Write This Way: Top Writing and Editing Links for October 6, 2009 October 6, 2009
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: e-books, editing links, journal writing, nonfiction storytelling, publishing, social networking, story coaching, storytelling, top writing blogs, write this way, writing links
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International Association for Journal Writing
A tip of the blog to Eric Maisel’s Sunday newsletter for bringing this link my way. The IAJW is a coalition of journaling experts (therapists, writing teachers and others) and those who have been helped by the practice. The association says on its home page that it aims to help members “juice up (their) journaling” and it provides plenty of tips for doing just that. The site offers help for budding journalers, articles related to specific journal writing issues, and merchandise to help get the most out of journal writing, including e-books, classes and journaling software.
The association charges $49/year for membership, but also offers quite a bit of “sample” information for free. If you teach journal writing, or take the practice seriously as a writing-related discipline or a healing/self-discovery tool, this site may be worth checking out.
Top 10 Blogs for Writers – The 2009/2010 Winners
Michael Stelzner of Writing White Papers has once again tallied the best writing blogs and announces the winners. This year, there were 27 finalists. Winners included blogs that I regularly link to and admire, including Editor Unleashed, Write to Done, Urban Muse and Quips & Tips for Successful Writers, plus a few blogs new to me, such as Michelle Rafter’s WordCount and Fuel Your Writing.
The lists of winners and finalists form a great blueprint for setting up an RSS aggregator that provides a quick, enjoyable education in writing’s craft and business sides. For writing bloggers such as myself, it also provides a wonderful cadre of aspirational peers to admire and emulate.
Three Hot Books You Can’t Download
FastCompany.com reports on why three new books by the late authors Vladimir Nabokov, Frida Kahlo, and Ted Kennedy won’t be coming out on Kindle or another e-book format. It’s not (necessarily) because all 3 authors have gone to that great writing garret in the sky; and it’s not (necessarily) because of the subject matter, or printing requirements of the books, although those do factor into the decision to hold off on e-publishing in at least two of the three books. (Kahlo’s book is image-rich, of course, and Kindle doesn’t currently reproduce color imagery; and Nabokov’s unfinished work “The Original of Laura” was originally written on index cards and never organized by the author during his lifetime, so the printed version allows the reader to punch out the pages and rearrange them and he or she wishes.)
No, there’s no common theme that unites this paper-bound trio of books, but it does illustrate that despite the sharp rise in the popularity and profitability of e-books, and Jeff Bezos’ aggressive vision “to have every book ever printed, in any language, all available in under 60 seconds on Kindle,” not every book is appropriate for digital distribution, and that it’s still important to consider the individual title and its requirements before determining whether to go the e-book route.
A brief, powerful post from social media expert Chris Brogan’s blog. He quickly demonstrates why “the very best content is that which leaves us feeling like the hero.”
He elaborates on the hero-making theme, saying,
“Think about the movies you love. Think about the songs you replay over and over. Think about the books you read. When we participate in stories, the ones that move us the most are those where we see a bit of ourselves in the storyline, right?”
His tips for achieving this goal are as relevant for corporate deliverables as independent projects. They include:
- Let them feel smart and included by letting them be introduced as “part of the group” or “in the know.”
- Give them a solid map. The only time readers shouldn’t know where they’re going, Brogan says, is if they’re reading a mystery, or a Chuck Palahniuk novel.
- Reward readers of longer pieces with checklists, summaries, etc., anything that validates that they’ve reached a certain level and are ready for your next step.
- Respect their time by being as brief as possible.
- Write about them, not you. Or, if you have to write about you (memoirs or biographies come to mind), give them something they can do to make meaning of what you’ve shared.
Overall, this is a great post, which can be consumed and digested in the time it takes to read it on your coffee break.
Bonus Links!!
She Writes is a social networking community for female writers of all levels and genres. It also welcomes men to its community.
The Only 12 1/2 Writing Rules You’ll Ever Need
A great poster about writing from AllPosters.com.
Write This Way: Top Writing and Editing Links for September 7, 2009 September 7, 2009
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: editing, editing links, leads, microblogging, new media, online publications, openers, rich media, story coaching, story structure, twitter, writing, writing links, writing prompts
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How Citizen Journalists Can Learn from Work of ‘Citizen Scientists’
This post is an excellent piece on PBS’s Media Shift Idea Lab about the alliance between professional scientists and citizen or amateur scientists, and what journalists could learn from this.
