Writing | Professional Blog Service

Five Things Newspapers Can Teach Us About Blogging

Monday, March 1st, 2010

If you’re not getting readers to your blog, it may not be your social media promotion, it may be because your blog sucks.

(Okay, it doesn’t really suck. I was just saying that to get your attention. You’ll see why in a minute.)

I recently spoke to the Hoosier PRSA chapter of the Public Relations Society of America about the secrets of blogging, and realized I had never actually written about the subject of the presentation.

Blogs are a lot like newspapers. In fact, a good blog is written more like a newspaper than a magazine. And since bloggers are becoming citizen journalists, I think it’s important that bloggers learn to write like newspaper writers. Here are a few ways you can improve your blog writing and have it read more like a newspaper article.

Write in Newspaper Style.

This means the most important information goes first, second most important goes next, and so on. It’s the inverted pyramid style. After a certain point, usually around the halfway mark, you start seeing more of the inside information, background story, etc., and the story gets boring.

Newspapers are written this way, because readers usually abandon a story when it gets boring. They also abandon it because it’s too long.

So with a blog post, you need to end the post before you get to the boring part. When you start writing background information, or repeating old information, stop. Don’t write a post that’s long enough for people to get bored. Instead, put a “To learn more about this issue, check out these previous posts” section with links to older stories.

Short words. Short sentences. Short paragraphs.

Despite what my 7th grade English teacher said, it’s perfectly all right to have a one word paragraph.

Nyah.

By breaking things up, and making them easier to read, we’re more likely to continue on. We glance ahead and see all the short paragraphs and think, “that’s not so hard. I can go a little longer.” Pretty soon, “a little longer” turns into “the entire story.”

Negative Space = Readability

One of the reasons newspapers are tough to read is the lack of negative space (that’s fancy graphic designer talk for “spaces between paragraphs”). All the paragraphs are crammed together, which can make for some tiring reading.

Our eyes and our brains need a break from all the text running together, so we look for that break by switching to other stories, abandoning the one we were just reading. But if you can provide some extra relief in the story, that will help propel readers forward.

Create a Powerful Lede

I got your attention when I said your blog sucked, didn’t I? Not every blog post has to have a Pulitzer-quality opening, but it doesn’t hurt to have something that’s attention getting and informative.

Remember, a newspaper article’s job is to get you to read the first sentence. The first sentence’s job is to get you to read the second sentence, and so on. So your lede better be a doozy.

(By the way, the opening sentence of a newspaper is spelled “lede,” not “lead.” Lead is the soft metal used to create the individual letters used to lay out the newspaper. Since “ledd” and “leed” are spelled the same, journos started calling the opening sentence the “lede” to avoid confusion, forcing future generations to explain that we’re not idiots, and we do know how to correctly spell that word.)

Write For a Clever 12-Year-Old

It’s a newspaper’s dirty little secret that they write for a 6th grade education and attention span. (Don’t feel too insulted; TV news is produced at a 4th grade level.) That’s why the important stuff is at the front of the story. Bloggers need to do that too.

It’s not that your readers are stupid, or can’t understand big words. It’s that we just don’t want to devote the mental resources and energy to decoding really long and complicated words. Even academic journals written by and for Ph.Ds in an academic field are considered “better” if they’re written at a high school level instead of a post-graduate level.

So skip the polysyllabic words and use short ones instead.

It’s also important that you explain new terms. Assume that your story is going to be read by someone who is experiencing this issue for the very first time. Don’t assume knowledge on their part, don’t assume they know as much about the story as you do. So be sure to explain it like you’re telling that 12-year-old for the first time. Don’t use jargon, acronyms, and abbreviations unless you explain them.

For example, newspaper style requires you spell out what a term means, followed by the acronym/abbreviation in parentheses. That tells the reader you’re going to use it from then on in the story.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) today announced a new measure banning texting by truck drivers.

Afterward, I can use FMCSA in the story wherever I want. However, when I do a new story, I have to assume a new set of readers, so I have to spell it out again.

Writing a blog can be easy, especially if you’re doing it informally, and for just a few people. But writing it newspaper style takes a little more effort, but the payoff can be worth it. You’ll get more readers, your readers will stick around longer, and you’ll earn a reputation of being a stellar writer.

Just remember to tell them where you learned it.

