Archive For February 25, 2016
All writing is storytelling, whether it’s a quick email or a memo or a longer report. How we open a story is critical to engaging the reader because we compete for the reader’s limited time. Journalists are taught to think in terms of the 5 Ws and an H. Who, What, When, Where, Why and…
The advertisement for the hospital began with the prominent headline: Is It Possible to Transform the Way Emergency Care is Delivered? The first two sentences of the narrative copy asked: What if emergency care were designed around you? What if all the different steps typically encountered in the emergency department could be streamlined? Then the…
One of the most common problems in writing, or speaking, is the addition of unnecessary words to a primary thought. Think of the overall narrative as a well-rooted tree trunk with strong branches and offshoots shaping the essence of the tree. Sometimes we need to prune unruly sprouts to keep the tree healthy and balanced….
How to think about organizing the story is typically one of the most intimidating challenges we hear from writers. A good metaphor is to think about taking a car trip. We don’t just get in and drive aimlessly. Usually, we have a purpose around why we need to drive. And, we map out in our…