Chartwell/Books/Procedure/The Craft of Professional Writi - Michael S. Malone;.txt

Introduction


This book is about the work—the craft—of professional writing. It is written for those who make writing their career and those who hope to do so.

There are an endless number of books about finding your inner writer, about how to write elegant sentences and how to call down the Muse to help you pen your novel. This book is about none of those things. It takes as a given that you know how to write, that you care passionately about writing, and that you make—or want to make—writing the centerpiece of your career.

It is that commitment to being part of the unofficial guild of professional writers that informs this book. It is not your typical textbook. For one thing, while it has an explicit structure, it is written in a more literary style than you may be used to. It also contains stories and anecdotes—both good and bad—from my own checkered career. Why? Because when veteran writers of every stripe get together, they swap stories. For the apprentice sitting in on one of those conversations, the acquired wisdom conveyed in these stories is far more important than, say, the rules of grammar. They teach how to live as a writer—how to start your career, how to manage it, and how to end it.

Central to this book is the belief that writing really is a craft. As such, all writing you do as a professional is the same, whether it is a press release or an experimental novel. Up close—which is where every writer finds himself or herself when writing—all writing is words and sentences. How much art you imbue into those words depends upon your talent and your ambitions. But first comes the work of writing: if you don’t complete the task before you, you will fail. And you won’t get paid. And you will have to find another career.

The craft of writing is about not letting that happen. It is about having the right tools and techniques to carry you to success—and having the insider knowledge to guarantee that success over and over through the course of your career.

I am a college professor, but I am neither an academic nor a textbook writer. Rather, I have been a professional writer for 40 years, much of it as a freelancer. During those years when I had a real job, I was, at various times, a corporate public relations professional, a newspaperman, and the editor of the world’s largest circulation technology business magazine. But it is as a freelancer, like many of my peers, that I have had the most eclectic writing experiences. Over the years I have been a blogger, columnist, speechwriter, television host, producer and writer, music critic, movie reviewer, book reviewer, screenwriter, author, playwright, novelist and now textbook writer. It was, in fact, the remarkable range of my writing experiences (which, believe me, was never planned) that led me to write this textbook. Most of these experiences weren’t driven by any particular creative desire, but more often just the need to pay the mortgage and feed my family—motivations, I suspect, that I share with most of my fellow professional writers. Some of the work I created in these different disciplines was quite good, some of the rest was mediocre—but I can say that I always put the writing first, and gave it everything I had.

I used to fantasize about becoming a novelist, writing what I wanted without the pressures of bosses, deadlines, and the marketplace. Then I became one—and I still faced all of those pressures, and I still needed to make money. The Muse still shows up to whisper sweet sentences in my ear, but she is a very unpredictable goddess; she doesn’t have a schedule, and she never leaves her number. And so, while you wait for her to reappear, all you can do is keep writing in the most professional way. You will also probably win some of those awards you dream of, but probably too late to matter, without much financial reward and not for your best work. That’s how real-life professional writing works.

The second tenet of this book is that not only is all writing essentially the same, but all writing careers are valid. Each discipline has its own rules, its own standards, its own professional tricks, and its own examples of exemplary work. As such, each of these disciplines calls upon its writers to be professional by following those rules, to take the work seriously, and to write to the best of their abilities every day. If the corporate speechwriter doesn’t enjoy the public renown of the famous playwright or the income of the blockbuster screenwriter, that doesn’t make the speechwriter’s career as a writer any less valid, or the work any less important—indeed, more than almost any other form of writing, great speeches have changed the world.

That said, professional writing careers do often have different trajectories based upon the nature of the work and the client or employer. Some jobs, such as news reporting, start out strong and often slowly fade; while others, such as criticism, start slowly but grow stronger toward the end. Because of that, each professional writing career typically has different strengths and weaknesses—and just as important, each has different “turning points,” where the writer must make some important decisions about what to do next.

This book is divided into four parts. The first looks at the fundamentals of conveying yourself through words. It is not what you think: this is real-world advice that you can use today to improve your prose. Think of it as the elementary and secondary education you deserved, but never got.

