Don’t Interrupt the Flow
In my opinion, some of the best television programs available in the US are imported from Britain. These include, Faulty Towers, Monty Python, Are You Being Served, Benny Hill, and of course, the Office*, among many, many others. I recently had the pleasure of seeing a new British talk show, Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…**, presented by Elvis Costello.
On his program, Elvis interviews and then plays with singer songwriters. On this particular program, the quest artist was Lou Reed. During the interview process, Lou and Elvis were discussing the process of writing lyrics. Lou commented, and Elvis strongly agreed, that lyrics often just “seem to just come to me” and he had long ago learned to “just let it happen and not interrupt the process.”
I think this is true of writing for proposals. Once you have determined the appropriate strategic position, theme or benefit, you can often let the pen take over and the “good stuff” will flow. Thinking too much about what you are writing or continually revising what you’ve written will ultimately weaken the writing. Next time you write, try letting it “flow” and see what happens.
* The hugely popular “The Office”, created by Ricky Gervais, was originally done in England. Ricky then created an American version. For a recent Top Ten segment on David Letterman, Ricky recently wrote and presented the “The Top Ten Things Americans ask the British.” #1 on his list was, “Why doesn’t England develop its own version of The Office?”
** Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…” is showing on the Sundance Channel (where I live, this is Comcast).
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I agree, I do the same thing when I write an executive summary. I like to approach it like I would a fiction project. I have a basic set of questions I ask myself that set the foundation (theme, painpoints, etc) so my flow is structured before I start. I then treat the executive summary like the first page of a fiction project. I only need to write one brilliant opening sentence that immediately catches the reader’s attention. The rest of the first paragraph convinces the reader that they really want to read this project. I then skip to the last paragraph and treat it like the last paragraph of a first chapter, leaving the reader dying to know the details. Everything in between writes itself. The executive summary becomes the outline for the story the RFP tells. I am always amazed at how easy it is to write something when you get that first and last paragraph out of the way!