Clichés are the bane of an editor’s existence. But as a writer, there’s been many a time when I’ve rolled one out. They’re a dime a dozen, after all, and because it’s easy as pie to come up with them, often I don’t realize I’ve fallen prey to the tactic. But as an editor, I’m a cliché buster. I give these dead horses the ol’ heave-ho. I slice and dice them right out of the story.

Oh, dear. Hmm. How about this:

Like most writers, I’m guilty of using clichés, but when I spot them, I nix them.

In all seriousness, clichés make writing look amateurish at best. A cliché offers little to no useful information, meaning or nuance to a story. Plus, clichés tend to involve multiple words that can be swapped out in favor of fewer words that get the job done. And, as you know, less is more (that’s often not true, by the way).

If I’m being honest (a cliché that suggests I prevaricate frequently) this list isn’t the point of the post. The point is to remind you to choose your words carefully, and to weed out the useless phrases (more on how to do that below).

There are, needless to say, exceptions, perhaps purposely deploying a cliché for subtle comedic effect. Such as using boils down to in a story about cooking, broken record in a music review, or down to earth in a story about astronomy.

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But as sure as the sun rises, a writer who writes about writing is compelled, sooner or later, to pull together a list of common clichés that you should, you know, avoid like the plague:

• Add insult to injury

• Against all odds

• Back to square one

• Be all and end all

• Beg to differ

• Benefit of the doubt

• Better late than never

• Burning the midnight oil

• Calm before the storm

• Can of worms

• Clean slate

• Clear as a bell

• Clear as mud

• Crystal clear

• Devil is in the details

• Dime a dozen

• Down in the dumps

• Elephant in the room

• Far cry

• Feast or famine

• Few and far between

• Fit the bill

• Go against the grain

• In a nutshell

• Jump on the bandwagon

• Kick the bucket

• Knock your socks off

• Labor of love

• Let sleeping dogs lie

• Like clockwork

• Live and learn

• Loose cannon

• Make hay while the sun shines

• Movers and shakers

• Nip it in the bud

• Not the end of the world

• On pins and needles

• Peas in a pod

• Perfect storm

• Plain as day

• Playing with fire

• Rock the boat

• Scared to death

• Shot in the dark

• Sink or swim

• Spitting image

• Sweating bullets

• Takes two to tango

• Ticking time bomb

• Tough as nails

• Water under the bridge

• Worst nightmare

To be sure, I did not include dozens, perhaps hundreds of clichés, many of which are old as the hills and rarely show up in writing, even if people still use them in conversation.

So let’s talk about clichés busting.

Whenever a familiar phrase creeps into your writing, ask yourself:

• Is it really helping move the story along?

• What does the phrase actually mean?

• Is the literal meaning what I really want to say?

• Would fewer words do the trick?

• Can I be more specific?

Through those filters, you’ll often find that a cliché —or some other useless phrase—can be supplanted by fewer words, or none at all, to improve flow and better impart meaning, perhaps even make your writing, um, sharp as a tack.

TIDBITS OF WRITING WISDOM

Stuff that pops into my head as I read, write and edit…

On productivity: Funny how one might write two stories in one day and not find the inspiration to write another one for a week. I’ve come to believe that inspiration and sticktoitiveness are both stochastic human traits, and I try to make peace with that… every unproductive day.

On self-editing: We writers, and also we editors, are flawed. I’m humbled every time I’m reminded just how much. Someone reading one of my stories yesterday morning noted it had two typos. I’m always grateful when someone takes time to point out any flaw in a story. Unfortunately he didn’t say what they were. So I went into the story in fierce editor mode. Found one of the typos. Cannot find the other one! It nagged me all day, but I moved on. It’s good to be humbled. Keeps me on my toes, and provides an antidote to any haughtiness that might creep into my writing, editing or reading self.

This just in: Don’t just write what you know. Write what you didn’t know until just now.

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A LITTLE INSPIRATION

I know several people who have anywhere from strong to tremendous writing skills but never get around to writing anything for public consumption. Some are too scared to put their stuff out there. Others are too busy with their day jobs. A few just can’t quite figure out what to write about consistently or where to put it. If any of this describes you—always or sometimes—I have this advice: Just write. The world, or at least a few people, need to hear from you.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Writing this essay about clichés reminded me of some other Writer’s Guide pieces that focus on the incredible nuances and complexities of word choice:

Until next week, write on!
—Rob

In the 2008 animated film WALL-E, the spaceship Axiom carries descendents of humans who left the uninhabitable Earth centuries prior. With machines and algorithms attending to all their needs, these folks have lost the ability to think critically, act decisively or do much of anything at all. Even those in charge had no clue how to handle the littlest of problems.

The future—or in this case the past fictional prophecy of it—has arrived, in the form of generative AI.

Large language models (LLMs like Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini) promise to unburden us of countless tasks, to think and do stuff faster and better. But these bots—which are just software, not intelligent entities—are fallible, sometimes presenting pure fiction as fact and routinely making opinions and unsupported summaries sound authoritative.

The negative effects for individual writers and society more broadly are profound.

People who use artificial intelligence for writing (whether corporate emails, news stories, blogs, academic essays or novels) lose their linguistic edge and individual voice, as AI-generated output homogenizes the language. AI induces cognitive surrender, undermining our ability to learn.

The downward spiral is insidious, invisible to many. Prompt by prompt, the bots train on humans, and humans bow to the bots, and the bots ultimately train on themselves. This negative circular logic is generating what I’ve called a linguistic looking glass, “where rules of writing no longer make sense as humans and machines chase each other’s tails.”

But there’s a greater risk unfolding.

Latent risk

Among the bold claims from the tech bros: Workers will be relieved of mundane acts of thinking and doing—the nuts and bolts of productivity—and can move into overseer roles, keeping an eye on the bots, backstopping to watch for mistakes and shortcomings.

Sounds delightful. But here’s the problem with that:

When AI supplants humans in roles that require research, thought and decision-making, the person in charge—the ultimate gatekeeper—is no longer practicing those skills. So when AI screws up, as the machines on the Axiom did, the human overseers may not notice. When AI gets stuck, the rusty-skilled humans in charge won’t know what to do.

“I call this latent risk: the possibility that people may lose capabilities their organizations still depend on them to exercise,” explains Murugan Anandarajan, a professor of decision sciences and management information systems at Drexel University.

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“What work remains for people does not necessarily become easier,” Anandarajan explains in an essay in The Conversation. “It may become harder. These are the situations where experience and independent judgment matter most. The result is a paradox: People may be called upon to exercise independent judgment less often, even as the judgments left to them become more difficult.”

We’re seeing this play out with writing.

Every day I read complaints from editors in media and the corporate world who’re asked to fix or dress up AI-generated missives, articles and novels and who find the work many times more difficult than dealing with human-generated writing. The people foisting this slop can’t fix it—they either never could write well or, worse, they’re losing the ability to research, think critically and write eloquently.

Meantime, people are bowing to the bots in ridiculous ways to avoid being flagged by AI-detectors, from avoiding em dashes and series of three constructions to purposely inserting typos.

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But it’s so easy!

It’s easy to see the lure of LLMs for brainstorming, research, writing (and numerous other tasks). Humans are prone to taking the easy path. But easy is not always best. Especially for writers.

Writer and AI critic Mike Rosenberg, in a Linkedin post, asks and answers why he does his own writing rather than have AI do it for him:

“Why do you eat when you can guzzle a nutrient shake? Why walk or run when you can drive somewhere? Why sing or play an instrument when software can make it sound perfect? Why cook when you can order in? Why garden when you can just buy flowers and produce? Why play with your kids when you can give them an iPad?”

Latent risk, as Anandarajan describes it, is among the reasons I choose not to enlist AI for my writing, nor even for my research. It’s also why, as an editor and writing coach, I continue to write.

Writing constantly confounds me with the same challenges facing the writers I serve. It keeps me sharp and makes me a better editor.

Editing continually reminds of best and worst practices to employ in my writing.

Positive circular logic based on human interaction.

Generative AI promises to revolutionize productivity and creativity. It will probably succeed in some realms. But prompt by prompt it’s making people lazy. Like the boneheaded blobs on the Axiom, we risk losing our collective ability to think critically, act decisively or do much of anything at all.

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Right now there are about 140 ideas on the list.

A few are duplicative or similar, a handful once had current hooks but are outdated and awaiting further brainstorming. But the majority, IMO, don’t stink. Even some near the bottom are just waiting for the writer to get off his ass and jump in.

If you don’t have a Story Idea file with at least several items in various stages of incompletion, I submit that it might be time to carve a little time away from writing to devote to brainstorming, daydreaming, reading the writing of others, perhaps taking a hike, or doing absolutely nothing for a stretch—to see what ideas bubble up.

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Rather than give away the actual ideas, I just wanted to show you the verbatim notes on the first six ideas, each of which is in progress in its own draft document:

• … (ready for “more” links and final edit)

• … (started - easy to write)

• … (partly written)

• … (ready for final edit)

• … (started - needs interviews)

• … (file started -- easy to finish)

The story you are reading right now was written from start to finish in about one hour — the draft done before the idea even had a chance to make it to the Story Idea File. That’s rare for me. I usually circle around a lot, and most of my stories take several hours, often across multiple days or even weeks.