Photo credit (inverted pyramid at the Louvre): KeepTheByte, Flickr
Photo credit (lead type): JM3, Flickr

About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging for more than nine years (even before it was called blogging), and has been a published writer for more than 20 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, stage plays, radio theatre plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

Tags: blogging, journalism, newspapers, writing
Posted in All Posts, Business Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Communication, Social Media, Writing | 2 Comments »

Why You Should Put One Space After a Period, not Two

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

This post was originally published on March 5, 2009 at DeckersMarketing.com, which has been retired.

I raised a bit of a Twitter ruckus this morning, when I posted the following tweet:

# Attention Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer: Here in the 21st century, we put 1 space after a period, not 2. That’s a typewriter thing.

It was just a random thought. Nothing sparked it, nothing set it off. I just like to post little pithy commenth every tho often.

I started getting replies from people I had never met, so I ran over to Twitterfall to see what was going on. Apparently, my little off-the-cuff random comment was sparking some serious conversation in Oregon, Texas, Massachusetts, and even England and Australia.

Oopsie. People really like their two spaces after a period. That’s fine. It’s not wrong to do it, it’s just not necessary.

The rule came from our old typing classes, where we were told to use two spaces after a period. Younger people (i.e. punks and whippersnappers who never had to use a real typewriter) learned the two space rule from people who. . . learned to type on typewriters. (I learned from Mr. Carey, Typing 1 teacher, Muncie Central H.S., in 1983.)

According to Wikipedia, this double-spacing is sometimes called English spacing, although since the mid-1990s, it’s been called French spacing. (Insert your own joke about the French, cheese, and surrendering here.)

The reason for the two spaces is because typewriters use a fixed width font. That is, all letters were the same fixed width. The letters ‘i’ and ‘l’ take up the same space as the letter ‘m.’ To set the sentences apart from each other and make them easier to read, we used two spaces. This practice actually hearkens back to the typesetting days, when typesetters had to hand place each character and punctuation mark. They just stuck in a double space and the habit carried forward.

But unless you use Courier on your computer, today’s software programs use a variable width font like Arial and Times New Roman, which means the letter ‘i’ and ‘l’ take up a minimum amount of space, while the ‘m’ uses more. In fact, an ‘l’ is almost one-third the size of an ‘m.’ Take a look:

m
lll

In addition to this, the computer jams the period in tight against the last letter in a sentence, which creates a little extra space on the other side. If you could measure it, it would be microns of a difference, but the space looks bigger because of how the period is placed against that last letter.

The world is ignoring that second space

If you create websites, you’ll find that html will ignore any space after the first space. (And I know, I know, there’s a whole other controversy about whether it’s website, web site, or even Web site. That’s for a different post.)

Plus, there are some cases, like using Twitter or other micro-blogging services, when every character counts, you don’t want to waste a character on an extra space.

The net result of this variable width is that sentences are easier to read, which means the extra space is not necessary. Again, not wrong, just not necessary. (Okay, maybe a little wrong.)

This issue is not without its passionate controversy.

There were plenty of Twitterers who said I could have their extra space when I pried it from their cold, dead fingers. They learned to type on a typewriter, and are trying to break 30 – 40+ years of habit (it took me two weeks to quit doing it, and I had only been typing for 15 years at the time).

On the other hand, Luke Maciak at Terminally Incoherent said clients would count spaces in Word documents and send them back for revision if he didn’t use two spaces. Needless to say, he hated these clients.

So who’s wrong, and who’s right? Nobody, although I’m claiming moral superiority in this matter. I salute the traditionalists who want to stick with two spaces after a period. I love tradition and doing things old school (I still listen to radio theater). But I also see the need for ease of use, and eliminating extra keystrokes. And really, that’s what it’s all about.

(I’d be interested to see if someone has ever figure out what the saved spaces translates into for saved disk space.)

So what about you? Are you a single spacer or a double spacer? Why? If you’re a double, would you ever consider switching to single? Why not?

———-
A little more about it from the Chicago Manual of Style:

The view at CMOS is that there is no reason for two spaces after a period in published work. Some people, however—my colleagues included—prefer it, relegating this preference to their personal correspondence and notes. I’ve noticed in old American books printed in the few decades before and after the turn of the last century (ca. 1870–1930 at least) that there seemed to be a trend in publishing to use extra space (sometimes quite a bit of it) after periods. And many people were taught to use that extra space in typing class (I was). But introducing two spaces after the period causes problems: (1) it is inefficient, requiring an extra keystroke for every sentence; (2) even if a program is set to automatically put an extra space after a period, such automation is never foolproof; (3) there is no proof that an extra space actually improves readability—as your comment suggests, it’s probably just a matter of familiarity (Who knows? perhaps it’s actually more efficient to read with less regard for sentences as individual units of thought—many centuries ago, for example in ancient Greece, there were no spaces even between words, and no punctuation); (4) two spaces are harder to control for than one in electronic documents (I find that the earmark of a document that imposes a two-space rule is a smattering of instances of both three spaces and one space after a period, and two spaces in the middle of sentences); and (5) two spaces can cause problems with line breaks in certain programs.