The second part looks at writing careers in the business world, which is where most jobs for writers are found. The third and largest part looks at the wide array of writing work—full-time and freelance—that is found within the media, from blogging to reporting, column writing to book authorship. The fourth and final part offers advice on the day-to-day business of professional writing, including pitching, rejection, billing, and editing. The final chapter offers advice on how to conduct your life as a writer.

The chapters themselves are divided into an overview of that particular career, occasionally a brief history of the profession, then a collection of tips and advice, and finally a list of the good and bad traits of the job and its turning points. I’ve also included examples of some of the best work in that field and templates for some of the tools of the trade (such as a standard form invoice) that you may want to reference in the years ahead. In some chapters—notably news reporting and novel writing—I’ve added special sections to either look at a related specialty career (such as investigative reporting) or provide more detail on the actual work process itself (such as novel writing).

Finally, as already noted, throughout the text I’ve salted in stories from my own career that relate to the topic at hand. Few are stories of either triumph or failure, but mostly exhibit the messiness of real life as a professional writer—and, with luck, will spare you some of the same mistakes.

My hope is that for the professional writer, this text will serve as a reference book—not necessarily for your current career, but for when you are asked to step outside your usual writing work to take on a different writing task. With luck, the chapter on that type of writing in this book will get you quickly up to speed. It is also for those times in your career—and I think every writer has them—when you want to stretch your talents and try something new, either as a hobby or as a brand-new career trajectory. The appropriate chapter should give you a good idea of how different that new direction is from your current path.

For students who dream of writing careers, this book is designed to be a survey course—with a twist: it doesn’t just look at the forms of professional writing, or even its standard tools. It also wanders off into the woods to talk about what it means to be a professional writer; to get up every day at 25 or 40 or 60 years old and stare once again at that blank sheet or that empty glowing display and face the challenge of once again writing words that matter. As such, it is as much a trade manual as it is a college textbook. And that is exactly what I set out for it to be.

This book is based on notes compiled over years of teaching junior and senior undergraduates at Santa Clara University. That my students, sitting in the heart of hard-charging, empirical, and expensive Silicon Valley, had chosen to consider a writing career was a testament to the power of language—and of determination. It was the sight of that determination in the first year I taught this course that made me quickly abandon theory and dive right into real-life application. I realized that traditional college education, at best, only taught students how to write, not how to be a writer.

One class isn’t much time to prepare students for the real world, but I did the best I could—stuffing as much lived experience, tricks of the trade, object lessons, and practical skills into a score of career descriptions as I could in a single academic quarter. This text reflects that same hodgepodge of content—because, frankly, I don’t know any other way to do it. I don’t know if my students thought I was a good teacher, but I think most will agree that it was an intense 10 weeks—and that they never had a class like it. That many have gone on to successful writing careers suggest that they did, at least, listen—which is more than I think I would have done at their age.

I was lucky to have my own practical teachers and mentors when I began my writing career. Christian Leviestro looked at my awful early fiction, pretended it was good, and goaded me on. Most important was James Degnan, whose class I inherited after a 20-year gap. Degnan, a legend to those students lucky enough to take him, was disorganized, opinionated, and terrifying—but he was the real deal, a professional writer, and he demanded the same professionalism from his students. We didn’t learn from Degnan how to be writers, but from trying to be him. More than 40 years later, his former students still tell “Degnan stories.” I don’t deserve to stand in his shoes.

If this book strongly stresses the guild-like nature of the writing craft, it is because at every step of the way in my career I was taught by men and women more experienced, and usually better, than me. From the men at Hewlett-Packard corporate PR at my first real writing job to Brenna Bolger at PRx Inc. decades later, I was taught the ropes of what it means to be a publicist. At the San Jose Mercury-News, my editors Jim Mitchell and Jack Sirard, and my investigative reporting partners Pete Carey and Susan Yoachum, demanded that my journalism be of the highest quality and integrity—and in the process turned me from a clever dilettante into a serious professional. At Forbes, where I ran Forbes ASAP magazine, publisher Rich Karlgaard and co-owner Tim Forbes gave me absolute freedom to create one of the greatest magazines of its era—and then demanded I do so. At that magazine, working with the greatest writers on Earth, including several Nobel laureates, was the ultimate writer’s education.

