How to make your writing feel confident (even if you don’t)

If I could bottle something and give it to my friends and family it would be confidence.

The fairies in Sleeping Beauty missed a trick with their gifts of Beauty, Grace, and Dance. What’s really going to protect you in life is the gift of facing your fears and doing it anyway.

The confidence to choose the path you want to follow. To take the first step into the unknown and trust that you will figure it out along the way. The confidence to trust your instincts and make decisions. To speak a clear ‘no’ to whatever feels wrong, and a resounding ‘yes’ to opportunities.

Writing and confidence

Writing is one of those areas where confidence or the lack of it shows up.

Silence is one extreme result of a lack of confidence. Saying nothing because you believe that you have nothing to say. It’s never true. Everyone has a story to tell.

But it can swing the other way too. Trying too hard to impress can backfire in writing is just the same way it does in real life. We’ve all been there when someone tries to squash us with bluster. Overblown rhetoric often masks the fact the speaker doesn’t actually know what they’re talking about. Jargon can be a smokescreen shielding an idea that hasn’t found its feet.

Confident writing cuts to the chase. It says what needs to be said and moves on. It doesn’t need to over-egg the pudding, gild the lily or perfume the violet. If you want your writing to feel more confident, take words out rather than cramming more words in.

Confident writing is easy to read. You feel in safe hands, the writer knows where she’s taking you, and all you have to do is tag along.

Writing that’s less sure itself unnerves your reader. It’s like asking directions from someone who says ‘go left, no, right, hang on a minute, it’s left at the corner then straight on, right, I think, right?’ Your belief in their ability to guide you evaporates, and you make up your mind to ask someone else as soon as they’re out of view.

The result of that floundering in website terms is your reader just jumping off your content and finding something else instead. And they don’t even have to wait until you’re not looking. They just click away and you’ve lost them.

Sometimes confidence is hard to muster, but by stepping up and taking action you can find it. And once you’ve got it, you’re away. Things just start clicking into place.

So if you want your writing to sound confident, so that the rest can follow, here are some good places to start.

Hallmarks of confident writing

Structure

Having a clear beginning, middle and end for starters, or in story terms, set up - conflict - resolution is a good start, structure wise. We’re hardwired to listen out for stories that follow this pattern, and your readers will trust that you know what you’re doing if your writing is put together in the way they expect.

Perspective

Being shown the big picture as well as the little details inspires confidence, so being able to look at a subject from different perspectives is useful if one of your goals is to gain the trust of your reader.

That could mean giving the view of the landscape from the top of the mountain, and the tightness of the knot lacing your walking boots. Switching from a helicopter view to a close up shows command of a subject. I’ll have confidence in you if I trust you’ve really been there and done it.

Clarity

Clarity inspires confidence. Clear explanations help readers understand, and they’ll trust you if you help them.

Being creative in your explanations, finding links between the process you’re describing and the real world is useful too. Here’s where analogies can be your friend. Paint a vivid portrait that links the idea you’re exploring with something concrete that your reader can picture and it will come alive in their mind.

Honesty

Honesty generates confidence in the reader too. It takes confidence to reveal a bit of the real you in your writing, to admit what you don’t know, and what you’re not great at. That kind of honesty works for brands as well as people.

Joy

The most confident writers make you feel like they’re enjoying the writing, even if every word has been agonised over. When you’re in the hands of a great writer you know you can just relax and see where they take you. Joyful writing can be funny, or provocative, or heartfelt. It can surprise you and make you smile with recognition or it can be so beautiful or true it makes you cry.

Writing that elicits an emotional response is powerful and it takes a confident writer to craft words that move people.

How to take the first step towards more confident writing

Pick whichever element of confident writing feels most intuitively easy and use it to guide your next piece of content. If having a clearer structure would help you, focus on that first. Once you’re happy with that, move on to the next.

And my advice is the same if you’re feeling under confident in life too. Pick one small thing that you’re putting off and tackle that on its own. Make one call. Ask a couple of good questions. Send that email. Go for a walk today and run tomorrow.

Sometimes the only way to find your confidence is to start before you feel ready, and then it will find you.