Tags: punctuation, typing, writing
Posted in Twitter, Writing | 9 Comments »

What Tom Waits Can Teach You About Powerful Writing

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Tom Waits isn’t just a musician, he’s a lifestyle choice. The growly-voiced singer-songwriter has created some of the most powerful, haunting music I’ve ever poured into my ears. Waits does it with simple, sad music, but more importantly, with a mastery of poetic language that would make Lord Byron pull his hair out with envy.

Especially the metaphor. Waits’ music is filled with metaphors, which gives it the emotional impact and depth you just don’t get with the Single Ladies and Poker Faces of the world. (Most of today’s music has all the emotional complexity of a high school prom, but Waits is an in-depth, all-night discussion about the meaning of life.)

A couple months ago, I wrote about why metaphors make for more powerful writing than similes. I said:

I don’t like similes. They’re weak. They’re the pencil-necked milksop of literary devices. They say things are similar, but not quite that item. Life is like a box of chocolates, but not really.

Take a look at (this) example: “Men’s words are bullets.” That’s a powerful phrase. It doesn’t say they’re like bullets, that they remind people of bullets, or “words can hurt people sort of like bullets can hurt people.” That’s just smarmy, wishy-washy pap.

“Men’s words are bullets,” on the other hand, makes you feel the the emotional damage that can be done by words, feeling the piercing, crashing power of a bullet fired from a large gun.

I’ve been listening to Waits’ Nighthawks at the Diner album a lot lately. It’s my favorite Waits album, and carries my favorite Waits song, Putnam County.

Any writer who wants to learn about the power and grip of language should give this a listen, and pay careful attention to Waits’ use of language. A quick check showed only one simile in the entire piece, and the rest were metaphors.

If you want to master writing and create language that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shakes you to pay attention, study these lyrics, listen to the song, and see if you can introduce this style into your own writing.

Putnam County, Tom Waits

I guess things were always kinda quiet around Putnam County
Kinda shy and sleepy as it clung to the skirts of the 2-lane
That was stretched out just like an asphalt dance floor
Where all the old-timers in bib jeans and store bought boots
Were hunkerin’ down in the dirt
To lie about their lives and the places that they’d been

And they’d suck on Coca Colas, yeah, and be spittin’ Day’s Work
Until the moon was a stray dog on the ridge and
And the taverns would be swollen until the naked eye of 2 a.m.
And the Stratocasters slung over the Burgermeister beer guts

And swizzle stick legs jackknifed over naugahyde stools
And the witch hazel spread out over the linoleum floors
And pedal pushers stretched out over a midriff bulge
And the coiffed brunette curls over Maybelline eyes
Wearing Prince Machiavelli, or something
Estee Lauder, smells so sweet

And I elbowed up at the counter with mixed feelings over mixed drinks
As Bubba and the Roadmasters moaned in pool hall concentration
And knit their brows to cover the entire Hank Williams songbook
Whether you like it or not

And the old National register was singin’ to the tune of $57.57
And then it’s last call, one more game of eightball
Berniece’d be puttin’ the chairs on the tables
And someone come in and say, ‘Hey man, anyone got any jumper cables?’
‘Is that a 6 or a 12 volt, man? I don’t know…’

Yeah, and all the studs in town would toss ‘em down
And claim to fame as they stomped their feet
Yeah, boastin’ about bein’ able to get more ass than a toilet seat

And the GMCs) and the Straight-8 Fords were coughin’ and wheezin’
And they percolated) as they tossed the gravel underneath the fenders
To weave home a wet slick anaconda of a 2-lane

With tire irons and crowbars a-rattlin’
With a tool box and a pony saddle
You’re grindin’ gears and you’re shiftin’ into first
Yeah, and that goddam Tranny’s just gettin’ worse, man

With the melody of see-ya-laters and screwdrivers on carburetors
Talkin’ shop about money to loan
And Palominos and strawberry roans

See ya tomorrow, hello to the Missus!
With money to borrow and goodnight kisses
As the radio spit out Charlie Rich, man,
and he sure can sing that son of a bitch

And you weave home, yeah, weavin’ home
Leavin’ the little joint winkin’ in the dark warm narcotic American night
Beneath a pin cushion sky
And it’s home to toast and honey, gotta start up the Ford, man

Yeah, and your lunch money’s right over there on the drainin’ board
And the toilet’s runnin’! Christ, shake the handle!
And the telephone’s ringin’, it’s Mrs. Randall
And where the hell are my goddamn sandals?
What you mean, the dog chewed up my left foot?