To all of them, and to all of those others who, with one assignment or a score of them, made me a better writer, I give my eternal thanks.

Now, pull up your chairs, pour yourselves a drink, and let’s talk about writing for a living.





Introduction to the 2nd Edition


You may think that in a profession built upon an instrument—written language—that changes slowly over the course of centuries, an update of this book would be unnecessary. Yet, in the seven years since the 1st edition of this book was published, thanks to the blinding pace of modern technology and culture, this work not only needed a refresh to reflect our new world of Zoom, TikTok, and ChatGPT but also some new chapters to deal with rise of wholly new careers and platforms.

I’ve endeavored to do that with new sections on social media and the controversial new Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing tools. At the same, I don’t kid myself, especially living as I do in California’s Silicon Valley, that there isn’t some start-up company meeting right now at a local coffee shop preparing a business plan to develop some new product or app or social enterprise that, within a few months, will render this new edition incomplete.

You’ll also find in the pages ahead some new enhancements to the chapters, including to those found in the 1st edition: notably potential writing assignments and essay questions. I’ve also added an appendix of additional writing samples for different applications and a much more extensive bibliography of books on writing, grammar, and rhetoric that I have found useful in my career.

Such is the fate of living in our increasingly virtual world. But I console myself with the knowledge that whatever its form or presentation, good, rigorous, and professional writing will endure—and so will careers for people who exhibit those skills. A picture may be worth a thousand words—but in this age of Photoshop and Deep Fakes, we are coming to accept that pictures now can lie. Between that and the arrival of ubiquitous written content—in academia, business, and media—created by AI algorithms whose embedded biases can’t be trusted, or even known, the importance of ethical and honest writing by human beings has become more vital than ever.

Indeed, writing that distinguishes empirical fact from opinion, that states its own biases and conflicts of interest when they matter, that doesn’t obfuscate unpleasant realities through rhetorical tricks, and that presents opposing views (and quotes) honestly may, in the end, be what saves us. Whatever your reason for pursuing a writing career (or, at least, add writing to your career portfolio) those are your responsibilities to yourself and your society—and your duty to your profession. The stakes are higher than ever.

At its heart, writing is a conversation: between author and reader, between teacher and student, and between one’s own heart and head. So, let’s begin our conversation.

Michael S. Malone

Sunnyvale, California





Part One

Basics



Before we can even talk about writing careers, we need to do two things. First, look at how to gather the raw material for writing—that is, information in its many forms. Second, look at the nature of writing itself—and approaching that subject not just as communicators of our native tongue, but as people who use writing as their professional livelihood.

The reason we do this, instead of just leaping into the much more exciting topic of making money from writing, is that to do the latter well you must be adept at the former. And that is a problem, because few of us are taught anything (other than “go to the library”) for the former.

As for the latter—that is, our K-12 English education—most of what we are taught was misdirected, mis-oriented, wrongly prioritized, and just plain dreary. The truth is that most of the best writers we know were terrible English and grammar students, who still can’t parse a sentence, and could start a chain reaction with all of the infinitives they’ve split. So, in the course of a few pages, we are going to revisit and relearn your first 12 years of writing education.

Don’t worry. It won’t take long, and we’ll try to make it fun.





CHAPTER 1 Gathering Information


You can’t write anything if you don’t have anything to write about.



That may sound stupid and obvious, but you’d be amazed how many poets, columnists, feature writers, and novelists try to force words onto the page without any real knowledge of what they are writing about. Some are even reduced to making up “facts” and “sources” that aren’t real. Such are the demands of money, deadline, and ambition. Sometimes they pull it off, but not for long.

Real, honest writing—even if it is fiction—requires real, honest information on what you are writing about. And the only way to get that information is to go out looking for it. That means interviewing sources or eyewitnesses, or visiting the sites of key events, or digging deep into official records, or searching far out into the hinterlands of the Internet. The closer you can get to actual participants or witnesses to the event you wish to describe (including the documents they leave behind), the more legally certified the documents you find, and the more verified and cross-referenced the file you find, the better off you are going to be—and the higher quality of your work.

