Entries from February 2008 ↓

Experienced professional writers won’t need to read this post. All the advice here will be second nature to them.

However, if you’re new to publishing your writing, these simple tips could help you look less like an amateur and more like a pro.

Especially number one. And five. And six. But seven is the most important.

1. Never use exclamation marks
Don’t use them. Just never use them. Using an exclamation mark makes you look like an amateur (unless you can get away with doing it ‘ironically,’ which is mighty tricky). Using more than one exclamation mark at time makes you look like a complete and utter idiot. Don’t do it!!!!

2. Don’t publish or send straight away
Always try to review or edit what you’ve written at a different time, when you are in a different mood. How does it sound now?

3. Break out of formal structure
At school and college people learn to structure essays with introductions and conclusions. There’s nothing wrong with this but there are lots of other ways to structure a piece of writing (including the inverted triangle used in journalism). However, even if you do stick to the introduction-argument-conclusion structure, you don’t have to be so lame as to highlight it in your subheads. Honestly, I have received articles for inclusion in a business magazine where the author had included ‘introduction’ and ‘conclusion’ as sub-headlines. What’s wrong with that? It’s boring and unimaginative, that’s what.

4. Use short words
Don’t try to sound clever by using long words for the sake of it. It actually has the opposite effect.

5. Edit
Cut out as much as possible, eliminating redundant words. Always edit your work as thoroughly as time allows.

6. Be clear
Remember that it is your job, as the writer, to communicate effectively. If the reader doesn’t get it, it’s your fault.

7. Say something interesting
Presenting a balanced point of view is all well and good - but it gets dull after a while. Be passionate about your subject. Be audacious. Project your personality.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider helping me promote it through whatever social media you use (Digg, StumbleUpon etc). Or link to it from your own blog. Or make a comment. Or tell people about it, in person or by email. Thanks for your help.

Results of the poll running for the past few months were fairly conclusive with the favourite writing style being ‘tell it like it is, me to you’ with 46% of the vote. (That’s 118 votes out of a total of 256).

In second place was ‘carefully constructed sentences, delivered with ‘gravitas’, with 78 votes (30%).Personally I was surprised that option proved so popular.

In third place was ’short and pithy’ with a surprisingly poor 38 votes (15%). I had thought that was a potential winner.

Staccato was the out-and-out loser with only 7 votes, or 3%. Hmmm, intersting. You actually see a fair bit of what I would call a staccato style around, especially in corporate company brochures and the like.

Staccato lost because it was beaten into fourth place by: ‘I use as many words as possible because that way I feel more self-important.’ This received a worthy 15 votes, or 6%. Presumably, these were people who felt like thumbing their noses at my obvious attempts to skew the results of the poll.

Good for them.

(You can see the polls archive here).

Be off with you…. today I’d like to send you elsewhere for enlightenment and instruction on the important issues of keywords, courses, money and time.

But before you go, my vote count over in the left hand column (’My favourite writing style is…’) has been stuck on 248 all week and has finally got to 249. Once it’s over 250, I’ll do a round-up and start a new poll. So, if you haven’t voted yet, now’s your last chance.

Crack keywords
Brian Clark at Copyblogger has a series of posts on the importance of keyword research when creating online content.

Blogs are famous for ranking well in search engines thanks to their structure and frequently-updated content, but if you don’t use the words people are actually interested in and actively searching for, you’re missing a lot of traffic.

Keyword Research for Bloggers: A Comprehensive Guide is an enlightening and practical introduction to the subject, so if you have a blog, or have plans to blog, it’s well worth a read. (It’s long though, at nearly 8,000 words, so set some time aside.)

Get serious about finance
John Scalzi on his blog Whatever has some highly useful advice specifically for writers on the tricky subject of money. His post Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money includes such sage advice as “prepare to be broke”; “don’t quit your day job”; and “writing is a business. Act like it”.

Why am I offering this entirely unsolicited advice about money to new writers? Because it very often appears to me that regardless of how smart and clever and interesting and fun my fellow writers are on every other imaginable subject, when it comes to money — and specifically their own money — writers have as much sense as chimps on crack.

Be more productive
Lifehacker has a piece on how to get more done each day, which is aimed at just about anyone but which has advice relevant to anyone with a writing task to get done. The post on the Top 10 Smart and Lazy Ways to Save Your Workday inlcudes advice on how to avoid distractions, create motivating deadlines for yourself, and jump-start creativity.

