If you are like most social media users, you scroll through your feed for over two hours a day. And as thousands of lifeless lumps of prose pass your retinae, you wonder: Can I stand out among all that noise?

The problem is that many content creators stamp out articles within ten minutes and then mindlessly release them to the world—heck, some even let a computer create them. But writing will never be any good unless you take the time to infuse it with warmth, humanity, and craft.

And that’s where you have a chance to shine.

In this blog, I’ll provide you with a multiday strategy to help you refine your prose. Spacing out your drafting and editing tasks will lead to more impactful and authoritative writing.

Why a Multiday Strategy Is Important for Your Writing Authority

There’s something magical about taking distance from your work and having another look after a night’s sleep. Some errors fail to catch your attention on the day of writing. How often does it happen that you read a post the next day and think, Whoops!?

That’s why I recommend a multiday strategy from first to final draft. A multiday strategy forces you to slow down. You’ll have more time to think your message through, more chances to spot errors, and most importantly, the opportunity to implement a solid system into your workflow. You’ll end up with a tighter, more fluid manuscript that, as a result, will be more powerful, authoritative, and convincing.

If you’re working on a book, you can turn this plan into a long-term strategy, with every phase taking months or years.

Introducing the FIRE Framework for Writing with Authority

To make sure every step in my writing process gets enough attention, I’ve devised the FIRE Framework for Writing with Authority. Each step of the framework takes place on its own day or group of days. The steps are:

• Finishing the Draft
• Inspecting the Structure
• Refining the Lines
• Editing the Details

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Not every project demands the same thoroughness, but carving out time for these steps helps to let the project mellow in your brain, and that ensures your work will be up to par.

Step 1. Finishing the Draft: Making Sure Your Nonfiction Book Is Complete

Some writers like to draft fast; others drudge on each sentence until they’re satisfied. But in either case, the first draft has one goal: getting it done.

Make sure all you want to say is in the document and—equally important—what you don’t need to say isn’t. I recommend starting with an outline. Constructing one helps you think your subject through and verify that all necessary information is included. From there you can draft effectively without having to think much about content.

However you like to work, I recommend you complete your first draft before proceeding to the next step.

Step 2. Inspecting the Structure: Self-Editing Phase One

Some blogs and articles earn me more praise than others. The ones that score highest are those for which I paid meticulous attention to structure, or the “idea track.” A solid structure imparts authority to your writing and helps you present yourself as a reliable guide.

Your impact vanishes when your readers feel they’re lost in the forest of ideas and suspect that you, the writer, have left your map at home. To secure your reader’s trust, you need to prove that you have a clear direction—a compass that points to your conclusion and a storyline that takes a logical route to reach it.

Stop and take a critical look at how your book or article is built up.

Macrostructure

Start by deciding if the macrostructure is logical. Look at your chapter heads. I usually write them down, but you can also use the navigation pane or outline mode in Word. If your chapter headings are not descriptive, summarize each chapter’s message in one phrase or sentence.

Read the list in order; does the resulting story make sense?

Microstructure

Once the macrostructure is solid, it’s time to zoom in on the structure within each chapter. Summarize the essence of each paragraph or section in as few words as possible. Then, list these summarizations on paper or in a document, and read the result to yourself.

Does the narrative flow logically? Does logic improve when you read the elements in a different order? Are there elements that belong in a different chapter? Do all sections have an example or something engaging? Are all elements supporting your thesis or theme statement?

Answering these questions will lead you to a solid structure.

In the next step, we’ll focus on language.

Step 3. Refining the Lines: Self-Editing Phase Two

Think of a piece of music that moves you. What makes that piece stand out? Probably, it’s the flow of notes building up to peaks of high tension and then releasing at the right moments. In the third step of the FIRE Framework—line editing—you engage this same sense of beauty in your readers by focusing on the flow and the rhythm of your prose. This is the way into your readers’ hearts.

The trick is to read your prose aloud and listen to what you hear. Are your paragraphs and sentences well constructed? Can you get them to flow better? Are they varied? Do all words and phrases serve a purpose, and are they attractive to your target audience?

The better your sentences sound, the more impact they make.

For further guidance in this stage, download my free PDF “Seven Keys to Writing with Authority.”

Step 4. Editing the Details: Self-Editing Phase Three

If there’s one way to anoy your readers—and see them run of with their tales between there legs—its being careless with spelling and grammar. I mean, your probably ticked off by the missing apostrophies and and ohter errorsin these first paragraph.

Inaccuracy is the end boss in the Battle for Your Reader’s Attention, and copyediting is your weapon. To use it, you’ll look at each word for how it is written, its purpose in your sentence, and its connection to the surrounding words and phrases.

You check every sentence for dangling modifiers and subject-verb congruency. You look for typos, missing words, and misspellings. You also check for different spellings that are both OK but should be consistent. And you check for consistency of hyphenation, bullet points, and formatting.

But don’t turn your bad-writing radar off just yet. At this stage, you might still find issues you’ve missed in the earlier stages. If you change anything now, be sure to have another self-editing pass on the new material.

As with most stages in the FIRE Framework, copyediting is best done aloud; some errors are easier to hear than to see.

Take Your Time: Increase Your Impact as a Writer

You might have noticed that, lately, my blogs aren’t always coming in at the same time. This is because I’ve decided to value quality over timing. When I need more time to make the prose bend to my will, I take it. I believe my blogs will have a greater impact if they’re not only informative but also a great read.

With the advent of web content, true writership is facing extinction. Creative writers used to agonize over the prose they produced, and they kept rewriting until they had something worthy of their reputations. It didn’t matter what topic they were writing about; if it was meant to be read, it had to be good.

William Zinsser, one of the greatest nonfiction writers of the twentieth century, puts it this way:

“Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost . . . The newly hatched sentence almost always has something wrong with it. It’s not clear. It’s not logical. It’s verbose. It’s clunky. It’s pretentious. It’s boring. It’s full of clutter. It’s full of clichés. It lacks rhythm. It can be read in several different ways. It doesn’t lead out of the previous sentence. It doesn’t . . . The point is that clear writing is the result of a lot of tinkering.”

Today, humanity’s main concern seems to be SEO and clicks. And content mills pay writers so abominably little that the latter are forced to write the kind of junk that AI machines can churn out in seconds.

But if you want to stand out as an author, you have no choice but to take your time and do good writing. Only then can you touch the hearts of your readers and make a lasting impact.

Writing with humanity and love takes time and effort—quite like love itself.

Editors Are Still Important

When you follow all the above steps, you’ll have a good final draft—possibly good enough for most online purposes. If, however, you want to publish a book or something else that’s meant to last, I recommend you hire an editor.

Even professional writers work with editors to bring their manuscripts as close as possible to perfection. Only then can they compete with other books on the market. Regardless of how many self-editing passes you take, there are going to be weaknesses you missed, and a fresh set of eyes will help you catch them.

A Christian Nonfiction Editor Can Help You Finish Your Manuscript

Book a free discovery call, and we’ll have a look at your manuscript together. I can help you improve your book for impact and authority.