Episode 12 of email storytelling – Writing your emails isn’t everything

It seems to me that the act of writing creates beautiful emails. Kinda seems obvious, right? 

Inspiration strikes you, like a bolt of lightning, and you start writing that email. This inspiration should get almost all the credit for creating this email.

Well, actually that is not true.

Creativity and your expression, plays a huge role in the quality of your email. But there is another activity that gives your email, the structure that it deserves.

That is the act of ‘editing’.

An expression, if unmonitored, can lead to a bad piece of art. 

The writer in you expresses. 

The editor in you gives a shape to this expression.

You see, the email that you are writing is meant to serve your target market. It is not about you. The email is supposed to change your reader. And for that to happen, editing is the key.

And here is the key – Editing and writing should be treated as 2 different acts.

If you are writing an email, you should not be using the delete key. 

I am going to say that again.

If you are writing an email, you should not be using the delete key. 

Writing is the process of putting out that raw, unfinished idea in your mind onto a sheet of paper. In whatever form. It will look raw. It will look unfinished. And that’s okay.

After the writing is done, let the write-up sit. Don’t get to editing right away. Go for a walk. Or look at the write-up the next day. And then start editing.

In this editing process, you can shape your expression in whatever seems fit for the reader.

Writing an email and editing it at the same time, is a bad strategy.