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GOOD WRITING IS NOT EASY
Writing
Writing Tips
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Interesting Leads
Exciting verbs
Add color by observation
Write like you talk
Organize well
Make the reader care
Writing Checklist
Good Writing has: · accurate information · interesting
phrasing · appropriate word choices · clear transitions
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no misplaced modifiers · parallel construction · proper
sequence of tenses · correct grammar · correct spelling
and punctuation
Assignment: Go through an article and decide what kind of grade it should receive
on each of the above categories on a scale of 1 to 10.
Recommended by: Avi Bass, Northern Illinois University
Leads - The Agony
Jack Cappon of The Associated Press called it,
rightly, “the agony of square one.”
“There is no getting around it, although every
writer sometimes wishes there were,” Cappon
says. “Every story must have a beginning. A lead.
Incubating a lead is a cause of great agony. Why is
no mystery. Based on the lead, a reader makes a
critical decision: Shall I go on?”
Straight News Leads
Inverted Pyramid
Second day lead
Summary lead
Who, what, when, where, why, how?
Which news value should be emphasized?
A convicted arsonist awoke Tuesday to find that his bedroom was filled
with smoke. He escaped and later said that he had fallen asleep while
smoking.
Henry Smyth, 29, who served a three-year term for…
Mayor Henry Smyth escaped injury Tuesday when he awoke to find his
bedroom filled with smoke. Smyth said he had fallen asleep while
smoking in bed.
Summary News Leads
When dealing with several important elements,
a summary lead can sum up what happened
instead of highlighting a specific action.
A bill requiring employers to give workers up to
three months’ unpaid leave in family
emergencies won Senate approval Thursday
evening.
Anecdoctal Leads
Jake Novotny doesn’t pay rent. He lives in a
spacious 30 square feet, that he’s outfitted
with a bed, bookshelf and desk. You will most
often find his house in different SNC parking
lots, or occasionally at High Altitude Climbing
Gym.
Interesting leads capture attention
What started out as a group of guys playing golf together
has grown into a club with big plans for the future.
People did the unthinkable for their club.
Imagine a city of almost 60,000 people with minimum
rules and laws, no judgments and no commerce or
cash. Welcome to Black Rock City, Nev.
Things are about to get weird.
His Southern accent and professional attire will
not change, but soon his title will.
With six championships in the past six years, the
Sierra Nevada College snowboard team began
dry-land training without the help of former
coach Jeff Corrado.
SAN QUENTIN—In the end, Robert Alton Harris seemed
determined to go peacefully, a trait that had eluded him in
the 39 violent and abusive years he spent on earth.
“After Life of Violence Harris Goes Peacefully” by Sam
Stanton The Sacramento Bee, April 22, 1992
A healthy 17-year-old heart pumped the gift of life through
34-year-old Bruce Murray Friday, following a four-hour
transplant operation that doctors said went without a hitch.
“It Fluttered and Became Bruce Murray’s Heart.” By Jonathan
Bor Syracuse Post-Standard, May 12, 1984
A lead with rhythm
Going to church does not make you faithful,
buying a guitar does not make you talented
and attending college does not make you an
adult.
What may appear to some as just dots and lines
is really Bill Gilbert’s journey through New
Mexico.
Why they work
• Tension / conflict
• Spark curiosity
• Describe a detail that has a larger meaning
Avoid:
Topic leads – The school board met to discuss complaints about the cafeteria.
What were the complaints? What happened?
Question leads – What has the school board decided to do to reduce
complaints about the cafeteria food?
Doesn’t get to the information; but question leads can be clever.
What’s wrong with the lettuce?
It’s wilted, a faded shade of green, and the top complaint in the cafeteria, as
the school board discovered in its Thursday meeting.
Quote leads – “The cafeteria food is awful, and it costs too much,” said
sophomore Anne Chovey, at the school board meeting Thursday.
Opinion, doesn’t summarize story, don’t know who is speaking immediately
The Great Lede Test
Read the lede for an article. Now ask, does this sentence
make you want to read the next sentence and the rest of
the story?
Assignment: Go through a series of articles, reading only
the lede. After you read the lede, vote as a group on
whether you are enticed to read the rest of the story. Talk
about what it does (or doesn’t do) that draws you into
the story.
Recommended by: Kathy Norton, Poughkeepsie Journal
Organization
Transitions
Use them to tie your paragraphs together. Don’t
jump from one subject to another in a new
paragraph without giving the reader some warning.
Road signs directing readers through a story.
New information should be connected to
information already introduced.
Can be a word, phrase, sentence, parallelism.
Circling Problem areas
Assignment: Go through an article and circle every
period using a bright highlighter. Now look at the
pattern of periods – looking for areas where you
see longer sentences. See if this helps you identify
sentences that may be too long. Typically, longer
sentences are where you find grammatical errors,
needless prepositions and other impediments to
good writing. See if the story has a good balance of
long and short sentences.
Recommended by: Denny Wilkins, St. Bonaventure University
Three types of verbs…
Active verbs. The subject performs the action.
They move the action and reveal the actions.
– Bond climbed the stairs
Passive. The subject receives the action of the
verb. They emphasize the receiver, the victim.
– Mistakes were made by the students.
