The Secret To Great Writing Is To Make People Feel Something

I have a confession to make.

It’s amazing how much I DON’T edit my articles. I spend an hour writing a post, re-read it from top to bottom, then I make any necessary edits in 5 minutes.

And that’s it.

I don’t ruminate on every sentence. I don’t ask for feedback. I just write and publish.

Let’s get one thing straight..

This is not the BEST way to go. It’s better to get feedback. You’ll learn a lot as a writer if you do that.

However, the reason I stay very raw with my writing routine is because of my approach to writing in the first place.

For one, I don’t care that much about attaining perfection.

Two, I write to make you feel something. I don’t write to be technically immaculate.

The more I’ve written in my life, the more I see all the stuff that doesn’t matter. Things like personal brands, and pen names, and even the accuracy of sentences.

Sometimes I write a sentence that’s not accurate. I should’ve used a different word or something. Some writers may panic and run around in a daze and worry about what others will think of them because they made a mistake.

Guess what I’ve found? Nobody cares.

If I can write error-filled stuff and very rarely get any negative technical feedback from people, that just tells me one thing..

Nobody’s paying attention to it.

They’re too wrapped up in the emotion of my piece. And that’s what I urge you to do in your writing, too.

Making People ‘Feel’ Something Is Not An Exact Science

What was the headline of this article?

You forgot, didn’t you?

So many people love to agonize over a headline. Some may not want to do a clickbait headline because it’s “cheap” and readers won’t appreciate it. Well, fine. Just know that after 15 seconds of reading, your viewers will not be able to recall a single word from your headline.

Reading is a magical experience, not a technical one.

It’s emotional. It goes deeper than the words you’ve written on a page and HOW you’ve written them.

Nobody’s paying attention to that once you’ve hooked them.

That’s why I don’t always see the immediate value in asking for technical feedback.

I have a lot of very successful writer friends who ask for feedback all the time. They’re getting better, I’m sure.

But a lot of the stuff we want to change doesn’t need to be changed.

Some writers want perfection, and that’s fine with me. I’ve found, though, that just doing what I’m doing is good enough.

I’m not out to build the Taj Mahal of blog posts. I’m out to build a little house, have a little fun, then forget about it and move on to the next one.

And it’s worked for me so far.

Every time when I edit I look at a blog post in terms of the bigger picture. On the whole, does it make me feel something? Does it prove a point? Even if the headline isn’t exactly aligned with the point?

Even if there’s faulty formatting? Even if there’s grammatical errors sprinkled here and there?

Does it tell a good story?

I don’t care if I have a sentence fragment.

I just want people to read.

To Write More Emotional Articles, Do This..

It’s simple. Lose yourself in the writing process.

It’s a hard thing to do. After you’ve written about 50–100 blog posts, you’ll be able to do this pretty much on demand, whether you’re at home, at a coffee shop, or sitting in a loud airport.

You got to just feel it.

It’s like using the force. In Star Wars, Yoda couldn’t really teach Luke how to use the force in a technical sense. It’s not like math where you can write formulas down and draw solutions.

It was more of a spiritual thing for Yoda to teach Luke. “Reach out with your feelings” was something Obi-Wan told Luke in the first Star Wars movie. Well, what the hell does that mean Obi?

It means you must connect with yourself emotionally.

You sort of just have to let your mind go blank and see where it takes you.

Write about something that makes you emotional.

If I’m angry during the day, I sit down to write about it. I put the emotion I’m feeling into the piece.

Writing isn’t planned for me. I don’t say “And at 4 PM, I’ll write my blog post.” Some days I write when I didn’t have it on my to-do list.

Writing is a very stress-relieving activity for me. And that’s what it is, first and foremost. I don’t care about spending hours agonizing over every sentence and paragraph.

I just want to f*cking write.

I want to make you feel something.

Then I want to get out of your way so you can go live your life.

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