Word Hero

Pith Method

The Pith Method. Write down what you want to say, then find the two or three key words that sum up your points. Use these words in a fabulous new sentence. You’ll see the pith method throughout the book as we use it to ready your thoughts for tools to come.

When you want to come up with something memorable—not just original phrasing but an original thought—sometimes you should start with the words. Words first, then thought.

Mad Lib Protocol. Take the key words in a favorite quote and “blank” them out with the relevant parts of speech: [noun] for The New Yorker, [verb] for edited. Now see if you can fill in blanks with relevant words of your own.

In short, figures do more than fancy up your language. Like Shakespeare’s Prospero, they can endow your purposes with words that make them known. A well-turned phrase can inform your thoughts and help you decide what you really want to accomplish.

This chapter will show you how to produce a pith from a jumble of thoughts. We will look at ways to produce memorable lines that help fuel the rest of your thinking.

THE TOOLS

To steal a quote’s technique, unwrite it. Before you begin Mad Libbing, it helps to get a sense of what makes the words so great; and you’ll get insights into the occasions that suit the technique. By unwriting the Ross quote, we discovered that it would work well whenever we wanted to exclude a class of people. Unwriting also helps us discover the

Instead of working out your thoughts in your head or scribbling them down, start instead with a key line. Write it down and then, before you write any other line, perfect that one.