You might argue that my idea file is bloated. But that’s what I love about it.

I know I’ve always got a story to lean on, no matter how uninspired I might be in a given week. One idea might be easy to execute but I’m not feeling it at the moment. Another idea might be super challenging, but I’m up for it on a given day.

And this is helpful, too: The ideas that simply die probably should never have been written, so the file serves as a good vetting mechanism.

Every story in my idea file has a working headline, however inspired or dull, clever and sharp or longish and sufficiently explanatory. Many have notes and links to remind me where the idea might go. Dozens of them have associated drafts going. Some drafts involve little more than a paragraph of chatter, or maybe a sketchy outline. Other drafts have working ledes and a range of random notes. Several have reached various stages of completion — anywhere from 50% to 90% — before I got distracted or bored or stuck.

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Some of the raw ideas in the file will never be used, never even generate a draft. Many will stall forever at the draft stage. Several will be completed, however, when the inspiration (or pressing need) arises. Even the ideas that don’t get used directly might serve to inform and inspire related ideas.

Now and then I’ll spot two old ideas that are similar but lacking that certain something, and like two lonely souls, they flourish when they find each other.

Now, with this draft completed (on Wednesday, Oct. 14, at 7:32 a.m. local time) I’m going to add it to the Story Idea File and set it aside for a final read some other day. I don’t need it right now, and it’ll never become stale. One week I’ll be busy with life and in need of a story to send to you in this weekly Writer’s Guide newsletter, and I’ll find this entry on my Story Idea File list:

• A Glimpse at My Story Idea File (ready for final edit — review the headline)

PS: Yes, the headline for this piece changed at the last minute.

TIDBITS OF WRITING WISDOM

Stuff that pops into my head as I read, write and edit…

You know… We writers know things. Readers might or might not know those same things. So don’t assume what readers know by writing things like “Most people know…” or “Everyone has seen…” or “We’ve all heard…”. This writing crutch is often used, never needed, sometimes insulting.

Sure, you get it. When you write something, it tends to make sense to you. After all, it flows out of your brain, so when you read it back to yourself, it flows right back through the same filters. But it might make no sense to others. As an editor, I see this all the time. Every writer (me included) needs someone else (an editor, a friend, a reader) to flag what’s confusing, vague, stupid or otherwise not up to your standards. Such input is not criticism. It’s a gift.

There is no “AI tell.” There are only attempts by humans and by AI to determine if writing was done by a human or by AI or by a human trying to mimic AI or AI mimicking a human who’s trying to mimic AI or … yeah, there’s no way to tell. If you love writing, and your writing is 100% human-generated, you can ignore all this noise and… just write.

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A LITTLE INSPIRATION

The best baseball players fail roughly seven out of 10 times at the plate. You can’t succeed with every story. Cut yourself some slack and just keep swinging.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Some stories get finished in a flash. Others require hours and hours, even days, of hard work. So while it’s hard to say how long any specific story should take, I offered my best answers in this how-to, written three years ago:

Until next week, write on!
—Rob

Without naming it, describe one of the hardest things you’ve ever done, in 50 words or less. Make us see, hear or feel what you experienced.

Drop your submission in the comments. As always, I read each one and offer feedback (free mentoring).

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Behind this challenge: Explaining something without naming it forces you to dig deep for the best nouns and verbs (and maybe an apt adjective or two). You might choose to use shorter sentences to convey drama or suspense or to emphasize a point.

If you struggle to wow us, turn on a voice recorder and explain the thing verbally. Use your hands. Talk as if you’re sharing this for the first time with your best friend. You might find yourself far more articulate, then you can transcribe and edit as needed. Feel free to use far fewer than 50 words—however many you feel are needed to engage us.

Oh, and don’t feel bad if this prompt turns out to be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done.

About Tiny Writing Challenges

These challenges, open to Writer’s Guide subscribers, aim to help you grow your writing skills, brush up on best practices, and offer motivation to write on days when the words don’t come. All with no consequences other than having a little fun and getting feedback.

• Previous Tiny Writing Challenges (take any of them anytime)

I create these little instructionals because 35 years of editing hundreds of writers has taught me that the best writers have thick skins and appreciate honest critiques. So if you worry about what others will think or say, this is an opportunity to toss out some words fearlessly. I am a straightforward but kind editor, and comments from me and other subscribers will always be constructive, never callous or mean.

BTW, if a challenge happens to prompt an actual story idea for you, that’s a wonderful bonus, and I’d love it if you let me know.

Cheers,
Rob

I get his meaning, but it’s not what I meant. (Shame on me for not being clearer!)

Writers should not seek short at all costs (unless an editor assigns a limited word count, of course). When I advise “Don’t waste a single word” or “Make all your words count,” I mean:

Figure out what you want to say and say it, without puffery, padding or impertinence, without rambling on, yet don’t be afraid of long sentences—long sentences can be delightful, as long as all the words in them serve a useful purpose.

When you try to stuff into a story everything you know and every word that comes to mind, the story gets messy. Like the house of a hoarder. No matter how big or small the house, it can packed to the rafters with junk, or it can be tidy.

The art of concision forces focus. It keeps a story clean and flowing and makes it easier to read. Concise writing compels you to use words wisely, to write tightly, no matter how long a piece might be.

See, we writers lean epic, kidding ourselves that every story needs to include all the details. There are words for that kind of story: bloated, bogged-down, boring.

I’ve long agued that any bit of nonfiction can be told at any length: perhaps as little as three words, and certainly 30 can convey the six Ws. Somewhere between 300 and 3,000 is a common sweet spot. But dig deep enough and there are 300,000 words to be found on any topic.

The question is: How much does your targeted reader want to read?

A lawyer might read entire books on the legal defenses of copyright infringement. Journalists might (somewhat reluctantly) plow through a 3,000-word feature on the subject to protect their own asses. The vast majority of humans, however, would be loath to read more than a paragraph or two on copyright infringement, and then only if it was an appropriate passage within a story about, say, a high-profile copyright case that somehow (I can’t imagine how) captured their interest.

Whatever the length of a story, your assignment is to achieve concision within every sentence, paragraph and section, and the story overall. Among the helpful tactics:

• Be clear about the point and purpose of your story and stick to it.

• Craft a solid outline and put everything in its place, with no repetition, nothing that doesn’t belong where it is.

• Don’t try to pack too much detail into your compelling story top. Get to your point (ideally in a nutgraph) and save the rest for… the rest of the story.

• Leave out more than you put in; set tangents aside as fodder for future stories.

• Nix little words whenever they aren’t grammatically needed (examples: that, just, the, a).

• Avoid “ing” constructions (she was running) when an active verb will say the same thing, often with fewer words (she ran).

• Avoid obvious statements (Fall is right around the corner… Most of us want… Everyone knows…).

• Consider your target audience’s expectations.

I stand by my advice to not waste a single word. But I’m grateful to that commenter for making me think deeper on the common refrain that “less is more.” It is obtuse at best, and arguably lousy advice. Hemingway was a master of concision. He never wasted words. But his terse sentences and plain language rendered classics—some of them pretty long. We would not revere him if his novels had all been edited down to flash-fiction length.

If I’m being pithy: Brevity is short. Concision is tight. Tight is right.

Related Writer’s Guide essays:

• How Long Should a Story Be?

• Tricks for Keeping a Story Focused

• How to Slash 25% of the Words From Your Story, and Why

TIDBITS OF WRITING WISDOM

Stuff that pops into my head as I read, write and edit…

Cut that out: One guaranteed way to improve your next story: When you think it’s done, do a word count. Then eliminate 10% of the words. No exceptions. Trim filler words, shorten sentences without changing meaning, turn “ing” words into active verbs, search for overused words like “only” and “just,” delete phrases or whole sections that don’t directly support the headline. The fat is there, and you can do this.

Searching, searching… I recently changed my default search engine in Chrome to DuckDuckGo. It works the way Google search used to, offering links to credible sources, rather than an error-filled AI-generated Google Gemini summary that’s based on questionable sources like some guy on Facebook or anonymous Reddit users. It’s not perfect, but it’s working well for me.

140 story ideas in my file?! I just checked, and there are about 140 working heds in my Writer’s Guide idea file. It’s always around that many. Pondering why there are so many led to writing a little essay about how and why my list is so long. The draft of this story is done and ready for final edit, but I don’t need it this week, so I’ve added it to the Story Idea File, where it will be a pleasant surprise someday when I’m plumb out of ideas. (There be a hint on what the full post is about.)

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A LITTLE INSPIRATION

When you sit down to write, and the story you’re working on doesn’t cooperate, write something else. A social media post, a query to an expert, a poem — anything to distract you from the wall you’re staring at.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

One of the most common questions I get from writers: Where do your story ideas come from? Three years ago this week, I wrote about how “one small new study, survey, fact, quote or whatever—any small morsel of new information—can set a writer’s mind galavanting off productively into the land of ideation, searching for a full meal to serve up in the form of a feature story, with a bigger hook and plenty of context and, oh yeah, by the way, that new tidbit in a supporting role.”

Until next week, write on!
—Rob

One project was a total failure.

Another went pretty well but remained unfinished.