Why do this? Because you owe it to yourself as a professional to get things right. And because you owe it to your readers, your client, or your employer not to mislead them or place them in legal or financial jeopardy. Sound overdramatic? Wait until you get a story wrong.

We once worked for an editor who was the very model of conscientious reporting—including checking and double-checking every factual claim made by his reporters. We thought he was overly careful, at the expense of stripping some of the power out of our stories. That’s when he told us of an experience from his own days as a young reporter.

It seems that, while still little more than a rookie, he wrote a profile of a fast-growing new company that had a hot new product, skyrocketing sales, and the prospect of even better days ahead. The young reporter got this “insider” news from the CEO of the company itself and was flattered that the business superstar even took the time to talk with him. He went back to the newsroom and pounded out a breathless feature on the Next Big Company. He barely took the time to even gather a few guarded comments from competitors, industry analysts, and trade magazine reporters.

Roll forward a year and our now not-so-neophyte reporter found himself in the local courthouse on a new story. His editor had expressly assigned it to him as punishment. It was the trial of that Next Big Company which turns out that it was nothing more than a scam, a Ponzi company, with no real technology or products to show for the millions of dollars of investor money it had burned up—or used to line the founder’s pockets. Our future editor might have foreseen this had he dug a little deeper into the now-dead company’s patent filings, the founder’s (criminal) background, or just asked around the industry.

Instead, as he walked toward the courtroom, he found himself running a gauntlet through burned investors who blamed him for their losses. Some even waved copies of his old article. But the encounter that shook him the most, and that still haunted him a decade later as he recounted the story to us, was the elderly couple who quietly walked up and told him, more crushed than angry, that they had invested their life savings in the company based upon our editor’s glowing article. Did he have any advice on what they should do now?

We were never burned as badly by a story subject—perhaps because we were nearly as haunted by our editor’s story as he was. But on many, many occasions we had subjects not give us the true story. Some were just zealous employees who saw their employers through rose-colored glasses. Others were egomaniac executives who wanted to inflate their reputations. A few had something—dwindling shipments, a late new product, an impending lawsuit—they wanted to hide. And some were simply lying sociopaths. A few got through our filters—but, thankfully none did much damage. And if caught, they got no pity from us.

Over time, like most reporters, we learned to grow a thick hide. A number of companies even complained that we were too skeptical, too cynical, of the great story they had to tell. But remember: this was Silicon Valley. At least 90 percent of those great companies, with even greater stories to tell, died a quick death. We may have started out in journalism as romantics, but we quickly learned to trust only the facts.

Facts are your friends. If you want to be a successful professional writer, learn how to find them.

So, where do you find these facts? Where do you go to get accurate information to underpin your writing?

There are, in fact, a number of places—indeed, more than you probably know from watching television shows and movies about journalists and other writers. Here’s a quick overview:

Primary source documents—In terms of accuracy, there are few information sources more trustworthy than those that derive from actual witnesses to (or participants in) an event or official records about the event created by trained investigators. In fact, the latter may prove to be a more reliable source because, as any criminal investigator will tell you, eyewitnesses may get a distorted view through the lens of their own limited viewpoint, excitement, and bias.

News Coverage—Newspaper stories, wire service stories, and local television coverage can often be good sources when working on a story, especially one written shortly after the subject event occurred (but not in the heat of the breaking story). But beware: you are essentially trying to overcome potential weaknesses in your own writing but adopting the possible failures of others. Moreover, news reporters often get facts wrong because they are under a tight deadline, they have little time to interview eyewitnesses, and even the officials they speak to may have an incomplete understanding of what just happened—that’s why it’s best to wait a few days for the wrap-up coverage. By then, the reporter has time to gather his or her thoughts.

