Ever have writer’s block?
Try using this simple process to breakdown your writing into the right process steps. It’s called madman, architect, carpenter, and judge.
The idea is simple, but instructive. There are 4 different writing personas tugging at you when you write. The madman is coming up with great ideas all the time which might not be related to anything. The architect is providing structure to the writing; moving paragraphs around and looking at the story-line. The carpenter is crafting the sentences, phrases, and word choice. The judge is deleting unnecessary parts.
Know where you are
Each action is valid and valuable, but it’s important to know where in the writing process you are at the moment. If you have 3 days to put together a client proposal, you want to make sure you meet your deadlines. Get through the madman brainstorming. Agree on the architecture of the proposal including scope, structure, format, and tone. After all, you don’t want to get 3/4 the way through the writing and have people bring in new (last minute, unrelated) ideas.
By getting those 2 stages out of the way, you give yourself more time to do the carpentry of writing. Putting together succinct, impactful, and clear thinking on paper. Naturally, you also want to leave enough time for judging by other partners, subject-matter experts and other in the approval chain (e.g., legal, finance).
HBR’s Guide to Better Business Writing
HBR podcast with Bryan Garner here, author of HBR’s Guide to Better Business Writing and he describes these writing steps. Start audio at the 5 min 30 seconds remaining, if you don’t want to listen to the whole thing.
You can apply this to your PowerPoint:
Madman
- What is your point of view? Are you just going to bore the client with the same recycled marketing brochure-ware? How will you “wow” the client?
- How can you incorporate your previous work, graphics, and insights?
Architect
- Bucket your thoughts into logical groupings; don’t jump around from topic to topic
- Ask yourself, could someone understand each slide without a voiceover?
- Use impactful titles. It’s the most valuable part of the page
- Each page should make 1 point (no more than 2 points)
Carpenter
- Put your most important point first; answer first
- Use parallel structure (e.g., all bullets start with verbs)
- Graphics and words should support each other
- Use graphics when possible, not text
- Use parallel structure between slides to keep the flow of the powerpoint
- Do not use clip art or photos. Seriously, don’t.
Judge
- Think about it from the audience’s perspective; what’s the so what?
- Anything repetitive should be eliminated, merged, revised
- If it’s not obvious what the point of the graph is, call it out with a text box
- Leave whitespace on the page; don’t feel compelled to clutter the page
- If you can combine pages, do it
Very instructive and much appreciated.You’ve done great work for keep updating this blog,I learned a lot.
Thanks for reading. Someone – Woody Allen? – paraphrasing said, “Success in 90% showing up.” Have a great weekend
I noticed that I spend a lot of time in madman and architect mode and very little time in carpenter one. Very useful article to reflect on my weakness.
Hello, yes I think we all have different areas to work on. For me, this structure was helpful in identifying when I flip flop between the different modes. Either over-editing or over-brainstorming at the wrong time.
In the end, keep writing. Just makes us better.
I am carpenter
It’s great to know our own strengths. I am an architect.
During a discussion yesterday with a friend, this context of personas of a writer had come up. I recalled you had put together something on this. Thanks.
Thanks for reading.
Thanks for this John it is really helpful, can you do one for writing a thesis/dissertation? Many thanks
Heh heh. Peer review, defense, revise / re-submit. Too much for me.
Hello, I’m a student who discovered your blog today. Really enjoying your take on the myriad of macro- and micro-level topics. Just wanted to say I look forward to your published book if you ever decide to write one.
Cheers to your work.
Thanks for reading. Do great work.
Hi — you should credit Betty Sue Flowers for this approach …
No fair appropriating insight.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41962375?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Absolutely, she is referenced in the podcast link, but perfectly happy to have her linked again here.