A third never got started thanks to an event beyond our control.

The three outcomes reminded me of how writing often goes. We like to think writing is a linear process. It might go something like this: ideation > research > framing > writing > self editing > producing > publishing.

But writing—whether it’s a short article, a long feature or a book—frequently happens in fits and starts, occasionally lurching this way and that. Some ideas simply don’t pan out and need to be left in the idea file forever, or until some spark of imagination, or some new information, raises them from the dead. Others just want to be left to simmer for a bit. At least that’s my experience, and I think it’s helpful to accept the nonlinear nature of the craft rather than fight it.

Beating ourselves up over a story that doesn’t want to be finished tout de suite, or refuses to be written at all, is worse than unproductive. It’s unhealthy. It’s demoralizing. We need to know when to take a break, and when to simply quit, so that we can move on to more promising pieces.

What might feel like writer’s block (which I argue is not a thing) can sometimes be the stubborn or myopic focus on a story that’s going nowhere, when a writer needs to let go and simply do something—anything—else.

Here’s what happened with the home projects, and how the experiences related to writing:

3. The most challenging project required the input of someone else who was supposed to show up “sometime” during the day. He never arrived and didn’t respond to our message asking where in the heck he was. Super frustrating. But there was nothing we could do but shelve the whole thing.

Parallel to writing: Some stories aren’t ready to be written. Maybe you need more research to clarify the premise, or you’ve got to interview a source to learn what the story is really about. You’re eager to get typing, based on hunches and preconceptions, but don’t ruin a good story by forcing the writing before you know what you’re writing about.

2. I pledged to clear out the garage, bag up garbage, slice all the cardboard for recycling, and remove anything else that shouldn’t be in the garage. There was no real urgency, but it was brainless work, which I’m well suited for. I got most of the job done, but I couldn’t remove some of the remaining stuff because I needed my wife to weigh in on where it should go (this was the non-brainless part of the project) but she was busy working on our first priority for the day, a project that was the most time-pressing one on our short list (below).

Parallel to writing: Sometimes you have to put one story on hold because a more urgent one needs your attention. It can be hard to set a story aside, but timeliness is next to godliness, so if a higher priority begs your attention—something with a newsy hook or an externally imposed deadline—hop to it and let the less timely story wait.

1. Our concrete floors are disgusting after some construction work. No vacuum, mop nor even a steam cleaner removes the film of fine dust. My wife was at it for hours. Every attempt—informed by multiple YouTube “experts”—just smudged the sludge around. So we headed to Home Depot and rented a heavy, industrial, rotary floor polisher. The thing is a beast. Its single disk rotates clockwise and provides the steering: Tilt backward to go left, tilt forward to go right. I promptly ran it into the wall and sent shards of Sheetrock flying. This project didn’t want to be completed on Sunday. We need to find a different tool or hire a floor-polishing pro. We took the Death Machine back to Home Depot, swallowed the $49 rental fee, and moved on to cocktail hour.

Parallel to writing: Now and then you’ll hit a wall on a story that must, somehow, get written. Your premise or approach might be wrong. Maybe you lose your inspiration or can’t figure out how to start. Don’t die on the hill of a single story. Walk away, figure out a different approach, and tackle the story another day.

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Lucky for me, the story you’re reading proceeded linearly. I had the idea and knew its three main components before I began writing. I jotted down the headline, then wrote the thing almost straight through with little distraction. Would that they were all so easy.

TIDBITS OF WRITING WISDOM

Stuff that pops into my head as I read, write and edit…

And your point is? Readers get frustrated and impatient when the beginning of a story shows up further down.

Your next story… Every story you write can be a springboard to another one that wants to be written. That mindset not only generates new ideas but helps you keep the piece you’re working on focused.

Details matter. If you don’t pay attention to one detail, however minor, some readers (be they grammar geeks or topical experts) will be wondering what other details you ignored or screwed up. They will question your credibility. Here’s an example, from the depths of grammatical geekiness: Dashes are not hyphens. When you want a dash, use the em dash (—) not the en dash (–) and not the hyphen (-). Yeah, I know, it’s hard to find and remember the key combination. It is, however, part of the craft you signed up for. Don’t let ignorance of details derail an otherwise wonderful piece of writing.

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A LITTLE INSPIRATION

You are a better writer than your most recent story might suggest. Keep writing.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

When your story is hooked on something new, you might call it news. Newsy stories command attention, which can be a good thing. But when should you claim a study, an event or some other story hook is “new” vs. “recent” or neither? Three years ago this week, I offered this easy-to-digest how-to guide:

Until next week, write on!
—Rob

Drop a link in the Comment to a story you enjoyed recently, and explain briefly why it’s effective.

The story can be by anyone but you, from Substack or anywhere else. Ideally it’s not paywalled, so we can all give it a look, but that’s not a requirement. Your analysis is the point of the exercise. You might touch on the quality of the premise, the outline and organization, the depth of the writer’s understanding, or the writing itself. You might touch on a few factors that stand out, or focus on one. There’s no right way to do this.

I’ll kick it off by analyzing, in the Comments, a delightful story about the resilience of life, and I look forward to reading and responding to yours.

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If you don’t have a story in mind right now, bookmark this challenge (or keep the tab open) and circle back anytime.

About Tiny Writing Challenges

These challenges, open to Writer’s Guide subscribers, aim to help you grow your writing skills, brush up on best practices, and offer motivation to write on days when the words don’t come. All with no consequences other than having a little fun and getting feedback.

• Previous Tiny Writing Challenges (take any of them anytime)

I create these little instructionals because 35 years of editing hundreds of writers has taught me that the best writers have thick skins and appreciate honest critiques. So if you worry about what others will think or say, this is an opportunity to toss out some words fearlessly. I am a straightforward but kind editor, and comments from me and other subscribers will always be constructive, never callous or mean.

BTW, if a challenge happens to prompt an actual story idea for you, that’s a wonderful bonus, and I’d love it if you let me know.

Cheers,
Rob

“What do I actually know?” he writes. “Where am I an expert, and where am I a layperson?”

The aspiring newsletterer goes on to suss out an answer, deciding what topics he might tackle given actual expertise (obscure stuff like big rigs and amplifiers). Then he adds a plea to his future readers:

“If I’m talking some bullshit, please feel free to call me on it. I have nothing but curiosity.”

Oh, people, if that’s not a key to great writing. Be curious, write boldly and honestly, then put on your thick skin and invite criticism.

For any writer who struggles with what to write about, or how to do it, it’s essential to pick a topic you’re familiar with or curious about, accept that you don’t know as much as you think you do, do your due diligence, then sally forth with confidence. As I’ve written before:

Intellectual humility is an essential quality for nonfiction writing—whether you come at it as a journalist, blogger, or even a degreed professional writing about your own field. Because, and this becomes truer every day: Nobody can possibly be an expert in more than a very narrow slice of everything there is to know.

In Jeremy’s case, I saw an opportunity for him to entertain and inform a lot of people even while focusing on offbeat subject matter. I offered him this unsolicited advice for one way—just one possible way—to leverage his expert knowledge and his humble approach to writing:

Think about not just what you know, but how it makes you feel, and what many of us are seeing, feeling and dealing with in these trying times, and stitch the seemingly unrelated together. Or ignore me, of course! Either way, I wish you loads of fun (which is the main reason you should, definitely, write).

Alternately—and I didn’t suggest this to Jeremy, because I figure he’s already thinking along these lines—he could aim to reach a niche audience with each niche-focused, geeky piece.

Either approach could prove rewarding.

The overarching message is how all this relates to the longstanding, arguably imperfect advice to write what you know. As I lay out in a lengthy how-to essay on the nuts and bolts of researching, interviewing and digging deep into a topic, it’s often more practical and productive to work from a know-what-you-write mindset:

The best bloggers and Substackers and columnists and op-ed writers know their stuff, either as doers of things or through years of research, reporting and writing experience, or both.

Successful writing might involve using your research skills to delve into a topic you’ve never written about before or—and I advise this for a lot of writers—become somewhat of an expert by writing about a topic over and over.

So, avid writer and knower of some things, I ask you:

What the heck do you really know? And are you leveraging that knowledge to inform your story ideas and execution? In the comments, drop a link to a story that illustrates you knowing some stuff. I’d love to read it.

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• PS: Read Jeremy Cardenas’s first post: Where Do We Start?

TIDBITS OF WRITING WISDOM

Stuff that pops into my head as I read, write and edit…

Adjectives are like garnish. Effective embellishments when used sparingly and appropriately, but they don’t fix a bad dish.

Don’t Open AI: A guy on Linkedin suggested AI will inevitably take over human writing. My response, verbatim: “If you love writing, there is only one right way to respond to all the AI noise related to writing: Just write. Write the way you always have. Don’t let AI influence how you write. Don’t let AI do your writing for you. Removing em dashes from your writing because you’re afraid of AI-detection is stupid. The best writers will stand out for their human-generated creativity, not because they use or don’t use em dashes. If you love writing, don’t bow to the bots.”

Pacing: Big paragraphs love to be followed by little ones.

(See what I did there? Ha, ha. But seriously: Check out my detailed how-to on cadence and flow.)

