Legendary children’s novelist CS Lewis has some insights on writing which all charities need to hear.
We all know CS Lewis as the author of the Narnia books, but what many people don’t know is that he wrote many other books and essays, much of it inspired by his Christian faith. For many, he is the ‘writer’s writer’.
Following the completion of the Narnia series in 1956, Lewis received a letter from an American girl named Joan asking for his advice on writing. This is how he replied:
1. Always try to use language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the plain, direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean ‘More people died’ don’t say ‘Mortality rose.’
4. In writing, don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the things you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us the thing is ‘terrible’, describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was ‘delightful’; make us say ‘delightful’ when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, ‘Please, will you do my job for me?’
5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
(Source: CS Lewis ‘Letters to Children’)
These are by no means the only bits of advice on writing Lewis gave during his life but they do give us a guide to what makes his writing so popular. They are about communicating with precision and feeling.
Too often charity communications lack these qualities. But they are two powerful weapons in increasing supporter engagement with your work.
What I see in a lot of charity newsletters, brochures and fundraising bids is a desire to look and sound professional. Even brand new start-ups feel the need to appear like they are established and ‘know what they are doing’. So the tendency is to revert into vague, jargon-laden, bureaucratic, even legal-sounding, language on paper.
That’s not what supporters and potential supporters are looking for. They demand competence, yes, but not professionalism. They long for concrete, factual and accurate descriptions of what you are doing and why.
Which people exactly are you helping? How many? What specific interventions are you involved with? How does your work relate to other agencies and charities? What tangible impact is your work making on the world? That’s precision.
And they want feeling. Your words and stories need to communicate the real human impact of the work you do. It’s not enough to say you’re changing people’s lives; you need to demonstrate how that change is being experienced and felt, viscerally: How bad was it? How good is it now? How bad will it get if you don’t step in and help?
Perhaps charities pull too many punches these days. Perhaps we stay remote and aloof for fear of offending the comfortable. Actually, supporters need to feel a little of what you feel.
Better communications may be the key to unlocking the support your charity is searching for. I specialise in advising charities from local to global on how to make words work harder for them. For more information about what I can do for you, please get in touch.
Filed under: Writing and copywriting, charities, Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis, fundraisers, getting donations, newsletters, non-profit, supporter communications, writing tips, writing well
