Get Something on the Page

Photo credit: photosteve101

There usually comes a time when I’m working with a client, and I have to say: We just need to start writing.

The first stage of any of my engagements will involve a lot of questions and a lot of listening. Most people I work with have some vague ideas of what they want to say, and maybe even how they want to say it, but more often than not, they need some help to pull their ideas out of their brains and assemble them into something that’ll make sense written down.

For most of my clients, these early conversations are the most comfortable. Because of their positions as leaders of organizations and companies, they are used to talking at length about their vision for what they want to create, or what problems they want to solve.

What aren’t they used to? Actually writing about those same things in a compelling, clear and coherent way.

I’m not saying that my clients can’t be clear and compelling. Most are - much of their success is due, at least in part, to their ability to communicate to others. However, communicating through a presentation or a speech or in a meeting is much different than being able to do so in a book or a series of articles or blog posts. It requires a different skill set - quality writing, sure, but also a different approach to organizing ideas and the delivery of information.

Usually, we get to a certain point in these conversations when my client says something like “I’m not sure if this fits…” or, “I don’t know where this goes…” or “I’ve probably said this before, but...” That’s usually a sign it's time to start writing. We can talk forever about what to say, but until we get typing away on the keyboard, everything is theoretical.

I am quick to get to the page, probably more than most ghostwriters and collaborators. If the client is ok with it, I can spend about an hour talking to someone about their ideas before jumping into writing an op-ed or a book chapter. For some writers, they need days if not weeks of interviews with someone before they start writing. That’s fine - we all have our process.

But I find that getting to the page quicker will lead to a better product in the long run. Will I miss some stuff, or mischaracterize something in that first draft, after a quick call? Of course I will. But I always say that I’d rather give someone a product that’s 80% there - or 60%, or 40% or even 15% - rather than spending hours on end talking through something before getting the client a draft to review.

Why? Because, even if you talk and outline and refine over and over, until you read a draft, you don’t know what you are going to say. So much of the final product develops through the collaboration of drafting and editing that, if you put off the act of writing for too long, you risk wasting time in the lead-up by navel-gazing about the ideas and not refining what needs to get on the page.

I’ve found that jumping to the page, maybe even before I feel completely comfortable doing so, can lead to insights that the client will discover on their own, in a way I couldn’t help them get to, no matter how great I am at asking questions and probing. Usually what I do is draft something up, send it for a review, and say, “Hey, here’s what I think you said. Is this right?” Most of the time, the answer is, yes, it’s pretty close, but let’s tweak a bit here and here.

What’s great, though, is when the client comes back to me and says - “No, this is completely wrong. Actually, I’m trying to say this instead.” I just went through this with a client, and he was ecstatic to read what I had written, even though it was completely off from his vision for the book. When I started to work with him, he had been talking about his idea for the book for about a year with an editor, and he felt stuck.

I spoke to him for probably about three interview sessions and put together a few chapters for his review. He read it through and realized he had been thinking about the book in completely the wrong way. Now that we know this, we haven’t started completely over, but it’s close.

I could have spent another few weeks working through some specific elements of his framework and gotten greater clarity on what this client was thinking, but to be honest, I don’t think it would have changed the outcome. He would have felt the exact same way about the draft: That it wasn’t right. It wasn’t until he actually saw words on a page that he fully understood what he wanted - and needed - to say.

If you are a writer or an author or a collaborator, don’t be afraid to get something on the page and just see what happens. It may seem counterintuitive, but even if you’re off the mark with that draft, you might save yourself or your collaborator time. And who knows what you’ll discover through the iterations?