The Main Idea: It’s One Key to Writing Better Content
Award-winning writer Kathy Widenhouse has helped hundreds of nonprofits and writers produce successful content and has gained 600K+ views for her writing tutorials. She is the author of 9 books. See more of Kathy’s content here.
An online devotional for writers
A Word From The Word
There is only one thing worth being concerned about. (Luke 10:42, NLT)
A Word For Writers
Mike had ideas and examples galore for his from his decades of missionary work in a third world country. He also had the gift of words – a gift that helped him as a leadership training consultant when he returned to the United States.
But Mike’s readers got confused because his content contained too many ideas.
He knew he was too wordy and verbose when he wrote a manual, lesson, speech, letter, or a blog post. For Mike, wordy content represented lost opportunities for teaching and motivating.
“How can I say everything in such a short space?” he asked when he came to me for help writing better content.
You don’t – if you want to be effective.
I told Mike to choose one post, review it, and identify the most important point he wanted to make in it. “Don’t throw out the other ideas,” I said. “Just pick one key message for this piece.”
For Mike, that was a breakthrough. He identified one main idea and together we targeted the blog post’s content to drive home that single message. He saved the remaining ideas for other posts and articles.
Martha’s gift for hospitality revealed a similar problem: she was driven to serve Jesus with excellence (Luke 10:38-42). But by cramming in so much activity into a short time, she had missed the main point of all her activity – spending time with Him.
It’s a key principle for writing better content: zero in on one main point and drive it home.
Save the rest of the ideas for later. They will keep. And they may even be better if you let each one stand alone.
A Wise Word
Zero in on one main point and drive it home.
A Word to Pray
Loving Father,
Thank you for filling me with an overflow of ideas. Help me to choose one per project and address it clearly.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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