Nicolas Cole shows ghostwriters how to handle vague clients by asking them to replace adjectives with concrete nouns and verbs. This turns fuzzy feedback into measurable requests. Most clients aren't being difficult; they just don't know what they actually want.
If you ever find a client really stuck in pushing back on you trying to get specific and they keep giving you very general, vague terms, the most helpful exercise— and this is actually true because this is like what you should be doing— is you say to them, "You are giving me adjectives. I need nouns and verbs. A noun is tangible. A verb is tangible. An adjective is not tangible." And so all of a sudden it makes it super objective and super quantifiable. They're like, "I want this thing." Okay, you just described it. That's an adjective. That's not a tangible thing. This is why I say over and over and over again, the client doesn't know. They're not trying to be mean. They're not trying to be difficult. They literally just don't know.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
