Lightning Writing

Practical Advice for Writing Under Time Constraints

Most of us who spend time writing professionally understand one of the discipline's singular truths: Good writing takes time. To write well, you must spend time thinking about writing as a deliberate process. Good writing advice tells us to shuffle the papers into a drawer between drafts and glance at them only when our eyes have forgotten the mad scribbles of our past selves. Our first drafts are usually the worst; excellent writing is patient enough to move past the first draft.

But what if you don’t have time to write excellently?

What happens when scheduling or assessment demand the kind of speed that impacts quality?

Lightning writing.

Lightning writing is the practice of writing in quick, short bursts that must be immediately distributed, published, or submitted with little to no time for revision. Whether it is a memo due by the end of the day, a timed writing examination, or even a quick message up the chain of command, lightning writing is, by definition, underprepared and hasty, but this does not mean it needs to be haphazard.

To the contrary, the secret to good lightning writing is to remove as much chaos from the process as possible, even within the brevity of the time allotted. In what follows, I’d like to give three simple tactical strategies for lightning writing, hopefully opening up the practice for whoever may find themselves engaged with it during their time in the profession.

1. Don’t Shorten Your Writing, Shorten Your Process

A preliminary lightning writing mistake is to use up every minute available in the act of writing. This has the advantage of producing as much script on the page as possible but greatly detracts from the quality. Writing this way produces a longer rough draft instead of a brief revised draft.

Instead of writing to the time limit, let the time limit dictate the entire process. As an example, if you were given a two-hour window to write, you might spend twenty minutes on the research and reading, ten minutes on an outline, one hour on the draft, twenty minutes on the revision, and ten minutes editing the spelling and grammar. This approach would give you three revision passes, heightening your chance of catching minor errors and giving you the time to parse through any significant missteps in logic and thought.

2. Lightning Writing Implies Lightning Reading

Writing rarely comes from the void of our own thoughts. Most of our writing, even in a brief form, comes from a response to another writer. Writing is almost always dialogical—exchanging ideas from one writer to the next. However, in a lightning writing scenario, this dialogue must also become brief. When you read a text for your writing, it must be scanned with the purpose of writing in mind. Rather than reading a document end to end, first designate an amount of time to read the document and then make several scanning passes:

• First, find and highlight the bottom line (BLUF) or thesis, ensuring that you understand the argument that the writer is making, even if the reading is informational in nature.

• Next, review any data that is present that you need for your own writing. Important quotes, maps, charts, and images are often easier to scan and provide significant context for your writing than reading every section with coherence.

• Then, begin reading the introduction and conclusion to understand the foundation and endpoints of the argument

• Last, settle into the bulk of the document and read chronologically.

This form of quick scanning ensures your writing can begin quicker if time runs short while still focusing on its purpose.

3. Consistency in Argumentation is King

A final danger in lightning writing is the tendency for the author to ramble. As we write at the speed of our thought process, the messiness of our thoughts works its way onto the page. This stream-of-consciousness writing can destroy a text from within, leading to inconsistency and non-sequiturs within the writing. Preventing these inconsistencies is all about keeping steady and intentional organization. Outline your work if there is time. A brief outline saves time in revision. Then, ensure that you have a firm claim somewhere within the document that tells the reader what the purpose of the piece is.

While lightning writing, it may be helpful on an initial draft to write two direct and heavy-handed sentences (e.g “The purpose of this memo/white paper/argument is to ____. It will accomplish this by ____.”) This heavy-handed approach keeps your mind in check and forces an end goal to your writing. You can change the wording to sound more natural and consistent on a final revision pass, but it is always better to have a consistent argument with a clunky sounding claim than a scattered argument with a series of smoothly written but rambling claims.

Ultimately, it is my hope that these three strategies reduce the panic of others who may not have the time to be the great writers that they typically are. Like so many other forms of professional writing, lightning writing stems from a desire to do what we are capable of with the resources afforded to us. When those resources are limited, the writing must also make do and strive for excellence in the flash of time that the storm of life allows.