A workshop on writing presented to eHealth Saskatchewan on December 6, 2016.

1. WRITING
WORKSHOP
E-HEALTH SASKATCHEWAN

4. 05 DECEMBER 2016
AGENDA
• Introduction
• Just A Minute exercise
• The structure of a good story
• Text analysis
• Vernacular eloquence

5. THESIS
• Storytelling is the key to getting your message across
• You need a narrative structure for your
• writing
• presentations
• conversations

6. THE HIDDEN AGENDA:
IF YOU’RE NOT TELLING A
STORY…
YOU’RE NOT DOING
ANYTHING.
”
“

7. SUCCESSFUL
POLITICIANS
UNDERSTAND THIS
PERFECTLY.

8. NATIONAL POST
27 SEPT. 2016

11. WE SPEND A LOT OF TIME IN GOVERNMENT
• speaking to people who are not listening
• writing reports that never get read
• failing to engage people.

14. “Stories are the most powerful
delivery tool for information.
The best way to unite an idea with an
emotion is by telling a story.”

15. JUST A MINUTE
EXERCISE

17. DIVIDE INTO
GROUPS OF 3 OR 4

18. PICK A
STORYTELLER

19. JUST A MINUTE EXERCISE
HELP YOUR STORYTELLER…
• Craft their story.
• What’s interesting
• What’s not.

20. JUST A MINUTE
THE GOAL
• Speak for one
minute:
• No hesitation
• No repetition
• No deviation

21. WHEN YOU’RE
READY,

22. COME TO THE
FRONT OF THE
ROOM.

23. YOUR
STORIES…
ONE MINUTE.

24. POST JUST A MINUTE
SOME QUESTIONS
• How did you pick a storyteller?
• Are some better than others at storytelling?
• Why?
• How did you organize your story?

25. IAN, WHAT THE HELL
DOES THIS HAVE TO DO
WITH MY JOB?

26. THE INFORMATION EDITING SKILLS YOU
NEED…
• allow you to get your point across;
• These skills should be highly valued in complex organizations;
• Without a narrative, no one will hear you.

32. — Alex Frankel, Guardian,
27 November 2016
YOUR POLICY IS ONLY AS
GOOD AS THE NARRATIVE
OR PUBLIC DISCOURSE
YOU HAVE HUNG IT ON.
”
“

34. Nancy Duarte—Resonate.
• Every story needs a big idea;
• A unique point of view, rather than generalizations;
• Convey what’s at stake;
• Make people care about your perspective.
pg. 78

35. Point of view versus topic
• Governments write about topics;
• People write with a point-of-view;
• One builds a story, one doesn’t

36. The fate of the oceans is
a topic.
Climate change is killing
sea otters expresses a
point of view.

37. — Nancy Duarte, Resonate.
YOU CAN HAVE PILES OF
FACTS AND STILL FAIL TO
RESONATE.
”
“

38. THE STRUCTURE
OF EFFECTIVE
STORIES

45. Derick Heathcoat-Amory
• Britain’s Chancellor the Exchequer, 1958 - 1960
• 1st Viscount Amory KG, GCMG

46. KG

48. KCMG

49. Operation Market Garden.
• Amory was wounded and captured in the battle
• September 1944
• Largest airborne military operation to that point.

50. 39,620 troops delivered by
air
• 21,074 via parachute
• 18,546 by glider

54. WHAT AM I DOING WHEN
TELLING A STORY..

55. I’M THINKING ABOUT THE AUDIENCE…
• Who are they ?
• What do they need ?
• What context is needed ?
• How do I order my choices ?

56. — John McPhee, New Yorker, September 14, 2015.
WRITING IS SELECTION.
”
“

57. “You select what goes in and
you decide what stays out. At
base you have only one
criterion; If something interests
you, it goes in—if not, it stays
out.”

58. HYPOTHETICALLY, THE FOUNTAIN IS FALLING
APART.
• What story do I want to tell ?
• This symbol of our heritage must be saved !
• This symbol of colonialist oppression must go !

59. WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THE FOUNTAIN
• Is it worth saving?
• Should money be spent
instead on a different
monument?
• What information do you need
to make a good decision?

60. TRY TO ANTICIPATE RESPONSES TO YOUR STORY.
LANGUAGE AND STORIES ARE ABOUT
POWER.
• “I’d like to thank the province for getting rid of that fountain”.
• “Thanks for once again dumping our heritage”.

61. ARE INEXTRICABLY LINKED
LANGUAGE AND POWER
• Information drives action
• Action has to be explained
• The end result of a decision, inevitably, is the exercise of power.
• The end result of that intersection is story.

