Larry McEnerney is the university director that will smash every idea you have about how to write well into pieces.
For me, it began with McEnerney’s 80-minute writing lecture about writing effectively. The video lecture’s racked up millions of views on YouTube, and by the time it was over, I knew I needed to reexamine parts of my writing approach.
Perhaps you will too.
How to Write Effectively
McEnerney is the former program director of the University of Chicago’s Writing Program, where his lectures “emphasize the value of writing”, writing to UChicago News. He retired in 2020 after a 40-year career at the university.
Although he’s speaking with graduate students about publishing academic papers, his advice is relevant for any kind of writing.
Below, I’ll cover 3 of McEnerney’s techniques. These are simple ways we can begin to write better today.
1. Forget about writing rules
Writing is a strange craft.
There’s no playbook for becoming a great writer.
You’ll find tips to improve your skills but not a neatly compiled instruction manual.
Still, in many ways, writing is tightly controlled by so many rules.
And therein lies the problem, said McEnerney.
Rules are dangerous for the kind of writing that moves conversations forward. They restrict us and pull away our focus from the most meaningful things about writing.
The cure?
“You need to stop thinking about rules, you need to start thinking about readers.”
This misplaced focus is the biggest obstacle we face, said McEnerney.
“How people can think about their writing and not think about readers is the biggest challenge we face.”
It’s an obsession that has deep roots, creeping back to when we started school.
Yet, even after 12 years of instruction, very few of us write well and with confidence. Instead, writing is typically a challenge, something to be avoided.
“The rules that you have learned about writing were generated in a system where people are paid to care about you.”
What we need is a mindset shift.
“You have been trained to think about writing formally, rule governed and you have to stop. And you have to think about readers.”
Consider the rules that shape your writing.
Let’s take a quick look at grammar. Now, grammar is useful because it helps the reader understand who’s doing what and when. My problem was that, for a long time, I focused on the less practical elements of grammar. There was a lot of needless agonising over complicated grammar rules.
Today, I appreciate that I don’t need to understand elaborate grammar rules to serve the reader well. Stephen King said you begin with a focus on the story. Then, go back and correct the grammar. King was an English teacher before he found success with his novel Carrie. He sums up his teaching approach in this article:
“I always started by telling them not to be too concerned with stuff like weird verbs (swim, swum, swam) and just remember to make subject and verb agree. It’s like we say in AA—KISS. Keep it simple, stupid.”
Long story short: forget rules and focus on readers.
2. Accept that nobody cares about your thoughts
When many of us reflect on why we write, we accept that writing gives us a way to convey our thoughts.
McEnerney shatters this illusion with one simple, unsettling fact:
Nobody cares about your thoughts.
“No one cares about the inside of your head…not unless you pay us…If you pay us to care, we’ll care.”
We’ve had it all wrong this entire time.
“You think writing is about communicating your ideas to your readers.”
Instead:
“It’s about changing their ideas.”
First, this destroyed how I saw the role of writing. For me, it’s always been a tool to express and share my thoughts. But, what I understand now is I have to frame those thoughts in a way they they become valuable for my reader.
My early stages of writing will be to help me sort through my thoughts. During revisions, I can go back and reflect whether my article is inspiring the reader to change how they see the world.
McEnerney said when students were putting their point across he used to ask:
“Why do you think that?”
But he stopped and asked this instead:
“Why should I think that?”
In short:
“If you’ve done your job they’re doing to change the world they see the world.”
But, how do you change your reader’s thoughts?
Persuasion matters, yes. But it’s much more than that.
3. Make sure your writing is actually valuable
Clarity and persuasion aren’t the holy grail of writing.
Value is the most important element of writing.
McEnerney sets out three accepted elements of good writing.
Brilliant writing is:
- Organized
- Clear
- Persuasive
Then he urges us to place value above all of these elements:
“…more than anything else, your writing needs to be valuable. Because if it’s not that, nothing else matters, it makes zero difference “
“If it’s clear and useless, still useless. If it’s organized and useless it’s useless. If it’s persuasive and useless, it’s useless.”
Who decides on whether it’s valuable?
“The question is whether this group of readers values it…which is why it’s so much about readers and not about content.”
This goes back to the earlier point about focusing on readers.
Value even trumps originality.
McEnerney provides a great example.
A Phd student stumbled into a dusty library in the village of Norridge. Inside, were volumes of journals. In the 19th century, a woman had travelled the world for 30 years. Each year, she wrote about her time in a new city. So, the PHD student decided she wanted to do her dissertation on these works and spent three months completing her study.
She came back to the university and handed the dissertation to the committee. An hour later they’d made their decision.
She didn’t get her dissertation.
McEnerney said she protested:
“No one knew what these journals had contained.” Her work was original and new.
“Yes, and we still wished we didn’t know.” said the commitee. Even though the information was new, it was not considered valuable.
“If you don’t know your readers, you’re unlikely to create value.”
He recommends going through a piece of writing and highlighting the value words.
In academic writing, these are words like widely accepted and reported.
Each community has these codes of value.
Writing is a challenging task. McEnerney’s guidelines make it simpler with a narrow focus on creating value for your readers.
Go back to a piece of writing you’re thinking on and keep these points in mind:
- Who am I writing for?
- How does my article change the way they see the world? Maybe you want to inform or inspire. These both require changes from how the reader sees the world right now.
- Finally, how is my writing valuable?
Put these questions right at the start of your writing process to guide your focus.