Official Reports—Official reports tend to get around the “Rashoman effect” of conflicting and confused eyewitnesses by using time, the luxury of conducting many interviews, and professional information gatherers to come up with the best description of the event, its causes, and its aftermath. That’s not to say that some reports are eventually proven wrong as additional evidence appears, but in all, they remain the most reliable of sources (especially if you follow up with some of the eyewitnesses). The downside of reports, especially those created by for-profit research companies, industry analysts, and so on is that they can be hugely expensive—sometimes running into thousands of dollars. If that’s the case, you may be able to get your employer (especially if it’s a corporation) to pay for it. Short of that (if you are a journalist) you may be able to request a free media copy. And if all else fails, look for the executive summary of the report, or a summary of it, on the Web.

Legal Documents—Because they are created as part of an adversary process, legal documents usually conceal as much as they disclose. But what they do offer is information that has been made under oath or the threat of legal penalties for misrepresentation. In the real world, it’s hard to get more reliable information than that. That’s why the libel lawyers that publications and news stations keep on retainer when they sit down with you to go over an investigative story will ask you about every statement in your story: “Do you have paper to back that up?” If you don’t, and it is a high-risk story, you will have the unpleasant experience of having half of your work chopped out and thrown away.

 The downside of legal documents is that they are a pain to get—and even more of a pain to decipher. Though some of these documents are now posted on the Web, most (notably court filings) remain in print form, which means you have to drive down to the courthouse or county records department, deal with the bureaucracy there, and then spend hours trying to find that one document that will support your argument.

 And even then, you’ve only begun, because now you have to read through the legalisms (remember: these documents aren’t written for you, but for members of specialized professions) to find the key statements you need. This can take days, even weeks, in a stuffy room searching through page after page until your vision blurs.

 But it can be worth it. An old reporting partner of ours spent days going through real-estate documents and deeds in an obscure courthouse on Long Island (he worked for a California paper) until he found the handful of documents he was looking for. They helped pull down the Marcos regime in the Philippines and earned the reporter a Pulitzer Prize. Not bad for a bunch of boring legal documents.

Oral Histories—For primary source information, one of the most positive developments of recent years has been the rise of oral histories. One obvious reason for this movement has been the technological revolution. Instead of taping an interview with a subject, then spending laborious hours transcribing it or taking hand notes and then trying to decipher and flesh them out afterward, these days it is possible to digitally record a subject and then convert the interview into a file that can even be automatically transcribed via software in a matter of minutes. You can even use Artificial Intelligence (AI) software to race through these transcripts to find and assemble key phrases to construct an outline to work from. Combine that with the advent of permanent mass storage either on personal media or in the Internet Cloud, and it is possible for the first time to capture the life stories of millions of people—not least old folks being interviewed by their grandchildren as a family record—and store them forever.

 Needless to say, the key to doing oral histories right is to have the proper equipment in advance—including a good microphone, digital tape recorder (or smart phone or personal computer), good translation software, and permanent digital storage ready.



There are several tricks to capturing a good oral history:

Let the subject know in advance. With enough forewarning the human brain will dig up an amazing number of forgotten memories.

Make the subject comfortable. You don’t want the subject worried about the setting or the equipment or fearful of the next question. You are not there to judge, but to coax out stories. Spend a few minutes before the interview getting to know the subject and putting him or her at ease.

If possible, extend the interview over multiple sessions. In our experience, once you’ve interviewed a subject, more and more memories will surface for days and weeks afterward. Some of those memories may prove very important. So, if you have time, go back and follow up.

Index the interview. Once you are done, transcribe or software translate the audio track into narrative form. Go through and mark out key statements and divide the text up into chapters and sub-chapters while it is still fresh. AI software may prove very helpful with this. This will help with navigation—especially if the interviews are hours long—later on.





CHAPTER 2 Words, Sentences, and Paragraphs


For the next two chapters, we will look at the practical craft of constructing compelling phrases, sentences, and narratives. Think of it as everything you were supposed to learn in language and grammar classes in primary and secondary school—only in a few thousand words. This time around, however, we’re going to teach you the actual stuff you need to be a professional writer—and make a living doing so.

