Hello Reader,
When the brief doesn't make sense
Recently, I had to make a trip to the emergency department (it's okay, I wasn't dying) and spend a bit of time in the waiting room.
The unfortunate thing about waiting rooms is that you have to actually sit there and (wait for it) wait. Usually for hours.
Fortunately I knew what to expect so I'd taken my iPad with me so I could at least try to get some work done.
The operative word here is "try" because the other thing about waiting rooms is that there are almost always lots of other people there who also need to see the doctor.
And on this particular day, there was a grandmother there with two of her grandkids.
The difference between the two children couldn't have been more striking. The older kid looked like she had a broken arm, sat really still and whispered, if she spoke at all, which wasn't often.
The little boy was about three years old, loud, full of energy and totally out of control. He was into everything, running around, flopping onto the floor and yelling at the top of his lungs.
You name it, if it was disruptive, he was doing it.
His grandmother did her best, even taking the two kids outside for brief spells. Which would help for a while and then he'd be running around and yelling again.
After several hours of this, it finally sunk into my tired brain that this disruptive little boy was probably bored out of his tree.
So I went over to the grandmother and asked her if the two kids would enjoy watching some child appropriate videos on my iPad's YouTube app.
Her eyes lit up.
"Yes," she said. And she pointed to the videos. "This one," she said.
So the kids and I started watching what turned out to be an incredibly vapid plotless set of vignettes about a boy and his uncle just doing weird stuff.
Not surprisingly, 10 minutes later the boy started getting restless. He started hopping off his seat and then getting back up. Then he tried to fiddle with my iPad cover. Then he started swiping at the screen.
And the word "no" didn't seem to be part of his vocabulary.
I finally had to stop the video and send the boy back to his grandmother.
It wasn't until several days later that I suddenly realised something.
The whole time we were in the waiting room at the emergency department, I had not heard that boy say one word.
Lots of yells and roars and growls, yes. But words? No.
And I wondered, what if that kid actually wasn't being as naughty as I thought he was? What if he simply didn't have the words to say that the video truly was stupid, that he was bored to tears and could I please, please let them watch something else?
Freelance writing has its own version of that scene. An editor sends back "this isn't quite working" with nothing else attached. A client's brief reads like it went through two rounds of translation. It's tempting to read that as someone being difficult on purpose.
More often, they just don't have the words yet for what they actually want.
So next time a brief or a piece of feedback leaves you feeling confused or stuck, ask the editor what they want the reader to feel by the time they get to the end of your article (instead of what they want it to look like).
The answer to that question will give you a lot more to work with than if you’d just asked them if they could be more specific about their brief or feedback.
Ask for the feeling, not the fix
This works just as well when you're pitching, or building something of your own, a template pack, a mini-course, a paid newsletter or whatever. It's tempting (and usually easier) to lead with what's included (the features). But readers and editors buy on how the thing makes them feel.
And I’m sure you’ve heard the advice to write about benefits and not features. Well, this is one step beyond writing about benefits. Or rather, it’s including emotional benefits, as well as tangible ones.
So if it’s a struggle to write about emotional benefits, or you’re so used to writing about features that you can’t see your own blind spots, then try this …
Give ChatGPT or Claude a rough list of what you're offering, a pitch, a template, a course outline, and ask it to draft five questions it would ask a reader to uncover the emotional outcome they're really after. Then answer those questions yourself, in your own words, and use what you find in your pitch or response.
Worth a look this week
If you're building something of your own, whether that's your own course or community or podcast and need guests … or you want to be a guest on someone else's podcast, PodMatch (affiliate link) is worth a look. It's still my go-to place for finding relevant podcast guests, and it works the other way too if you're pitching yourself as a guest.
nd that's it for this week. Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Trudy (and Treasa)
P.S. If this week's story has you thinking about turning your client work into a template pack or a mini-course, Thrivecart (affiliate link) is worth a look.
t's built for exactly that, sales pages, checkout and hosting the download itself, so you're not stitching together three different tools. I've used it for years and it just works.
