How to Write with Authority Like an Expert (Even If You Don’t Feel Like One Yet)

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

Stephen King said these words in his book about storytelling, On Writing.

And we ate it up. Writers everywhere stopped adding -ly words to every single sentence. 

Hopefully.

Then there’s this gem from Jordan Belfort in his book about sales, The Way of the Wolf: 

“Act as if you’re a wealthy man, rich already, and you will become rich. Act as if you have unmatched confidence, and people will have confidence in you. Act as if you have all the answers, and the answers will come to you.”

After that book came out, salespeople everywhere took that advice and obliterated their previous sales records.

What do Stephen King and Jordan Belfort have in common? 

They’re experts, of course. They really know their stuff.

How do we know? 

Because they write with authority.

Their writing has grit. Their words ooze with experience. The examples they use reveal their scars. And their lessons impart wisdom that only comes from years of struggle.

Do you want to learn to write with authority? 

Then you’ll definitely want to keep reading.

I’m about to give you some tricks of the writing trade that will have your audience sitting up and paying attention.

But first, let’s talk about YOU.

To write with authority, pretend you’re speaking directly to your audience, and impart wisdom only experience can provide.

Be the Expert & Feel What Being a Leader is All About

Before you can write with authority, you must believe in the words you weave onto the page.

Don’t nod along and say yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to feel what it means to lead your reader from the headline to the bottom of the page.

You must stand behind the lessons you offer, and be prepared to back up your views if challenged.

If you don’t feel like an expert, don’t despair.

I’m sure your experience and accomplishments are fine, but…

For help feeling like the professional you are, here’s a trick you can use.

While writing, pretend you’re giving a Ted Talk.

Imagine right now you’re walking out on stage dressed in your best outfit. Your headset microphone is live and the spotlight shines on your face. After a raucous applause, the audience quiets down. 

It’s your time to speak. 

Do you know what you want to say?

Once you have an idea of where your writing should go, write as if you are standing on stage, speaking to that audience.

That audience is your target group - your ideal buyer, avid reader, or most fervent fan.

The same way you’d have good posture, breath control, a steady voice, and wise takeaways your audience will always remember on stage…

I want you to write the same way.

That’s how you write with authority.

As if every word you write matters.

Accomplish that, and your audience won’t dare avoid what you have to say.

You can write with authority, no matter your level of experience.

Hook ‘Em in Seconds 

Watch a few Ted Talks and you notice something peculiar.

Every speaker starts out with a nugget. A ponderous phrase. A quote.

These initial words are critical for snagging your audience’s attention.

For this piece, I used a Stephen King quote about hell being paved with adverbs.

That opening is a little out of left field, and that’s the point. It gets the audience to think and wonder where I’m going. 

That opening brought you here, where you’re about to learn the next important lesson for writing with authority: Showing your scars.se Visceral Examples

They say that failure is the best teacher.

No one knows that adage more than industry experts.

Why?

Because they’ve been to battle.

And while the wounds they suffered have since healed over, evidence of them still remains. At least in their psyches.

Now, I’m not trying to compare a writer or salesperson to a war-hardened soldier. Or a pianist or electrician, or whatever your expertise might be that you’re writing about.

But when it comes to writing, you need to show others that you’ve faced hardship, suffered, and lived to tell the tale.

And now here you are, a virtuoso, writing a blog or a book, and you’re prepared to offer lessons you wish YOU knew before you started.

Instead of telling your audience, “I’ve been there,” prove it with language.

Here is where gritty reenactments of previous struggles work well.

Instead of saying, “I faced a ton of rejection for my writing when I first started out,” tell the cringe-worthy story.

Here’s one from my personal life. Yes, this really happened. 

I once got a letter back for a short story I submitted to a popular magazine. The editor sent my story back with a small note in red pen. He said, “This story was so confusing, it was opaque.”

That’s it. Nothing else. 

Ouch.

Stories like that make your audience wince.

They believe you went through it.

And since they don’t want to go through those harsh life lessons themselves, they are apt to follow along and learn from your hardships instead.

What examples should you use? The ones that really hurt. That is, the ones that caused you literal or figuarative pain.

Make Pain-Points Excruciating

Everyone wants to learn the secret sauce for being successful.

No matter your industry, your audience wants to avoid common mistakes. 

Mostly, they want to avoid feeling pain. 

Mostly of failure. 

You can make your audience focus on your words by opening old wounds. 

Make your readers feel what it was like to experience failure.

For example: 

• Describe to fledgling electricians what it’s like to get majorly shocked.

• Talk to firefighters about opening a door too fast and getting burned.

• Discuss with computer programmers the terror of losing a whole day’s work with an errant press of a button.

The more you can make your audience recoil with every example you give, the more your words will stick, and the more memorable your lessons will be.

Speak the Lingo

You can write with confidence and use the harshest pain points. But if you flub the lingo, you’ll lose your reader’s trust.

Experts use specific nomenclature.

For example, an interior decorator might say credenza instead of desk or sconces instead of wall lights.

The electrician doesn’t say fuse box, he says junction box or fuse panel.

An X-ray tech doesn’t say, “The X-ray revealed a broken bone.” Instead, she might say, “Imaging revealed a fracture.”

Take time to learn the lingo so that you come across as a genuine expert, not a phoney blowing smoke.

Speak to your audience when writing and impart wisdom only experience can provide.

The Epiphany: How You Became the Expert

Once you have your audience hooked, it’s time to prove your worth.

Stephen King in On Writing talks about his desire to teach others about the art of storytelling using his experiences and life story as a backdrop to his genius.

Even if you’d never heard of Stephen King before, the way he crafts his words, and the lessons he offers makes you believe he’s the real deal. 

That is why we listen to him, and cut the adverbs.

Jordan Belfort describes in The Way of the Wolf the “Ah ha” moment when he came up with his Straight Line system for making sales. 

He was having trouble teaching his new stockbrokers to be as good as himself and his partner, Danny. That’s when the Straight Line sales system was born.

Both experts are essentially telling us how they learned the lessons they teach.

Don’t announce to your audience that you’re important. 

Instead, describe where you were when the stars aligned.

What was happening when you realized failure wasn’t an option…

…and you overcame all obstacles to be here, teaching your audience to be terrific.

Your audience will always remember that you’ve been to war, and lived to tell about it. 

And now you’re about to give them lessons they’ll never forget.

Deliver Unique Lessons 

If you’ve done all of the above, your audience should now be at rapt attention.

The next step is to provide those lessons in a way they’ve never seen before. Really wow them.

Be inventive. 

Be innovative.

Most importantly, be different.

Mr. Miyagi taught Danielsan Karate by teaching him how to paint a fence. 

It’s the same with writing. Instead of telling people to save their information before they lose it, give them a mantra like “Sixty minute saving,” whereby they make a point to hit save every hour on the hour.

That’s just one example of how your lessons will remain in the minds of your target prospects by giving them mind-blowing novelty, all packaged with your charm and wit.

So, to recap, believe you’re the expert as if you’re giving a Ted Talk. Deliver the pain, package your lessons uniquely (Sorry, Stephen), and remember one thing:

You don’t need a Netflix deal or a decades-long bestseller to be an authority. 

You only need scars, skill, and the guts to share what you know. 

It all starts within you. Your audience is waiting. What are you ready to tell them?