Block out distractions and set a timer.
When your brain is frozen in a solid block of paralyzed procrastination around a task and you’re letting yourself get carried away by distractions like email and instant messenger, it’s time to take out the big guns. Turn off your email and IM client, grab a kitchen timer, set it for 10 minutes, and work until the beep. Then, take a break. Wash, rinse, and repeat. I swear by this technique, which got me through writing 400 pages of the Lifehacker book when all I wanted to do was crawl under the bed and hide.

Take an online course

There are links to 50 online writing courses listed at colledegree.com:

Whether you want to learn how to write for business or just brush up on grammar, you’re sure to find what you’re looking for. We’ve compiled more than 50 of these classes, and they’re open for anyone to take.

Do you find these useful, or not? Please let me know.

So you’ve written an advert, a direct marketing piece, a sales spiel. How good is it? Will it work? These are seven questions to ask before you show it to the client or publish it:

1. Is it on strategy?
It may be brilliantly creative, it might be downright clever, but is your advert or marketing copy communicating the right messages?

2. Does it talk to the right people?
Who is the audience for the product (or service)? You did know this before you started work, right? Now, is it clear that you are talking to these people? Does the copy get this across, does it haul them in?

3. Is it compelling?
Is the idea interesting enough? Is the copy? Or is it, in truth, just a bit dull? Be ruthless with your own work.

4. Is it instant?
People don’t linger long over adverts, so you’d better get your idea and message across pretty fast. Remember that if the headline doesn’t grab them, then they will never read that finely crafted body copy.

5. Is it credible?
Are you making claims that people will believe? If they don’t believe you, they are unlikely to buy from you. It’s always tempting to make promises about the huge benefits a product will deliver. But simply changing your underarm deodorant won’t really make you irresistible to beautiful young women. It won’t really turn them into slavering sex slaves. And deep down, everyone knows it.

6. Is it striking?
Has your idea and copy got punch and pizzazz? Is it unexpected? Does it stand out from the ads and marketing of the competition? If not, then it isn”t really good enough, is it?

7. Have your proved your sales argument?
You are trying to persuade someone to part with their hard-earned. You have made big claims for your product. Have you convinced them? Is there any proof? Or will they be left feeling flat at the end of it, still unsure? If that’s the case, you still have more work to do.

Providing your copy passes these seven tests, then using these criteria can be a good way of defending your work when you have to show it to clients or account executive types, designers and so on.

It shows that you are not just being creative for the sake of it, but that you are working hard, and thinking clearly. That there is method to your creative madness.

These seven rules of effective copy were adapted from the book The craft of copywriting: How to write great copy that sells by Alastair Crompton. It’s highly recommended (although somewhat hard to get hold of, these days).

There’s a fascinating piece on a blog site called Study Hacks, which I discovered today because it popped up high in Del.icio.us. It’s aimed at students who need to write papers, but as the article itself points out, the advice applies to just about any form of writing.

The author has dug out a series of interviews with “masters of long form non-fiction” and used the information to create a picture of how professional writers work.

The most striking observations from this study:

The writers work in the morning. They often start very early in the morning.

Five out of ten of the writers described a little ritual before starting their morning writing. A surprising number of these rituals focused on The New York Times.

The writers drink coffee. Lots of coffee.

The writers write in isolation. If they didn’t have families they would push this even farther. Many discussed having no e-mail or phone in their workspace. One purposefully used a “shitty old laptop” to avoid temptations like solitaire. Gay Talese rigged his home office so it could only be entered through a separate outside door.

The whole article, called “How to Schedule Your Writing Like a Professional Writer’” is well worth a read.

Nearly all of the writers questioned said finding a place free of distractions was very important to them. As a professional writer myself, I’d say that is indeed a great idea, but not advice that I’m ever able to follow myself.

There are distractions all around me. I have a phone on my desk because clients might call. There are emails popping up because they might be urgent. Then there’s the dog, the cats, family members, the garden, the sunshine, the internet … you get the idea.

The article points out that magazine writers seem to able to work anywhere. As I started out in an insanely hectic newsroom, perhaps that’s why I’m able to still get at least some writing done.

What do you think of the advice? Is a distraction free writing environment something you have achieved? Do you think it’s even possible?

A new writing site has been launched which looks like it could create innovative ways for writers to share ideas and feedback.

Scribophile is aimed mainly at authors, poets and so on. It’s bound to be of interest to anyone involved in creative writing.

It’s well designed and attractive to look at which isn’t always the case with writing sites, many of which look like throw-backs to the early days of the internet.

The people behind the site (one of whom is a regular reader of this site - hi Alex) intend Scribophile to become create a community of authors, who can help each other and provide support and appraisals of each other’s work.