To be. A linking verb that is neither active or
passive. They link words and ideas. – She is
going to write a long story.
Active verbs
The man was bit by the dog.
There was a dog biting the man.
The dog sunk his fangs into the man’s forearm,
tearing red ribbons into his flesh.
Make the verbs active
The Rotary Club meeting will be held at noon
Monday in Room 125.
The Rotary Club will meet at noon Monday in Room
125.
The Rotary Club meets at noon on Mondays in
Room 125.
Active verbs
Winter introduces household chores, car and
house preparations…
Crickets chirped loudly in my ear. I tossed in my
sheets, eyes stuck shut like a newborn puppy.
Struggling to open them, I barely made out
the words on the device from which the sound
was being obnoxiously emitted. “6:50am
Alarm, option snooze.”
Avoid Too Many Linking Verbs
Winter break at Sierra Nevada College marks a
change among the Outdoor Adventure
Leadership community. The Tahoe weather
slowly transforms from warm and sunny to cold
and snowy, forcing a change on a few of the usual
ODAL activities.
There is a change in the ODAL community for
winter. The weather is now cold and snowy,
instead of warm and sunny. This is changing the
usual ODAL activities.
Strong verbs instead of lazy adverbs &
adjectives
The radio played loudly
The radio blared
She said in anger
She snapped
She walked quietly
Her feet whispered across the floor
2. Use concrete language
ABSTRACT
vessel
creature
CONCRETE
bottle, bowl, glass, can
angel, pony, seahorse
equipment
hammer, snow plow
or
?
Active Language
Everyone tells you to write using an “active
voice.” Anyone ever tell you how to do that?
Here’s one suggestion.
Assignment: Try going through a story and
highlighting every “are,” “is,” “were,” and “was.”
Now find a way to rewrite the sentence using a
stronger verb.
Recommended by: Denny Wilkins, St. Bonaventure University
Add color with observation
“When I sit down to write a story, I want people to see the
story, I want people to feel what I feel, hear what I hear,
taste what I taste, smell what I smell. So those are kind of
the basic Writing 101 things that I'm using. The colors, the
smell, the marked-up pages of his Bible... Oftentimes, when
I'm in these situations interviewing people, I have a finite
amount of time. As they're speaking and the tape recorder
is rolling, I'm writing down these details all the time. It's
like, what am I struck by? Her kitchen is perfectly clean. It's
black and white. A little girl sitting in her high chair, but
she's not eating her Cheerios, all the things that are
happening around me...”
– DeNeen L. Brown, The Washington Post
3. Omit needless words
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He said that he would go.
Wore a white goatee on his chin
In the month of May
The sum of money
violent
a domestic violence relationship
YOU TRY:
• For the purpose of shocking
• Will draw to a close
• For a short space of time
4. Use short words
LONGER
• Aggrandizement
• Compensation
• Enumerate
• Fundamental
• Inception
• Mitigate
• Paradigm
• Supplement
SHORTER
• Growth
• Pay
• Count/number
• Basic
• Beginning
• Ease
• Model
• Add to
Let the source describe:
How did you feel when…
What did you feel when…
What is your favorite or least favorite…
What did it smell like…, sound like…
Ask questions directly related to their senses.
Show me the details
Show, don’t tell. (However, you have to have
reported the details well to be able to do that.)
Assignment: Go through an article and find
examples where a writer could have benefited from
using details to show the reader something rather
than just telling them about it. Also, find examples
where the writer succeeded in showing you
something.
Recommended by: Rene Kaluza, Day city editor/training editor, St. Cloud Times
Nut graph – So what?
Address this question: “What is this story really
about?” in one word. Greed, politics, sacrifice,
loss, redemption, family, hope, freedom? It
could be any of these things. But once you
know what your story is about, you will have
focus. A good story should leave a single,
dominant impression. This is called your
"angle".
• Quote alert Recommended by: Nancy Weil,
Assistant News Editor, IDG News Service Go on
quote alert. Make sure every quote you use is
worth using.
Otherwise paraphrase. Assignment: Go through
an article and highlight the quotes. Decide if it’s
an effective quote. Does it add to the story?
Why? Should it be shorter? Should it be longer?
Should it be paraphrased?
15. Paraphrase more; quote less
Two
stacked
quotes
Paraphrase,
then
quote
“It was really a coincidence that the wake for Seamus
Heaney also became a launch event for the Irish studies
minor,” Cusack said. “When Heaney passed away this
past August, it seemed appropriate to hold an event to
mark his passing.”
When Heaney died in August, some English department
faculty decided to hold an event but didn’t know what it
would turn into, Cusack said.
“It was really a coincidence that the wake for Seamus
Heaney also became a launch event for the Irish studies
minor,” he said.
Write like you talk
How do you get your message across?
How do you tell a friend about something?
Fluid, short, with emphasis
Take out the bad speech habits – like
• READ YOUR WRITING OUT LOUD
• Before you write Recommended by: Nancy
Weil, Assistant News Editor, IDG News
Service Organize notes and information,
developing a system that works for
you. Different color inks, stars, whatever. Use
story wheels or write down key points of the
story before you write so that you don’t forget
any of the elements you want to include.
Assume:
• They don’t know
• They don’t care
• Good writing creates good readers
20. Be a reader