Image by DangrafArt
Writer: Craig Meerkamper
Whenever I write I like to imagine I’m building a person. Everyone has their own unique voice, personality, perspective, shape, attitude, flaws, and a multitude of other elements too long to comprehensively list (nor would you want to read). Writing is much the same, with a little bit of ourselves, our quirks, our voice put into everything we produce. We are all Doctor Frankenstein trying to bring our work to life.
When I say ‘building a person’ what I mean is starting from the inside. The place I always start is constructing a skeleton -- literally the bare bones of what points I want to make or broader arguments I want to convey -- in the order I’m planning it to appear in the final draft. Laying out the ‘bones’ of your sections including title, topic, and themes gives you a clear framework you can quickly reference to get a sense for the flow of the completed piece. Instead of writing a bunch of disparate points and spending hours reorganizing at the end, think of the paragraphs as buckets of like-information that you can use as a roadmap to quickly visualize your completed piece early on. One page of structured information with keynotes is a far more manageable way to review and restructure a piece from head-to-toe than a 10-page semi-finalized draft. Now, a skeleton of a piece can’t stand on its own because even with the foundation in place it’s far from complete. It’s dull, disconnected, and not very ‘fleshed-out’ (you see where I’m going with this?)
The next layer is the guts and arteries, the major points of connection that ‘flow’ throughout the piece. I’m talking about the points that bridge the gaps between the separate bones so the transition from one to the other is much smoother. This is the layer that starts to hold everything together and brings some cohesion by clarifying the connections between your key points. It’s also where you can start planning out any overarching themes that you want to reinforce across the piece. If you were writing about sales and wanted to have a section summarizing an industry success story followed by a section discussing a brief history of mercantilism, they aren’t unrelated, but it’s at these leaps that you’re most likely to lose some readers. Smoothing out the transition with an overarching theme like ‘evergreen sales tactics across history’ gives your readers an informational bridge to cross.
Next comes the muscle; the references, the evidence, the expert quotes and sources that strengthen and back up what you’ve said. You might have been collecting these already to guide your direction, but building muscle is often the most exhausting and labor-intensive part of writing. No one ever said building muscle was easy and if you want your piece to be its strongest it’s where much of the ‘work’ really lies. Have a coffee, or a protein shake if that helps you get into the mindset better, and strap in for five more reps (or refs?). At this point your piece should be looking pretty functional but still a little raw. Time to wrap it up with the last layer.
Skin! Skin is the layer where you can start really adding personality, character, and voice to your work. It’s the asides and the notes that make your work feel more human and less robotic (note: remind me to renew my subscription for ChatGPT). While I personally try to avoid using AI as much as possible in my writing it does help me find specific words that sound more professional, or a it suggested: it helps me "endeavor, to the utmost extent feasible, to employ terminology and verbiage that exudes an elevated level of sophistication, intellectual refinement, and professional gravitas.” Your mileage may vary. Skin is the refining and accessorizing of your piece. To me it’s the most enjoyable part of the writing process because it’s the stage when detail and nuance can be added. The danger with the Skin stage being that it’s also the point when you must determine your work is finished. A quote from Céline Sciamma’s phenomenal film Portrait of a Lady on Fire always comes to mind.
HÉLOÏSE: When do you know when it's finished?
MARIANNE: At some point you stop.
Skin wraps everything up and gives one final pass to what was once a jumbled bag of ideas, points, and references, turning them into a cohesive unit of information that’s ready to send out.
So, congratulations doctor, you’ve completed your piece and with the help of a handy framework to structure your approach you didn’t go mad in the process (hopefully). The last, very crucial, step before hitting ‘publish’ is to take a deep breath and declare:
“IT’S ALIVE!”
