Writing well — How to harness words that matter.

Writing, a business school professor once told me, adds rigor.

This is something we could all use in our thinking; taking a woolly idea and stress-testing it by committing words to paper. Rendered in document form in black and white, you can quickly see what’s missing, what makes no sense, and what is nonsense.

This is something slides can’t do. Bullets aren’t sentences. They’re fragments of thoughts that rely on a speaker to make sense of them. This, perhaps, is why Amazon instituted a "no PowerPoint" rule. Instead of bullet-pointed slides, they require written narratives. These narratives force the writer to structure their thoughts fully and present a clear, cohesive argument.

Writing, therefore, is a fundamental and overlooked tool of leadership.

Writing demands precision. Thoughts refined into words. Sentences create meaning. Logic and flow are required. When we write, we can’t escape the responsibility of explaining our thoughts thoroughly. It’s a practice that disciplines not just the hand but the mind, pushing us toward clarity and rigor that other forms of communication can’t quite match.

Words matter—and the order you produce them in can be rewarding, commercially, professionally, and personally.

Here are six of the best rules I have picked up in learning to write well.

#1. Use a rapid rate of revelation.

#2. Write with rhythm.

#3. Wordplay is good for you.

#4. Pity the reader.

#5. Vomit drafts.

#6. Welcome tools.

#1. Use a rapid rate of revelation.

This is a trick of author Nicolas Cole. He’s a writer and author of the book, The Art and Business of Online Writing: How to Beat the Game of Capturing and Keeping Attention. A central theme of his: rate of revelation.

The rate of revelation is the speed at which the writer delivers insights to the reader. In business writing, you want a high rate of revelation. This captures and retains attention.

You see it at work in the paragraphs above.

When content lingers on the same idea, recaps points, or adds unnecessary detail, it slows the rate of revelation. If I go on and rehash what is said or add spurious points, the rate of revelation slows to a crawl. Rather than the reader quickly being able to scan, consuming insights rapidly and in a logical order, a higher rate of revelation repeats points—goes over them again, adding phrasing with a slight twist or extra nuance, but ultimately, it’s calorie-free. It doesn’t add much value.

See what I did there?

Tip: in the edit, cut out anything that doesn’t add immediate value.

#2. Write with rhythm.

I can’t say it better than Gary Provost, author of 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing: Proven Professional Techniques for Writing with Style and Power:

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—sounds that say, “Listen to this; it is important.”

So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.

Tip: Start with a short sentence, follow with a few medium-length ones, then conclude with a punchy line. This rhythm keeps readers engaged. It works.

#3. Wordplay is good for you.

Wordplay isn’t just clever phrasing; it’s rhetoric—the ancient art of persuasion dressed up in a puckish disguise. When we sprinkle in wordplay, we’re tapping into tricks that great speakers and writers have wielded for ages to captivate and charm.

Think of it as adding zest to your writing: a pun that pops, alliteration that adds allure, or a twist that tickles the reader’s ear. Wordplay keeps readers curious and makes ideas stick, turning ordinary text into something worth savoring, sentence by sentence. It’s flavor for your flair.

Tip: Download and use these Wordplay cards to up your game.

#4. Pity the reader.

Kurt Vonnegut, the iconoclastic author of Slaughterhouse-Five, had a lot to say about the act of writing. One of his rules: pity the reader. Vonnegut put it simply: readers shouldn’t have to work hard to understand the message; rather, the writer should do the work to communicate it effectively. This rule—that the author should toil so that the reader does not have to—is a lesson echoed in user experience design in Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think.

Vonnegut’s rule is a signal that in most business writing, straightforward beats style. Clear trumps clever. It’s a warning cry to remove jargon and unpack acronyms. But it is nuanced. Straightforward and clear with no style and nothing clever quickly gets dry and boring.

Then you are back to pitying the reader once again.

Tip: Read your work aloud. If it sounds dry, add a touch of your voice—a conversational phrase or question—to keep it clear yet engaging.

#5. Vomit drafts.

Stephen King is prolific with a capital “P.” Publishing over 65 novels and 200 short stories. His secret? Vomit drafts. King dedicates four to six hours a day to his work. In On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he emphasizes the importance of completing the first draft swiftly to maintain momentum and freshness. Only afterward does he edit and polish.

This separation of “church and state” bypasses a neurological barrier to progress.

When we “get it all down on paper,” our brains enter a flow state. We’re imagining and creating. This is the realm of the Default Mode Network, the brain’s center supporting creative thinking and idea generation—vomit draft mode.

In contrast, polishing and editing employ the Task Positive Network. This gives us the focused attention, clarity, and coherence essential to refining a draft in editing mode. Switching between the two isn’t just hard; it’s inefficient. A sure path to writer’s block.

Tip: Separate drafting and editing. Let your creativity flow freely first, then switch to edit mode for polish and precision.

#6. Welcome tools.

No one reading this is scratching away with quill and ink. It was good enough for Shakespeare, but let’s face it: neither you nor I am The Bard. We might be able to spell, but we rely on spellcheck. Even with a solid grasp of English grammar, using Grammarly doesn’t hurt.

And now, AI is changing how we write. Embrace it. Be curious.

There are some AI-specific writing tools, although I haven’t found one I love. Microsoft’s AI, Copilot, has been coupled with Word. Google’s Gemini works with Docs. I still write by hand—or at least type one peck at a time.

But AI has sped up my process in a lot of ways.

ChatGPT’s new “search the web” feature allows you to quickly explore and expand on half-remembered topics. This has massively sped up my process. Hallucinations can still crop up, so Google serves as quality control rather than my first stop.

Repeat words often? I do. Need an emoji? I do. Like the odd analogy? I do. So I’ve built custom GPTs to help me with synonyms, emojis, and analogies. If tightening your prose is a goal, try the Hemingway App.

Tip: Try asking ChatGPT (or your favorite LLM) to work as an editor from your vomit draft. For example:

Make this text clearer and more concrete by using simpler language, specific examples, and straightforward points.

Adjust this text to sound [more professional, casual, optimistic, etc.], keeping the main points but using language that fits [specific audience, e.g., marketers, HR professionals, engineers].

Turn this content into a persuasive pitch for [specific target, e.g., investors, team leaders], highlighting key benefits, using data, and ending with a strong call to action.