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TINY WRITING CHALLENGE

ICYMI: The latest challenge is to rewrite your short bio, an exercise in defining yourself and being extremely economical with words. It’s fun and, as these prompts always are, harder than you might expect.

A LITTLE INSPIRATION

Writing can happen in phases. My first drafts are more like sketches. I add bones that need meat, as well as meat that hasn’t found what bones to cling to. I write fast and get thoughts down, bounce around, plug in key facts and quotes. Only once the rough idea is recorded and somewhat fleshed out do I go back and add connective tissue, make sure the bones are properly organized, and move the meat around as needed. This is your license to be messy with that first draft. (Related essays: It’s OK to write sloppy and an outline really helps.)

FROM THE ARCHIVES

When a reader, editor, friend or troll says, “I don’t understand this part” of your story, do you:

A) Explain it to them
B) Tell them to f-off
C) Rewrite the bit
D) Sulk and move on

I posed the question in this essay exactly three years ago today, and my advice on the correct answer is the same today:

Until next time, write on!
—Rob

Whatever you are, what are you? Let’s find out via this prompt:

Without looking at your existing bio(s), write a new bio in 20 words or less.

The goal: Communicate to your core audience/readership/clients what you do and why they should care. If you wear multiple hats and operate in more than one realm, pick a target audience and focus on the primary skill that will matter to them, backing it up with relevant credentials or other details.

Tip: Skip the little words and don’t be afraid to use phraseology. A short bio can’t afford to waste a single word.

If this exercise leads to rewriting your actual public-facing bio(s), consider that a nifty bonus. Either way, the challenge will help you think about who you really are, as a writer and otherwise, what you do, and what it might mean to those you hope to reach.

• Related advice: Dear Writer: Don’t Call Yourself a ‘Content Writer’ or ‘Content Creator’

About Tiny Writing Challenges

These challenges, open to Writer’s Guide subscribers, aim to help you grow your writing skills, brush up on best practices, and offer motivation to write on days when the words don’t come. All with no consequences other than having a little fun and getting feedback.

• Previous Tiny Writing Challenges (take any of them anytime)

I create these little instructionals because 35 years of editing hundreds of writers has taught me that the best writers have thick skins and appreciate honest critiques. So if you worry about what others will think or say, this is an opportunity to toss out some words fearlessly. I am a straightforward but kind editor, and comments from me and other subscribers will always be constructive, never callous or mean.

BTW, if a challenge happens to prompt an actual story idea for you, that’s a wonderful bonus, and I’d love it if you let me know.

Cheers,
Rob

Recently I ran across a social media post from a self-described “aspiring content writer” who was contemplating his next blog post and asking for advice. I dropped him this suggestion:

“Think about why you’ve called yourself a ‘content writer,’ and why you don’t just call yourself a ‘writer.’ If you think deeply about it, you might even come up with a blog post. I wish you happy luck and good writing (not content writing).”

His reply was heartening:

“You’re right. ‘Writer’ feels bigger. I’m going to write a post this week on ‘Why I stopped calling myself just a content writer.’”

I know there are many who will disagree with my take, but I wish all content writers and content creators would have a similar light-bulb moment.

The word “content” is hollow and debasing. It implies one offers a commodity. Piles of words or images or audio or video. Maybe all of the above. Heck, music, too. Maybe some paintings! A content creator has, presumably, no area of specialty. It sounds like they crank out a lot of stuff, though. Cheap stuff. Created maybe for SEO or artificial intelligence optimization (AIO is a thing now, BTW). Content sounds like something easily generated by AI.

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What actually describes you?

If I haven’t pissed you off, good. I hope to make a logical case against using the word content to describe what you create, especially if you are a writer.

People who write for a living could be journalists, authors, novelists, bloggers, columnists, screenwriters, marketers, press officers, ghost writers… all goods descriptors, all apt professional titles. There’s no gain (and plenty to lose) in appending “content” to any of those titles.

For starters, the word doesn’t add a damn thing to a writer’s job description.

I get that the word “content” may seem innocuous, and that it’s irrevocably everywhere these days. And for someone who does indeed generate more than one type of content (articles, videos and podcasts, etc.) I see the lure of an umbrella term, and maybe it works just fine given their intended clients or audiences. (A three-year-old thread on Reddit titled The term “Content Creator” is dumb and we should stop using it got plenty of pushback from people who think the term serves a purpose.)

But writers, of all people, ought to be economical with words, choosing the best ones, and not adding any that aren’t needed. Consider that logic as it relates to other job titles.

A plumber doesn’t call himself a water plumber or a waste plumber. Agatha Christie was a mystery writer, not a book writer. Abstract painters are not content artists.

He says he creates some content (pics, vids and posts) to go with his music, but he thinks of himself as a musician, not a content creator.

“It’s just a rude word for creative people”

The term content became a popular catchall a few years after the dawn of the World Wide Web. Blogs proliferated, anyone could make words and publish them, and the race was on to coin new terms to describe who did what. By 2010 or so, it became fashionable (even professional-sounding, some thought) to call yourself a content creator.

The term quickly gained a bad reputation, however, among journalists, editors and publishers who prized quality over quantity, who put readers’ interests first.

In the early 2010s, content writer and content creator became synonymous with content farms, which used cheap human labor to churn out mostly bland and sometimes accurate SEO content, on demand, for media companies and marketers looking to game SEO.

Content farms were to that era what AI slop is to the present one.

Writers aren’t the only creative types who bristle at using content to describe their output.

“To hear people talk about ‘content’ makes me feel like the stuffing inside a sofa cushion,” the actor and screenwriter Emma Thompson once said. “It’s just a rude word for creative people.”

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Editors might think less of you

Career-wise, calling yourself a content writer or a content creator closes doors. As one example, some editors you might pitch to—who value the specific skill set of the specialized craft or genre in which they work, continue to disdain the terms.

Avram Piltch, a former colleague of mine, wrote on social media a couple years ago, when he was editor-in-chief of Tom’s Hardware: “How not to get a response from me: refer to journalism as ‘content’ as in ‘I love your content’ or ‘I can help you write content.’”

I’m in the same camp. As an editor, when I get pitches or queries from people who call themselves content creators or content writers, I assume, rightly or not, they haven’t yet found their career focus, that they are trying to be many things to many people, or that they’re simply trying to make a buck any which way they can and quality is not their priority.

I expect plenty of people to disagree with me, simply because so many people define their careers using these terms. Maybe content is a useful term for some professions. But language has meaning, and in the context of writing, the word content has a lot of negative baggage you might not want to pack around.

TIDBITS OF WRITING WISDOM

Stuff that pops into my head as I read, write and edit. This week, two longish items:

1. Oops, I did it again. Was writing a story about longevity last week and started the 2nd graph thusly:

New research suggests picking the right parents can have a measurable effect on longevity.

Story was completely done, edited and produced, yet I gave it one last look. And of course, the better construction is:

Picking the right parents can have a measurable effect on longevity, new research suggests.

Put the interesting stuff first, the necessary stuff after. Cake before veggies, I call it. Readers will thank you. It’s easy to spot when I’m editing someone else’s writing, harder to notice in my own stories.

• Related how-to essay: Writers Should Serve Cake First, Then Veggies

***

2. “When it comes to…” There be four words you can nix from your writer’s toolbox. The phrase is a writer’s crutch that says nothing, and it delays getting to whatever the thing is you’re writing about. My advice:

When it comes to starting a sentence, begin with a bang and don’t ask readers to wade through useless verbiage.

Wait, let me rephrase that:

Begin a sentence with a bang and don’t ask readers to wade through useless verbiage.

• Related how-to essay: Overused Writing Devices to Avoid Like the Plague

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

Once upon a time, as a young reporter, I was tentative about asking smart people dumb questions. I learned from a master of science journalism, however, that it’s the wise thing for any writer to do.

A LITTLE INSPIRATION

Some days don’t feel like writing days. When that happens, don’t stew over not writing. Do something you love—bake bread, go for a hike, maybe call an old friend. Or do something you’ve never done before. Your writing will benefit from the break.

Until next time, write on!
—Rob

Those first lines could offer an anecdote, a compelling datapoint or historical perspective. It might sound totally mysterious. The beginning does not give away the premise, but leads readers into the actual lede, where the point of the story becomes clear. Let’s practice it with this prompt:

In one or two sentences, make us see, hear or feel an animal without naming it.

Put your submission in the Comments. As always, I’ll offer my editor’s take on each one.

Leave a comment

Stuck? See this how-to: Show Me, Don’t Tell Me

About Tiny Writing Challenges

These challenges, open to Writer’s Guide subscribers, aim to help you grow your writing skills, brush up on best practices, and offer motivation to write on days when the words don’t come. All with no consequences other than having a little fun and getting feedback.

• Previous Tiny Writing Challenges (take any of them anytime)

I create these little instructionals because 35 years of editing hundreds of writers has taught me that the best writers have thick skins and appreciate honest critiques. So if you worry about what others will think or say, this is an opportunity to toss out some words fearlessly. I am a straightforward but kind editor, and comments from me and other subscribers will always be constructive, never callous or mean.

BTW, if a challenge happens to prompt an actual story idea for you, that’s a wonderful bonus, and I’d love it if you let me know.

