writing

Writing with Confidence About Uncertainty

Thinking business woman with glasses looking up on many questions mark isolated on gray wall background. Source: DepositPhotos

Strategies for using indirect language patterns with intention

When writing to communicate expertise and authority, you want to avoid language that makes you seem uncertain. My previous post here described indirect speech patterns that make you seem less confident or knowledgeable when they creep into your written words.

However, indirect speech isn’t all bad.

Indirect statements and expressions of uncertainty are useful for:

Communicating accurately about uncertain situations
Inviting collaboration or input from others
Observing social conventions or hierarchy (not appearing“bossy”)

Here’s the dilemma: You want to appear authoritative and confident in your writing, yet need to use these invaluable communication strategies.

What’s a writer to do?

Express uncertainty with intention—confidence, even.

Don’t let hesitation and indirectness become your default writing style. Use these patterns with intention when they meet your needs. Here are some strategies for communicating intentional uncertainty.

Explore the causes of your uncertainty

Search for any of “hedge” words or phrases (kind of, some, may, perhaps) and consider why you’re using them.

Is the situation explicitly uncertain or difficult to nail down? If so, be explicit about the unknown.

For example, if you are forecasting a future event, you cannot be sure of the outcome. Perhaps the situation involves information inaccessible to you. If I were writing about marketing on Amazon, I might say, “Amazon does not reveal how its algorithms work, but experience so far suggests…”

In academic writing and other situations in which accuracy is essential, communicating uncertainty will earn credibility, rather than diminish it. When you disregard conflicting evidence that your audience knows, you will lose their trust.

Are you uncertain about something you could find out but haven’t? If that’s the case, you might want to either do the homework or tell the reader where to find the information.

Are you using indirect language or hedging your bets out of a general feeling of unease? Identify what’s bothering you and fix it. If you’re still uncertain, try using the next practice: stating the odds.

Express certainty in probabilities

This piece of advice comes from Annie Duke’s excellent book Thinking in Bets. Duke is a retired poker player with a psychology background who studies risk and decision-making.

She suggests that you express confidence in percentages, as if you were wagering: I’m 70% confident this is the right decision based on the facts available to me.

Using this approach leaves the door open for other people to contribute information that might change your confidence level.

When working in groups, this strategy invites collaboration and defeats the “group think” that happens when everyone converges on the opinion of the first person to speak. Duke writes,

Uncertainty not only improves truthseeking within groups but also invites everyone around us to share helpful information and dissenting opinions.

Give advice without being bossy

What if I told you to never, ever, use semicolons in your writing?

Chances are that you’d protest, even if you haven’t used a semicolon since college. You’d think I was overstepping my bounds. You might dig in and start using semicolons to revel in your independence.

No one likes losing their sense of control over their actions (or agency, in psychological terms.)

In the book The Influential Mind, psychologist and author Tali Sharot describes why it’s important not to boss people around when you hope to influence them:

When people perceive their own agency as being removed, they resist. If they perceive it being expanded, they find it rewarding.

Using indirect language respects the reader’s agency and improves the odds of the reader following advice.

The trick is not appearing wishy-washy or weak. “You could do this…” does not inspire confidence or action.

Try changing the actor in the advice from the recipient to yourself. Instead of telling someone what to do, share with them what you would do: Here’s what I would do in your situation … and this is why…

You can then write with great confidence about the situation and your take on it, without appearing uncertain or indecisive. The recipient of the advice is free to take or leave it, but you have expressed confidence in your opinions.

Polite or Pushover? Indirect Speech in Business Writing

Speech Patterns that Threaten Authority in Writing

Three Reasons It’s Hard to Write for Your Audience

I’ve spent a couple weeks ranting about the importance of writing for an audience. (See One Question to Ask Before You Write.) But here’s the thing that I’ve neglected to mention:

Writing for a specific audience can be really tough.

Even when you’ve chosen an ideal audience, you may struggle to write stories or content that resonates with them.

It’s because you’re human.

You’re battling three basic human tendencies that interfere with effective writing. Here they are, leading with the most important one:

#1: It’s Hard To Get Outside Our Own Heads (The Curse of Knowledge)

It’s difficult for us to remember not knowing the things we now know. Cognitive scientists call this the Curse of Knowledge – and it’s more prevalent than you may realize.

When you imagine your ideal audience and try to take their perspective, you are still stuck in your own head. You may assume that someone knows more about your subject area than they do, or that they can follow your mental processes through a complex sentence.

Even if you’re writing for people just like yourself, your readers aren’t inside your head.

You are not your audience.

#2: We Like To Fit In With Peers

We are social creatures with a strong need to conform to our peer groups. So, we tend to write for the people we are surrounded with.

