Hop on over to Newton Ideas for a review of my Marketing 365 ebook.
Yesterday was upheaval much of the day. I was still feeling under the weather thanks to an intestinal infection, so I was intent on taking it slow. Unfortunately, too many things conspired to keep that from happening. I was chipping away at a project that didn’t require a lot of concentration, but I kept eyeing my bed. I managed to lie down for about five minutes before the world intruded, but it was a glorious five minutes.
Recently I was working on a project for a client in which the author was clearly not a writer. His prose did have points, but there was a lot of conjecture, personal opinion, and personal beliefs professed, none of which had anything to do with the subject. What the best editors try to do is to enhance a piece without altering the voice of the author. But that voice? Suppose it’s not there, or worse, it’s so strong it borders being offensive? Here’s how I manage to help those without a clear voice find theirs amid the noise:
Pull out the factual stuff. By “pull out” I mean highlight it and save it. This is where the story’s credibility is. In my author’s case, he’d already presented the facts. I would have said it differently, but I’m not the author. Where it was grammatically correct to do so, I let his words stand.
Removed conjecture. Statements like “I believe” or “there’s a ton of research so it must be true” don’t belong. Anyone who’s been around research knows that you can pretty much prove anything given enough money and attention. If it’s not factual, it doesn’t stay.
Kill the personal opinion. I didn’t remove the “Here’s what I recommend” language, because it wasn’t forcing an opinion. It was sharing a recommendation, which can be ignored. This is someone with some authority on the subject, so recommendations are useful. What was cut were the “You have to do it this way” statements.
Tone down beliefs. It’s great to hold strong personal beliefs on politics, religion, music, etc. It’s not great to profess your beliefs – which may not coincide with every reader’s opinion – as part of a topic having nothing to do with that particular belief. It would be like giving a speech on lawn care and quoting Bible passages to prove your point. Or like writing a how-to manual on pedicures and peppering it with Republican policy. If it doesn’t relate, it’s reframed. For instance, mentioning spiritual wellbeing is okay in an article on mental health, but it’s not okay to say that good mental health must include going to Bible study and Sunday services.
Keep it relevant. To help authors appear more authoritative, remove the jokes, puns, and anecdotes that don’t relate. In one case years ago, I had a client who mentioned his golf score on his resume. Another wanted everyone to read about her divorce proceedings in an article about eating for better health. If you’re applying for a golfing instructor position, the score is absolutely relevant. If your divorce has nothing to do with your reduction of red meat, keep it to yourself.
Have you ever worked with clients who need you to define their voices for them? Corporations? Individuals? How do you align your words with their voices?
In fact, that's what I'm doing today. It's a corporate client (software consulting) that previously had let individual departments create the web content for their areas of expertise. In particular, the stuff written by the propeller heads is unreadable and scarily long.
My job over the past few weeks was to create a single corporate voice for everything. Today, I'm working on blog posts, again written by disparate voices, but this time the goal is to infuse the corporate POV while retaining individual styles.
How do I do that? Voodoo.
I'll take your duffer and raise you a name dropper. I was editing some bios of wealth management consultants who were speaking at a conference. They were all asked to provide the same basic info, including a list of their professional memberships. One guy listed his memberships at several high-end private country clubs. Granted, he probably does business on the links, but it's not exactly the kind of membership we had in mind.
ahhhh, I know those clients. Don't have any of those at the moment… but I did have to get a potential client off the phone… I think he's lonesome… heck of a book if we ever get it together, but…
Well Jake, if voodoo works, it's the only thing I've not tried.
Aw but Paula, he wanted everyone to ask him about his golf score! LOL
Lonesome clients – Anne, I love them, but they do suck up billable time!
HA! I love the part about divorce proceedings. It actually reminds me of people's resumes when they include way too much personal detail. I've had people include how many kids they have, their marital status, and other personal details that don't really help their case.
Jen, it happens a lot, doesn't it? In fact, I refused one client project because he wanted me to read his correspondence between his ex-wife and kids, and he wanted me to talk with his mother. This for a business book.