The Quiet Quotient

Relatable is a strange word. It sounds like something you can fake. Like you just sprinkle in a few “we’ve all been there” moments and call it a day.

But people can feel when you’re reaching.

Real relatability comes from being specific, not general. It comes from telling the truth in a way that feels a little too honest, and then hoping someone else nods instead of backing away slowly. Connect with me: https://www.jimhansenmedia.co...

Simple language isn’t “dumbing it down.” It’s letting the air back into the room. It’s saying: we don’t need a chandelier here. A lamp will do. A good lamp. One that works.

Because most people don’t read to be impressed. They read to feel something click. They read to recognize themselves in a sentence and think, yeah, that’s it. That’s what I was trying to say.

Complicated writing often hides a lack of clarity. Simple writing expo...

If you want to build a world that feels real, you have to approach it with the same meticulous planning you’d use for a project management board. You don't just "imagine" a dragon; you imagine the logistics of a dragon. How does it affect the local cattle economy? What are the zoning laws for a fire-breathing reptile? When you apply that kind of deep research to a wild idea, the "unusual thing" stops being a gimmick and starts bein...

In a three-minute sketch, you don’t have time to be subtle. But being "big" isn't the same thing as being "loud."

A powerful character isn’t necessarily the person screaming in the scene. They are the person with the clearest POV. At Second City, we were taught that the "Who" is always more important than the "What." You aren't just writing a plumber. You’re writing a plumber who believes he’s a philosopher-king of the U-bend.

If y...

Every new writer starts out exactly like a garage band: loud, slightly out of tune, and deeply annoying to the neighbors.

You spend those first few months (or years) just trying to find the right chords. You’ve got all this raw energy and a "vision," but the technical execution is a mess. You’re over-relying on the literary equivalent of a distortion pedal—big, flashy adjectives and melodramatic metaphors—to mask the fact that you ...

Every draft contains at least one sentence that believes it is extremely important. You know the one. It walks into the paragraph wearing a tuxedo. It clears its throat. It adjusts its cufflinks. It announces, in a tone normally reserved for Supreme Court rulings:

This is the moment when everything becomes clear. The problem is that most sentences are not Supreme Court rulings. Most sentences are just people trying to cross the str...

Why I believe in building at night....... Not because it sounds disciplined. Because for a lot of people, it is the only part of the day that is truly theirs. During the day, you are reacting. You are answering emails, solving problems, handling logistics, showing up for your family, managing the unexpected, and trying to keep the machine moving. Even when you are technically working on your own goals, the day has a way of scatteri...

Have you ever spent an hour staring at a single sentence, trying to make it sound "important"? You swap out a common word for a bigger one. You add a few extra adjectives. You try to make the rhythm sound like a classic novel. By the time you’re done, the sentence looks impressive, but it feels stiff. It feels like it’s trying too hard. In writing, there is a strange rule: the more you try to show off, the harder it is for people t...