Be Free

Remember the five-paragraph essay?

Introduction, paragraph one, paragraph two, paragraph three, conclusion. I can still hear my English teacher saying, “first you tell them what you’re going to tell them. Then you tell them. Then you tell them what you told them.”

Turns out that while that may be a fine way to teach students how to write, it isn’t the single best approach. In fact, in Handley’s opinion it’s rarely a good approach. It’s too structured, and it makes for a boring read.

There are a lot of different ways to write. So, feel free to let go of what you learned in high school!

“There is no one way to write – just as there is no one way to parent a child or roast a turkey.”

— Ann Handley

If you’d like to read more, you can find Everybody Writes on Amazon.

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Handley, Ann. Everybody writes: your go-to guide to creating ridiculously good content. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2014. Print.