Cheers,
Rob

Last week I explained the purpose of outlines and offered a formula for creating the simplest version. The post illustrated how outlines organize a story and keep it flowing well, helping the writer avoid tangents, repetition and fluff. I touched on how an outline can be optimized—for writer and reader—with the inclusion of subheads.

The outline for that post, along with its subheads, proved so powerful it spawned this post.

See, from the outset, last week’s post had a whole section on how to write good subheads. But that section grew and grew and began to compete length-wise with the whole rest of the story, so I cleaved it off to create this week’s post. One piece on outlining. A companion piece on subhead writing. Together, a powerful one-two punch for punchier writing.

Here’s why I’m waxing on so much about all this:

Lots of writers I’ve edited treat subheads as an afterthought. If they apply them at all, they might plug in a word or two that range from humdrum to cryptic. Missed opportunity!

What subheads do

For the writer, subheads are a vital organizing tool. But they do more than help keep a story on track. They define the sections, presaging what’s in them or—as happened with this essay—revealing flaws in the draft or in the outline itself.

For the reader, subheads provide visual breaks, giving the eyes a rest while simultaneously enticing further reading. They are also wonderful aids for anyone who likes to scan a story.

Yep, outlines and subheads are for both writers and readers. When done well, they make a story easier to write, and easier to read. Consider how easy-breezy this section is, benefiting from other sections focusing on other aspects of the essay, as denoted by subheads like…

Be clear, concise and compelling

At minimum, a subhead can be a simple label, a descriptive word or two. But the best subheads point forward more pointedly, pulling a juicy nugget from the section ahead or encapsulating its most important or enticing aspect. The reader is at a logical and visual breakpoint in the story, eager for a reason to continue.

Some helpful tactics for helping the reader along:

• Think of subheads as mini-headlines. Write each one thoughtfully, to be alluring (and honest, of course).

• Clarity is crucial. Say as much as you can in a subhead with as few words as possible.

• Phraseology is fine. No need for complete sentences.

• Consider the most important word, phrase, quote or datapoint in the section. You might use it, or perhaps riff on it.

• Keep ’em short.

Three to five words is a good range. Sometimes less will work, but don’t be vague for the sake of brevity. Longer can work, too, but don’t bore the reader with a 10-word summary of what they’re about to read. Readers are already reading your story, so unlike a headline, which begs them to click, subheads ask only that readers keep doing what they’re doing.

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Revise as you go

Outlines need not be set in stone. Assuming you create a preliminary outline before you start crafting the story, which is ideal, don’t stress about perfecting its subheads yet. Apply working subheads, and use the framework to propel your writing. If the subheads stick, great. But you can revise them—even add or delete sections—as you go, for any number of reasons.

• A premise doesn’t hold up or the focus drifts to something more interesting.

• Passages held dear at the outset get whacked because they become TMI or outside the evolved focus.

• Unexpected angles or additional material demand to be included.

Sometimes you’ll be writing along and sense that you’re drifting off on a tangent. Maybe you don’t yet know exactly what the new grafs will include or how they will fit the flow. No problem. Enter a placeholder (Subhead TK) and just keep writing. You can figure out the subhead wording later. Or maybe you’ll nix the tangent, or move it up or down, or cleave it off into a separate story. For now, just write.

Ultimately, when you’re done with a draft, ignore the story text for a moment and read just the headline and the subheads. Do they flow logically? Do they sufficiently indicate what’s ahead? Compel you forward? Knock your socks off?

Case study: This essay

The final two sections of the story you’re reading were not part of my original outline.

As I was nearing completion of the draft—or thought I was—after having rewritten the initial two subheads a couple times already, I realized the final section had become windy and ill-focused, and themes were scattered everywhere rather than being conveniently grouped. The whole story was a meandering mess.

The story demanded a third subhead, which forced me to reorganize every section — moving things in and out so each section spoke to the promise of the subhead.

Then I realized I had to fess up to you about how my outline for a story about outlines sucked. The mea culpa grew into a case study, so I added yet another section.

With a helpful outline and compelling subheads, a story can practically write itself. This story did not write itself. But the original two-subhead outline eventually revealed organizational flaws in the story and, after walking away from the piece a half-dozen times over three days, moving whole passages around, deleting a bunch of babble, redoing the top and making sure every sentence in each section supported its subhead, the story practically rewrote itself.

The process was not easy, but the subheads proved powerful.

READING IS GOOD FOR YOU

I write a lot about writing, but over in my Age Wise newsletter, I wrote about the benefits of reading for pleasure. Science tells us that reading just about anything because we choose to—but especially gripping fiction—boosts memory. The joy of reading also linked to lower risk of dementia and overall improved mental health. Read the story (it’ll be good for you!) >

TIDBITS OF WRITING WISDOM

Stuff that pops into my head as I read, write and edit…

Stuck? If you can’t write a good headline, it’s possible the story hasn’t figured out what it wants to be.

Let go: Sometimes when a draft feels flat, you need to get out of the way and let the story become what it wants to be. It’s not easy. The trick is to put aside your preconceived notions and preferences and listen to what the story is really trying to say, where the research points, what reliable sources contend. If your original premise is sound, it deserves this scrutiny, and you’ll be that much more confident in it. But if the story heads another direction, you’ve done the wise thing in letting it go there.

You can quote me on this: Talkative sources are a writer’s best friend, but not everything they say automatically belongs in a story. I’ve done hour-long interviews that yielded just one or two quotable lines. And I’ve done 10-minute interviews that generated multiple paragraphs of worthy quotes. Use quotes not just because you have them but when they’re the best way to make a point, tell a part of the story, express a relevant opinion, or reinforce facts, findings, data or other important aspects of the piece. Related: The Mechanics of Attribution: Quoting & Paraphrasing

A LITTLE INSPIRATION

When a story won’t come together, when you’re beating your head against the wall, walk away. There’s no shame in setting a piece aside. You might get fresh inspiration once you let go of it. If not—and if you haven’t promised it to readers or to an editor—then you were wise to let go.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

Three years ago this week, I wrote about the possibilities and benefits of writing about a topic over and over. As I put it: “Any interesting and important topic can be revisited any number of times, by any publication or any writer, with any number of angles…” Learn more about the why and how:

Until next time, write on!
—Rob

The most important thing I learned in college was how to learn. Sure, I picked up some facts and career strategies, but college’s most valuable lesson was how to be skeptically inquisitive, to pursue knowledge for the sake of it, and listen to opinions different from mine. College taught me how to think critically in the quest to find answers, solve problems and make decisions.

A lot of that learning involved, ultimately, writing. Writing became integral to my thinking and learning, and it remains so today.

Artificial intelligence threatens these uniquely human skills. Large language models (LLMs) and other generative AI bots (think ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) undermine not only learning but something far more crucial: a person’s ability to learn, to think critically, and even to express their individuality.

Younger generations know this well.

Two-thirds of students, from middle school through college, agree that getting homework help from AI harms their critical thinking skills, according to a RAND survey.

Cognitive surrender: Whatever AI says, goes

A recent report out of MIT finds much educational promise for generative AI. The report, produced by a group of faculty and students, also uncovered significant anxiety and confusion—among teachers and students—over current policies (and lack of policies) for the use of AI in classrooms and homework. No surprise, AI use was found to increase isolation and undermine students’ confidence.

But here’s what really stood out:

“There are early signals, however, that overreliance on chatbots can have a range of significant negative consequences — diminishing critical thinking, weakening memory, eroding confidence, and undermining mastery,” the authors conclude. “Getting the right answer from a chatbot can create the illusion of learning — but it can also trigger ‘cognitive surrender,’ where students fall back on AI at the first hint of struggle.”

Cognitive surrender hypothesizes that much of the thinking and reasoning we humans used to do can now be outsourced to machines. The term was introduced in an analysis earlier this year, by Steven D. Shaw and Gideon Nave from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, based on three experiments.

Whether traveling with Google Maps, finding a date via algorithms, or seeking an answer to any question under the sun from ChatGPT, people increasingly ask machines to do much of their cognitive work, speeding things up even if the machines spit out bad information, which we know they do habitually and often.

Generative AI, especially, can handle much of the intuitive thinking and deliberation that goes into making a decision, planning a trip, or writing a report, Shaw and Nave explain. All that’s left is to announce the decision, take the trip, or turn in the report.

This is cognitive surrender: when people accept what AI tells them, even if it’s inaccurate, harmful or otherwise not in their best interests.

Cognitive surrender distinguishes between helpful help from machines and potentially destructive assistance.

“Using a calculator offloads a specific math task while human reasoning stays in charge,” Nave explains. “Cognitive surrender is different: it is the moment when AI is not just doing a specialized task but making the decision, and the person adopts that decision as their own without recognizing the transfer has occurred.”

Short-circuiting your thinking

I don’t know about you, but I want to keep my thinking skills intact—and that includes my ability to research, suss out fact from fiction, and write creatively.

When we use our brains to research options or look up facts to make decisions or write up what we’ve learned, we think, reason and deliberate. When we outsource much of that to AI, we short-circuit deliberation and creative thinking. Letting AI help with writing is already having considerable effect on individuals and society.

As I wrote recently, multiple linguistic analyses and experiments with humans and LLMs have found AI is homogenizing language, flattening vocabularies and causing those who use the bots to all sound the same—a threat to individual identity.

