The only diet a writer will ever need.
I love research. It is my favourite form of procrastination. It is like writing. It is so like writing that I can pretend I am doing actual writing.
I hear your concerns. We are professionals we need to research. And our research needs to be of a professional standard.
I hear you.
I am currently writing for a recruitment agency. I need to research recruitment agencies. I need to review a variety of recruitment agencies. It would be irresponsible not to look at recruitment across various sectors. And now I need to review the history of the recruitment sector.
What's this a book on the psychology of recruitment? Well I have to read this and I can claim this on expenses. And a Youtube series on effective recruitment? I could write a script for them. Yes I will finish this piece of website copy. Then I will position myself as a copywriter specialising in copywriting for recruitment.
Man, I am going to have to do stacks of research.
And on and on and on.
My most recent procrastination is Steven Pressfield’s Do The Work.
Pressfield is the inventor of the now famous term Resistance. Pressfield named this term in his famous War of Art.
The War of Art is a book every creative or tech mogul displays on their shelf. Some of them have even read it.
Pressfield’s mantra is very simple - Do The Work.
Writing is the hard part of being a writer. Research gives writers a very worthy and interesting distraction.
Pressfield argues that research is itself a form of procrastination.
OBVIOUSLY writers need to research. Pressfield allows three books as research. No extensive interviews or scrawling notes. Enough to allow you to get stuck into your next project. This is enough for the writers of plays and novels.
My aim here is to help my fellow copywriters. So I am advocating something harsher and more efficient:
1 hour.
How can you research for 1 hour? Software companies create the minimal viable product. This means that if this product fails or needs altering when it reaches market it will be easier to fix or less disastrous to abandon.
Aim for this with your writing. Turn your first draft into a minimal viable product. Flexible and ready to grow into something great that sells.
Concerned that this will affect the quality of your copy? The first draft is never good no matter how thoroughly you research the piece. This is an illusion. And as business writers we need to disbar ourselves from these precious notions. Our writing has a purpose.
We have a purpose - to create copy that sells.
STEP ONE
Set a timer for 1 hour to research.
Set stern research guidelines. You need to gather the minimal viable amount of context.
Now the nature of your research is going to change for each piece of copy. Writing sales copy for an electrical contractor? Then brush up on technical terms and industry practices. Commissioned to write a series of blogs for a craft supplier. Review forums and take note of issues that enthusiasts face.
One thing remains the same - strict research guidelines.
STEP TWO
Get writing your first draft.
That is it.
Now get on with it. The hard part. You may struggle at first. You have disrupted your usual method. The important thing is that you push through the end of the first draft so that you can see the benefits.
STEP THREE
Do not stop. Questions will come up. You will want to stop and answer key questions. Don’t stop, note down these questions and carry on.
Now something wonderful will happen.
You will know exactly what you need to know. Once you have scrawled out the first draft you will have several key questions. These will be of a technical and a contextual nature.
You will now know the context that you need to complete a professional piece of copy.
How large is this sector?
How is the business remunerated?
What are the users’ experiences?
What keywords do I need to reach?
You will now know where your piece is falling down:
How can I walk the line between professional and welcoming?
How long does this piece of copy need to be?
How can I subvert the audience’s expectations?
Is my client's brief realistic?
You now have specific questions for your research. Rather than filling your brain and your time with information that will confuse and slow you. You have questions. Questions that once answered will improve your copy.
This will speed up your research.
This will make your research stronger.
When you begin your next piece of copy you will have a better idea of how to approach the new project. You can look back at your previous project. Review the type of information that you wished you had at the start of your project.
STEP FOUR
Complete this second stage of research. You have specific questions. So set yourself a specific amount of time to complete these questions. Do not get lost in the topic, answer the questions that you need the answers to.
STEP FIVE
Redraft.
The idea of the 1 hour research game is to move you towards a finished draft as fast possible. Then to make the redrafting process as easy as possible. Redrafting will then be more than correcting errors. It will be the process of answering key questions that strengthens your prose.
Conclusion
I pride myself on the quality of my research and I enjoy it. Why should I rush it? The issue at hand is not the quality of the research. We want to have good research, we want to make it more efficient. We understand that research is so important that we must not allow it to become a method of procrastination. Respect research and use it to answer questions that need answering, not to fill your time.
Every piece of the project is different, every piece of copy will be different. But you can begin to understand the information that you need to assemble good copy.
The aim of this practice is two fold:
To improve this piece of copy
To improve the quality of your research generally.
John McFee said that ‘Writing without the first draft is pointless’. I hate redrafting. Always have. This is a hard lesson I have learnt as a professional writer. The 1 hour research game moves me towards a finished draft as quickly as possible. Then to make the redrafting process as easy as possible. Hopefully, this helps you too!
Have you adopted the one hour research strategy?
Tell us about it below.
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