Post author Dan Schultz notes that he was tuned into scientific community’s attitude towards the contributions of non-professionals by an article on Carnegie Mellon University’s website that documented efforts by Eric Paulos, an assistant professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, to equip “everyday mobile devices” with sensors used to collect reliable scientific data. The point of all this effort is to create “a new generation of ‘citizen scientists,’ connected both to the environment and each other.”
That story, combined with several other stories he read about recent astronomy discoveries being initially reported by amateur scientists, made him think about how journalists could learn from this friendly, if structured relationship between professional and non-professional scientists:
“All three types of scientists (professional, citizen, amateur) have beautifully compatible relationships.
“Professionals can safely focus on daunting tasks, knowing that amateurs are ready and willing to take on the smaller stuff (like keeping tabs on Jupiter). The community standards are clear and ultimately bound by cold hard observable fact, so amateurs can make meaningful contributions without diluting the knowledge base. Meanwhile, citizens are being empowered by professionals to help the scientific cause in a way that informs individuals and improves their lives.”
Shultz makes the following recommendations for journalists based on this.
- Professional journalists can take the lead by clearly defining expectations, explaining best practices, and implementing an accessible infrastructure.
- If amateur journalists do a good job of covering a smaller scope of topics or areas, then professionals can focus on the deeper, otherwise inaccessible issues.
- Professional journalists are responsible for creating and maintaining the citizen network if they want it to meet their standards. (Emphasis mine)
- Citizen networks need more than a host – they need to be explicitly empowered through tools and guidance.
- A symbiotic relationship between the professional, the amateur, and the crowd is not just possible, it’s socially optimal.
This article is the first one I’ve seen to turn the typically contentious and negative “real” journalist vs. blogger/citizen reporter debate on its head and posit citizen journalist work as a positive benefit to professional journalists. Definitely worth reading, considering, and discussing.
A great reminder on what the beginning of each story must do by veteran writing coach Jessica Page Morrell, guest posting on the Editor Unleashed blog.
Morrell reminds us that, “Story openings are like job interviews, and if the words on the page entertain, you get the job. If they don’t, somebody who writes better gets the job.” She asserts that the easiest way to have your story get “hired” by editors (whom she correctly defines as “highly discerning reader(s) … connoisseurs who love the written word”) is to make a promise consistent with the genre you’re writing in, and then keep that promise.
She takes readers through the various sorts of promises one might make in a memoir, in a science-fiction story, a romance, etc. These genre-specific tips also could apply to the tone of a nonfiction magazine article, and her general tips on matching the promise to the overall story should be taken to heart by nonfiction authors, who sometimes (in my experience as an editor) mistake a dramatic opening anecdote as a cure-all for a lack of feel for the true tone of the story they’re writing.
As Morrell says,
“An emotional opening prepares the reader for a heart-rattling journey, just as a philosophical opening promises a thoughtful exploration of themes, an action-packed opening promises a bronco-breaking ride, and a quiet beginning usually promises an intense exploration of characters’ lives.”
Amen. Her post is a great reminder of the pact we make with the reader when we ask them to listen to our story, and our responsibility as writers to live up to the promise we make to them.
Multimedia Magazine ‘FLYP’ Finds New Ways to Tell Stories Online
From Poynter Online’s E-Media Tidbits section. Author Vadim Lavrusik reports on FLYP magazine, a New York-based publication that uses an innovative palette of online tools and Web 2.0 user functionality to cover topics from politics and science to art and music.
FLYP augments traditional reporting and writing with animation, audio, video and interactive graphics. One of the major differences between FLYP and other magazines that have ramped up their digital/online versions is how the publication approaches news-gathering and production.
“(Editor-in-chief Jim) Gaines said the production process at FLYP is different from any of the ‘old media’ publications he has worked for. At many publications there is a pyramid structure; at FLYP the production process is flatly distributed across teams. Everyone gathers and each medium is considered for a particular story. At magazines, on the other hand, the text is the primary medium. Even for Web sites multimedia elements are often an afterthought.”
Another interesting point raised in the article is how FLYP is packaging rich media ads, which may help tease out the true profitability of using online ads as a mainstay of a publication’s business model. Currently, the publication is being privately funded by multi-millionaire Alfonso Romo, but Gaines would like to create a limited supply of “engaging” rich media ads which readers seek out, but which are not so commoditized that advertisers won’t pay top dollar for them.
For writers and editors keeping tabs on where online media is going, especially how content and revenue will interact in the “everything should be free” web era, this article is required reading.
Bonus Links!
A fun little blog on the Writer’s Digest site that offers writing prompts for readers 3 times a week. Readers can upload their written response to the prompt in the comments section of each post!
