Yes.

Stephen J. Cannell is one of the most successful producers in television history. He’s created dozens of hit shows (The Rockford Files, Wiseguy, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street) and has written hundreds of TV scripts and more than a dozen novels. The secret to his success will suprise you.

Cannell is dyslexic. He can barely read. But as an up-and-coming writer, he saw this as an advantage.

For most of us, writer’s block comes from a fear of putting anything on paper because we’re afraid it won’t be good enough. But Cannell’s learning disability meant he knew that whatever he wrote wouldn’t be good enough—at least not without serious editing. So he never worried. He just wrote.

Accept that your first draft won’t be perfect. Once you know that, you can just start writing—and then start editing it into a second draft, which will be better.

I argued in a previous post that you should always try to be precise in your writing. That means not using “loads of work,” “tons of support,” or similar phrases that don’t make literal sense.

The other day I heard a hilarious example of this. A radio talk-show host said that “there’s a huge bucket of scientists who don’t agree with the global warming hysteria.”

How could anyone have conducted that survey? If some pollster really stopped by the bucket to ask scientists what they thought of global warming, my guess is they would all scream, “Get me out of here!”

When we write, we know exactly what we’re trying to communicate. But because that message is so clear to us while we’re writing, we forget to step back and review our words from the point of view of a typical reader. What might they not understand? What might they misconstrue?

Here are three unintentionally funny examples from actual church newsletters:

1. “Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.”

2. “The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.”

3. “Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.”

Before you send or publish or otherwise share anything you’ve written, take a step back. Review it from a reader’s point of view. Try to forget what you meant to communicate and examine what’s actually there on the page. You might be surprised.

During a live TV report this morning, a cable news correspondent said that a certain candidate in the Illinois Senate race has “a ton of support” from his party.

Interesting. I didn’t realize we could measure political support by the pound.

You’ve probably seen these statements in writing many times. Someone writes about using “every ounce of my energy” or about a person trying something “without a drop of experience.” Don’t do this.

Phrases like these undermine the power and even the readability of your writing. That’s because they’re not precise. Most readers won’t even be aware of it consciously, but when they read these statements they lose a little respect for the document and the writer.

We don’t measure experience with a teaspoon. So when you write that a person didn’t have “a drop of experience,” you distract your reader from the point you’re making. Even if it takes only a nanosecond for your reader to realize the phrase you’ve written is actually nonsense and not meant to be taken literally, that’s still a nanosecond you’ve derailed him from following your argument. You want your reader absorbing and being persuaded by the force of your message, not focusing on your choice of words.

Be precise. It’s one more way to ensure your documents have a lot of support (rather than a ton).

Can a piece of writing be so bad that it physically harms the reader? Yes, if it fails what master copywriter Bob Bly calls “the breath test.”

Try this. Have a look below at the first sentence of a column by economist and CNBC host Larry Kudlow. (Yes, that is a single sentence below.) See if you can read the entire thing without stopping to take a breath.

“Despite the historic expansion of the federal government’s involvement in, intervention in, and control of the economy — including Bailout Nation; takeovers of banks, car companies, insurance firms, Fannie, Freddie, AIG, GM, Chrysler, and GMAC; large-scale tax threats; overregulation; an attempted takeover of the health-care sector; ultra-easy money; a declining dollar; and unprecedented spending and debt creation — despite all the things that would be expected to destroy the economy — all this socialism lite and the degrading of incentives and rewards for success — despite all this, the U.S. economy has not been destroyed.”

(“Faith in Free-Market Capitalism Is Being Rewarded“ — Dec 30, 2009)

Kudlow is a brilliant former Fed and OMB economist, a gifted speaker and a talented writer. Yet even he fails the breath test here. Sometimes when we’re writing on a topic we’re passionate about, we try to cram too much detail into a single sentence. We can’t help ourselves; we’re excited and we want to get it all out.

But our reader needs to receive our information at a reasonable pace. Even more important, our reader needs oxygen.

As you review your writing, read it aloud and give every sentence the breath test. Remember, your reader can’t take whatever action you want him to take… if he’s passed out or dead.

Working World has published an article I wrote for job-seekers, “3 ways to stand out for a job.”

My wife works for a small software company. For months last year, the business struggled to stay afloat, and the entire staff knew that without new investment money the company would dissolve and everyone would be out of a job.

So imagine what the average worker thought when they read this subject line in an email sent by the CEO to the whole company:

From: CEO

To: All Employees

Subject: Closed.

The employees thought what you’re probably thinking — bad news. So they were shocked when they opened and read the email. Turns out, the CEO was enthusiastically announcing that a new investor had acquired the company. It was this company-saving deal that had “closed.” Not the company itself. Phew!

The point is, the CEO’s email subject could have given any of his employees a cardiac event. Had he simply stopped to consider how they might read it — that the day they dreaded had finally come, and the business was shutting down — he might have used a different subject line. Maybe something like, “Great news on the financing front!”

Always try to think like your reader when you write. You’re writing for them, after all, and the more you can see things from their point of view, the more effective your writing will be.

Federal government news site Fedsmith.com has published my article on writing, “Do You Make These Seven Common Writing Mistakes?”

In the 1990s, Volvo found itself with an excess of green cars. People just didn’t want them. So the Sales and Marketing departments came up with all sorts of great deals just for green Volvos—and they started selling. Finally.

Problem is, no one in Sales or Marketing thought to tell the rest of the organization what they were up to. So Manufacturing, which saw its green cars suddenly flying out the door, started ramping up production of new ones!

Now, consider how much more likely you are to remember that story than you’d remember if I simply wrote, “Increase communication across departments to improve organizational effectiveness.”

Stories engage our emotions. They make us angry, motivated, enthusiastic. They make us remember. They even make us want to tell others.

The best way to communicate an important point or insight is to put it into story form. If you want your written documents and presentations to compel your staff, colleagues or other constituents to take action, become a great storyteller.