The Value of Quotables in Writing

Do you have material in your drafts you can pull out as quotables? Include some and the value and memorability of your work likely will go up. I explain in this video.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgQdu0ilUwo

The caveat to this, of course, is that there’s balance. It’s okay that some of your material is just supporting material! If you try to make everything pop, nothing will. Sprinkle the quotables through the piece without oversaturating.

There’s also the issue of figuring out what’s a quotable and what’s not. Beta readers can help you here by highlighting what struck them the most. Another approach is to use tools that let you see what readers have been highlighting after publication. Medium does this. This isn’t great for during drafting, obviously, but it can help you to quickly decide what to use to promote a piece on social media if it’s already published.

Remember that quotables usually aren’t big, long thoughts. Try to stick to two or three sentences, tops, unless the idea truly is complex. And although stats can get attention, try to get a mix of ethos, pathos, and logos. If you can get at least one of each for a piece, your overall argument will appeal better.

Image credit:
Warchi from Getty Images Signature

[Transcript summary]

I get asked sometimes how to make writing pop a little bit more and have it be more impactful. And the one recommendation that I constantly am telling people is to make sure that when you are creating your draft, you ask yourself, “Is it quotable?”

So, maybe you have some kind of — you’re creating on Canva or whatever, but you’re putting up a quote post that you can put up on social media or whatever. How many of those kinds of statements do you have in your piece? And nine times out of 10, if you can get more of those, it strengthens your piece, because if you can extract that, that says that can not only stand alone, but it’s going to be like, that’s the hammer right? That means that you have more and more points in that piece that are really driving home and making a good point, because you can extract them and have people think about them.

So, that’s the one thing that I would recommend. Just try to get more quotables. Now, the beautiful thing about this is that you can actually use those quotes. Go ahead and put them up on social media. And that becomes another way for you to promote your work, because you can drip campaign it. So, it’s just a really great way to not only make your writing stronger, but to market yourself. Take care, everybody. Wanda Thibodeaux, takingdictation.com Bye.