This week my video on writing patterns blew up on YouTube.
But I made a big mistake.
Many writers have reached out to ask how to use writing patterns to improve their manuscript. But this won't work. They've been misled.
Writing patterns make prose clear.
But they can't make it worth reading.
So if you want to improve your text, it's time to turn away from the words and towards the world.
In this week's issue, here's what you'll get:
- Get read: Give readers what they want (it's not paragraph patterns)
- Get feedback on your writing (and a free 1:1 consultation)
- Get Unstuck: How to find a writing project that's authentic to you
🌎 What Readers Want: From Words to Worlds
A client asked me this week what he should read.
He's what I call an expert writer: a knowledge worker who uses writing as an extension of his thinking. His field is health care, and he's trying to redescribe a certain problem in the field using concepts from an adjacent but unorthodox discipline.
So when he asked me for reading material, I think he was expecting me to name three or four nonfiction writers worth studying.
But I told him to read The Lord of the Rings.
He'd seen my video on writing patterns go wide this week (130k views and counting!), and he draw a reasonable conclusion: patterns were the missing piece. He wanted to improve his draft by applying frameworks and patterns, the way you'd apply a second coat of paint.
So I sent him to Middle-earth instead.
Not for Tolkien's enviable prose, and not because he's writing anything remotely like fantasy.
I just wanted him to notice something about how readers work.