With the porcelain poodles and the glass swans
Staring down from the knickknack shelf
And the parent permission slips for the kids’ field trips
Yeah, and a pair of Muckalucks) scraping across the shag carpet

And the impending squint of first light
And it lurked behind a weepin’ marquee in downtown Putnam
Yeah, and it’d be pullin’ up any minute now
Just like a bastard amber Velveta yellow cab on a rainy corner
And be blowin’ its horn in every window in town

(Here’s a YouTube video of a different version of Putnam Conty than the one you’ll hear on Nighthawks at the Diner, but the lyrics are the same. Listen to it and read the lyrics again. You’ll get a sense of what Waits can do with language, and the power it can have to move people.

Tags: metaphors, similes, Tom Waits, writing
Posted in Business Blogging, Communication, Opinion, Writing | No Comments »

Want to Improve Your Writing? Be Intentional

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Years ago, I had a chance to hear one of the Philadelphia 76ers speak about how he became a professional ballplayer. Now, I couldn’t tell you who the guy was even if he walked up to me today. But one thing he said always stuck with me.

When he practiced shooting the ball, he was always intentional when he practiced. When he practiced his shooting, he didn’t screw around. He didn’t goof off, and he didn’t take shots he wouldn’t normally take. He wasn’t a sky-hook shooter, so he didn’t shoot Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s famous shot. He didn’t do backward shots or trick shots. In short, every practice shot he took was a real shot.

“I don’t shoot these shots in a game, so I don’t waste my time practicing them.”

It’s the same for writing: if you want to get good at it, you have to be intentional with it. (Actually, this is true for getting good at anything, but I’m a writer, so I’ll stick with what I know.)

My Moleskine at Hubbard &Cravens What does that mean? Writing is one of the most intentional activities we can do. It’s not like shooting trick shots in basketball, or going for a slow leisurely ride instead of a training ride on your bike. You’re either writing or you’re not, right?

Actually, no, you can even screw around when you’re writing. It’s in your attitude, rather than your subject matter. It’s reading when you should be writing (and no, “I’m doing research” doesn’t count). You can be just as intentional writing an email as you are a novel, or writing a comedy sketch as you are a marketing piece. It doesn’t matter where, when, or how you do it. Chris Brogan will write wherever he can find the time. And I carry my laptop and a Moleskine wherever I go.

How do I write with intention?

When I’m writing, I always have three questions in the back of my mind.

Is that the best word I can use? Is this conveying the right impact, drama, or humor? Dave Barry would take hours to write a single humor column, sometimes struggling with choosing which word carried the best impact for a joke. I’ll sometimes hit Thesaurus.com to find a good word.
Did I set this up for the best possible impact? In humor, setup is crucial for a joke to be funny. You can have the best punchline in the world, but if you tank the setup, the whole joke fails. It’s true for every other kind of writing too. This blog post, a marketing brochure, a speech, anything. If you want to have impact, you have to set the reader up for it.
How can I make this better? I edit everything. Even my emails get edited before I send them out. But I’m not always looking for punctuation errors or typos. I’m looking to make sure I’m satisfied with everything I’ve written. It usually works best if I can leave something for a couple hours, overnight is even better, and a week is a rare luxury. I have even edited some of my humor blog posts six months after I published them.

Becoming a good writer doesn’t mean taking all kinds of classes, or writing in your very special notebook with your very special pen in your very favorite coffee shop (just don’t tell my wife that; I use it as an excuse to get out of the house sometimes). It’s a matter of focusing on the task at hand and casting an eye at how you can improve. Not just the piece you’re writing, but future work you’re going to do.

Do you suck at dialog? Work on improving the dialog for the next piece you write. Then use that new level of competency as your starting point for the next time, and try to improve from that. Frankly, I used to suck at dialog, so I worked on it for months and even years. Now, unfortunately, my narration and scene description are less-than-acceptable, and I have to really focus on those.

