The Most Effective Writing Advice I’ve Learned Came from Teaching 6-year-olds

Don’t throw balls people can’t catch.

“You want me to do what?”

“Teach a class every Tuesday and Thursday to a group of 6-year-olds,” the owner of the language academy shot back. “Do you want the job or not?”

The year was 2010. The place was a 45-minute bus ride from the center of Barcelona where I was living to a town I’ll never purposely visit again.

As a 33-year-old single guy, teaching a bunch of kids how to say the word sandwich in English wasn’t what I had in mind when I bought a one-way ticket to the Catalan capital months earlier.

But I was hungry. I didn’t have the legal working papers to work in Spain. Combine this with being financially wiped out two years prior in Central America and I had no choice but to trade in my dreams for a box of crayons and 7€ an hour cash-in-hand.

By the time I reached the school on my first day, I’d done a top job of convincing myself it’d be a massive time waste. “I used to manage a team of high-performing salespeople!” I said myself. “What good could possibly come from this?”

And don’t get me wrong, not much good did come from it. At least not initially. I wasn’t very good at the job. The director didn’t laugh when I had a brain lapse and told the kids “hi” was spelled “high.”

But when I began to write, three lessons from that experience made their way into my work.

If you haven’t yet guessed, it’s Michael here from the Writing to (L)Earn team. Today, we’ll talk about how I began my move from making 7€ an hour as a sub-par teacher to earning somewhere around 13€ an hour as a semi-decent online writer. And how this process taught me invaluable lessons in building a writing career.

If you don’t engage your audience immediately, you lose them immediately

“Remember, Michelle — ESA — Engage! Study! Activate! It’s not that hard!”

I hated hearing these words from the director of the school. And I still don’t understand why she couldn’t get my name right — “MY-KILL.” But I’ll be damned if her recipe for teaching wasn’t effective.

It doesn’t matter if your audience is a group of 79 six-year-olds or six 79-year-olds, if you don’t engage them and get their attention quickly, your time is limited.

Thanks to the low attention span of the kids in the class, I moved from saying — “Okay, settle down kids! Today we are going to talk about numbers!” — to kicking things off by saying every person in America has 6 fingers.

• Think long and hard about how you ignite curiosity in your introductions.

• After writing your draft, identify some of your most engaging lines and try putting them first to see how they look.

• Read the first lines of popular articles and books and think about why they worked.

When you cut through the smoke, we’re all in the same game: maximizing our audience’s experience.

And it becomes an uphill battle if we don’t nail our initial lines.

Don’t throw balls people can’t catch

Can you imagine what the kids must have thought on the first day when I said the words “Settle down!”? We’re talking about a room full of 6-year-olds who’d never studied English before.

When it comes to speaking, if the person you are talking to doesn’t understand what you’re saying, that’s on you, not them. The same rule applies in your writing — clear arguments laid out in simple language, win. Plus, thanks to the internet, our potential audience is the entire world and many readers aren’t native English speakers.

I never would have thought being an American living in Spain would play a role in making a living as a writer. But it makes perfect sense. When speaking in English to kids and adults, I have to talk in a way that doesn’t hurt their heads. Over time, this lesson in simplicity in verbal communication led to virality when I moved my words online.

By all means, if you love writing big words and throwing yourself into in-depth thought pieces, please keep doing that. The more I write, the more I believe you’ve got to do whatever you can to extend the fun so it doesn’t feel like work.

But if your goal is to grow an audience and leave people with words they remember, keep both your language and the layout of your argument simple.

• Read writers with a reputation for telling the audience exactly what they need to know and not a word more.

• Listen to speeches from great speakers and take note of how they tell stories in a simple yet engaging way while paying special attention to how they transition from point to point to keep you hooked.

• Challenge yourself at work to write clear and concise emails or try to cut that 1,000-word document you are working on in half.

Easy reading is hard writing. But it’s worth the effort. Once you have a strong foundation, it’s just a matter of learning how to eye the spots that have some extra meat on the bone to better entertain your audience.

Don’t botch the end game by writing a lazy conclusion

“These kids are rich which means their parents are demanding and oftentimes angry. No matter how frustrated you get during class, make sure the kids have fun in the last 5 minutes. They’ll run into their parent’s arms with a smile on their face which will save you from a ton of headaches.”

Pushing your energy levels in the last few minutes is gold advice for just about anything you do. As a writer, though, it’s especially valuable. I see people lose steam in their conclusions all the time. Then they ask why they aren’t getting engagement.

This advice may not appear in most “How to grow your audience” articles. But it should. In fact, a solid argument can be made that your conclusion is the most important part of your writing. This is for the simple fact that most people engage with stuff once they’ve experienced the entire thing. You risk those ever-important likes, shares, and subscribers by not treating your conclusions with the same respect you give your introductions.

People read online to be entertained, educated, or to feel more emotionally alive. Use this knowledge to your advantage in your conclusions.

• Link an aspect of the introduction to your conclusion so readers get to relive the ride you took them on again.

• Package your best takeaway into a few bite-sized memorable lines so readers have something to chew on as they do about their day.

• Get clear on the emotion you are looking to stoke and lean into by ensuring your parting words are aimed right at your readers' hearts.

So much attention today is given to making a strong first impression. We stress the importance of hooks. And rightfully so. The world is loud. Soft introductions often get ignored. But it’s imperative to remember that our last impression of each interaction often forms the impression.

If you write your conclusion in a memorable way, you may find that you don’t have to market your work because other people are already sharing it.

Pay attention to find the story

Except for volunteering to read stories in English at my kid’s school, more than a decade has passed since I last stepped foot in a kid’s classroom. I used to think I’d never do it again, but years later, I’m not so sure.

Writing this article and thinking back to those funny little kids and the lessons learned served as a reminder of the importance of putting yourself out into the world.

Get to know people with a different background than you. Spend time with people of all ages. Listen and learn from them.

As a writer, no job is a waste of time.

Who knows? Pay close enough attention, and you might find that these “waste of time” experiences might just give you the best stories to tell.

—Michael, with John & Darius