It might be a stretch, but not much of one, to imagine most of humanity soon outsourcing most of its thinking to machines, leaving humans to wallow through life like the witless terrestrial refugees in WALL-E.

“If we passively accept the solutions offered by AI, we might lose our ability to think autonomously and develop innovative ideas,” a separate group of researchers speculated presciently in the journal Nature Human Behaviour two years ago. “In an increasingly automated world, it is crucial that humans continue to question and challenge the results generated by AI.” In the extreme, those researchers argued, bowing to the bots could lead to AI hijacking a person’s introspection, the ability to reflect on their own thoughts and feelings.

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What can be done?

One solution for individuals (I’m talking to you, writers and other creative types) is obvious: Avoid AI or approach it with healthy skepticism.

Shaw and Nave found in their experiments that people who put more trust in AI are “substantially more likely to follow incorrect AI advice and less likely to question it.” If you are the sort who chooses to do your own research, analysis and reasoning, and you use AI cautiously, you’re more apt to spot slop when AI spits it your way. That’s a vital distinction for businesses and other organizations to grasp, they say, so that employees are encouraged to treat AI as a fallible tool, not a human-like thinking and reasoning machine.

The MIT report authors suggest AI should be leveraged to support learning, “not to replace the ‘hard fun’ of thinking, learning, creating, and problem solving, but to expand what’s possible for students to think about, learn, and solve.”

They offer this guiding principle for education at all levels:

“If learning is (mis)understood primarily as content delivery, then highly responsive AI systems may seem capable of replacing teachers, mentors, peers, collaborators, and the interpersonal dimensions of learning altogether. But while this attitude may be increasingly common, it’s shortsighted. Education is a cultural practice through which students learn to make meaning, exercise judgment, form identities, and participate responsibly in community.”

Writers and other creative adults, and frankly anyone who wants to find the joy of learning throughout life and keep their minds sharp and their creative skills a step ahead of AI, might consider the MIT authors’ overarching advice:

“AI should be used to augment and enhance curiosity, creativity, and learning, not automate them.”

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See more in my series on Anthro Intelligence (ai) or check out the full archives of Writer’s Guide how-to essays and Tiny Writing Challenges.

However, a lot of writers who grew up tapping on computers never learned the value of an outline. When I edit stories bloated with repeated themes, or which meander or have poor structure or flow, I often learn it’s because the writer didn’t create an outline.

There are many ways to outline a story. Here I’ll focus on a simple version you can deploy with your next story. Master this formula in short articles and you can adapt it for any story type or length.

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The purpose of an outline

Stories need structure, lest they wander around. An outline creates sections, providing structure and a logical flow for the writer to adhere to during the writing process.

A good outline helps keep a story between the buoys.

An outline for a short article (1,000 words or less) can be as simple as two or three working subheads that come after a brief story top. Sections can be set off with subheads. A logical outline might look something like this:

• What it is

• Why you should care

• How it works

The outline might change as you research and write. Think of it as a totally adjustable scaffold on which to build the story.

Within a section, every paragraph, every sentence, and every word should refer to and/or support the subhead. If key facts or themes show up in two sections, one of those sections isn’t doing its job well, or the outline is flawed, or the subheads aren’t properly descriptive. This is a great way to prompt some serious self-editing, consolidation and concision.

An outline can exist without subheads. A line between sections or three characters such as *** are commonly used section separators. Some publications have set styles for whether subheads are used, and how, or not. Either way, the value of subheads is often underestimated.

For readers, an outline with crafty subheads does three things:

• Shows the story is organized—a mark of quality and clarity

• Provides visual breaks to give the eyes a rest

• Offers hints of what’s ahead to lure the brain onward

How to create an outline

Recently I was advising a writer who does a lot of research but struggles to put it all together and figure out how to frame a story.

I suggested a simple formula I’ve shared with hundreds of early-career writers as a way to improve their story organization and flow. I still frequently fall back on it myself. It’s not a formula for all stories, but it can help any writer who struggles with that leap from “I know what I want to write” to “how do I write it.” As an exercise, I suggested she use it for her next three stories, and keep them all relatively short (600 to 1,000 words):

• Figure out a working headline and three main sections.

• Write a working subhead for each section.

• Craft an intro that’s no more than 3 grafs.

• Fill out each section with 3 to 5 grafs.

• Revise the subheads if needed (see below).

• Call it done.

One big benefit of crafting a good outline at the outset is that you can start writing anywhere and bounce around. Not feeling the top? Start in the middle, or bang out the final section.

Fill things in, set a section aside. Go do more research without losing your sense of the story’s structure. Heck, put it aside for weeks and it’ll be organized and ready when you come back to it.

With such a simple formula and a short story, you might leave out a lot of material, and that’s just fine. The best stories—backed by lots of research and/or interviews and/or contemplation—always leave out a lot of material. A strong outline will help you decide what goes in, and what to save for another story later on. Readers won’t know how much work you put into organizing the piece, but they will appreciate the result.

In fact, the post you are reading right now was written over the course of three or four days. Its outline kept me on track, and helped me cut out some repetition. When the piece became longer than I’d planned, I realized the last section—how to actually write the best subheads—wanted to be broken off into it’s own little essay.

And so next week, I’ll wax on about the art of writing subheads.

[Update: Next week arrived, so here it is: How to Do Subheads Right.]

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TIDBITS OF WRITING WISDOM

Stuff that pops into my head as I read, write and edit…

Cut that out: When the first draft is done, you can often delete the first one, two or even three paragraphs and find the actual beginning of the story.

Stunningly superb advice: Adjectives are like crutches. Useful when you need them. But if your nouns and verbs are healthy, you won't need to lean on those adjectives—especially the superlative variety—so much, and your writing will be more fit.

Tighten up: If you have a lot of commas, trade some in for periods.

Handwriting? Writing by hand benefits the brain more than writing on a keyboard (which is beneficial itself vs. not writing at all). , one of my favorite writers in the psychology space, has applied this science to her classroom. It’s a model for all educators.

Too good: Once a writer thinks they have it all figured out, their writing never gets any better.

A word: When was the last time you wrote a one-word sentence in a story. Seriously? Hmm. Try!

You know you’re a writer when everything’s a story.

HEY WORD LOVERS

The Writer’s Guide is a labor of love, supported by reader donations. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber (check out the benefits) to help keep the coffee (and the mentoring) flowing. Or, just as helpful, share this newsletter with anyone who loves making words. I would be grateful.

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TINY WRITING CHALLENGE

Brush up on your skills and learn a thing or two from these prompts. I offer my editor’s take on each submission. The most recent one (you can still take it):

See more Tiny Writing Challenges here (take them anytime).

A LITTLE INSPIRATION

Last week I asked y’all what writing means to you. Your comments offered much perspective and encouragement. At a time when many people ask AI to do their writing for them, you made clear why you like to do it yourselves—why you must. Two that I especially enjoyed:

“I think of writing like breathing. It’s been an essential part of my daily life since I was a young child. When I went through a three-year illness that left me too ill to write, I was devastated. I am so grateful to have this simple joy back in my life again!”
—

I’m writing because the only thing I’m doing these days in this insecure corner of the world. It takes me a little bit away from the real world.
I can be a man, a warrior.
I can be a curious kid.
I can’t be myself. Even for a few brief moments.
Until I stop writing.
I’m going back to where I am.
The mother of a child who is looking for work and is waiting for the war sirens at any moment.
Writing is the way out for me. Even for a few minutes.
—Tahmin Abbasi, from Iran (via Linkedin)

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

Three years ago this month, I explained how as an editor, I can cut 25% of the words from a story, any story. It’s always possible. Often it’s necessary. And it’s best if you do it yourself (whether you have an editor or not). In this paywalled post, I give you the tools—an ax and a scalpel—and explain several helpful techniques.

Until next time, write on!
—Rob

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Write an informative first paragraph for a story about something that happened to you recently, in 30 words or less. Fill it with the pertinent who, what, when, where, why and how.

Put your submission in the Comments. As always, I’ll offer my editor’s take on each one.

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You don’t have to include all of the “6 Ws” (I know, I know, but that’s what we call them). The goal is to pack your lede with the most relevant info so a reader knows why they should read on or, if they stop after 30 words, they walk away informed.

This “news lede” format is not the only way to start a story, but it’s a useful addition to the writer’s toolbox, a practical approach when you’re under time pressure or otherwise can’t figure out a story’s opening line(s).

Stuck? See these paywalled how-to essays:

• How to Create a Successful Story Top

• 7 Ways to Get Started on a Story When it Struggles to Get Going

• How to Slash 25% of the Words From Your Story, and Why

About Tiny Writing Challenges

These challenges, open to Writer’s Guide subscribers, aim to help you grow your writing skills, brush up on best practices, and offer motivation to write on days when the words don’t come. All with no consequences other than having a little fun and getting feedback.

• Previous Tiny Writing Challenges (take any of them anytime)

I create these little instructionals because 35 years of editing hundreds of writers has taught me that the best writers have thick skins and appreciate honest critiques. So if you worry about what others will think or say, this is an opportunity to toss out some words fearlessly. I am a straightforward but kind editor, and comments from me and other subscribers will always be constructive, never callous or mean.