But by writing my narration with my three questions, I’ll be able to improve my descriptions, so I can spend less time writing and more time sitting on a beach, drinking little umbrella drinks, served by. . . some kind of. . . woman wearing a dress that she bought at one of those. . . dress selling places.

Dammit!

Tags: Communication, writing
Posted in Communication, Ghost Writing, Writing | 5 Comments »

5 Podcasts That Will Improve Your Writing

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

typewriter I’m a big podcast fan. In fact, I have nearly stopped listening to my radio completely, because I get most of my music online (I’m listening to WFPK 91.9 out of Louisville via iTunes as I’m writing this). And when I’m in the car, I listen to podcasts.

I have about 20 favorites that I listen to as I drive to and from the office, to appointments, or before I go to bed. I can catch all 20 within a week, and be ready for the next round when they come out. I’ve got podcasts about marketing, technology, science and archaeology, and even one on baseball history.

There are a few grammar and writing podcasts I listen to, which have provided some great lessons for improving my writing, answering a grammar question, or even correcting a grammar error (very rarely!). There are more than 70 different writing podcasts available on iTunes, but based on my past listening habits, and research, these are the best ones I found.

A Way With Words: This podcast is also a call-in show on public radio. It’s my favorite on this list because the hosts, Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette, take a simple, down-to-earth look at language and their love for words really shines through. They can give you the history of words and expressions, answer grammar questions, and even identify the regionalisms we all use and think everyone else already knows. You can follow them on Twitter at @wayword.

Grammar Girl: Grammar maven Mignon Fogarty, author of the NY Times best-selling Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, gives quick grammar lessons on a single topic with humor and an easy-to-understand explanation. I was listening to the “Lay vs. Lie” podcast this morning, a grammar trap that still trips me up even now. I like Fogarty’s thorough approach to grammar education, and the fact that she’s not just limited to doing a single podcast. She has really developed her brand and self-promotion, including a weekly newsletter, tips only found on her website, and a second whenever-she-feels-like podcast about whatever writing or literary topics she feels like. (Bonus: If you want to learn about how to do self-promotion well, watch her every move and copy it.) Grammar Girl is also on Twitter.

Grammar Grater: I have to admit a bit of snobbery here: I’m a fan and writer of audio theatre, so I’m not that swept away by the audio morality plays that open each episode. Having said that, I still think the Minnesota Public Radio group does some good work, and I have even learned to like some of their mini-plays. Grammar Grater is a nice folksy complement to Grammar Girl. In fact, the two podcasts will sometimes overlap in their topics (which sometimes makes me wonder if they’re in cahoots), which can lead to a very deep understanding of some of their grammar topics. I’ve learned things on this GG that I didn’t pick up in the other GG, and vice versa. So I make sure that these two are always in regular rotation on my iPod.

Writing Challenges: David Morley, director of the Warwick Writing Programme at Warwick University, England, gives listeners a series of creative fiction writing challenges. His latest episode, “Murdering Your Darlings,” discusses the importance of rewriting and reading your writing pieces out loud to make sure the writing isn’t flat. It may be geared toward fiction writers, but I know several nonfiction writers whose work is just as gripping as a good fiction piece. So if you want to improve your nonfiction writing, don’t forego fiction writing advice. Add this podcast to your regular playlist.

Writing Excuses: Another fiction writing podcast. Fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson, professional cartoonist Howard Tayler, and horror writer Daniel Wells talk about different writing techniques. I discovered this podcast researching this article, and I appreciated their fast-paced discussion of the technique. They do their podcasts in 15 minute bursts, “because you’re in a hurry, and we’re not that smart.”

Bonus: Other podcasts I listen to, which inspire my writing efforts, but aren’t writing-related: Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean (CBC Radio); Completely Burns, works of the Scottish poet Robert Burns in convenient podcast form (BBC Radio); The Moth, a storytelling podcast where the storytellers work completely without notes (podcast). I may preview these in another writing-oriented post.

My one complaint about some of the other 65 podcasts is that they only had a couple episodes (one podcast didn’t have any), while others haven’t been updated since 2008. There’s still some good advice to be had in those podcasts, just don’t get too attached to them.

Tags: grammar, iTunes, podcasts, writing
Posted in Communication, Writing | 3 Comments »

How Often Should You Post?

Monday, December 14th, 2009

This post was originally published on February 10, 2009 on the DeckersMarketing.com blog, which will soon be closed down.

Neal “Taffy” Taflinger, of Indy.com posted a blogging question on my Facebook page a few days ago:

Question for you, Mr. Blogger Man – is it better to blog frequently so people know there is something to read or only as often as you have something valuable to say?

