This winter, sunny California has lived up to its name, which means spring fever arrived early. After a recent business-writing meeting, I couldn’t resist strolling Oakland’s College Avenue to check out the colorful shops. In one of my favorites, I got a good laugh from a pack of sticky notes featuring a woman holding up a file folder with the headline: “File under ‘Who cares?’”

On the way home, though, I wasn’t laughing when I thought about how fat that file would be today. About 80 percent of all business writing could be filed under that category.

What a waste of time, effort, and most of all, potential.

Time: Even 10 minutes spent on writing filed under “Who cares?” is a waste for the writer and the reader.

Effort: I’m sure that most of the people turning out “Who cares?” documents want their business writing to be more effective, but they honestly don’t know how. They’re already discouraged by their results, and their motivation takes another hit with every “Who cares?” reaction.

Potential: Here’s the real kicker—lost sales, missed opportunities, and flagging spirits. They all happen when our business writing doesn’t generate the interest it should.

OK, so what’s the antidote? What can you do to make your readers care? Try the one-two punch:

1. Write to them not at them.

-   Share stories, benefits, and results through your readers’ eyes. What do they care about? Use that as your focus rather than what you want to tell them. You’ll still get your points across—but they’ll be framed from your readers’ perspective.

-   Engage them. Use the word “you” often. It’s a proven magnet that keeps people reading.

2. Get [a little] creative.

I added that “little” qualifier because people freeze at the word “creative.” Don’t. There are so many easy ways to be more creative. And besides, since most people are slapping together their business writing, you can stand out with just a few creative touches. (Don’t worry about these in your early drafts. Add them in your editing phase.)

Here are four easy ways to be more creative:

-  Paint pictures with similes: Introduce new ideas in your business writing by comparing them to something familiar; use like and as to connect the new with the familiar. For example: Our services are like an a la carte menu—you get to choose exactly what you want.  Or: Lumping our software packages into one category is like saying pasta is just spaghetti. Your readers will be on your wavelength in a fraction of the time.

-  Add a lyrical lilt with alliteration: The repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables (“Paint pictures” and “lyrical lilt with alliteration”). The effect is engaging and memorable, which makes your message stand out.

-  Create mystery with foreshadowing: Mention a point early on but save the explanation until later. You’ll create drama and tension by withholding key information—which keeps your readers reading.

-  Incorporate dialogue: Introduce other voices into your article and have them talk to one another. Dialogue also makes the page look less dense—and more appealing to your readers’ eye.

When you give these creative techniques a try, your articles and blogs, reports and proposals will be filed under “Important Ideas!”

What creative techniques do you use to add interest to your business writing? What successes have you had that you can attribute to a well-crafted proposal, report, blog—even e-mail?

Have you noticed that 800-pound gorilla in your office? You know, the one that hovers in the corner, breathing its stale breath across just about every desk. Most people keep their heads down, not wanting to make eye contact with this killer—killer of sales, deals, promotions, and respect.

That behemoth is also known as bad business writing. Not many people want to face this hairy, scary creature—it just seems too big to tackle. But honestly, the solution is simpler than you may think. (And ignoring it can prove disastrous!)

Recent articles in newspapers and trade magazines lament how e-mail and texting have strangled our ability to produce effective business writing. And to some extent, that’s true. But the problem has been around much longer and goes even deeper. I believe the root of bad business writing stems from a misunderstanding of the writing process.

Why didn’t we learn this in school?
That’s what students and clients often ask me. I’m not sure why, but somehow we came away with the idea that writing is a compendium of grammar rules we keep vaguely in mind as we string words together. But the writing process is much more organic than that. It includes an understanding that in order to produce a polished piece, for example, we must allow ourselves to write a dreadful first draft—something most of my students think is a waste of time, a sign of their inability to write, or both.

I understand. I used to feel that way too. Then Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird, cured me in an instant when I read her chapter entitled “Sh**ty First Drafts. Click! Just like that I turned off that ornery voice in my head. She gave me permission to write those awful early drafts and taught me that they are simply the means of getting my thoughts down so I can make them better later. Which brings up another misunderstood tenet of the writing process: editing. (More on that next time.)

Start today!
Do you worry about your first draft not being perfect? Let me be your Anne Lamott and assure you that 99 percent of great writers, writers you admire, start with dreadful first drafts. Those lousy drafts are your best work at that moment. They are the best anyone can do in that early phase of the writing process.