As the site itself says:

Think of Scribophile as a writer’s workshop, but instead of being in a room with 20 or so other writers, you’re on the internet with millions of other writers, each of them eager to read your work and offer helpful critiques. We pride ourselves on our friendly and helpful community. You can meet other writers with similar interests and interact with thousands of other like-minded authors from around the world.

It’s very new so the community is just starting to build. It’s looks like a cracking idea well executed, so please support them and check out the site.

Brian Clark at Copyblogger has issued another of his headline challenges and I’m taking the bait. (I need the links…)

Last time I came up with “Ten things readers crave in bed” as part of the Cosmo headline challenge. This time Brian’s gone for metrosexual men’s magazines, a format I’m even less familiar with than Cosmo.

Undaunted, however, I’ve decided to modify the “It’s time to break up with your boss” headline, and turn our attention to software for writers. So, with no further ado…

It’s time to break up with your word processor

Do you use a normal word processor for writing? Do you even (gulp) … use Microsoft Word?

Now, I have Word on my Mac. I use it all the time, because my copywriting clients all have Word too, and they like to use functions such as track changes. They tend to work in corporations and have little choice over the software they use. So, Word it is.

But I wouldn’t use Word, or any other standard word processor, for blogging or creative writing, script writing or even jotting down notes and thoughts.

(I don’t actually think it would be physically possible to write poetry in Word. Somehow I think it would be like matter and anti-matter colliding and the universe would implode. Please don’t try it).

There are, however, lots of great alternatives out there. Unfortunately for you, my knowledge of them is limited to what’s available for the Mac. There are some PC offerings in here too though, just to keep you all reading… Continue reading →

Imagine you’re walking down the street and someone comes up, hypnotises you, and takes all your money. You wouldn’t want that to happen, right? So why do you let people get away with it on the internet?

Hypnotic copywriting is a tried and trusted method of getting people to buy things. I see it all over the internet. Is it evil or immoral? No, I don’t think it is. Is it mind control? No. People can’t use these techniques to make you do something against your will.

But they can persuade you to buy things.

I don’t have an issue with this, and I don’t think there’s a hard delineation between hypnotic writing and non-hypnotic writing. It’s kind of a grey-goo area.

You could even argue that all great writing is, in a sense at least, hypnotic. Being lost in the world of a novel is a type of hypnotic experience, for example.

But when people use hypnotic techniques as part of a direct sales system, I like to be aware of it. If I know what the writer is doing, I can choose to go along with it (if I want to immerse myself in that novel), or choose to hold back - if I don’t really want to pay $97 for that e-book.

So, here are some of the tell-tale signs that someone is using hypnotic writing techniques to persuade to buy or do something: Continue reading →

Those of you who work in journalism, or intend to, or who even simply read newspapers might be interested in a damning critique of the press over at Rogue Columnist.

It’s been a while since I worked in newspapers in-house myself. And then was in the UK, not in the USA, But I have to say, it all rang true to me:

“Significantly, investment in the unique intellectual capital of newspapers – journalism – was constantly reduced. Newsrooms lost much of their top talent. Marketing, more important than ever in business, was never a newspaper strength, and was cut to the bone. Research and development received little more than lip service, or was another tool to hand down demands for shorter, dumber, fluffier stories.”

It’s very serious piece about the dumbing down of the newspaper industry, the undermining of serious journalism, and the effects this is having on American society.

However, you know how it is when you read something that hits the spot because it’s just so true, because it hits the nail on the head. You have to laugh:

“The biggest problem, of course, had nothing to do with the newsrooms. It was the collapse of an unsustainable business model. Simply put, the model involved sending miniskirted saleswomen out to sell ads at confiscatory rates to lecherous old car dealers and appliance-store owners.”

Yes, that’s exactly what was going on at several of the newspapers I worked on. That was their business model.

But now that Google has virtually taken over the world of advertising, I’m not convinced the majority of newspapers, especially local ones, can survive much longer.

And you know what? I don’t think I even care. Newspapers have dumbed down so much most of them have become pointless anyway. If there’s a need for serious journalism, I think the internet will have to meet that need, somehow. How that will happen, I’m not sure.

But I know for my part I don’t read newspapers anymore. I don’t have time. If I want topical, there’s the internet. If I want something more thoughtful or enduring, then I have piles of books to read.

What do you think? Have newspapers got much of a future? And do you even care?

If you’re interested in the subject of satirical online writing, I’d like to point you in the direction of my favourite site, which unfortunately appears to be going out of business. Continue reading →