From Telegraph to Twitter: The Language of the Short Form
Roy Peter Clark gets into microblogging and writes about its historical roots on Poynter Online’s Writing Tools blog.
We temporarily interrupt this series… April 11, 2009
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: editing, story coaching, takin' a break, writing
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I hope you’re enjoying the story coaching series we’re doing on Write Livelihood. I’m definitely continuing it, but my day job and freelancing projects have been at full boil this month and I must give them my attention.
I’ll be sharing a variety of different types of blog posts between now and mid-May, when I expect things to lighten up. Thanks for your patience and please let me know if there are other topics you’d like to see covered in this blog that relate to non-fiction story-crafting.
Do-It-Yourself Story Coaching (II): Two essential keys to coaching March 16, 2009
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: coaching questions, coaching writers, do it yourself story coaching, editing, editors, nonfiction structure, questions, self-coaching, self-editing tips, story coaching, writers
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One of the main differences between “editing” a piece of writing and “coaching” a story is the attitude toward the process of revision. When you’re in a purely edit mode, revision is interventionist, something that’s done after the writing—the “real” work of creating. Approaching your work as a story coach calls for an attitude of collaboration between the part of you that’s writing the piece, and the part that will polish it.
To become a good self-coach, there are two skills that you will want to acquire or improve upon to get the most out of the process: learning to speak the language of structure and learning to frame (and ask!) useful coaching questions.
Becoming a story architect
It seems like common sense that a writer should be able to explain how he or she has built a story, but many very competent writers, even ones who have degrees in journalism or creative writing, struggle with this.
Writing a story that doesn’t fit the inverted-pyramid news style, and can’t be sliced into a series of tips or how-to points, requires a familiarity with the structure of narrative. Nonfiction writers have a number of sources they can tap to learn the lingo of fiction-like storytelling:
Coaching Writers by Roy Peter Clark and Don Fry devotes an entire chapter to building a structural vocabulary, explaining their take on terms such as “scene,” “characterization,” “cinematic reporting” and so forth.
Clark continues the structural education in Writing Tools, in which he devotes an entire section of the book to learning how to develop “blueprints” for your stories, with tips on how to use dialogue to advance the action, how to work from an outline or structural plan, etc.
The journalism program at the University of King’s College Halifax in Canada has a neat checklist page related to structure, which outlines a number of key elements to using narrative structure in nonfiction writing.
Why is learning structural language important if you’re self-coaching? Two reasons, really: one, if you do choose to discuss your work with another writer or an editor, you’ll be able to ask for feedback on the structure in a more precise way; and two, it will improve your understanding of how you build stories and allow you to rework stories in a way that preserves the integrity of the overall piece.
Questioning the answers
If I were to teach only one skill to would-be self-coaches, it would be the ability to frame relevant questions about their work. Questions outstrip criticism (even constructive criticism) in their power to improve a piece of writing because they draw the writer into the process of looking at their work from the outside, rather than placing them in the position of defending their choices (as often happens when our editor is in a “critic” mode).
There are three criteria for crafting coaching questions, whether aimed at one’s own writing or that of someone else.
- Coaching questions should be constructive. (e.g., “What other approaches did you consider for the lead?” not “Don’t you think leading with this quote is a little weak?”)
- Coaching questions should be aimed at generating insight. Again, the idea is to generate options and consider alternatives, not to spark a defensive battle about existing choices employed in the story. A good example of an insight-generating question might be, “What surprised you the most when you were researching this story?”
- Coaching questions should be forward looking. After answering a series of well-designed coaching questions, a writer should have some idea how to revise his or her work.
Chip Scanlan of the Poynter Institute has written a series of brief articles about framing excellent coaching questions. His “big 2,” applicable to just about every writing situation imaginable, are these:
- What works?
- What needs work?
His order on the big 2 list is also important. By starting with an inventory of your stories assets, it’s much easier to determine which of them you can use or retain as you work on the aspects of your story that aren’t quite there yet.
Putting the 2 Keys to Work
Once you’re able to sharpen your use of structural language when thinking or talking about your story and you are able to get in the habit of shaping useful coaching questions for yourself as you move through researching and writing your piece, it helps to have a framework from which to view the story-creation process itself. Just as learning the structure of story will make you a better writer, learning the structure of story-creation will make you a better self-coach and ultimately a better self-editor.
I’ve studied a number of models for coaching the writing process and developed a six-step model that I think covers the most important moments in the writing of any type of nonfiction piece, from a brief anecdote to a book-length manuscript. Next week, we’ll introduce this six-step coaching model, and discuss the first two parts of it—the assignment and the research phases—in depth.
