Bryan Caplan lays out 7 guidelines here.
Showing posts with label y'all ever talk about writing on this here blog?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label y'all ever talk about writing on this here blog?. Show all posts
In the Words Part I
Sorry for the dearth of posts lately. I'm writing an autobiography of writing. You can read Part I here: http://frothygirlz.com/2009/09/14/in-the-words/
more on print from trunk
The more I read of Penelope Trunk, the more I wish I read more of her.
An oldie but goodie is her advice on how to get your blog mentioned in print. My favorite:
1. Don't pitch yourself, pitch an idea.
Yes, yes, yes, yes yes.
Unless you're a celebrity (or someone moderately famous and beddable [or just attractive and beddable]), you're going to be disappointed over how few people care to hear you talking about yourself.
One of the first things I learned in this business is that the people who have the fun jobs--writing editorials, the lyrical pieces, the humor column (well, to an extent)--are the guys and gals who made their bones by first writing really good, really informative articles--and that holds true in a lot of print mediums, not just magazines.
Number 5--answer questions strategically (read: succinctly, then flesh out the details if they ask) is another gem--the only thing I would add to it is, if you're explaining something, do it in terms of an anecdote. Nothing especially long--just four or five sentences--if you keep it interesting, informative, and short (and in that order), it'll be tough not to mention you.
Anyway, the whole thing's worth a read and available here.
Anyone else have some advice?
ACRONYMS
Acronyms:
Constantly typing out a really long name is a pain, that's why we have acronyms--FBI for Federal Bureau of Investigation; SSBTC for State Street Bank and Trust Company; LOL for "Laughing out loud," etc.
Reading long names is bothersome, too, but you should mention what the acronym stands for at least once, because you shouldn't expect your reader to know as much about what you're writing as you do...if they did, why would they read your piece in the first place?
Once you've written out the full name, include the acronym in parentheses--so it should read like this: "...the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was laughing out loud (LOL)...there were no survivors (twns)"
Now you can just refer to it as "the FBI" for the rest of your piece.
Yup, that's about it.
Mmm...
Sorry for the acrostic.
emphasis
When you want to add emphasis, there are many ways to do so.
You can use italics, which add emphasis with elegance; you can use bold, which certainly stands out but is a bit of an eyesore; and you can use ALL CAPS, which makes you look like a troglodyte.*
Or you can be a real ass and use all three. Or use one, then halfway through your piece, use another--if you want to aggravate your editor, this works very well because we'll keep wondering if you had a legitimate reason for doing so.
The best thing to do is learn to write so you can get your point across without physically manipulating the font. Failing that, go with italics--but use them sparingly.
*(You can also underline or even use the "highlight" function, but if you're doing that, it's clear that some vicious parasite has crawled into your head and is gnawing on the parts of your brain that control sense and decency, so I suggest you consult a physician before writing any further. And stay away from those girls at the bus stop.)
top seven phrases to avoid in your writing
These aren't the only phrases you should avoid in your writing, but they're the ones I see the most, and most often they're utterly unnecessary.
- to try to
- in order to
- to go and
- go out and
- to be able to
- attempt to
- in a world where
what tense should I use for interviews?
If I'm writing an interview, I prefer the present tense.
For one, it makes the interview feel current, up to date, like you're getting the freshest perspective.
If you use the past tense, the interview sounds a bit dated. Say, for example, you're interviewing a scientist and you write something like this:
Dr. Newton believed that gravity caused the crash.
The way it's written makes it read like Dr. Newton at one point believed that gravity caused the crash, but he may not believe that now.
Maybe he doesn't believe that now, but if that's the case, you should include that in your piece--and that still doesn't mean you shouldn't use the present tense.
On the other hand, if you're referring to a specific event in the past, then yeah, you should use the past tense.
Oh, did we mention that...?
Oh, did we mention that when you're writing something--most likely a solicitation--never use the phrase, Oh, did I mention that...?
It's irritating and flagrantly obvious that you didn't mention it, so please don't treat your readers like fools.
Don't forgot!
The Three Deadly Sins of Dog Writing
1. Never use the term "boundless enthusiasm" to describe your dog or anything in the remotiest of connections to it.
"Boundless" is one of those words, like "salubrius," in that no one can ever use it without sounding like an a$$hole. Unfortunately, it actually sounds kind of good when it's used with "enthusiasm," so it's really, really tempting. But leave it alone --some words were meant to be lonely and bitter 35-year-old virgins living in the basement of their mother's boyfriend's house, scarfing down ho-hos and honestly believing that Babylon Five was a good show--and this is one of them. For all the times we've cringed at "boundless enthusiam" or "boundless zest for life" or "boundless elan," we wish that those authors would have a boundless stroke or a boundless pancreatic cancer. Actually that sounds pretty good. So does "boundless bosoms."
2. Writing something from the dog's point of view is neither clever nor cute nor original nor any of the things you think it is.
This is part of a vicious cycle: We don't publish things written from the dog's perspective in our dog magazines (or, as far as I know, any of our other magazines), so when a would-be freelancer flips through them, he's thinking, I know! I'll write something from the dog's perspective! They'll have to publish it because none of their authors ever thought of that!
