The biggest killer gutting your content hides behind the same type of stories your distant cousin tells you at every thanksgiving.
This killer’s name is B O R E D O M.
And these days there’s nothing that edges someone closer to committing seppuku than a festival of yawns.
Boring completely massacres attention.
Like a plague, boring is best to be avoided.
So let’s take a look at some examples of boring writing and how it can be done better.
You’ve probably never heard this breakfast item used as a verb before but I’m sure once we’re done here you’ll see waffling everywhere you read.
It marks the most comatose inducing, vow you’ll never read another article again, type of activity that’s out there.
And it’ll read something like this,
“When we landed it turned out that most of our supplies had been left behind.”
“Our customer base seems to always turn a blind eye at leaving a review online.”
“We’re committed to bringing the highest degree of excellence that’s lacking in the current market within our industry.”
These sentences vary in how they either stumble to their point or tap dance around one entirely.
They’re either infested with passive language or packed to the brim with hot air leading to nothing being said at all.
Waffling harbors so much fluff that you begin to see how rickety and frail most writing is once you start recognizing it.
To put it extreeeeeeemely simply, waffling is just weak language.
A strong sentence seems to have the power of punching you in the face. It’s point delivered right to the center of your understanding. Leaving you with nothing more to do other than to read it and go on to the next.
It keeps things moving. Towards the point ultimately trying to be made.
It’s not a dance around the point. It’s a dance through one and onto the next.
Let’s take a look at our previous examples and rewrite them with some finesse and power.
“When we landed it turned out that most of our supplies had been left behind.”
That’s a very clunky way to say,
“Once we landed, we realized we forgot most of our supplies.”
If you could stranglehold a sentence with a corset this next line would be blue in the face.
“Our customer base seems to always turn a blind eye at leaving a review online.”
How about instead, “Our customers never leave any online reviews.”
Much neater, yeah?
And as far as the last one goes…
“We’re committed to bringing the highest degree of excellence that’s lacking in the current market within our industry.”
… nothing’s being said there. A hot air balloon on fire has more thrill and substance to it than that example.
That is boss-level waffling. Best to throw that baby out with the bath water.
My guess is waffling mostly comes from trying to sound interesting. In the attempt to tell a story or to make a point, one’s urge to fill the sentence with excitement overrides readability.
That’s a diagnosis we can all relate to.
What’s counterintuitive to that drive though, is that by being ourselves and writing as if we’re speaking, we can easily take care of the worry of coming across as boring.
Which is ironic. In the attempt to not be boring we march right up to the frontlines of being boring by trying to avoid it. -insert some Jungian quote here, I suppose-
So keep this in mind, when you go to write, take all the bashfulness, all the reservations to be yourself, and toss them in the air to destroy them with the proverbial shotgun.
The world, the market, cares more about hearing what YOU have to say than it does hearing what you THINK is interesting to say.
Just carve out a corner with what you ACTUALLY want to say and say it.
People rarely speak passively when speaking passionately. At their most comfortable people have strength in their language.
To cut out waffling is to remove weak language from your writing. Or, writing unlike your speaking self.
When you begin to weave words together to tell a story, ask yourself, “Do I really talk like that?”
If not, it’s weak language so leave it out. Or rework it to be powerful.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
Feeling unsure about the language of your writing? Get in touch with us today and we’ll give you our $.02. No cost or obligation on your part. Just an honest and open discussion about what works, and what doesn’t. Fill out this form here and let’s see how we match up.
