If You Can Talk, You Can Write

Amanda Evans
June 3, 2018

I've been a professional writer and editor for most of my life, and I know a secret about how to write good copy.

All you have to do is start talking.

Tell the story.  Tell what happened.  Tell how to do it.  Write down the words, and you're on your way to an easy, engaging style as a writer.

A Conversational Style

When you use casual, conversational writing, you vastly increase the amount of time a reader will spend with you.  This is an easy-to-read use of language, and it's the best way to get your message across--short of drawing a picture.

Conversational style works well for many types of writing, like

• Blogging
• Fiction
• How-to
• Marketing

Here's an example of science fiction written in a chatty, down-home manner:

When the cellphone video went viral, somebody in my town recognized me as the guy in the video and pretty soon I was a sort of celebrity, and the government showed up and asked me a lot of questions and told me to write down what I know, but I'm not much of a writer-down, so I just made a tape on my old cassette recorder.  -Walter Moseley, The Saucer 

How Not to Do It

A few years ago, I edited a newspaper article written by one of the most knowledgeable and experienced landscape professionals in our town.  It was her first time to write anything that would be published, and it took her several painful months to produce a first draft.

She began with the the movie- and television-stereotypical writing process, in which the writer makes a start, wads up the draft, and starts again--and again, and again, and again.  It didn't work.

Her next procedure was to write on index cards.  Finally she set down some anecdotes on paper and turned in several handwritten pages.

That final process she employed--anecdotes--actually worked quite well.  This brilliant landscaper told some amusing stories based on her experience and threw in some facts that she had in her head.  Then she confirmed the facts online, since science knowledge tends to change quickly.

Here's a bit of her conversational horticulture writing:

The easiest way to discourage gophers is to flatten any mounds you see as soon as possible--they get tired of rebuilding and move on!  The method I use whenever I can is the "rolling Detroit."  Line your truck tires up and run over the mounds and the tunnels between.  Bye bye gopher!  -Teri Goldsby, "Pocket Gophers" in The Rockport Pilot

How To Write, Easy-Peasy

The best way to produce fresh, interesting writing is to just let it flow right out of your head.

Imagine you're talking to your best friend.

First Draft

Write, type, or record what you say to that best friend.  It can be

• Typed stream-of-consciousness style
• Hand-written on paper
• Spoken into an audio recording device
• Or scribbled on napkins

Then one way or another, get it transcribed into a typed, digital format.  But don't try to fix anything.  Just get it on a computer using something like MS Word or Google Docs.  You can hire people to transcribe audio, hand-written pages, and even napkins.

Second Draft

If you're not ready to send the first draft off to an editor (the extra pair of eyes), then copy the file and rename it as your second draft.  Clean up the mistakes, but keep as much of your original wording as possible.

Warning: The more you go over your writing, the less fresh and spontaneous the final product will be.

That's because what was clever or funny or brilliant when you first wrote it, will lose its luster the third or fourth time you read it.  Then you may find yourself revising it or replacing it with something that's dry and boring without realizing you've just sucked the life out of your text.

The Three-Year-Old Approach

A very dear young lady at the tender age of three, taught me a lot about writing.

One day, while riding in the back seat of the car, she created a perfect synopsis of Star Wars Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back.  She just threw back her head and started singing.

This is a song about Star Wars and Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.  Darth Vader cut Luke's hand off, and Luke fell down an air conditioner pipe and fell outside there.  And the metal robot got broken, and he was Chewie's friend.  And Princess Leia came back with her guys and pulled Luke down from there.  And that guy got frozen, but not Luke Skywalker. -Elizabeth (transcribed by her mother)

I'll tell you right now: the best way to write is to pretend you're a three-year-old talking to your mom.

Remember, if you can talk, you can write.

Amanda Evans has been editing and writing in a wide variety of fields for over thirty years. During that time, she authored numerous technical manuals and articles, as well as a children's fantasy novel. In addition, she served as editor-in-chief at a publishing house in Austin, Texas.
http://amandaevansediting.blogspot.com/