Think about this for a moment. Who do you spend time with?

When you write in an office setting, you’ll tend to write in a way that fits with the speech and thought patterns of those around you. If your coworkers use terminology or jargon, you’ll feel a pull to include those same words in your writing.

That’s fine, as long as you are surrounded by people who fit the general profile of your target audience.

The more empathetic we are, the more we mirror those around us. Local empathy can get us in trouble if we’re writing for a different audience.

Your team is not your audience

Unless you’re selling products or services to people who approximate your teammates, you’ve got to think outside your peer group.

#3 The System is Rigged and We Need to Impress Others

Sometimes, the audience isn’t the one appraising your performance or paying the bills.

This problem is most acute in the workplace.

Who does performance reviews? Your manager.

If you’re submitting a book proposal, who signs off? The publisher.

If you’re a freelance writer, who pays your invoices? That’s right, the client.

When writing, it’s natural to want to impress the people who hold your financial future in their hands.

Your management is not your audience.

What can we do about these forces conspiring against us – or more specifically, against the readers’ interests?

Use Process to Protect the Audience

Understand that these forces are in play, and then set up processes to protect your writing.

When planning and outlining, include the target audience in your planning process.
Envision specific readers from the audience when drafting (particularly nonfiction).
When revising, try reading your piece out loud as if you were addressing the ideal reader. If something seems awkward, rework it. Specifically, hunt out any jargon or industry terminology, and see if you can rephrase it.
Actively seek reviews from the target audience. If possible, find someone who can stand in for the ideal reader.
If you’re circulating a piece to other people in the workplace (like your manager), remind them about the objective of the piece and the audience. Don’t send a review copy out without a description of the target audience at the beginning.

When you start writing effective copy, people will notice. Track the metrics for your content (downloads, shares, or other available data), and use that to influence the people you need to impress.

Related posts in the “Audience” series

One Question to Ask Before You Write

The Power of a Narrow Focus

Want to know more about using process to protect the reader? Check out The Workplace Writer’s Process.

Sticking to the Writing Habit on the Road

I intended to have this blog post drafted before leaving town for a short family visit, but didn’t manage it. Then I planned to write it during the visit. Again, didn’t happen.

So here I sit on the plane home, composing a post about the virtues of writing while traveling. The irony is of the situation isn’t lost on me.

Travel really messes with writing productivity.

And yet, some of my best ideas have surfaced when I take the time to write while away from my ordinary life.

Metaphors pop into my head. Insights add color to topics I’m researching. I observe people differently when not distracted by my daily concerns. I decided on a book topic while taxiing to the gate at Midway Airport.

These insights arrived when I made the time to write regularly on the road.

The Muse Shows Up When You Leave Home

You might stop writing altogether when you leave home and office. But if you show up, pen or keyboard at the ready, you may discover that the Muse is along with you on the trip, noticing everything and waiting to tell you what it sees.

Putting aside your normal routines shifts your perspective. Freed from the ordinary list of concerns, the creative, associative parts of your brain are flooded with images and experiences. The Muse perks up with all of this fresh fodder.

Travel expands the mind; writing expands your perception.

How do you find the time and discipline to write on vacation, without compromising the point of the trip?

If you follow a strict writing routine, rising at a special hour or working in a dedicated place, the challenge is greater.

In her wonderful book Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors, Sarah Stodola recounts how Edith Wharton demanded that the hotel staff rearrange the furniture to accommodate her morning writing routine when traveling. Most of us cannot afford to be that picky.

In contrast, Vladimir Nabokov crawled into the back seat of his car, parked in the lot of a cheap hotel, and worked there.

Neither of those plans suit me. Surely there’s a middle ground.

A “Travel-Sized” Writing Plan

Unless I’m on a tight deadline, I put aside my ordinary writing tasks during trips, to reap the benefits of taking a break. But, I try to maintain the practice of writing by finding slices of time to process down my thoughts or work on anything that strikes my fancy.

This doesn’t happen at same time or place each day. Some days I don’t write at all, and that’s okay.

The output is almost irrelevant. What matters is the process.

Each time I sit down to write, it’s like putting the welcome mat out for my Muse. When I plan to keep a journal, I notice the world around me differently, filter conversations and insights. It’s always time well spent.

How Do You Balance Writing and Travel?

As the summer rolls into August, you might be planning a get-away. If so, how do you plan to fit it in with your writing? Do you try to stick to the same schedule when on the road? Lower the expectations for productivity but keep up the process? Or simply write for enjoyment?

Do you have a “travel-sized” writing plan? I’d love to hear what works for you.

Writing in the Zone: Say Hello to Flow

You know when it happens – but only after the fact.

