wondering, “What will be on my reader’s mind at this point in
the letter?” I then address their question at that point.- Insert hypnotic commands. This is also one of my biggest se-
crets. I go through my draft and add, change, or rewrite cur-
rent statements into truly hypnotic ones. This is where I rely
on such tools as the Hypnotic Writer’s Swipe File, which I ab-
solutely love. - Read your writing out loud. This can be very revealing. When
you speak your words, you are forced to slow down and be-
come more aware of them. But here’s an even bigger secret:
Get someone to read your writing to you. This can make any
errors, awkward sentences, or anything else glaringly obvi-
ous. If the person reading your writing stumbles, wrinkles
their brow, or seems confused, take note of where they are in
your writing and fix it. - Ask yourself, “Where will someone probably skip a section
in my writing?” Trust your intuition. If you sense a para-
graph may be boring, rewrite it, break it into smaller sec-
tions, or delete it. As a famous novelist once said, “I try to
leave out the parts people skip.” Here’s a secret to remem-
ber: There are three kinds of readers:Word-for-wordread-
ers,skimmers, and jumpers. Skimmers scan your writing
looking for key words, benefits, subheadlines, and so on.
Jumpers do the same thing, but faster, jumping from head-
line to subhead to offer to P.S., looking for your main mes-
sage. Your writing has to appeal to all three kinds of readers.
Keep them in mind as you rewrite. - Use the checklist (you’ll read about it in the next chapter) to
review your writing, looking at specific key areas for possible
improvement.
Go through the letter you wrote earlier and see if you can use
these tips to rewrite it. For now, just experiment. Do that here:
HYPNOTIC WRITING