Why finding your rhythm will really improve your writing

Unlock your content rhythm and your ideas will fly

There are a couple of ways that rhythm is crucial element of writing. It’s part of a writer’s toolkit, one of the elements that you can dial up or down to change the tone of a piece of writing. And it’s also part of the way you approach writing itself. Developing a good writing rhythm helps you write more, which in itself, improves the content that you create.

Here’s what I mean.

Rhythm in writing

Rhythm in writing is the way you can evoke mood and change the way your reader is feeling. You can create a sense of urgency or of calm by playing with the structure of your sentences. Shortening your sentences is the fastest way to make your writing feel more pacy, but keep that up for too long and it starts to get wearying. (Enthusiasm is energising but endless breathlessness isn’t.)

The way to tell if your writing has a pleasing rhythm is to read it aloud. If it’s hard to say, then it’s hard to read. That’s because when we’re reading silently we’re really reading aloud inside our heads. Spacing and punctuation create pauses for breaths, which we register, even if we don’t need to physically take those breaths while we’re reading. They help us stay grounded and feel in control of what we’re reading.

Mixing sentence lengths

When it comes to writing for business, you’ll often be advised to avoid long sentences. But long sentences don’t have to be baffling or off putting, provided you pace them carefully and make it clear when it’s time to pause. Weaving in a few longer sentences can improve the overall rhythm of a piece. I think of them as adding a bit of depth and richness, to complement the lighter, shorter sentences that are dancing around it.

So rhythm matters in your writing. I think it also matters in your writing practice. If you want to use what you write to market your business, or to deliver great customer service, or even to help you explore your own ideas, then you’ll need to create a consistent flow of content and share it in the right places.

Rhythm of writing

Developing your own writing rhythm is one of the very best things you can do to ensure that you create the content your business needs.

Here’s how I created mine (plus some ideas you can borrow for yours!)

When I talk about content, I mean the dynamic marketing information you choose to shape for your audience - blogs, email newsletters, guides, videos, social posts, books… the list goes on. There are a lot of words involved in creating content to attract ideal clients, and it really helps if you establish a pattern to the way you create them.

Without a rhythm it’s really easy to lose your way, get sidetracked by work, tongue-tied with imposter syndrome, or burnt out by the weight of all the other demands that are pressing down on you.

That’s because writing is hard work, and we’ll often do all we can to avoid it. It can feel like going to the gym, or going for a run when the weather is gloomy. We know it would make us feel better, and we should do it, but the desire to stay inside under the duvet is almost overwhelming.

Establishing a rhythm is a way of getting yourself more quickly into the right headspace for writing, so that you can get going faster, and stay motivated. The simplest way to improve your writing is just to do more of it. Here’s how I do it.

Heartbeat

Establish a heartbeat to your content creation. For me, that’s my newsletter. I’ve committed to writing a newsletter every two weeks, and so I do it. Making it adhoc wouldn’t work for me, because I know I wouldn’t get round to it. The task and the deadline are self-imposed, but it’s enough to get me to sit at my computer and write it. Often making time and space for writing is the biggest challenge, so just by committing to writing a newsletter it gets done.

What would work for you? Do you need deadlines or do you work best when you don’t feel tied down? Establishing a rhythm that works for you means understanding your own behaviour and capacity for self-sabotage. If you’re not sure, start experimenting.

Drumbeat

The blog is tied to the newsletter. Although I could write blogs at any time, the reality is that most of them start as content that develops and reinforces something I’ve written in the newsletter. I want to give people a reason to come to the website, so that they can check out more of my writing and ideas, and if the time is right and they’re interested, to check out how to work with me.

That’s essentially the rhythm of my marketing - a newsletter and a blog every fortnight. Time wise, that’s a day and a half a month, with additional social posts.

Regular social posts

Blogs get created and published first for my newsletter list, but of course I carry on sharing them afterwards in the months that follow. You can’t schedule in the serendipitous tweets or updates, or plan for the interesting conversations that just happen, but it’s possible to create a rhythm to your social postings that almost takes care of itself.

Scheduling a couple of weeks worth of linked tweets isn’t a long or arduous job, but unless you make time for it, it won’t happen. And it’s worth doing. It delivers that steady flow of people back to the website, starts conversations, and as long as you reply to people that comment, and thank those that share, it shows people you’re open for business.

My content rhythm

This triplicate of newsletter, blog and social is my baseline rhythm. It’s the beat I keep going throughout the year, more or less. Obviously there are times when I need to create more content, but I know that if I keep to this, I’ll generate enough of a pipeline to feed my freelance business. Larger or more complex businesses will almost certainly need a stronger mix that combines more elements, but whatever size or shape your business, figuring out that mix starts in the same way.

How to find your rhythm

It’s a little bit chicken and egg when it comes to knowing how much content you need to create, and the rhythm required to achieve it.

But the biggest hurdles are a) making the commitment b) making the time to honour that commitment.

Once you’ve got that balance, and you’re in the swing of writing, everything becomes easier. Writing content stops being that overwhelmingly huge task that makes you feel guilty or frustrated, and just becomes something that you do as part of your weekly routine.

The key thing to do is to start.

Begin with some big picture planning. What do you want to say to the world? Which clients do you want to work with? What change do you want to make in your business? What problem are you really solving?

Turn your thinking around these questions into content ideas and plot the content ideas onto a calendar so you can see them mapped out ahead of you.

If you’ve like some help with content planning come along to the Valuable Content Planning Fiesta, and we’ll help you get into your swing!