Next Week: Self-coaching the assignment and story research phases
Do-It-Yourself Story Coaching: An Introduction February 27, 2009
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: coaching writers, DIY Story Coaching, Don Murray, editing, editor, editors, freelance writers, story coaching, writer, writers, writing, writing coaching
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Photo courtesy of SXC.
Writers and editors can sometimes be an unpredictable alliance. Specialists in each discipline need each other (although sometimes they don’t act like it), but at times it’s unclear which set of skills will best bring a non-fiction article to a satisfactory conclusion and eventual publication.
During the month of March, Write Livelihood will be exploring do-it-yourself story coaching, a new approach to self-editing. Story coaching is a way of editing that broadens the concept of revision well beyond proofreading and line-by-line revision, taking the whole of the piece into account, as well as a writer’s development over time.
Story coaching isn’t new. The legendary author, editor, teacher and writing coach Don Murray, who passed away in late 2006, was one of the first to suggest that an editor’s relationship to authors should be that of a coach, not primarily a grammar cop or an overseer. In a eulogy of Murray on Poynter.org, Roy Clark has this touching anecdote that summarizes Murray’s attitude:
“Some time in the early 1980s, my youngest daughter, Lauren, now 26, was a toddler, and I asked her, “Can you say ‘Don,’ Lauren? Say ‘Don.’ ” She looked up at the Santa Claus-like figure in our family room and said something like ‘Bobo.’ ‘That’s great,’ I said, giving her a little squeeze. ‘Good job, Lauren!’
“What followed was a mini-lesson from Murray on how to teach writing. It went something like this: ‘Too bad we don’t teach children to write the way we teach them to talk or walk. When a baby tries to take her first step and then falls down, we treat it like a national holiday. We surround the baby with support. We don’t say: No, no, no, before you can learn to walk, you need to develop the proper foot angle. Don’t try that again, you little brat, before you’ve mastered the basics.’”
Others who have added to the craft of story coaching are Clark himself (individually and in partnership with Don Fry), Jack Hart, and Jacqui Banaszynski. Banaszynski was my introduction to the discipline; her story-coaching seminar at a gathering of university editors helped me recognize the sort of editor I was all along, and fired me with new confidence that I had something to offer to my writers.
DIY Story Coaching
The only catch with the current state of story coaching is that if often relies on regular contact with an editor to make it work. For many writers, including freelancers or those just starting out, this contact is sporadic or absent. This month’s blog series will cover how to adapt many of the most useful tools in the story coaching “kit” to use with your own writing.
There are many rewards of self-coaching your way through your stories. For one thing, practicing story coaching on your own work makes you much more desirable as a writer to editors, as you will improve your ability to understand their approach to editing and how to collaborate with them successfully. Also, you will be able to peer edit the work of other writers with more clarity and specificity, which is always a useful communications skill to have (and a leg up if you ever want to become an editor yourself).
Next Week: The 2 Essential Keys to Story Coaching
How to Make the Editor Your Friend (III): Be Willing to Revise October 31, 2008
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: article revisions, copyediting, editing, editor, journalism, make the editor your friend, rewrites, self-editing, story coaching, writer
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Another area in which little things mean a lot in the writer-editor relationship concern story revisions, and the writer’s ability and willingness to revise a story once it’s been submitted to the editor.
When I say revision, I’m not talking comma patrol. As an editor, I expect to have to do a copyediting sweep to get the article to conform to Associated Press or house style expectations. However, if the writer is able to turn in copy free of typographical or common AP style errors, that shows me that he or she is aware of style issues and is trying to make my job easier, which is a plus.
But even when there’s been a good flow of information on the story’s progress back and forth between writer and editor (which often happens when the editor uses story coaching techniques), parts of an assignment may not hit the mark. The writer might explore a tangent that doesn’t bring out the general theme of the piece, he/she might raise questions with a source that they don’t answer later in the article (but sound deliciously relevant to the editor!), or it may be that one section is too long, while another, more important area has been overlooked in the quest to meet the word count for the assignment.
I often tell new writers to plan for one round of revisions in the article writing cycle. Eight or nine times out of ten, I don’t need a rewrite from them, but it avoids the ugly situation in which a writer might insist I should publish an article “as is” because they don’t have any more time to work on it (this has actually happened to me once or twice; those folks don’t write for me anymore).
My favorite way to communicate rewrites to writers is through a story edit memo, which provides my take on the story (what I got from the piece as a reader), identifies what I see as the story’s primary strengths (e.g., good use of description or quotes, excellent transitions) and summarizes what I see as the article’s main problems. I like to provide as specific feedback as I can, rather than expect the write to know what I mean by “tighten it up a bit” or “tell us more about the subject’s childhood.”