You’re absorbed in the writing, the words are pouring out, and suddenly you realize that an hour or two has passed. It’s as if you wake up from the work. Instead of feeling drained, you are energized.

Performers and athletes talk about being “in the zone.” Psychologists call it flow.

Whether it lasts minutes or hours, writing in a state of flow is wonderful. The main thing most people want to know about flow is this: How can I get more of it?

If we could choose, we would always write this way.

Flow: Not just for “artists”

Even if you don’t find it often when writing, you might experience flow in other parts of your life. Perhaps you get absorbed in the work when gardening, painting, or practicing an instrument.

You might even (wait for it) find flow in the workplace, when editing a paper, writing code, or analyzing data. What if your day job included work that you found absorbing and inherently rewarding?

Flow is the ultimate employee benefit.

Good news: We do have some control over when and how flow happens. It’s not just a matter of chance.

Here are two things you can do today to increase your chances of working in flow, no matter what kind of writing you’re doing.

1. Remove the obvious obstacles

The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote the definitive book about the subject in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. The seven key attributes of flow are also its conditions for success, and include lack of self-consciousness, complete focus on the work, and losing track of time. (See all seven conditions for flow in this post on Finding Flow in the Writing Process.)

Most of us can structure our work and our working environments in such as way that flow is more likely to happen.

Here are a few things to try:

Eliminate distractions: Flow requires focus, so tune out potential distractions when you want to work in flow. Shut down apps, silence the phone, close the door.

Check your mindset: One of the preconditions of flow is a lack of self-consciousness and fear. When writing, one way to silence fear is to break the work into phases. Tell yourself that you will take another pass or do a careful revision before you show the work to anyone. This helps you set aside fear or self-consciousness when drafting.

Externalize time management: When working in flow, you lose track of time. That’s a problem if you have scheduled commitments. If you’re going to have to go somewhere, set an alarm. Then you can work without watching the clock.

2. Practice flow with freewriting

Like anything else, writing in a state of flow gets easier with practice.

If you’ve read The Writer’s Process or my past posts about the Muse and the Scribe, you can imagine that flow is the point at which these two competing parts of our inner selves work together. It’s a delicate balance.

To get improve this real-time collaboration, practice writing in flow with a non-critical project.

Open a file and start writing about any topic. You might sketch a personal story, thoughts on a work-related project, or an email you plan to compose.

Try to write fluidly for a certain period of time or number of words. Get your inner Muse and Scribe accustomed to working together.

Try doing this every day for a month as a writing warm-up. This daily practice is one way of rehearsing writing in flow.

Other resources

Chris Syme and I talked about flow in this Smarty Pants Book Marketing podcast on balancing creativity and productivity when writing.

Anyone Can Write, But …

“If you can write, you can write a book! Anyone can write a book!”

The world of self-publishing has unleashed a torrent of advice like this, which has in turn spawned a flood of frustrated writers and unsold books.

This sales pitch is the perfect expression of the Universal Writer Myth. It’s particularly dangerous and compelling because at one level, it’s true.

The Universal Writer Myth

The Universal Writer Myth is the belief that everyone who can read and write is a writer.

In the last post, I wrote about the Destiny Myth, or the idea that only special people are writers. That’s a limiting belief. The Universal Writer myth is its counterpart: everyone can write, so go for it.

Technically, it’s true. If you write, you are a writer. That’s important advice to remember.

But just as some people need to hear this advice for encouragement, others need to remember that the Universal Writer dogma glosses over an important fact:

Anyone can write. Not everyone writes successfully.

Success doesn’t mean selling thousands of books. Success is writing something that reaches and resonates with a reader.

Writing is not a one-way street: as communication, it must find and affect a reader.

If you write without any concern for the reader or what happens to the words when you are done, then you are really journaling.

I love the practice of keeping a journal. I write for myself all the time, to clarify my thoughts and think deeply, and to work on the craft of writing.

Keeping a journal is part of my practice, not my writing output.

At work, not everyone should be writing

The Universal Writer Myth pops up in the workplace all the time, particularly as businesses look for ways to increase employee-generated content to fuel corporate blogs.

Companies ask executives, engineers, support staff, customer success teams, sales teams, and others to contribute content to the corporate blog or email newsletter. Everyone knows how to write, so what’s the big deal?

Sometimes it works well, other times it does not. Even when the individuals write well, the resulting blog does not always achieve its purposes.

In the workplace, it’s not enough to simply write.

Writing effectively for business requires that you execute several tasks, including:

Finding the right tone and style
Understanding the target audience
Creating content that serves the reader’s needs while fulfilling business objectives

Why this myth can be dangerous

A belief in the Universal Writer Myth can mislead people about the what it takes to be effective as a writer.

