A lot of good conversations on the call. Here are a few things to pay attention to: 

Precision:

Be precise in your responses. Think about language from both an influence and engineering perspective. 

From an influence perspective, we want to recognize that the overarching purpose of language is to capture and maintain the attention and time of something in a way that allows us to change its behavior.

And remember — you are also one of those “Somethings.”

And if you can’t write something that will compel you to take action, how could you possibly lead someone else to?

On the call we talked about “The Plot Mountain” storytelling outline.

This outline basically recognizes a situation that starts the action — something that is either going to hurt us or help us. Something significant enough for us to take action. 

Then there is something called “Rising Action” which is basically a series of words that mean things to you and then direct the action now required for you to achieve the objective — reach the top of the “Mountain”.

From an engineering perspective, you want to…

…remain aware that every word has a meaning, and every meaning must be accounted for. 

So when you are responding to any writing assignment, really make sure you’re organizing around every word. 

Give thought to their meanings and the actions they are pointing to. 

A powerful way to approach writing is to…

…think of it like a checklist and ask yourself — If I went and cared for every word (checked it off), would I have the result I need to produce?