One of the most important lessons I learned about writing happened years before I became a writer. I was working at a pizza shop in college. An entourage of businesspeople flew into Michigan to tour our shop’s daily operations. The visitors were interested in opening a similar pizza shop in Japan. One of the visitors saw me scrubbing at a saucy and charred pizza bit that had splattered on the wall. I scraped it with a brush, a butter knife, and my fingernail but failed to remove it. Nothing worked. The man told me to scrub a little, then wait five minutes and come back. I gave it a shot. Five minutes later, I came back, and most of the saucy char was wiped away. After five more minutes, I removed the spot entirely with one wipe. The man told me that when I scrubbed it so hard, I pressed the charred bit into itself, not allowing it to expand and come into contact with air. By allowing it to breathe, I could return and clear away the spot more easily.
A few years into my television news career, I realized his advice translated perfectly to writing with consistency and quality. That night, I wasted twenty minutes writing one story I couldn’t quite get right.
Then, the idea of letting it breathe popped into my head. I decided to give it a shot. I stopped rewriting and went on to the next three stories. Fifteen minutes later, I looked back over the script and rewrote it in about a minute. A little while later, I came back and touched up the lead. My executive producer said about the script: “right on” and “kicked ass.” Letting anything breathe in an intense newsroom may be challenging, but it can save you time while making your story better.
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