Strategic Writing
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Strategic Document Development (SDD) comprises progressive stages of analysis, planning, outlining, writing, and editing.
• Analysis
I use the “bow-and-arrow” tool to pinpoint your document’s subject, purpose, audience, and intended results (features and benefits). After these elements have been defined, I use them to craft a central “core” message around which I then build the entire document. Before anything is written, I analyze all the parts and assign them a place within the blueprint.
• Planning
It is so easy for writing projects to spiral out of control in an all-too-common ritual of hurried planning, endless rewriting, and frantic editing. SDD avoids this labyrinth by laying a solid foundation on top of which organized layers of writing get built one at a time. The outcome is a controlled, engineered document that can be tracked at each step. At any point you can ask where the document is in its development, and I can show you in detail.
• Outlining
Most of my clients scoff at the idea of building an outline in 7 stages—until they see it done. Once they understand that an outline is really a tool for the writer (not a list of contents for the reader), they wonder why no one ever taught them to use an outline this effectively. How? By building the outline in stages and gradually expanding it into a solid document. It is engineered writing at its best.
• Writing
Strategic writing is based on pinpointing a clear message and delivering it vividly to your reader. SDD does this by: scrutinizing what the reader really wants; accounting for the reader’s limitations; side-stepping bad habits that muddy writing; and employing expert techniques of outlining and editing.
• Editing
For some reason, editing has become a bad habit of rewriting and fixing poorly designed documents. SDD restores editing to its rightful task of organizing, clarifying, and cleaning. Instead of being a tedious burden, editing is a process of strategy (comprehensive editing), finesse (copy editing), and polish (proof reading). The key is doing them in separate stages apart from writing, rather than all at the same time while writing.
• Page Design
Page design is crucial to the impact of your document. And exactly for that reason, design should always complement and serve your message. But because this principle is so often overlooked, you see countless, stunning designs that unfortunately camouflage the message they are supposed to deliver. You see it in print ads, TV ads, online ads, and web sites. I make sure this never happens. •
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