BTW, if a challenge happens to prompt an actual story idea for you, that’s a wonderful bonus, and I’d love it if you let me know.

Cheers,
Rob

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When I’m happy, I want to write. When I’m sad or angry, I need to write. When I’m restless, story ideas flit in and out of my brain and writing is inevitable, even if I have no clue where those ideas might take me, even if I’m nowhere near my laptop. I’ll write in my head or make voice memos on my phone, dying to get back to my computer.

This post stemmed from restlessness, a vague sense that I needed to say something personal about writing, something specific related to the sudden onset of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI anxiety (AIA?). But I didn’t know what it was I wanted to say.

For the record, I did not ask Claude what I wanted to say.

Instead, my fingers took over. Words came out. Thoughts tumbled and whirled and coalesced and tripped over each other and split apart. Ideas and passages asked to be moved around. Copy/paste. Delete. Try again. Set it aside and come back to it.

It took an hour or so of composing gibberish before this story began to tell me what it wanted to be. Mental clouds lifted. The sun came out. And as I understood the story, the story understood me.

Then, while hashing out the very rough draft, I stumbled on a key aspect of what I wanted to say:

“Writing is a form of thinking — a practice that people never stop learning,” Emily Johnston, a writing studies professor at the University of California Merced, wrote in The Conversation. “With that, writing has the potential to continually reshape the mind. Writing not only expresses but actively creates identity.”

With a twist…

Yep. That’s it. Writing reshapes my mind, helps me learn stuff, and defines me. Every day. But there’s a twist to how it happens, one that I struggle to put into words.

When writing goes well, when I’m in the zone, words flow out my fingers with ease, as though I’m a mere bystander. When I can’t pin a rough idea down, my fingers often figure it out, as they did with this story. The thing I wanted to write about eventually emerged: what writing means to me. Three or four related ideas got edited out. Wholesale paragraphs axed. Good heds and decent ledes and one terrific ending fell to the cutting floor.

Writing is a process that exercises the brain, engages the senses, shuts out everything else. It’s meditation. But it’s not just in my head. My whole being participates.

When I need to suss out a problem, figure out what’s going on in my life or in the world around me—or just answer some simple question—the process of writing is how I find answers.

Because when I write, I don’t just write.

I research and interview people and brainstorm and frame and outline and draft and write and rewrite and push passages around and delete half of it and then tweak some more and let it sit overnight to see how awful it is the next day and edit some more then have an app read it to me to reveal confusing bits and grammatical errors and missing words and finally hit publish and then still find typos.

All in the search of whatever it was my mind was shouting about in a jumble of thoughts I couldn’t pull together into any coherent story. Until the process of writing revealed all.

Finally, someone explains it

Johnston explains this process in a way that resonates deeply with me: “To write, our brain has to switch gears. Our motor systems and language network fire up.” Writing “helps us regulate, think and create meaning.”

Writing exercises the brain like a muscle, keeps it sharp, vibrant and aware. I want to write, on my own, passionately and creatively about the human condition. I can’t imagine outsourcing such a beneficial activity. I know there’s a good chance resistance to AI will prove futile, but I love writing too much to turn my passion over to the forces of corporate greed and contribute to the environmental impact of LLMs and the flattening of language AI is already causing.

So this is what writing really means to me, with apologies to René Descartes:

I write, therefore I think.
I think, therefore I am.*
Good thing I write.

TIDBITS OF WRITING WISDOM

Stuff that pops into my head as I read, write and edit…

Who cares? Writing must clear this lowest of bars: Who cares and why? Whether you’re a PR person, journalist, blogger, academic or other professional who writes, what you think is interesting may or may not be interesting to your intended audience. So before you send, ask yourself: Who cares and why? If you can’t answer both questions clearly and honestly, you have some redrafting to do.

Critiques: The harsher the critique, the more we writers stand to learn. We must have thick skins, and be willing to accept suggestions and criticisms from anyone so magnanimous as to offer some. That doesn’t mean we have to do what any editor or reader says, but if we can set the emotional reactions aside, we might improve a story or, at least, file something away that’ll prove useful later.

Pitches: A Writer’s Guide reader asked about writing headlines for readers vs. heds as subject lines in emailed pitches to editors. I offered this suggestion: The same hed can work for a pitch to an editor and for readers, but an email subject line should be short (lest it be cut off) so straightforward, brief heds (as subject lines) are important. You can put a longer working hed in the body of the email.

Of course! Writing “of course” implies everyone knows. If they do, then no need to point it out. If they don't, then writing it risks making them feel stupid. However, as Substacker pointed out when I offered that advice in Notes, “Phrases like ‘of course’ can be a way to signal that the writer has considered other arguments or done their homework.” Agreed. There are almost always exceptions to any writing rule, guideline or best practice.

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TINY WRITING CHALLENGE

These writing prompts challenge you to brush up on your skills and learn a thing or two. I weigh in on each submission with a little coaching. Here’s the most recent one (you can still take it):

This submission by Writer’s Guide subscriber was among my favorites for the emotions it evoked:

When everyone walks out, my gray-muzzled dog settles beside me anyway

You’ll find more Tiny Writing Challenges here (take them anytime).

A LITTLE INSPIRATION

Reading is one of the best ways to improve writing. If you need to read some writing to inspire you to level up, check out , whose Grim Historian newsletter contains some of the most exquisite argumentation you’ll ever enjoy. Carlyn’s ability to find the unique angle of a current event, then string words and thoughts together to build a clear, compelling case to support her premise—and entertain along the way—is unsurpassed.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

Three years ago this week, I explained how jargon, which I count as “stop words,” can derail otherwise good writing. Examples of health/science jargon (big words) a writer can replace with plain English, to better appeal to lay readers:

Cognitive functioning = thinking skills (or brainpower)
Diagnostic criteria = signs, symptoms and tests that inform a diagnosis
Correlated = linked

The takeaway: Nobody ever stopped reading a story because they understood all the words. Full story:

Until next time, write on!
—Rob

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Craft the first 12 words (or fewer) of a story extolling the virtues of a favorite friend.

The challenge isn’t to tell readers everything about the person in 12 words, but to make those words so compelling, so intriguing, that readers are hooked. Don’t waste a single word on fluff, and try to avoid unnecessary tiny words (a, an, the). And feel free to end mid sentence, with…

If you need guidance on what not to do, see Tuesday’s post on The Worst Way to Start a Story.

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I will weigh in with my editor’s take, as usual, on every submission.

About Tiny Writing Challenges

These challenges, open to Writer’s Guide subscribers, aim to help you grow your writing skills, brush up on best practices, and offer motivation to write on days when the words don’t come. All with no consequences other than having a little fun and getting feedback.

• Previous Tiny Writing Challenges (take any of them anytime)

I create these little instructionals because 35 years of editing hundreds of writers has taught me that the best writers have thick skins and appreciate honest critiques. So if you worry about what others will think or say, this is an opportunity to toss out some words fearlessly. I am a straightforward but kind editor, and comments from me and other subscribers will always be constructive, never callous or mean.

BTW, if a challenge happens to prompt an actual story idea for you, that’s a wonderful bonus, and I’d love it if you let me know.

Cheers,
Rob

Wow, can you believe I just led with those two utterly inane, total throwaway sentences? (Oh, and didn’t I write last week about the importance of avoiding question ledes?)

An obvious statement (Nobody wants to catch the flu… Football fans await this week’s matchup… Americans are polarized…) might be the first beginning that pops into your head as you start clacking the keys. Or maybe you can’t figure out the lede and toss out an obvious non-zinger so the draft can be done.

Stating the obvious is a lazy but common writing device. It is never the best way to begin a story—especially an online nonfiction story where a gazillion distractions are just a back-button away.

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This isn’t just about concision (though that’s always a best practice). The beginning of a story (often called the lede) does not necessarily have to be short. But it needs to respect readers’ time and not waste words on stuff they are almost surely aware of.

Words are precious, and time is short.

You have only a few seconds—and thus a few words—to retain the attention of a reader who has graciously clicked on your headline. Convey something surprising, amazing, little-known or otherwise captivating.

You got them to bite, now you must set the hook.

One tactic for achieving a successful first sentence is to make sure your reader gets a clear picture of what your story is about, your specific angle, without obfuscation or setup. Think about what makes the story unique, and focus on that. I wrote about this approach in Fundamental Elements of a Good Story:

You have about 30 words, probably a lot fewer, in which to hook most readers into your story with the first sentence or two (the lede). Don’t waste a single word. Start with something amazing, something surprising, something your readers did not know. … It is original and compelling, and if you can’t come up with such a thing, then either you don’t understand your story, or it’s not very interesting.

The 30-word threshold dates back to a common journalistic best practice. It’s good general advice. But online, I contend you have even less time to make a successful initial impression. I delved into this in How to Create a Successful Story Top:

Readers are subconsciously pondering whether to stay with an article three seconds into the first paragraph, whilst distractions abound… So you’ve got about 12 words to make a first impression, assuming an average reading speed of 250 words per minute.

