Letter #59: The making of my Adweek piece
Exact step-by-step framework that you can use yourself
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“Everything’s so well organized, they don’t even miss a single detail! I feel like digging deeper to learn how they’re managing it all,” I told my brother back in August when I visited Heritance Aarah in The Maldives.
“So do it — maybe you can share it in your newsletter,” he replied, looking into the clear turquoise waters.
That’s where the idea came to be.
But it was nothing like what I had thought, a behind-the-scenes tour into the resort’s management. Instead, it ended up finding a home in Adweek as: 5 Lessons B2B Marketers Can Learn From an Island Resort.
Know what was the hardest part of it all? Bringing this story to life. Writing it out without making it about myself. Most of all, putting the words on paper.
But I did it 💪 Here’s how (these are steps you can take to write/optimize content yourself):
Step 1: Take notes (lots of them)
Whether it’s a personal narrative story that you want to share in a blog post on customer service or a newsletter, good content ideas come from good note-taking.
Create a dump doc, add personal anecdotes, things you've learned from expert interviews (if it’s thought leadership content that you’re writing), and everything in between.
For the Adweek piece, I captured stories in real-time in my notebook (thank God, I didn’t travel without it — phew!)
Step 2: Brain-dump your ideas
Stories, insights, research bites, and real-life examples that you’ve captured will all inspire more ideas.
So review the notes doc and freewrite* all your new ideas and thoughts on how you’ll approach your piece.
*freewrite is when you write without pausing to reflect on how good an idea is.
Step 3: Filter your idea through a highly selective sieve
This is where the real challenge is.
Because you’ve to make it about the reader, you’ve to be selective in what you keep in your story.
Remember this: Choose only thoughts, insights, examples, factors, and research that contribute to the takeaway(s) you want your readers to leave with.
For the Adweek piece, this was the hardest part. Two main struggles:
I was supposed to limit the use of “I.” That’s in Adweek’s contributor guidelines. This left me puzzled: how do I write about lessons from “my” vacation without talking about “myself.”
Nobody wants to hear about your vacation. I read that in Mathew Dicks’ book, Storyworthy, and agree it’s true. Which means I had to hold back on details like the feeling of sand between my toes 🫤😤
Step 4: Write a very detailed outline
Now is when you organize the shortlisted ideas. What order will they follow? Which example belongs to which section? How will the ideas connect and build on each other?
At this point, your outline might as well look like an ugly first draft. I write mine with half-finished sentences — sometimes really good ones too that I use in the final draft.
My outlines also include intro angles and design direction for visual content. For product-led content, I’ll add product features, internal links, and results that real users drive to this mix too.
Step 5: Write, rewrite, and then rewrite some more
Writing is easy when you’re writing something generic.
But when you write content that shares stories, real-life examples, and positions a product as a potential solution worth trying, it takes work. And lots of rewrites.
Note: Most people think rewrites mean writing the entire draft again. You can do that with short copy like LinkedIn posts. But doing that with long-form drafts isn’t scalable. In those cases, rewriting involves writing ugly, disjointed sections and sentences that sound bland.
Step 6: Edit and share
You’ll have to run a few rounds of edits here:
Edit for structure and narrative flow. Make sure all ideas are organized and flow into each other.
Edit for brevity. Review each sentence and word. Ask yourself: Can I do without it?
Edit for voice. In the Adweek piece, I had to stick with the publication's voice. In other cases, you’ll want to run your content through the brand guidelines and style guides.
Final proof. Catch any typos that may have slipped your early inspection.
That’s all for today, folks.
Let me know how useful this was and I’ll make a content creation checklist for you in the coming issues.
Best,
Masooma
P.S. I watched Netflix’s The Swimmers last Friday and can’t recommend it enough. It’s a movie with a mission: to educate on a leading world concern — even though I wrongly assumed it was about inspiring us. It does inspire, but it educates more. Plus, there’s lots to learn about storytelling in the movie.
Loved the flow and conciseness of this piece! A checklist would do wonders, in my humble opinion :)
Really liked the intro style of first 2 paras of quotes breaking in like a story.