It’s not enough to write – you need to write effective content. So, the first question is, what’s the effect you want to have?

If you’re publishing a book, write a book that someone would want to read. Understand your audience and their needs and expectations, and then meet them. That’s how you write effective content.

If you’re writing a blog post, consider its purpose. You could simply write 1000 words and post them online. You’ll be a blogger, but not an effective one. We’ve all read blog posts like that. Consider what you want the blog to achieve and who might visit it, and work from there.

Yes, you can, but should you?

Anyone can write. But you should write only if you are willing to do the work to write something worth reading.

This is true whether you’re writing books or creating content in the workplace. In the workplace, asking everyone to contribute to the blog may not be the best way to create content.

The Universal Writer Myth can lead to a great deal of ineffective content.

Plan first, then write

The first, most important step of writing something effective is planning. Determine what you are doing and why.

Planning is particularly critical in the business context. Without planning, you may waste time and damage your reputation. With the right goals, you know what to aim for.

Then, work on the craft. Edit and revise your words. Try to continuously improve. Hire an editor. Proofread. Read your words out loud and listen to how they sound.

Whenever you encounter the “anyone can write” advice, remember the essential modification:

Anyone can write – but do the work.

Related resources

This is a part of a series of posts based on content from the book The Workplace Writer’s Process.

In the mean time, check out these other, related posts:

Writing is Effort, Not Destiny

I’m an Indie Author

What a Brewer Taught Me about Writing

Writing Challenges: Focusing on One Project

What’s the hardest part of writing a novel in a month?

April is Camp NaNoWriMo – a variation on November’s “write a novel in a month” challenge. The month-long deadline presents many challenges: How will you make the time? Can you generate enough steam to do the work each day? Can you stick to the plan for a month?

For some writers, the biggest struggle happens before they start. In late March, a writer I know sent me the following question:

“I have two projects I am working on. It is actually stressing me knowing I might have to focus on just one. Any ideas?”

Facing the deadline, she had a hard time narrowing down her focus.

She’s not alone. I face a similar dilemma deciding which book idea to pursue, as publishing a book (for me) requires a singular focus bordering on the obsessive.

If your Muse sends you many ideas, selecting a single one to work on can be painful. It may feel like you’re giving up on the other ideas or shutting down creative impulses. Keeping your options open feels like a safe thing to do.

Who is more productive: the writer with ten works in progress or one published work? I vote for the published one.

Keeping your options open is one way to avoid the risk of commitment.

Maybe you love having multiple burners firing at once. If so, perhaps that’s how you should work much of the time. But to get something out into the world quickly and take advantage of the power of a deadline, you need to know when to narrow your focus.

This is true whether you’re working on short blog posts or multiple novels. Sometimes you have to choose one to move forward. You don’t actually abandon the others if you change your juggling technique.

The Art of Juggling

The Writer’s Process describes seven different phases of the writing process. Whether your personal process involves more or fewer steps, the act of getting written works into the world entails work beyond drafting, including research, outlining, incubation, and revision.

Having multiple projects in progress can make you more productive and creative:

You can choose the project that fits your current mood and inspiration.
Your brain may make connections across the different projects, cross-pollinating and feeding creative associations.

But here’s the key to successful juggling: Only have one project in the drafting phase at any time.

How a Single Focus Makes You Faster

Drafting is the most intense part of the work, involving the delicate collaboration of the Scribe and the Muse. It requires focused concentration, and you only have so much of that available in any given day. If you go back and forth between projects during that time, you’ll lose steam. Switching imposes costs.

This principle applies in the workplace as well. You may be involved in many projects. But in that rare, uninterrupted time you have for drafting each day, choose one thing to write rather than doing a few hundred words on each.

For a long-term project like writing a book, focusing your drafting attention has another benefit: you train your mind to work on that book even when you’re not actually writing.

Your subconscious processes will keep working on that idea as you go about your life. You’ll think about that work when you drive home, walk the dog, or doze off. That subconscious processing makes you more productive when next you sit down to draft.

The Power of Incubation

You don’t have to abandon those other projects. Simply tell yourself that they are in different phases: research, revision, or incubation.

Projects that are incubating are not forgotten. You can remind yourself of their existence, making them available to the Muse when you’re doing other things. Ponder them, gather ideas, and let them simmer. If ideas pop up, open a file and write them down.

Productive writers are always incubating fresh ideas.

When you’re done with the intense drafting,you’ll be primed to start working on another project.

Have a Writing Challenge of Your Own?

Have a writing challenge of your own? Send it to me by email, in the comments, or using the Contact form.

Find insight on scheduling work and juggling different projects in The Writer’s Process.
Watch the writing challenge videos.