62. “I’ve learned that people will forget
what you said…
…people will forget what you did.

63. …but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

64. u feel after reading most government do

65. STYLE AND
STRUCTURE

67. Subordinating Style
• Components linked by relationship of:

68. CAUSALITY
TEMPORALITY
PRECEDENCE

69. CAUSALITY:
ONE THING CAUSES
ANOTHER

70. TEMPORALITY:
ONE THING HAPPENS
BEFORE ANOTHER.

71. PRECEDENCE:
ONE THING IS MORE
IMPORTANT THAN THE
OTHER.

72. Time for a shift
Temporal
Causal
Precedence

75. POSITIONING
STATEMENT
EXERCISE

76. REPORT BACK IN
15 MINUTES

77. TEXT ANALYSIS

78. Text analysis
• Why some stories are better than others.

81. two scores
• Flesch-Kincaid Read Ease score (1 - 100)
• North American Grade Level

82. Reading Ease score

84. NOT-SO-GOOD
SCORE

87. FOR SASKATCHEWAN’S PUBLIC SERVICE
NEW TARGETS
• A Flesch-Kincaid readability score of 50
or greater;
• A grade level between 6-8;
• 12 to 15 words per sentence.

88. “IAN, GRADE 6 LEVEL IS
HARD TO ACHIEVE,
WITHOUT DUMBING DOWN
THE CONTENT
”
“

89. MORE THAN 40% OF NORTH
AMERICANS HAVE ONLY
BASIC LITERACY SKILLS.

90. SIMPLE IS NOT
EASY,
IT CAN BE ELEGANT.

91. 0
22.5
45
67.5
90
B. Obama
M. Obama
H. Clinton
D. Trump
Readability Scores
Major Convention Speeches
July, 2016

92. 0
2.25
4.5
6.75
9
B. Obama
M. Obama
H. Clinton
D. Trump
Grade Level
Major Convention Speeches
July, 2016

93. USING READABILITY
SCORES TO IMPROVE
WRITING.

94. Sasktel 2014 Annual
Report.
• Pg. 6
• Let’s re-write it.

97. WORKING IN GROUPS,
TAKE 20 MINUTES
• Can you do better?

98. MY ATTEMPT

102. THE USE OF
NUMBERS IN
STORIES

103. NUMBERS NEED CONTEXT
STORIES SOMETIMES NEED NUMBERS
• Always
• be
• comparing

104. THIS IS A
STORY.

105. The US Federal Air Marshal Service spend $800 million annually.

106. That $800 million
represents
• 40% of what the US Secret Service spends;
• 10% of what the FBI spends annually.

107. Know the difference
between numbers and
stories.

108. • Only 5% of US flights have an Air Marshal;
• Since 9/11, there have been no hijackings;
• There have been more arrests of Air Marshals
• than by Air Marshals since 9/11.
Here’s some other
stories…

109. From the abstract to the concrete.

110. The whole tendency of modern prose
is away from concreteness.
George Orwell
Politics and the English Language
1946

111. Concrete narratives use
superlatives to move
the story along.

112. fastest, newest, oldest,
strongest,
first-ever.

116. use of metaphor
make writing concrete

117. VERNACULAR
ELOQUENCE

119. “If we read every sentence aloud carefully…and
if we then fiddle and adjust our words until they
feel right in the mouth and sound right in the
ear, the resulting sentence will be strong and
clear.”
–Prof. Peter Elbow

120. Questions
• Do you write multiple drafts ?
• Do you read them out loud to someone else ?

121. “If we read every sentence aloud carefully…and
if we then fiddle and adjust our words until they
feel right in the mouth and sound right in the
ear, the resulting sentence will be strong and
clear.”

122. PARTING
THOUGHTS.

123. In your
documents/presentations
….
• convey a big idea;
• covey what’s at stake;
• Convince me I should care.

124. Exhibit a clarity of intent
• What problem am I trying to solve;
• What does ‘good’ look like;
• How will I know when I get there ?

125. Rejected opportunity cost
• What happens if I do nothing ?

126. An audience transformed
• The highest goal;
• Now that I’ve read this, I know this;
• Now, I have to do something.

127. A
PRESENTATION
TEMPLATE.

128. We had a big idea
• It’s important because—
• This idea came from—
• We talked to these people, and they said—

129. Here’s how our big idea
changed
• We were surprised to discover—
• New information created these new insights—
• Here’s why these insights are valuable—

130. The value proposition
• Our big idea will improve a process/save money/
• make life better for people in the following ways—

131. Rejected opportunity cost
• If we do nothing, here are the consequences—
• Here’s what they are doing on other jurisdictions—

132. Now that you now all this
• You must—

133. questions