OK, now try to write your first drafts fast. When you do, you’ll:

1. Have more time to edit (because good writing is really good editing).
2. Tap into more creativity. (That’s how the brain works!)

So, write those fast—and dreadful—first drafts, knowing that you’re off to a great start. That’s your first step in making friends with that 800-pound gorilla—and increasing your sales, deals, promotions, and respect.

Lately, I’ve been teaching a lot of grammar, and goodness knows we need the help. I see lots of gaffes and typos every day. My two favorites from last week:

1. “I’m looking Howard your recording.”  Huh?  Who’s Howard? Oh, “forward.”  

2. “Our audience is composted of listeners who…”  Oh dear, composted audiences?  I think that presentation ran entirely too long! 

But I’m not going to rant about bad business writing. Enough people are doing that. I want to get beyond grammar and into creativity. Out of the weeds and into wide open spaces. 

Grammar is like a pile of bricks. Both are just building blocks. In the case of bricks, they lay the foundation for everything from a forbidding prison to a fabulous palace. Same with grammar. A dull blog and an exciting article can both be composed with perfect grammar. We can futz over this comma and that hyphen, but we also need to understand that without great ideas and creative ways of delivering them, no matter where we put that comma or hyphen, our writing will likely bore the socks off our readers! 

That’s where creative business writing comes in. Consider these three easy ways to write with more wow! 

1. Write to your readers, not at them. Offer benefits they’ll enjoy from your products/services instead of dumping a bunch of features on them. Be nice to your readers. Make their lives easier. Talk to them as though they’re your best friends. Use the word “you” a lot to engage them.  

2. Tell stories. I read recently where storytelling is now a “must-have competency for leaders.”  First, it probably always has been. Second, if those leaders tell stories with words like “must-have competency for leaders,” I bet their audiences start composting too. Tell real stories to engage people—and leave the corporate buzzwords behind.

3. Have fun! What? Fun with business writing? Yes, especially when you add creative touches such as dialogue, foreshadowing, similes, and alliteration. Your writing will stand out, which means you’ll get the respect you deserve. And your readers will read (and act on) your copy, which is why you wrote to them in the first place. 

What’s your experience with creative business writing? What do you like to do to make your writing stand out? 

P.S. Grammar is an essential element of good writing, and I encourage everyone to get one of these excellent books—Elements of Style; Eats, Shoots & Leaves; and The Well-Tempered Sentence—to bone up on basics.

I recently posted a tip about creative business writing on a popular newsletter site. The gist of the tip was to study writers you love in the same way that Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt studied the Great Masters. (You’ll take away fresh ideas about structure and style.)

A few days later, I got an anonymous note from a reader telling me that great masters is redundant.  Okay. Never mind that it’s a coined phrase—technically, I suppose, the writer is right.

I also occasionally hear from people stating that I needed a comma here or there in my writing. Maybe, maybe not. Just as our language changes every day, punctuation styles seem to change just as fast. No wonder people are confused—pick up six style books, and you’ll see six different ways to punctuate. Some have so few commas I have to reread sentences to understand their meaning. Other times, the writer uses so many commas, I feel as though I’ve got the hiccups. I don’t know if publishers are lapsing on their knowledge of punctuation rules, or if everything is changing so fast, but it’s getting wild out there.

So, what about my pen pals who like to focus on these issues? Part of me applauds them for paying such close attention to writing rules. Goodness knows we’ve gotten sloppy (if we ever learned the rules in the first place!). Yes, by all means, let’s be exacting and orderly in our writing; punctuation and redundancies are important.

But a stronger voice within wants to shout, “What about creativity? What about the message?” What I’d really love to receive is an e-mail challenging me to be more creative. Maybe to better develop an idea or to come up with something so fresh, so revolutionary it could be scrawled on a brown-paper bag and the whole world would still embrace it.

Our country is facing huge challenges now, and we need to come up with creative solutions and ideas. So, marshal your energy—proofread and find a proof buddy to help you find those ugly typos and omissions—then spend your time on crafting the most creative business writing you can. Write something so full of stories and similes, alliteration and anecdotes that no one notices the occasional goof in punctuation. (Though try to do better next time!)

Go forth and create business articles people want to read, business blogs that make us think, and business books that are worth reading and rereading. That’s the real business writing challenge facing us today. Tap into that marvelous brain of yours and innovate, innovate, innovate.  (Or is that redundant?)