For that reason, we aren’t going to spend time on grammar. In the real world, the only rule of grammar is that if it works in getting the message through to the reader, use it. (We bet that’s a relief.) Nor are we going to discuss rhetoric—other than, once again, what works. Nor vocabulary: experience has shown that working every day as a writer will force you to expand your vocabulary if you are going to be able to effectively explain yourself. Nor punctuation: not least because that field has become increasingly fluid in recent years.

Rather, we are going to use these two chapters to look at how you use language in the most powerful way to capture and hold readers, enhance their emotional response to what you’ve written, and keep them reading through to the end. Compared to that, the fact that you’ve written a segment fragment or split an infinitive is inconsequential. Indeed, in professional practice, there are good arguments to be made for both. So, let’s begin our short course in Real-Life Writing—or, as I prefer, Writing for Money.





The parts of language and their roles


Sounds are senses


Once, during a safari in Namibia, the author met a man, a tracker and guide, who was one of the most linguistically accomplished individuals on Earth. His father was a member of the Ovambo tribe, the dominant African people in that part of sub-Saharan Africa; his mother was Bushman, a member of the San people. Meanwhile, by the nature of his work and his own native language skills, this man dealt regularly with people from around the world and had to learn to speak with them in their own languages.

One day, in idle curiosity, the author asked this man how many different languages he spoke. He paused for a moment and then began listing on his fingers: German, Swahili, Dutch, French, Polish, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese. He listed several more and then finally said, “English, but not very well.” Despite the fact that he and I had just been conversing in English for the previous hour, in his mind, his command of English was still incomplete. What about his mother tongue? I asked. Ah, he reminded himself, of course, I speak three San dialects.

Linguists have found that human beings communicate, via language, with less than 20 distinct sounds. Most of us are lucky to regularly use a dozen of those sounds. Thus, for example, as a middle-aged American, the author will never be able to capture the “lion” growl in Gaelic Irish (though he’s of Irish extraction), nor the trilled “R” of the Latinate languages. By comparison, his Japanese friends will forever struggle with the hard “R” and “L” that is almost my Yankee birthright.

What made the author’s African acquaintance so remarkable—and something he didn’t know about himself until it was explained to him—was that he had learned to use not only all of the important vocal sounds of the world’s major cultures but even the rarest ones. In particular, in his mother’s arms he had first learned the precisely modulated clicking sounds that made Bushman dialects among the most unusual in human history.

Only a handful of people on the planet regularly use, like that guide, all of the available human language sounds. For the rest of us, we must make do with a dozen or less. That may seem constraining, but the analogy is to music where a comparably limited number of notes have been used to create an incredible range of music over the centuries. A professional writer is thus like a composer or improvisational musician: to make your writing “sing” and to tap into the deepest emotions of your readers, you need to be so competent with the use of these sounds that you don’t just write with them, but perform with them.

You may be asking: why are so few sounds used by humans in their languages? The answer is not entirely clear. One answer is that we don’t really need any more than that. Other animals typically use far less. And, because of our intelligence, we can use our tools—from musical instruments to digital technology—to create a nearly infinite range of additional sounds. The creation of language—and thus of writing, which is symbolic language—appears to have occurred a couple hundred thousand years ago with a remarkable pair of events: a thickening of the cerebral cortex in the brain of early man—and with it a greater aptitude for higher, logical thinking—and the evolution of the hyoid bone in the throat, which enabled hominids to generate more complex vocalizations.

Still, language didn’t come quickly: Neanderthal man, for all of his intelligence, probably was unable to make more than a few basic sounds. And writing (as opposed to pictography, such as Egyptian hieroglyphics), which evolved at the intersection of these sounds with artistic representations of nature, didn’t really emerge in a recognizable form until just 6,000 years ago in Sumeria. And it was there that mankind’s oldest surviving “story,” the Epic of Gilgamesh, appeared.

As we write today, the limited number of sounds that compose our words carry with them those millennia-old coefficients of emotion. There are a lot of technical terms for these different sounds—obstruents, sonorants, stops and fricatives, approximants, liquids, trills, and so on—but unless you are a linguist you don’t really need to know them. What you do need to know as a professional writer is how these different sounds feel. That is, what emotional responses are elicited by each of these sounds and how can you employ them to maximize the impact of your writing upon the reader? Let’s take a look at each of the most important ones:

The Sibilants: These are the sounds of “s,” “soft ‘c’,” and “z.” In many ways, these are the most powerful of language sounds, as they produce the effect of menace, danger, and intensity. Sibilants enhance the drama of prose.

