Method Writing

A guy named Lee Strassberg changed cinema in this country by popularizing a technical called method acting in the middle of the 20th Century. The concept behind method acting is simple: as an actor, you come as close as possible to re-creating the condition under which your character lived so you can fully understand his or her motivation and emotions. Method acting made a lot of money for people like Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, and Meryl Streep.

As much as possible, method acting is a construct that provides a basis for success in business, marketing, and technical writing.

In technical writing, method writing is easy: whenever possible, you should have done what you're documenting. If you're documenting how to use a program, you should use the program. If you're describing how to assemble something, you should assemble it. And if you're documenting a process, you should either perform the process, or spend a lot of time with someone who's performed it--enough time that you could perform the process with minimal supervision.

Granted, performing everything you write about isn't always feasible, but when you can, you should. And don't just talk to experts. Whenever possible, talk to the users or to the performers of the actions. I've learned valuable information about every major product I've documented from users, who can figure out shortcuts no one on the project team ever considered.

For business and marketing writing, a method approach would seem less of a match, but only at first glance. In almost every instance, my business writing really is marketing writing. Because whether your reader is a potential client, an internal resource you're trying to convince, or a boss whose confidence in you is invaluable, you're marketing something.

And the best way to reach your goal is, once again, to understand your audience and its needs. I've done ample ghost writing in my career. I've assisted my leaders in navigating tricky political situations, pursuading their bosses and stakeholders to take a specific position, and presenting product information to potential clients.

In each case, my success was tied to my knowledge: knowledge of the subject matter, the person for whom I was ghost writing, and the targets. When I ghost wrote for political circumstances, I asked as many questions about the targets of the piece I was writing, as about the content. Then I could present the material in a persuasive way that spoke to the target.

The most extreme cast came when I wrote a business plan for a startup to attract venture capital. We didn't get any venture capital, but the people who read the business plan loved it. At its heart, the business plan was a marketing document. We weren't trying to get people to buy our product, we were trying to convince them that we could make them money. So we deconstructed the original business plan and reconstructed telling the readers the story of how we could make them money.

Could it have been better? Well, we didn't get the capital we wanted, but the approach was right.

To paraphrase Gus Sands, Darrin McGavin's character in The Natural, you've got great talent, but it isn't enough. You can't write what you know until you know what you're writing.