By an incredible coincidence, my good friend Doug Karr wrote an article about the very same subject on his Compendium Blogware work blog.

Rather than saying it’s one or the other, I would say post frequently and make sure you have something valuable to say.

Business blogs should post at least once a day (once a weekday is fine, and skip the weekends). Personal blogs like Neal’s or my humor blog can be once a week. However, once a week is the bare minimum. But I wouldn’t sacrifice either or choose one over the other. You need valuable content, and you need to post it with some frequency. The more you post, the more the search engines will find you (and love you!). This makes it easier to be found in the search engines for your particular search terms.

More importantly, you need to post consistently. If you post once a week, post it on the same day. If you post it daily, post it at the same time.

Plus, if you post regularly, your readers will know when and how to find you, and your readership will build more quickly and reliably than if you were to post every 7 – 15 days, without rhyme or reason, or any regular schedule.

Bottom line is this isn’t an either/or answer. There are those who say you can sacrifice quality for quantity, but since Neal’s blog is based on readership more than it is search engines, he should focus on quality, and don’t forget the quantity.

Tags: blog, blog writing, blogging, writing
Posted in Business Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Communication, Writing | No Comments »

9 Books That Will Improve Your Writing

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Demian Farnworth over at CopyBlogger came up with a list of the 10 Books That Will Transform Your Writing. Ten books, that if you read them, will help your writing improve just by reading some examples of what is good, and then modeling them

A few of Farnworth’s 10 transforming books:

King James Bible
Barbarians at the Gate – Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
Complete Odes and Epodes of Horace
Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell

While I’ve only read a couple of Farnworth’s recommendations, I have a few recommendations of my own. These are my own favorite books and the ones I read more than once just to get an idea of how I want my writing to look.

On Writing – Stephen King. I’m not a big fan of writing books and try to avoid them whenever possible. But more than a few writing friends recommended this one. Stephen King talks more about the desires and itch to write, and how he pursued his love of writing, even when he was first starting out. His story is inspiring and makes believe I can be successful.

Fool – Christopher Moore. Really, any Christopher Moore book will do. The guy is a comic genius and knows how to write humor that catches you off-guard and makes you laugh out loud. Moore writes off-the-wall, exaggerated characters who seem so natural in their setting, and their descriptions and his jokes seem so effortless. He doesn’t crowbar anything into his stories, they just flow.

My Beautiful Idol – Pete Gall. Pete is a writer here in Indianapolis, and has such tight writing that, after I read the first chapter, I started working to tighten up my own writing. I typically don’t notice the quality of writing unless it leaps out at me, good or bad. I’m more carried away by the story. But Pete’s writing just grabbed my attention, and made me pay attention to the quality of the words.

My Other Life – Paul Theroux. I read this novella in an issue of Granta, and became a fan of Theroux. I’m not a big fan of creative writing and the emotional angst anyone with an MFA feels compelled to flog, but Theroux is one of the few I actually enjoy. He’s got a mastery of the language that I wish I could reach.

Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut. Indianapolis’ son is a world-famous wordsmith whose mastery of the language shines through, even when he’s writing some of the weirdest stuff. While most of his novels are fairly weird, Breakfast of Champions turns the Weirdness amp up to 11 . But even in this opus of oddity, the brilliance of his writing is obvious.

Leaves of Grass – Walt Whitman. The Romantic poet sure knew how to turn a phrase. He and a few other of the Romantic poets are great inspiration when you want to capture the flavor of language, and tap into its rhythm and energy, read someone like Whitman, Burns, or Lord Byron to get the creative juices flowing.

Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain. I worked in a restaurant for a few months when I first moved here to Indianapolis, and while I didn’t spend much time in the kitchen, I can tell you it’s hot, sweaty, unpleasant work. But Bourdain is able to make it sound glamorous, cool, and even enjoyable. If he can make kitchen grunt work sound fun and exciting, what can you do with your blog with his influence?