They have, and we won't. Good writing's about substance, not gimmicks.
And for the record, your dog does not refer to you as its "Mommy"; your dog does not "wike" "widdle snugglies" (and in all likelihood would have its throat torn out in the wild and probably even Key West by all members of the pack for even thinking that), and above all, your dog -- for the love of GOD -- your dog DOES NOT WRITE POETRY. Nor does it find anything clever or witty in rhyming "snausages" with "sausages."
3. Unconditional love.
"Labs love you with that wonderful, unconditional love"; "It's that unconditional love that only a Gordon Setter can give"; "You may think it's incontinence, but it's just the unconditional love of a [insert breed]."
It's just a dopey term.
how to write a Randy Newman song
The first thing to do is devise a narrator—one who in absolutely no way at all resembles Randy Newman. In the song “Rednecks,” for example, Randy assumes the role of an anti-Semitic Southerner singing about the North’s perception of The South. In “Political Science” he’s an uber-jingoistic American who wants to teach the rest of the world a lesson by blowing it up—save Australia, because he doesn’t want to hurt no kangaroos. Let’s not even go into, “Sigmund Freud's Impersonation of Albert Einstein in America.”
Next, the song has to celebrate something unbelievably horrible. Going back to “Political Science,” the narrator’s cheerfully advocating nuclear holocaust; in “I Love L.A.” it’s the shattering of the American Dream; in “Happy Ending,” from Randy Newman’s Faust, it’s the mass of sins emanating from Las Vegas (and the narrator is Satan going through a mid-life crisis).
Once you’ve settled on a narrator and the horrific theme, you can begin writing. The first few lyrics have to be benign, maybe even upbeat, so they can lull the listener into a false sense of security. And even then, you want to introduce the theme gradually. Oftentimes it’s only in retrospect that you realize how dark the song truly is; other times he’ll hit you broadside by casually mentioning something horrid like it's no big deal, usually in the refrain. And sometimes, though it’s very rare, the song isn’t menacing at all—which, of course, makes it all the more menacing to Randy Newman aficionados; that’s why “He Gives Us All His Love” is such a chilling song.
Lastly, use cuss words sparingly. Randy doesn’t cuss very often, but when he does, he goes full force—no “b!tch” or “a$$hole”; he goes straight for the throat with “sh!t” or “f@ck.” But even then, he usually utters them offhand to undermine their impact.
You’ll probably want to toss in a city name, too: L.A., Birmingham, Dayton, Baltimore, Miami, New Orleans, and Cleveland, all have their own songs, but Randy’s also taken aim at Las Vegas, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, New York, St. Louis, and more. If you plan on referencing a city, though, you have to make completely sure that the reference is derogatory.
So let’s try one out. In our song, we’ll make the narrator…oh…how about a raccoon? We also want to make this a song about a city. Randy usually focuses on big cities, but we’re going to ignore that and instead make it a small town, a fictional small town we’ll call “Raccoon Sh!t, Iowa.” Notice, too, how we’ve included the cuss word, in this case “sh!t,” in the name—that’ll soften its impact because it refers to a place instead of a vulgarity.
The name “Raccoon Sh!t” will probably come as a shock to the listener the first time they hear it, but if we keep repeating it, it'll become less and less of a shock, so a good place to put it is in the refrain.
The first few lines should set the scene peacefully, and it’s best not to go over four because a long exposition can be dull.
It’s a paradise here,
A real Eden II.
There’s lots to eat,
And the skies are blue.
Simple, with a nice, lulling ABCB rhyme scheme. The second verse should hint that something’s not quite right with the narrator or the situation he’s describing, so feel free to make the lines a little longer. Our first verse emphasized food, so let’s continue with that theme and gradually pervert it.
Yessir, all the slop and garbage is piled up real high,
Enough to make Apache nation cry.
And every time you turn around your weary head,
There’s a tasty carcass of somethin’ freshly dead.
Since the listener is supposed to sense something amiss in the second verse, we used a familiar and soothing AABB rhyme scheme to cushion the blow. Now it’s time to hit them hard with the refrain:
It’s Heaven in dirt, aw lemme tell all ya,
Ain’t a place ‘roun like Raccoon Sh!t, Iowa.
The third verse can either go on twisting and perverting, or it can be disturbingly peaceful. We’ll go with peaceful. And if you’ve noticed, we haven’t yet revealed that our narrator is a raccoon, so we’ll make that a little more obvious, too.
Mr. Human get all mad when we raid his trash,
But what use he got for it now?
He say we’re bandits; we say, “Share the wealth!”
So eat up, li’l coons, here’s to your health!
The scheme of the third verse doesn’t matter much, just make sure it ends with a rhyming couplet. Then repeat the refrain about four times or so, getting a little softer each time until you fade out.
That’s about it! Now you can write your own Randy Newman songs and live a life of underappreciated surliness.
Writing Tips from Economists
Greg Mankiw offers some excellent writing tips via the Economic Report of the President guidelines here.
