We understand that being able to write in a clear and professional style is important to your business. That is why we have developed the Business Writing Institute and the Effective Business Writing workshop. This practice-driven business writing workshop will significantly improve your ability to write in English, so that your readers will receive a clear, concise, effective message. Most professionals spend at least 15-20% of their time writing for business; emails, memos, business letters, reports and other business correspondence. Our customized approach guarantees an improvement in business communication skills that will increase your productivity, success and job satisfaction.
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Benefits of business writing training workshops:
- learn how to write a business letter
- discover the skills of writing a business letter
- learn to create clear business correspondence
- understand the difference of writing for business
- improve overall business communication
Business Writing Workshop: Saving the Best For Last
Delaying gratification is the life principle behind why we were never allowed to eat dessert first. But saving the best 'til last has other applications besides ensuring a balanced diet. Saving the best 'til last can be the secret to great public speaking. Saving the best 'til last is exactly what happens when a comedian delivers the punch line. Delaying gratification is a writing/communication technique that can improve your corporate copy, speech writing, fundraising appeals, comedy, suspense and even lyric writing.
As a point of grammar, this concept is called the periodic sentence. This is getting boring, you're thinking. Keep reading. This isn't complicated. Here's how it works.
The periodic sentence positions the main clause in a sentence at the end. Usually the subject and verb are widely separated and the verb is as near the end as possible. As a result, the sentence has more dramatic impact. There's a build up of tension so that readers feel compelled to keep reading.
Nonprofits may find this technique a helpful way to capture donors' attention in their fundraising letters. As you will see, the periodic sentence builds tension and generates an emotional connection between the reader and the subject. Here's an example,
After walking for many days through LRA territory with no map, no food, no water and only a fading glimmer of hope, the children arrived safely at the orphanage.
In this example, the many dangers and obstacles precede the resolution. This sentence construction builds suspense and serves to capture the reader's interest to the end. Suppose we had re-arranged the word order as in,
The children arrived safely at the orphanage, after walking for many days through LRA territory with no map, no food, no water and only a fading glimmer of hope.
Here the resolution precedes the obstacles and the result is a lack of tension, no suspense and no compelling reason to keep reading. Someone should have shouted "SPOILER ALERT".
Delaying the main point to the end is an effective persuasive technique that public speakers use because it allows listeners to mull over the evidence, to think through the argument before asking them to take action. Obviously, it must be used sparingly and may not be appropriate for most pedestrian speeches.
However, consider Winston Churchill's persuasive speech:
"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may fall into the grasp of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fall."
If the speaker's goal is to build excitement, to rally support and inspire, this kind of sentence construction can be a very powerful rhetorical tool.
For example, Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" (1775) speech to the Virginia Convention:
"If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight!"
Here the speaker builds tension and inspires listeners with one argument stacked upon another. He delays the call to action until the very end where it becomes a battle cry.
Screenwriting guru Robert McKee also notes the merits of saving the best 'til last. His example,
"Excellent film dialogue tends to shape itself into the periodic sentence: 'If you didn't want me to do it, why'd you give me that...' Look? Gun? Kiss? The periodic sentence is the suspense sentence. Its meaning is delayed until the very last word."
Consider the impact of word order on the chorus to Hawksley Workman's "Your Beauty Must Be Rubbing Off". Although not a periodic sentence, Workman hits the listener with an unexpected twist at the end of the chorus:
Your Beauty Must be Rubbing Off
Look at those buggers who are looting the crash site
taking the ring off your sweet little finger
that I gave to you, when we got married
you're under water now,
you're back where you came from
no stealing of beauty that would naturally flow
from the center of all that you are, all that you are
Your beauty must be rubbing off
Your beauty must be rubbing off on me
"Your beauty must be rubbing off" seems a callous way to conclude what appears to be a dirge! But then Workman redeems the sentiment by adding a surprise at the end of the sentence: your beauty must be rubbing off "on me".
That the woman's beauty is rubbing is, in fact, a compliment. Her beauty is having a positive impact on someone else. The word order Workman uses changes the meaning completely.
Finally, comedy writing also holds the reader in a suspended state of gratification by building toward a climax at the end that never concludes as expected.
Consider this joke written by Gene Perret:
I overheard a couple in the hotel room adjoining mine. The wife told the husband, "take off my dress." Then, "take off my shoes." Then, "take off my bra." Then, "and don't let me ever catch you wearing them again!"
Admit it, there was no way you were going to stop reading in the middle of that joke. That's because you know that Perret is delaying gratification. You know that if you're patient, you will be rewarded with a punch line.
Saving the best 'til last by rearranging word order or by making use of the periodic sentence functions in the same way as the punch line to a joke. The reader/listener suffers through the build up of tensions, obstacles, arguments and details until the end because they know that the payoff is coming.
Source: Brenda Murray link
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