The Naming of the Dead – Ian Rankin. You can actually pick any Inspector Rebus novel by this Scottish writer to get a look at what good dialog looks (he’s written 20 Rebus novels alone; he’s written 12 others) like. The dialog is tight, believable, and sounds like real people. I figure Rankin knows what he’s doing, because according to literary legend, Rankin lives on the same street as J.K. Rowling, who lives in a damn castle. If he made enough money to be her neighbor, he must be doing something right.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson. The man’s crazed drug and alcohol addictions notwithstanding, HST was a brilliant writer in his early days. His writing suffered as he slipped deeper into his addictions, but his earlier stuff was brilliant. It packed all the punch of a Chuck Norris movie, and was as tight as a drum. That’s because Hunter would write a series of ledes (newspaper talk for “lead,” or the opening sentence of a story), and string them together. Rather than having only one punchy attention-grabbing sentence, he had a dozen of them. If you want to add power to your writing, get the early Thompson works. (Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail is another recommended read.)

Other writers I could have included, but didn’t for any reason: Douglas Adams, Dave Barry, Dick Francis,

Tags: Copyblogger, quality, transformation, writing
Posted in All Posts, Business Blogging Content, Communication, Networking, Writing | 1 Comment »

Want to Make Your Writing More Vivid? Use Metaphors

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

If you want to add some life to your writing, to give it breath and a heartbeat, use metaphors. They’re the lifeblood of any vibrant, vivid writing, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction.

I’ve been using metaphors in my writing with great success over the last several years. It marks a significant improvement in the quality of my writing, and I’ve garnered more and better opportunities. Whether there’s a connection between the two, I don’t know.

I’m a big fan of metaphors, and I like them better than similes. From the Greek, metaphora means to transfer or to carry over. It basically carries a comparison from one idea or item to another.

There is one difference between metaphors and similes: similes use the words like or as in them, metaphors do not.

Similes

Life is like a box of chocolates. (Forrest Gump
There was a great shout like the roaring of an airplane.
Similes are like metaphors, but only weaker.

Metaphors

All the world’s a stage. (Shakespeare)
Strength and dignity are her clothing. And she smiles at the future. (Proverbs 31:25)
“Men’s words are bullets, that their enemies take up and make use of against them.” (George Savile, Maxims of State)

I don’t like similes. They’re weak. They’re the pencil-necked milksop of literary devices. They say things are similar, but not quite that item. Life is like a box of chocolates, but not really.

Take a look at the last metaphor example: “Men’s words are bullets.” That’s a powerful phrase. It doesn’t say they’re like bullets, that they remind people of bullets, or “words can hurt people sort of like bullets can hurt people.” That’s just smarmy, wishy-washy pap.

“Men’s words are bullets,” on the other hand, makes you feel the the emotional damage that can be done by words, feeling the piercing, crashing power of a bullet fired from a large gun.

If you want to make your writing more powerful and add more life to your words, sprinkle some metaphors into your articles and watch what they’ll do for you.

Tags: Communication, metaphors, writing
Posted in Business Blogging Content, Communication, Writing | 3 Comments »

The Best Way to Get and Keep More Readers

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

When I was in graduate school, I noticed that most of my fellow grad students, and our professors, loved to use big words and long sentences.

They tried to use the most complex words and sentences as possible in their scholarly works. Paragraphs were measured in linear feet, not number of words. And it was not unheard of to spend 12 – 15 hours writing a simple 10 page paper.

Not me, of course. I had cut my writing teeth at my college newspaper, so I wrote like a journalist: short words, short sentences, short paragraphs. (Something that would send my 7th grade English teacher screaming from the room.)

I constantly got easy A’s on my papers, while the other students were getting B’s and hard-won A’s, and spending a lot more time on their work than I did.

It never occurred to anyone in the department that it was how I wrote that made the difference, not the quality of my ideas or the way I expressed them. I didn’t even stumble on this little revelation myself until many years later.

What I learned was, if you want to be read, write simply. Don’t be flowery or use $50 words. Write at an 8th grade reading level, or possibly even a 6th. That’s where most newspapers are written these days. TV news copy is written at the 4th grade level.

The American Marketing Association even backs me up on this.

In January 2008, authors G. Alan Sawyer, Juliano Laran, & Jun Xu published the study, The Readability of Marketing Journals: Are Award-Winning Articles Better Written?

In a word, yes.

Basically, they wanted to see if award-winning journal articles were written more simply than the non-winners (we call them “losers” outside the academic walls). They ran the text through Microsoft Word’s Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level grader, and did a whole bunch of complicated stuff with statistics that I won’t even pretend to understand.

The Reading Level score corresponds to the grade of education of the reader it would take to understand it. If your score is 8.4, it’s suitable for an 8th grader. A 14.6 is suitable for a college sophomore. A score of 21 or higher is suitable for Stephen Hawking, although he may find it a little pedestrian.

