I have the privilege of writing for some amazing clients. I thoroughly enjoy helping them achieve their goals, and I consider the people I write for colleagues and friends.

Still, it’s interesting: The first thing each of these organizations did when I started writing for them is send me their style guide and ask that I follow it.

That’s cool; style guides are great. They help an organization of writers and non-writers and wannabe writers produce material that passes the 10-foot test of looking similar, and that’s a big deal. It does no organization any good to randomly sound like a Nobel laureate and Ariana Grande in her Sam and Cat days.

However, every style guide hits on points that in the wrong hands can produce writing that’s unremittingly dull and soul-crushing – and detrimental to an organization besides.

These five points common to many style guides have a dark side. Fortunately, they come with my advice on how to turn them from instruments of terror into creative tools that can actually benefit and bolster an organization’s voice.

Write for SEO.

I get it; if you don’t write for SEO you wind up stuck behind organizations that do, which is like being stuck behind the person who buys $117.65 in groceries and pays in nickels counted out of a paper sack. Unfortunately, writing for SEO often results in writing like this:

Headline with keyword.

Lead paragraph with keyword.

Subheads with other keywords.

One-sentence paragraph that restates the keywords in slightly different forms.

Pull-quote with keyword.

List of keywords.

Closing paragraph with lots of keywords.

And who wants to read that?

You see this structure everywhere, and it’s comical – unless you’re the person writing it. Then it’s like committing ritual suicide via correspondence course (“Lesson 6: Move the knife one centimeter deeper into your chest.”)

Here’s the other problem with this approach: More than ever organizations are being judged on authenticity, and this is as patently inauthentic as it gets.

You shouldn’t have to choose between being authentic and ranking with Google, but if that is indeed your conundrum, what can you do about it?

You really have two choices: Either play the game just a little – give Google the head and the lead, and tag the heck out of everything – or follow the lead of the new rom-com Isn’t It Romantic and satirize the form while exploiting it.

It’s like the Deadspin article I cite d last w eek. If your keyword phrase is “how to fix a lawn mower,” maybe write an article with a headline like “How to Fix A Lawn Mower While Wearing An Evening Gown And Stilettos.”

It gets you there, but you get to keep your self-respect and authenticity. And who doesn’t love a laugh (besides your boss, of course)?

Write with a conversational tone.

Well, yeah. Who wants to write with a tone that isn’t conversational (says the person whose goal in life is to make every organization talk like Hildy Johnson i n His Girl Friday)?

The problem is that there are all sorts of conversations in life, and some get really heavy. Put two engineers in a room and have them talk about laser-cut versus diecut converting machines and ask yourself, “Do I want my organization to talk like this?”

Conversations can also be really stupid, as anyone who’s had junior-high-schoolers can attest.

Oh, and most people don’t talk conversationally in keywords.

Too often organizations aim for a conversational tone when the real goal should be just to keep things simple and natural.

In a strange way, it’s like talking to your kids. Sometimes it’s a conversation, but sometimes you’re explaining, sometimes you’re laying down the law, sometimes you’re telling a joke, and sometimes – rarely, hopefully – you’re raising your voice.

It’s simpler than you might talk otherwise, and for better or worse, it’s always you.

Now, I am not – repeat, not – telling you to talk to your customers like you’d talk to your child. The concept here is that not everything an organization says is a conversation or merits a conversational tone, but simple and natural is never wrong.

Write short paragraphs.

I agree that a website should not have five-inch paragraphs.

But how about a blog post?

Hard as it may be to believe, sometimes blog posts deal with complex issues.

And the explanation of complex issues doesn’t always lend itself to short paragraphs.

Sometimes that goes for less complex issues, too.

An overemphasis on short paragraphs can have unintended consequences.

Like making an annual report look like The Adventures of Dick and Jane, for instance.

Paragraphs are meant to unite and organize thoughts and statements that may encompass several sentences. If sentences belong together, keep them together. Don’t give in to the tyranny of the unnecessarily short paragraph. Instead, give people a reason to read the next sentence.

Write for skimmers.

I skim when I read stuff on the internet; everyone skims, to an extent. But the main reason why I skim is because what I’m reading is not very good.

And that’s not just an internet thing. I was skimming poorly written textbooks and awful novels long before the tl;dr revolution.

Given that, “write for skimmers” is just another way of saying “write badly.”

Sorry, no can do.

Here’s another reason why I refuse to write for skimmers, from a pure marketing standpoint: A skimmer probably isn’t going to be a customer, just the same way a nibble on a hook won’t turn into a fish. But a reader is more likely than not to be a customer.

I want customers, not browsers, so I want readers. And because I want readers, I’m going to write for readers – and if the skimmers pass me by, so be it.

Bullet-point everything. Make lists.

If I had a nickel for every time I had to disassemble a perfectly good sentence to create bullet points and lists, I could retire. I’d be living in a brush pile and subsisting on bark, but I’d be retired.

Bullet points and lists are just an extension of the whole write-for-skimmers thing. People’s eyes are attracted to bullet points. People like the logic of lists.

The problem is, bullet points and lists are not the best way of delivering certain types of messages. For instance, if you’re telling someone how to shift a manual-transmission car, do you tell them:

“Let off the gas, put in the clutch, move the shifter to the next gear, and accelerate” or

Let off the gas;
Put in the clutch;
Move the shifter to the next gear; and
Accelerate.

You can see what might happen with the second approach. The driver lets off the gas … and pauses… puts in the clutch … and pauses … moves the shifter to the next gear … and pauses … and accelerates – but oops, he’s just been rear-ended by Tattoo Joe in a lifted F-150 with a bug deflector that says “River Rat.”

Lists and bullet points suggest a time element that isn’t always present. They also suggest a formal relationship that may not exist.

Numbered lists are for things that possess some sort of rank order or stepwise progression. Bullet points are for formal, discrete attributes. They’re not for things that you may have casually grouped together for convenience.

You can fight this stuff by writing well, by presenting elements in such a way that they’re hard to break apart and put into lists. You’ll be doing plenty of lists as it is without creating more.

When writing for organizations, there’s always going to be a struggle between what you should write as a writer and what you should write as the voice of the organization. I recommend doing whatever you can to nudge those warring factions closer together – giving a little on your end and never ceasing in your attempts to move the organization closer to the middle.

Who knows? Someday your organization’s style guide may have only one point: Write well.

Hey, we can dream.

The 5 Things Most Organizations' Style Guides Get Wrong (And How To Fix Them)