Brian Pittman's spotlight this week: Kenneth W. O'Quinn, Founder, Writing with Clarity

"Writing is more important in today's Web world than ever before," says Kenneth O'Quinn, who launched Writing with Clarity corporate seminars after a 21–year journalism career, most of it with the Associated Press.

"People have shorter attention spans—so clarity is an even more of an essential skill now. You have to be able to write tightly to attract and keep your audience," explains O'Quinn, who is also author of "Perfect Phrases for Business Letters," and whose workshop clients include such Fortune 500 companies as Chevron, Visa and UPS, and agencies like Porter Novelli, Fleishman Hillard, Burson–Marsteller, Edelman and WeberShandwick. Here are his tips for writing with greater clarity—online or off:

What's the biggest flaw you see with pitches and releases?

I sometimes spend 45 minutes just talking about clarity in workshops. I call it "writing with specifics," because it is a huge flaw in many pitches and releases. I talk about three techniques that Wall Street Journal writers use to simplify complex information and to make their writing lively:

• They avoid buzzwords, and use jargon only on a limited basis. Instead, they use words from every day conversation, which tend to be shorter and more specific, and they are familiar to people.

• They weave in examples and explanatory information to move readers through dense places in the story.

• They use comparisons to link readers to something familiar. Our job as writers is to move readers from the abstract to the concrete, and metaphors and similes (which begin with "like" or "as") are the two most common kinds of analogies we have. They are immensely helpful in helping readers to "see."

Also, too many pitches and releases depend on modifiers, adjectives and adverbs that hype the product, person, or service, but as a result, the pitch is hollow. There are no specifics to provide supporting evidence.

What's the first step a PR person must take to write with greater clarity?

You must first find your focus. Simply write, "The essence of this piece is BLANK." Give yourself only one sentence to do that. That's hard to do. So start by tightening your focus. Another good exercise is to ask this question about the idea you're trying to put forth: "What will this enable my customers to do tomorrow that they cannot do today?" The answer to this "Who cares?" question will usually involve benefits, versus features, including things like saving money or adding convenience.

Beyond that, I would advise more PR people to accept that writing is a process of discovery. You learn as you're writing—but you do need sense of where you're going at the beginning. So do some brainstorming in advance and outline your ideas. This will save you a lot of time later, especially if you're someone who usually jumps right in putting pen to paper. The problem with doing that is people often bury their focus a few graphs in because they were "warming up" or building to it. Outlining is terribly overlooked.

What was the most critical skill you learned in the newsroom?

If I could pick three, I would say: writing, researching and interviewing. Interviewing and research are overlooked in PR, I think. They're essential to concise writing. You end up sitting on deadline and pulling your hair out because you don't have the information you need to work with. Interviewing helps us gather the raw material from which a good release or any document comes. If you don't get the information, you will have empty writing. You litter the page with adjectives and jargon in order to snow the reader.

How can account execs, in particular, make sure they get what they need from clients?

Do the advance work before picking up the phone. Know as much as you possibly can about the person or topic. Follow links to competitor's products or services, if you have nothing else to go on. Then go to engineers and the frontline people at your client's company, not just the executives. Ask them for background, just like a reporter would. Another good idea is to find analysts who represent that industry. They can be impartial and can give you good insight on background. Also, when you're interviewing these people, ask open–ended questions that begin with "Why" or "How." The answers you get back will be longer and more informative that way. If you ask a close–ended question, you'll just get a "No" or "Yes" response and you can't write a release or speech or whatever around that.

What problems are you seeing with PR pitching in general?

I think it's too easy to say that pitches are often untargeted, or inaccurate, or too long—or include typos and factual errors. Those are tactical issues that are easier to fix, with appropriate training and practice. Beyond that, I would like to see agencies use more seasoned people to pitch. They continue to take bubbly effervescent people and expect them to pitch to The Wall Street Journal—and they have no idea what they're pitching. They don't understand the client or the business. This certainly discourages young people in PR. I mean, nobody wants to have The New York Times slam the phone in their ear. So my point is that PR needs more senior people pitching and serving as mentors.

But the agency world is difficult. There are business realities. The pace at which they work and the fact that they represent a washing machine today and coffee company tomorrow makes it hard. There is also so much emphasis spent on billable hours. It's therefore a challenge to devote time to mentoring and professional development. But you have to do it.

What books would you advise PR people to read to improve their writing?

"The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect," by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel is the best book out there for anybody in communications. Another is a book by the Poynter Institute's Chip Scanlan, titled "Reporting and Writing Basics for the 21st Century." If you want great understanding of journalistic writing and how journalists think—start there.

Why'd you make the jump from journalism?

I didn't want to move with the journalism job—so I got into some public affairs work. After that, I started with nothing but a typewriter as a writing coach. Agencies began to take notice because they wanted someone who had been in the trenches and who had been a writer in the newsroom.

What do you love about this work?

I love writing and the written word. I know how important it is to people, and how exasperating it can be. I like teaching, writing and learning. This is the perfect mix of all of these factors. This work also keeps me writing all the time. That's important for executives and entry level account executives alike, I think: Stay sharp. Practice writing every day. When you don't have an assignment, write a personal or reflective essay. Get your hands dirty and work with words. Do it for yourself, not just your company or client. Give yourself a reason to reach for the dictionary or thesaurus. Not only does it make you a better writer, but also a more organized and better strategic thinker overall.

Fair enough—what was the last thing you wrote for yourself then?

It was a personal essay that I wrote while at a week's worth of workshops at the Poynter Institute. It was a Mecca for writers. One of our assignments was to come up with an essay topic, which we read at the end of the week. Mine was about the difficulty of getting divorced and the impact it has on the kids. There were some very poignant essays. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. That is the power of writing. It can be difficult. But it can also connect people and be very cathartic. That's its power. That's what I love about what I do.