Writing, Editing and Storytelling

Discover the best way to connect with your many audiences.

The power of a good story

A good story isn’t marketing in narrative clothing. We help communicators find and present the elements of great stories: people, color, emotion, movement and voice.
Good storytelling requires solid reporting: interviews, observation and analysis. A grasp of story structure should guide the reporting. Instead, we’ve found that problems with writing often stem from problems with reporting. That leaves holes in your story you must write around. Avoid those traps with telling details and lively quotes.
Good storytelling requires clear and crisp writing. We attack jargon and bureaucratese. We embrace the fundamentals, such as active voice and strong verbs, engaging headlines and first sentences.
Clear and concise writing is not just for communicators. We help more people than comms teams. leaders, managers and employees benefit from our instruction whether they’re writing PowerPoints, reports, memos or emails.

How we can help

We’re experienced editors and reporters who’ve learned to adapt the journalistic techniques of reporting and storytelling to organizational communications both internal and external. We’ve worked with writers of all skill levels, putting beginners on the right track and showing veterans how to polish and upgrade their techniques.

Assess:
Strengths and weaknesses

How well does your content grab the attention of your audiences? We’ll answer that question with a detailed analysis of all your content, from press releases and internal messages to social media posts.

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Consult:
Editing and coaching

We’ll work one-on-one with your writers on actual assignments, a unique feature of our Build Better Writers program. We’ll help them plan their stories before they write, edit their pieces when they done and then review our changes with them so they understand the “why.”

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Train:
Learning that sticks

Bring your laptops to our workshops. We’ll put you to work with exercises that demonstrate the principles of good writing and storytelling. Examples of an organization’s actual content reinforce our lessons.

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Information is important, but fleeting. Good stories stick.

LET’S US BE YOUR GUIDE

One and done? There’s a better way.

We’ve been teaching one-off workshops for years. We do a good job, and people leave motivated to do better. But too often, the training doesn’t stick.

That’s why we’ve taken custom training to a new level with our Build Better series. Here’s what we do:

First, we’ll evaluate your content.
Then, we’ll hold a customized workshop for your team.
Next, we’ll start one-on-one coaching and virtual editing for every team member, over an agreed-upon time, typically six to eight weeks.
Finally, we’ll regroup with everyone to review the work we’ve done together and the lessons learned.

CHECK OUT OUR BUILD BETTER SERVICES

This is the best way to build better writers. And editors. And manager communicators. And speechwriters. . . . We could go on, so we will.