A few are sort of econ-centric, but most apply to any kind of writing. Our thoughts are below the fold:Keep sentences short. Short words are better than long words. Monosyllabic words are best.
The last tip is spot-on and reinforces our admiration for the best writing guideline ever (because Orwell already covered it), but we're a bit iffy on keeping sentences short. One of our writers composes sentences that are so small reading his work is like suffering through a series of short, sharp punches. It gets very tiring after only a paragraph or two, and by the end, you're so worn out you can't even remember what his point was.
If Economists are trying to explain a complex economic concept to a general audience, then it's wise for them to break it down into short sentences that describe the key points, but that doesn't mean every sentence should be short. Most folks may not be able to follow a long exposition on production possibility frontiers or 20th-century business-cycle theories, but they're usually capable of digesting more than one thought per sentence. For example, let's change the last two sentences of the tip into one:Short words are better than long words, and monosyllabic words are best.
That's not too difficult to follow and is much easier to read.Avoid “of course, “clearly,” and “obviously.” Clearly, if something is obvious, that fact will, of course, be obvious to the reader.
Most submissions we read don't suffer from overuse of "clearly" and the like. Maybe we're just lucky, but we don't think this is a really big problem. That said, they do appear in a lot of blog comments, but who reads those?Avoid jargon. Any word you don’t read regularly in a newspaper is suspect.
Another tip from Orwell.To mere mortals, a graphic metaphor, a compelling anecdote, or a striking fact is worth a thousand articles in Econometrica.
Absolutely--not just because we've said it before. In fact, we'll write it again: People like stories. What can they take away from your piece that'll blow everyone away at the next cocktail party? It won't be jargon and it won't be a graph.
Keep your writing personal. Remind readers how economics affects their lives.Avoid unnecessary words. For instance, in most cases, change
This is the best writing tip you will ever read.
o “in order to” to “to”
o “whether or not” to “whether”
o “is equal to” to “equals”
How Shall I Begin?
When we were studying abroad, our assignment each week was to read about six million books and prepare an essay of similar length. One of the essays was on the treatment of justice in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Over the week's course, we read the play, we read law; we covered theories of retribution, we pored over the concept of being wronged. By the time we sat down to type the paper, we had everything we wanted to cover laid out, arguments arranged, and Smirnoff blue label uncorked.
And we just stared at the blank screen like a chimp slogged on mescal. How should we begin?
Intros are the toughest part of writing for many people--and we were often among them--but here's a tip to make them a bit easier:
Open with an anecdote.
That's about it.
It's pretty dull to just say what you're writing about, so tell your reader a story. People enjoy stories, even if they're (the stories, not the people) short, say a paragraph or two, so it's a great way to get them interested in your article. It also puts your main idea in context. Say you're writing an informative piece on using MS Word's autocorrect function. The kind of person who's going to benefit from reading your article is probably going to ignore it if you begin with a list of instructions and a lot of intimidating technical jargon--after all, that's what manuels are for. Plus, they may not think that what you have to say is especially important to them. But if you open with a quick recap of the time your co-worker wrote up a memo to Mr. Big Client and autocorrect changed his last name to "Bitchpatrick," you demonstrate your article's relevance--in plain English--and get your reader wanting more.
Plus, anecdotes are easy to write and do wonders toward upping your word count--in college that meant our papers were done faster; in the publication world, that means you get paid more.
Things Our Seventh Grade Teacher Was Right About
Essays, articles, screenplays, and most anything worth writing can generally be divided into three parts: Beginning, middle, and end.
No doubt you've heard that before are probably tired of hearing it because everyone says it. Well, everyone says it because no one realizes it. Simple as the three-part piece sounds, most folks would prefer to just sit their computer and start pounding out their thoughts.
That's fine if you're writing out a packing list, but if someone other than you is supposed to read it, it helps to constantly remind the reader what your piece is about. It may be stupefyingly clear to you, but yeah, of course it's clear to you, you're the one writing it, but it's not obvious to your reader--that's largely why they're reading your piece. Readers need to be guided through the dark forest of your mind, so your writing should provide plenty of markers to keep them on the path--or, as our seventh grade comp teacher would say
Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em,In the Beginning, give your reader a quick summary of what you plan to say, and maybe include an anecdote to indicate why they should read your piece.
Tell 'em what you tell 'em, and
Tell 'em what you told 'em
In the Middle, elaborate on your points and offer proof to back them up. If you're writing a magazine or (especially) newspaper article, it's probably best to put the most convincing evidence/arguments first, the reason being that space in periodicals is generally less flexible than in a book, and oftentimes large portions end up getting cut.
The End is more like a reinforcement of the Beginning--recap and once more touch on why whatever it is you're writing about is relevant to the reader--while you're at it, feel free to speculate on the implications of your argument. The poor sap's probably stopped reading anyway, so go hog wild!
After that, read over your piece and make sure your points are clear and rife. After all, you don't want your reader to forget them, do you? Then identify your piece's Beginning, Middle, and End and ensure that each clearly performs its proper function.
Do that, and you're sure to be on your way to wherever!
