Find the Right Words
Writing & Thought Partnership for Complex Ideas
When Ideas Get Lost in Transit
You’re stuck, and it’s the absolute worst.
You’re SO passionate about a thought or idea, but when you try to communicate it, your passion for it makes it hard to articulate it in a clear way.
This often looks like:
Rambling and restating the same thought over and over again in different ways (and with your hands, of course) until your conversation partner’s eyes glaze over.
Going back and forth with ChatGPT or Claude, hoping that it’s finally going to get what you’re trying to say and articulate it perfectly, but it falls short every time.
Staring at a blank page, unable to kickstart the momentum needed for the perfect words to pour out of you onto the page.
Nothing seems to quite nail it, and that’s… frustrating, to say the least. You know what it feels like when you find the right words, because they sing (this is what I love about language).
You’ve been grasping at and dancing around the right words. You’re so close.
It’s hard to find the words because what you’re saying is NEW.
That means the world needs to hear it.
How I Help
Often, people come to me with a lot of language already on the page (multiple “brain dumps,” if you will).
What I do is read through every word and listen closely, then highlight the ideas and words that are emerging most frequently and vibrantly from the rest of the pack.
Next, we test and tease them out in a development process that looks a lot like a conversation.
You talk. I listen, and reflect back what I’m hearing, likely in slightly different language. Slowly but surely, we whittle the words down, getting closer and closer to the ones that buzz with life.
We find the words that preserve the integrity of the idea while making it accessible to others.
We translate, and watch your ideas make the impact that they’re meant to make.
Hi, I’m Lara.
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember.
What I’ve always loved most is the moment when language finally clicks into place, especially when I’m helping someone else articulate something they care deeply about. Editing, for me, isn’t about correction. It’s about listening closely enough to hear what’s trying to come through.
Over the past fifteen years, I’ve worked with people who are trying to express ideas that don’t fit neatly into existing frames. Ideas that are thoughtful, complex, or genuinely new. My background spans journalism, academic writing, creative writing, playwriting, screenwriting, and sketch comedy, which means I’m comfortable moving between very different modes of thinking and expression.
In practice, that looks like translation. I’m fluent in the languages of customer, storyteller, reporter, professor, and clown, and I’m especially interested in helping people who speak different social and intellectual languages understand one another.
I hold B.A. degrees in Journalism and Mass Communication and Sociology from NYU, and an M.A. in Social Science from UCLA, where I studied how values are embedded in the words we use. That question, how language carries meaning, intention, and consequence, sits at the center of my work.
Brands I’ve Worked with:
Featured Writing
Testimonials
Anne B. Johnston
Founder & Managing Director of Created Wealth Advisory
“Lara has been a brilliant thinking partner in our quest to make finance clear, approachable, and beautiful. She has helped us to hone in on any key ideas and communicate with greater clarity, intentionality and impact."