A couple of hints for making the revision phase go more smoothly:
- Clarify with your editor during the assigning phase how many rounds of edits are typical for the publication, if you haven’t worked for them before.
- Let your editor know early on if you’re having trouble structuring the piece in such a way that you can meet your word count without going over. (Or if, heaven forbid, you don’t have enough to fill out the length requirement.) He or she may have suggestions for what to expand or trim.
- If your editor doesn’t provide detailed feedback on a revision, by all means ask for specifics! If the editor says “write less about the businesses involved in this project,” ask how much less (number of words) and if there’s any part of that section he/she wants preserved.
- Don’t forget to ask what’s working about your initial draft. Getting the editor’s take on what he or she likes can make the decision-making while you are cutting or rewriting material easier.
Helpful links related to article revisions
How To Edit, Revise & Rewrite Your Articles, Essays Or Book Chapters
Tips On Revising Your Writing: How To Edit Your Article Or Manuscript Professionally
Rewrites and Revisions: They’re Nothing Personal
Working with Your Editor: Three Tips on Getting the Most out of the Editorial Process
This post is aimed at book writers, but some of the advice about responding to revision requests still holds.
The art of feedback June 29, 2008
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: editing, editor, feedback on writing, joni b. cole, magazine editing, magazine writing, story coaching, toxic feedback book, writer, writer-editor communication, writing
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I found a great book a few months back that addresses the ever-touchy subject of how to provide (and take) writing-related feedback. “Toxic Feedback” by Joni B. Cole is a great overview to the topic, and Joni’s quirky sense of humor softens the sharpest edge of her tales of feedback gone wrong.
One of the most important things to remember about feedback, she says, is
“You are the boss of your own story. Not the other writers in your critique group. Not the famous author whose workshop you were lucky enough to get into at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Not even your mother-in-law, who comes into your house while you are at work and vacuums the mattresses because someone has to protect her grandchildren from dust mites. When it comes to applying feedback, you–and only you–are the one who gets to determine what stays and what goes in your story. And that is a good thing.”
I like that she covers feedback about a wide variety of writing, from fiction and memoir to academic writing and creative non-fiction. She doesn’t presume the reader is coming from a writer’s workshop environment, or seeking feedback from his or her spouse, or waiting for a response from her agent, etc.
I often have to come at feedback from the other side of the table—as an editor, I give out far more feedback than I receive these days. And while I do believe the writer is the boss of the story, in magazine writing it’s a little more complicated than that.
For one thing, at my publication (which is an institutional magazine), I do most of the assigning and accept fewer over-the-transom or queried submissions than might be typical of other magazines. So writers start out adapting to my vision for the story, or (hopefully) collaborating with me in developing it as we go along.
I try to communicate with writers all through the research and writing process; a few have taken this as evidence that I don’t trust them to bring home the story, but most understand what I’m doing—preventing unnecessary surprise by soliciting information from them about how the story development process is going.
When the first draft comes in, I put on the macro-lenses of my editing glasses. I try to focus my feedback on the big “keystones” of the piece—angle and structure. If those are right, line editing may be able to fix a lot of the other issues with the piece. If not, and there are holes in the research that I can’t fill, I know I’ll need another draft from them.
I’ve taken to providing writers a “story edit memo” for articles needing a second draft from them. The memo is just a formalized way of providing feedback. I lead with stating to the writer what was the gist of the story I read (to see how it matches with the gist of the story they were assigned to provide me), and follow with what I thought the writer got RIGHT with the manuscript. Then, and only then, do I provide so-called negative or critical feedback.
It’s important for critical feedback to be specific. In my type of editing, this is enlightened self-interest if nothing else: I can’t tell the writer to “make it sparkle on your next draft” and expect him or her to understand that I wanted them to clean up the attribution of the quotes, use the active voice more and cut 200 words.
In “Toxic Feedback,” Joni spends several chapters looking at how to respond to toxic feedback (which she defines as “commentary that undermined [a writer’s] confidence and their writing”), including a great one recounting how several writers channeled the feelings stirred up by blistering or broadly dismissive critiques of their work to become better at their craft. I hope that I never make my writers feel blistered, but in my case, I don’t entrust a writer with lots of specific critical feedback unless I think they can take it to heart.
In other words, don’t always assume that a lot of critical feedback on a piece means your work is no good. It may be you got a lot of constructive advice because your work is so good it would be a shame not to refine it and make it the best it can be.
