How the WE model can help you write better
Last week, I gave a copywriting workshop in Alpharetta, Georgia, to a marketing team of about 80 people.
It was my third workshop so far this year and the biggest in-person group I’ve addressed in years.
When I walked into the room, my heart sank a little.
After a full day of team exercises and presentations, I was the last speaker, and I could tell that folks, some of whom were on UK time, were starting to lose a little steam.
They were sitting at long rows of tables, facing me and a couple of big screens. Behind me, big windows showed a glittering spring day. I am sure many of them would have preferred to be taking in the Georgia air and strolling among Alpharetta’s picturesque brick buildings.
It’s tough to be the least interesting thing in a crowd’s field of vision!
So I cranked up my energy level and poured my heart into conveying everything I knew about how to write effectively. Everything I could fit into 30 minutes, that is.
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As a marketing team with a big demand-generation focus, they were particularly interested in learning frameworks that could help them persuade people and convey product information. They wanted to know how to keep things fresh when writing emails and social posts day after day. And they wanted to know how to craft better calls to action (CTAs).
I gave them all that, with an array of frameworks for crafting emails, blogs, product pages, narratives, and presentations.
But there’s one framework that I wanted them to know above all others. This is the “master” framework. It’s a process, not a writing structure, and it’s the key to making writing work better for you, whether you’re writing alone or with a team.
I call it the WE Model.
It’s ridiculously simple:
- Write first.
- Then edit.
Write, Edit: WE — pretty easy to remember, right?
The best writers know that there’s a third, implicit step: Repeat the cycle as many times as needed (also known as rewriting).
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to separate the writing and the editing.
This works for individual writing: You start by creating a rough draft, then you evaluate it and edit it. Then you rewrite it, resulting in a second draft, and edit the second draft.
If you try to write and optimize the copy at the same time, your internal editor will inhibit your writing, and you may find it difficult to write anything at all.
Similarly, in a group dynamic, separating the writing and editing keeps people from inhibiting one another. If everyone is creating and editing at the same time, those who are writing copy from scratch will get frustrated or inhibited. Meanwhile, those who are editing or reviewing the document will be continually disappointed with the poor quality of what they’re seeing.
If the team hasn’t prepared well ahead of time, it will get even more confusing, as disagreements about purpose surface in the comments and people waste time scrambling around looking for resources they need.
Instead, spend some time preparing to write. Then, do the creation (writing) and optimization (editing) separately. If you need to rewrite, pause the editing to let the writing happen again. Then, when the rewriting is done, go back to editing.
In other words, get your ducks in a row, then do your writing, then your editing. Repeat until the project is complete.
This simple, two-step process will improve your content creation processes more than almost anything else.
And when you’re working with someone else, get clear on who is playing which role — and what the responsibilities are at each stage. An editor is not just someone to hack through your prose and make it conform to their idea of what it should be. The best editors help you to become a better writer.
Here’s a practical breakdown of writer and editor responsibilities that you can use in almost any writing project:
- The writer writes a shitty first draft.
- Then the writer walks away, and comes back after a while to revise it to an okay second draft. (In the individual's version of the WE model, this is the “editing” part.) The goal is to get the draft to a point where you’re not embarrassed to share it with the other person. It’ll be far from perfect, but at least it’ll be mostly coherent.
- The editor offers suggestions and comments (NOT direct edits) to improve the draft.
- Taking those suggestions into account, the writer revises the piece to create a third draft.
- With the third draft, the editor makes direct edits to improve the quality and flow of the writing.
- The writer goes through the edited draft and verifies that it’s all still correct, fixing anything that needs to be fixed. (This is important because the writer is usually more of an expert on the subject than the editor.)
- The editor then gives it one last copyedit, making minor changes to finalize the draft and approve it for publication (or for sending along to the next set of reviewers and approvers).
This works with two people, where one is the writer and the other the editor. But you can also use it by yourself. It may sound a bit odd, but switching “hats” from writer to editor gives you a lot of clarity about what you need to do at each stage. It allows you to write more freely and to edit more holistically.
If you’re a visual person, here’s what that process looks like as a timeline:
The WE model is the simplest practical process for getting writing done that I know of.
For more complicated projects and bigger teams, I recommend the POWERS writing process, a structured, six-step approach to writing that can maximize your productivity and effectiveness as a content creator, especially when working collaboratively with others.
But for simple projects, when you’re working by yourself or with one other person, I think the WE model is pretty effective.
How about you? What frameworks or structures do you use to make writing easier? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below.