Here’s what they found:

Of the 15 articles with the best readability scores, 13 of them were award winners. They had scores from 12.3 to 14.4. Of the 11 ~~worst~~ least readable articles, 9 of them were “non-winners,” and carried scores from 18.3 to 21.3.

(Their own article has a 13.98 Flesch-Kincaid score. This post has a 6.7. I guess I win.)

So why is a lower reading score so important? Are we getting dumber? Do we all have the attention span of a bunch of hyperactive 12-year-olds?

No, the reason is our mental bandwidth. Let’s face it, we’re all busy, harried, and are running eight things through our brains at once. And that’s on a good day. When we’re confronted with a piece of text, we want it to be as simple as possible.

Simple doesn’t mean we’re stupid, or that our brains are shutting down. It means we don’t have to devote as much time and energy to it. We can process the text easily, absorb the information, and move on. We can absolutely read something that’s long and complex. We’re all smart people, and we can certainly read something written at a 12th grade reading level. It’s just that people sometimes need the break from the long and complex. Simple writing gives that to them, and as a result, is more readily accepted.

Basically, if you want to win readers, stick with the writing style the newspapers use. Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs. Most important information goes up front, least important goes last. Avoid needless words.

Otherwise, your readers will eventually get bored and go elsewhere.

(Note: If you’re a Mac user, and don’t have access to Word’s Flesch-Kincaid grader, you can download Flesh, the document readability calculator. I used it to grade this post.)

Photo: Peyri

Tags: academia, blog writing, copywriting, graduate school, writing
Posted in Business Blogging Content, Communication, Writing | 1 Comment »

Five Quick and Easy Blog Writing Techniques

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Yesterday, I gave a talk about Blogging Basics for Job Seekers to our local Business & Professional Exchange organization, a networking group for people who are looking for new employment.

I tried to explain blog writing as simply as possible, but as I was talking, I realized there’s more than one way to skin that cat, so I thought I would assemble a few of my favorite blog writing techniques here. Use any of them when you’re stuck, not so much for what to write about, but how to write it.

Dear Mom: The nice thing about blogging is that it doesn’t have to be hard. It’s as easy as writing an email. And the important thing about blogging is that you make the subject matter as simple and easy as possible. “Easy enough so that your mother can understand it,” I tell people. So start your blog post like this: “Dear Mom, Let me tell you about this cool thing I learned today,” and then tell her about it. When you’re done, delete the salutation and opening line, and you’ve got your blog post.
What Can [Insert Movie/Song/Sport/Esoteric Trivia] Teach Us About [Industry/Job/Social Movement]: I very nearly wrote a post about “What Ultimate Frisbee Can Teach Us About Blogging” once (I was an avid Ultimate Frisbee player many years ago), but then I decided I hated those kinds of posts. Still, they’re very successful, and they do serve a purpose. They force you to do some lateral thinking, and find weird connections between your chosen song/sport/etc. and your subject matter. It also gives you a framework to start building the post, which makes the writing much easier.
Use the News: This one is especially important if you’re writing about your chosen industry or field. Find news articles in other blogs, trade journals, or even the mainstream news, and write a news-opinion piece about it. Talk about the basic details of the story, and then offer your opinion on how this will affect your industry, for good or bad. Spend about half your post summarizing the story (don’t forget to cite the article and link to it), and then the other half putting forth your own ideas.
Once Upon a Time: People love stories. We’ve been passing knowledge through stories since before we had a written alphabet. Storytelling is in our DNA. So rather than just put forth an idea in the most general, vague terms, tell a story about how you saw it used. Tell a true story, or make one up, as sort of a modern-day parable. If you need to, tell your story to someone out loud before you commit it to paper. You’ll find a story flows much more easily than just reciting dry facts and banging out 30,000 foot overviews.
Lists: Create a list of ideas or techniques, and give it a descriptive and persuasive title. People love lists, and they’re easily drawn to them. (Hey, it got you to read this far, didn’t it?) Plus it makes writing much easier. Rather than coming up with one really long idea, you can instead create five simple ones. A list will keep you focused and let you lightly touch on the different ideas you want to cover. Then you can expand each of them for later posts.

When you’re trying these techniques, don’t let them turn you into a word factory. Try to stick with the mantra, “one idea, one post, one day.” If you find your posts are getting too long, split them up into two different ideas, or make your post a two-parter.

Photo: plindberg

Tags: blog writing, business blogging, writing
Posted in All Posts, Business Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Communication, Writing | 4 Comments »

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Want to Make Your Writing More Vivid? Use Metaphors

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