term paper on birds faced an almost insurmountable task. His teacher should have told him his topic was too broad. He could have limited it to “hummingbirds” or “how birds fly.”

Here’s an example from the nursing world. Let’s say you want to write about nurses who work with dying patients. Huge topic. So narrow it to what nurses learn in the last moments of dying patients. Narrow it to three nurses and their tips for assisting the dying. The options are endless.

Next time you’re reading a piece by a writer you enjoy, notice how closely he or she sticks to the point. Humor columnist Erma Bombeck was an expert at this. So is humor columnist Dave Barry. It makes their writing seamless, rolling you right along with them.

The technique: Pick a narrow topic and stick to it like Super Glue.

Even the best are challenged

In 1999, novelist Stephen King began to write about his craft and his life. A terrifying accident jeopardized the survival of both. In On Writing, published the year of his accident, King tells the story of his life and formation as a writer. He shares his views about the basic tools all writers need and how to sharpen them through use. This candid book offers great advice on everything from writer’s block to rejection. Nurses will be inspired by King’s account of how his need to write helped him recover from a life-threatening experience.³

Chapter 5 - The Shape of Things

After studying the information presented here, you will be able to:

1. Define chronological writing.
2. Describe when to use chronological writing.
3. Describe the inverted pyramid method of organization.
4. Name things that add “traction” to a piece.

What’s the best way to organize a piece of writing? Now there’s a question to stump the masters.

The fact is, there are many ways to organize your writing. You can use the old term paper technique: Take piles of note cards and sort them by topic. Start writing, pile by pile. The finished piece will read like lumps of facts, stacked one on top of the other.Perhaps you’re ready for a new organizational method.

Chronology creeps

If beginning writers don’t choose the term paper method, they tend to choose the other familiar organizational form, chronology. 

Chronological order is how fictional stories are often told. This happened, then this happened, then this—building up to the dramatic near-drowning scene, the kiss scene, etc.

Unless you are writing fiction, cross chronology off the list as the main way to order a piece. Nothing slows writing as much as writing chronologically.

For example, look again at John Smith, the teen with leukemia.

John Smith learned he had leukemia when he was 14. He visited the doctor during his freshman year and was diagnosed. John had no siblings, so two of his cousins were tested as possible marrow donors. One of John’s cousins looked like a good match, doctors said. The transplant was undertaken last year. He was then treated with bone marrow transplant, and it seems to be successful, his doctor says.  John now plays football on his high school’s varsity squad.

Boy, is that slow. The paragraph describes the disease as it happened over time, or chronologically.

Chronology is the natural order, so it’s tempting to write that way. But it’s too wordy. Look at this:

Now a high school senior, John Smith is in remission from the leukemia he has been treated for since age 14. Thanks to a bone marrow transplant donated by his cousin last year, the once underweight, sickly boy now plays football on the varsity squad.

See what happens? Instead of starting at the beginning, this story starts where things are now. That’s most important.

This is how most nonfiction is written: Start with what’s most important first. This holds true for everything from office memos to annual reports.

 Stack your writing with what’s important on top. Remember, there’s that old problem of keeping your reader’s attention. For some reason it comes as a shock to beginning writers, but the truth is that most readers are like you: They rarely read all the way through something. 

Many a chagrined manager finds this out the hard way. “Didn’t you read my memo? It was in there,” the frustrated manager says. Sure the employees read the memo. Well, most of it. Half, anyway.

If you want something to be read, put it early in your writing. Put the next most important item second. And so on. Journalists call this “inverted pyramid” style. They know how wily that reader is, ready to jump out of a story at any provocation. So the writer’s game plan is to keep important elements high in a story.

Of course, if you just pile one important fact after another, that could just lead to a lumpy list of facts. If it’s a memo, OK—just keep it short. But if you’re writing an article for a newsletter, newspaper, magazine, or journal, you also have to make it a smooth read.

Traction: Keep those readers rolling

How do you make something a smooth read? T-r-a-c-t-i-o-n. Think of a big bulldozer climbing a hillside, with those big tire treads digging into the soil. That’s what you’re after. Give your reader elements to hang onto. Traction.

So back to John, the leukemia patient. John is an anecdote, illustrating a broader trend of leukemia patients surviving with bone marrow transplant. We don’t want to dwell on him; our article is wider in scope. A statistic will add traction to get there.

John is among [statistic] of leukemia sufferers who are benefitting from bone marrow transplant and are now in remission.

And for more traction, add a human voice.

Dr. Brown of ABC Medical Center said, “John is a miracle patient, but he’s one among many. This is the gift we practitioners in this field have been waiting for.”

That added scope and interest. Next, you might explain how bone marrow transplant works. But don’t get bogged down in the mud of explanation. Maintain that traction. Break up the explanation with another short anecdote like John’s.

And keep it lively by using quotes from practitioners to explain information. Quotes add a human face. Statistics and numbers should be used sparingly. But statistics can be stunning and tell a lot with one little number. So use them to build traction. Get the picture?

The inverted pyramid

The organizational plan described here is a modified form of the “inverted pyramid,” the journalist’s term for putting stories in sequence based on what’s most important for readers to know. The inverted pyramid is the standard for breaking news stories, such as fires, accidents, burglaries, homicide, and toxic spills.

But when journalists are writing a feature story, they lace the inverted pyramid with anecdotes, visual images, quotes, or whatever adds traction.  See how the inverted pyramid differs from chronology, which tells a story the way a storyteller would? If you have trouble recognizing when you’re writing chronologically, here are some buzz words that tip you off that you’re writing in a step-by-step way:

• began to
• proceeded to
• continued on
• next
• then
• at the beginning
• followed by

Chronological ‘pockets’

There are times when nonfiction writers do use chronology. Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, a book about an expedition that climbed Mt. Everest and lost several climbers, is mostly told chronologically. You can imagine why: The story of the ascent up the mountain builds to a dramatic end. But often nonfiction writers are writing about a subject that can include a dramatic vignette, or little story.

For example, let’s say you are writing an article on how to avoid getting the bends when scuba diving. You include this anecdote in the piece:

Dave Jones, a scuba diver with 10 years of experience, never expected to find himself writhing in the boat with an excruciating case of the bends.

Jones’ troubles began when he was swimming near the 30-meter limit, a depth at which nitrogen narcosis begins to become a danger. Though he did not drop below the 100-foot depth, Jones—in later recalling the incident—said he must have been feeling some of the drunken-like state of nitrogen narcosis, or he wouldn’t have made the error he made.

Swimming around a coral reef at the time, Jones had been enjoying observation of the colorful yellow-and-blue striped fish darting among the coral reef. As he followed a small school toward a rock, suddenly, from behind a rock, a shark’s gaping mouth appeared. “I was close enough to count his teeth,” Jones recounte