7 Steps to Better Writing - Charles Maxwell 2020

What you will learn

This book will help you write better, faster, and with more ease and confidence. The ability to write well is essential to your success.

Much of what we read today is poorly written. This seems to make it acceptable to disregard how you write. But this is not true. Poorly written documents are ignored, only partly read, or misunderstood.

You know this. Your email inbox is full of unwanted and irrelevant sales copy. At your job, you are expected to read manuals, reports, and contracts that are long-winded and impenetrable. It is slow reading and hard thinking. And there is a lot of it.

This type of material brings with it mental discomfort every time you have to engage with it. The fog causes lost productivity, lost support, and lost sales.

Moreover, if what other people write is so bad, what can you say about your own writing? Is it more of the same? A murky miasma?

What if it were clear, concise, and engaging? What could you accomplish if what you wrote stood out like a brilliant neon sign in a dark night?

If what you write is not as succinct and engrossing as you would like, then this book is for you. This slim volume will show you how to capture and keep the attention of your readers. It will deliver the insights you need to write with skill.

This book is the outgrowth of my own long journey to improve my writing as an engineer, analyst, manager, and ghostwriter. A dozen years ago, I assembled what I had learned into a short course and coaching practice. That work eventually resulted in this book. People with decades of professional experience—as well as those just out of high school and college—have benefited by learning and using the principles shared here.

If you use my 7-step writing process, I know your writing will improve. You will be able to:

· Capture the attention of your readers

· Save time collecting the facts needed to support your writing projects

· Frame your thoughts quickly

· Develop convincing arguments

· Compose with speed

· Cut out the fat that keeps people from reading your material

· Produce engaging documents that achieve results

· Be more confident

Furthermore, you will learn how to leverage the latest electronic technology to do more with less effort. Be assured—there is a lot more to this than spelling and grammar checking.

One other point. This book covers 99% of what you need to know to write well, yet the book has less than 40,000 words. There is no other resource this comprehensive and concise.

Applying these principles will help you write with brevity, clarity, efficacy, and power.

Let’s get started.