How to Write Clear Content
By Levina Kusumadjaja
If you are familiar with watercolor, you know how easy it is for things to get muddy when you mix different colors together. The less you mix the colors, the brighter and better the final result will be. Once you get to 3 colors and above, the mixture becomes a really ugly dark brown or black, or something that looks a lot like mud. Even if you separate the colors on your watercolor palette, painting one part of your paper with multiple colors will result in something muddy and ugly. When it comes to watercolor, the prettiest results happen when you stick to the original colors. And even if you want to create some sort of gradient, you will have to be super gentle layering the colors on the paper.
This same principle applies to content creation. The content you create can also become muddy because instead of focusing on 1 idea, you put all your ideas in one single content. As someone who has to write blog articles on a regular basis, I face this challenge a lot. I have this constant temptation to share everything I learned about a topic in one article. I feel that I won’t have enough time to share all that I know and that the audience always needs more. It’s as if there is this pressure to solve all my audience’s problems—which is something impossible for one article to do in the first place.
When you share all of your ideas into one piece of content, it often makes the content overwhelming. The intention behind including so much information is actually good, which is to inform and help as much as possible. Unfortunately, when readers have to process too many points all at once, there is a big chance they will walk away with more confusion than clarity. The main point gets lost and the content failed to fulfill its main purpose: help readers.
One of the hardest parts about creating good content isn’t in finding enough good material to share, but in peeling the layers of the material to its core.
There will always be knowledge, experiences, and stories to share. A great challenge in content creation lies in getting to the essence of the message, not so much in finding messages to share. A helpful advice to try out is: stick to one main point. Really get to the one point you would like to share to your audience and just stick to that for the entire content. In my experience, keeping this advice in mind has helped me create content that is clear, concise, and useful. Don’t be afraid to edit the content ruthlessly to the point that we get to the essence.
It’s better to communicate 1 point that readers understand and feel connected to, than to communicate 10 points that readers misunderstood and feel overwhelmed by.
Cheers!
Levina
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About the author:
Levina is a writer based in Indonesia. Because of Melinda Livsey, she recognized the power of brand strategy for every creative. She is sharing about her learnings as she goes to help creatives have fun in their growth and journey of building brands. Connect with her on LinkedIn and say hi!