Launching your story with a snappy lede that states the story’s premise in the first sentence is just one way to begin. You don’t have to give away the nut straight away. Many feature stories beg for delayed ledes, preceded by compelling and/or informative setup: perhaps an anecdote, a relevant but little-known historical fact, or compelling data that supports the premise.

However you craft that first sentence, it must be intriguing. Obvious facts are the antithesis of intriguing.

So get to it. Start with a bang. Ask yourself: What is the coolest or otherwise most interesting thing about this story? Find that nugget in the story and bring it to the top. Avoid stating things that everyone (or almost everyone) already knows, and you’ve upped the odds readers will keep reading.

• Related: How to Get Started on a Story When it Struggles to Get Going

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I could drone on about stating the obvious, but since it’s so obvious, let’s shuffle along to a bunch of other stuff I’m excited to tell you about this week…

TINY WRITING CHALLENGE

I offered my editor’s take on several excellent submissions to last week’s challenge: Relate something you are passionate about, with no superlatives and no vague, flowery or unnecessary adjectives, in 25 words or less. You can still submit yours anytime. I loved this one by Writer’s Guide subscriber , for the tension it creates by giving readers a good idea what her passion is without naming it, and for her candor:

Anxiety builds as I struggle to remember the choreography. I used to be better at this. Have I lost this skill forever?

TIDBITS OF WRITING WISDOM

Stuff that pops into my head as I write and edit…

Ideation: My story-idea file is so long I’m thinking of writing a story about story ideas. Point is: Keep a file, jot the ideas down—even if they’re not great or you don’t know how you’ll pursue them. You never know when the pieces will fall into place: some new trend, study or data, perhaps a life experience, that makes your idea more relevant than ever.

When to stop: The end of one story is often the beginning of another, providing you’ve properly winnowed it down to the essentials. Leave the tangents to bubble up another day.

AI Anxiety (AIA?): Worried that AI is supplanting human writers? Nah. We’re going through a tough transition, but already businesses are realizing AI-generated writing doesn’t measure up to what we humans can produce. There’s plenty of room for you. Humans writing passionately and creatively is the antidote to dry, sometimes false and often poorly sourced AI “writing.” Don’t bow to the bots.

Related ICYMI: On Sunday I sent this post on some new research, part of my series Anthro Intelligence (ai):

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A LITTLE INSPIRATION

Some of the best stories start with a walk. Science tells us a brisk walk is good for our bodies and brains, providing energy and focus in the near term while supporting overall well-being and longevity in the long run. Oh, and when you’re out there, with no electronic distractions, blood pumping, ideas WILL pop into your head.

Until next time, write on!
—Rob

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Billions of people are bowing to bots, seeking efficiency and creative sparks by having large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini do their writing for them or offer writing assistance. It’s happening in books and blogs, news articles and social media posts, press releases, corporate comms, and private text messages.

This sudden and swelling reliance on AI-generated writing shrinks human vocabularies, stymies creativity and threatens individual identity and meaningful societal discourse, according to new research done across multiple types of online writing.

The withering of the written word is driven by a Who’s on First cycle of semantic enshittification:

• LLMs learn from human writing. Programmed to seek clarity over creativity, they winnow vocabulary and simplify syntax.

• Humans use LLMs to write or assist in writing, and unwittingly or purposefully hew their own styles to mimic the output of LLMs.

• LLMs continue to learn on the latest human writing, much of which is now actually written by, or assisted by, LLMs.

The result: Many people have stopped using certain words, leaned into predictable sentence structures, and even shied away from certain punctuation marks. The em dash has been vilified, not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because AI mutated it into a supposed tell of AI writing (based on AI employing it willy-nilly—just as some humans have long done).

Embraced for its efficiency, AI-generated communication is stripping language of its luster. I’ve argued that we risk entering a linguistic looking glass, where best practices and actual rules of writing no longer make sense as machines copy humans (ineptly) and humans copy machines, which copy humans.

Aristotelis Ioannis Paschalidis, a philosopher at the University of Nottingham, calls it “linguistic atrophy” and warns of a “great linguistic flattening.”

This isn’t some whacko theory. Detailed linguistic analyses and experiments with humans and LLMs reveal an AI-prompted homogenization and deterioration of human language is already underway.

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Waning complexity stifles creativity

A new analysis measured LLM’s effect on language since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. A research team led by Zhivar Sourati, a computer scientist at the University of Southern California, examined changes in linguistic complexity in three writing realms: posts on Reddit; news articles on the website Patch; and preprints of academic papers.

Based on complex analytical formulas, writing complexity declined in all three realms, “providing evidence for homogenization in writing styles,” Sourati and colleagues wrote last week in the journal Nature Human Behavior (2026 final abstract / full preprint from 2025).

In a follow-up controlled experiment, the researchers ran 1,000 pieces of writing from Reddit and the academic preprints through LLMs, to be polished. The results:

“While core content is retained when LLMs polish and rewrite texts, LLMs also homogenize writing styles, reducing writing-complexity variance by a statistically significant 21–50% across datasets and models.”

Other researchers are documenting AI’s negative effect on creativity.

A study last year compared semantic diversity in college admissions essays rewritten by humans versus by ChatGPT (GPT-4).

“Each additional human-written essay contributed more new ideas than each additional GPT-4 essay,” the researchers concluded in the journal Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans. “In three studies, human writing increased the collective semantic diversity of a group of essays approximately two to eight times more than base GPT-4 essays did.”

Despite hope for a creative boost from AI, “the widespread use of LLMs could diminish the collective diversity of creative ideas,” the researchers suggested.

It’s already clear that’s happening.

An experiment detailed earlier this year split human volunteers into groups that created essays with or without the help of LLMs. Among the findings: Writers who bowed to the bots lost their distinct creative voices.

A second aspect of the study pitted humans against LLMs to revise and improve essays that were written before ChatGPT existed. The LLMs introduced “large homogenizing changes very unlike how people would have edited the same essay,” the researchers found, adding this warning: “As LLMs are integrated into society, these subtle changes in meaning could fundamentally alter politics, culture, science, and even the way we communicate with our friends and family.”

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Individual identity at risk

The effects of this great linguistic flattening extend beyond the dramatic changes in how we write and communicate.

“LLMs diminish linguistic diversity and alter the societal and psychological insights we can derive from language,” Sourati and his Nature paper colleagues point out, “potentially eroding the variety of languages and dialects that contribute to the global cultural landscape.”

When you use an LLM to do your writing for you, your identity becomes less distinct, just as milk is milk no matter the brand. Homogenization. In fact, you risk sounding like a consensus “individual” you may not even remotely identify with.

“Across datasets, we observe a consistent bias in LLM-rewritten texts, with writing styles often aligning with older, male, politically liberal individuals and exhibiting positive moral valence and lower empathy,” they conclude.

Simply put, enlisting AI to help with writing and editing erodes our ability to say what we really mean, to express ourselves as individuals, to be human.

“If we never encounter a word in the settings where it originally belonged and was expected to (re)appear—because it has been replaced by a more dominant synonym—we will likely never seek out its meaning, definition, connotations, or genealogy,” writes Paschalidis, the philosopher. “Just as happens with archaic words that fall out of usage, these words will gradually vanish from our vocabulary. Consequently, all sentences containing them become inexpressible at best and literally unthinkable at worst. This situation amounts to a form of indirectly imposed tacit censorship, what one might aptly call a Linguistic Dictatorship.”

Sounds rather dystopian. Orwellian.

But if you love writing, I’ll venture a positive spin that I believe you can take to the databank:

Writers who continue to exercise their linguistic muscles by doing their own writing, and ignoring LLMs, will be at a distinct creative advantage over everyone who bows to the bots.

Whew! After that, maybe you’d like to brush up on your writing skills by taking the latest Tiny Writing Challenge, which asks of you a mere 25 words (though it proved harder than I expected). I weigh in on each one with a little editor’s mentoring.

Adjectives are easy. We often use them as crutches. When you force yourself to avoid them, your writing improves. Hence this week’s prompt:

In 25 words or less, relate something you are passionate about, with no superlatives and no vague, flowery or unnecessary adjectives. Engage with nouns, verbs and specifics that make us see, hear or feel your experience.

Put your submission in the comments. I offer feedback (free mentoring) on each one, and all Writer’s Guide subscribers are invited to chime in, too, as we work together to hone our writing skills.

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Related how-to essay in the archives: Show Me, Don’t Tell Me

About Tiny Writing Challenges

These challenges, open to Writer’s Guide subscribers only, aim to help you grow your writing skills, brush up on best practices, and offer motivation to write on days when the words don’t come. All with no consequences other than having a little fun and getting feedback.

The best writers have thick skins—35 years of editing hundreds of writers has made that clear to me. So if you worry about what others will think or say, this is an opportunity to toss out some words fearlessly. I am a straightforward but kind editor, and comments from me and other subscribers will always be constructive, never callous or mean.

BTW, if a challenge happens to prompt an actual story idea for you, that’s a wonderful bonus.

• Previous Tiny Writing Challenges (take any of them anytime)

A housekeeping note for those of you who’ve engaged with these challenges previously: I launched the them in the chat room, but the functionality proved difficult. That’s why I’m now sending the challenges out as regular posts. I added “Tiny” to the name to better convey the spirit of these prompts: relatively simple and fun.

Cheers,
Rob

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