M and N: The closed-lips hum of these two letters gives the impression of softness, calm, satisfaction, and sleep. Think of the classic children’s bedtime book Goodnight Moon.

Wh-: The classic start for a question—who, what, when, where, why? In English, because we don’t have an inverted question mark to start a question, as exists in Spanish, we typically use a wh- to warn the reader (or listener) of the query to come.

P-: P- is the sound of exasperation and dismissal (“Put that down! P—off!”), as if the statement is being spit out. When spoken as a softer P- it can signal a more positive judgment. Perhaps the most famous example of the hard P- comes from MacBeth: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day.”

F-, V-, W-: The hissing exhale of the letter F- (and to a lesser degree V- and the hard W-) usually signals aggression or intensity. Thus, you fight your foe, flinging your angry words into his face, then vying with your weapons until one of you is vanquished.

De, dis-: These prefixes produce a kind of an aggressive reversal of an original thought or opinion, or of the status quo: She denied my claim that she destroyed everything she touched, dismissing me as a fool.

R: Because it resembles an animal’s growl, the “R” sound, wherever it appears in a word tends to produce a sense of strength, toughness, or dominance—as it just has in this sentence.

Y-: At the beginning of a word, the letter “y” can (with some exceptions, such as “yesterday” or “young”) induce a sense of goofiness or casualness: yep, yuck-yuck, yahoo!, yeah, yo-yo.

L-: At the beginning of a word, the L- sound is typically upbeat, melodic, and/or emotional: lark, laugh, lachrymose, la-la-la, lovely, lighthearted.

G: With its Teutonic roots and expressed from deep in the throat, a hard “G” anywhere in a word produces an earthy, physical effect: ground, guts, guttural, good, grand, God. Put an “l” after that “g” and Gl- is the sound of heightened activity or effect, or extravagance: glee, glowing, glittering, glide, glassy, glop, gulp.

-rk, -sk, -sh: These three letter pairs represent different ways to end words: from -rk for an abrupt ending, -sk for a regular ending, and -sh for a soft, extended ending.





Words are emotions


If individual letters and combinations of letters represent our senses, then words—multiple combinations of letter clusters, and thus strings of senses—represent the entire range of human emotions.

This isn’t what you are normally taught. Rather, words are supposed to be the signs and signifiers for emotions, ideas, or phenomena of the natural world. True enough, but for our purposes—that of, as writers, producing narrative in all of its forms that has the maximum impact on readers—words are also the emotions they produce in those readers.

Those emotions are achieved through a combination of definition (or denotation), connotation, sound, and context. One of the best things about the world’s great languages—and English in particular, as it is the world’s lingua franca—is that they have a word or its synonym that emphasizes every combination of those factors. Put another way: whatever emotion you want to induce in the reader for a particular idea, experience, or thing, there is a best word “le mot juste.”

Ultimately, that’s the reason why, as a professional, you need to develop as large a vocabulary as you can; you want to precisely pinpoint the effect you want to create in the reader.

What makes English interesting is that for many words, the synonyms for one idea or thing reflect the history of the language—from its Celtic and Anglo-Saxon roots to the arrival of the Vikings, to the Norman Invasion, to the vast British Empire with its inputs from India, Africa, and the Caribbean, to American English as the global language to inputs from science, technology, and pop culture. Thus, it is not unusual to find for one concept a half-dozen different words, each of them identical in definition but slightly different in nuance and connotation. The goal is to be able to use them all with facility—but short of that, to at least appreciate that we have all of the words we need, and that there is the perfect word for every occasion. We’ll never find ourselves in William Shakespeare’s predicament of working with a much leaner English and having to invent hundreds of words to match our ambitions.

Here are some basic rules for choosing the right words to match your ambitions:

The simpler, Anglo-Saxon terms are usually best—that is, “use” vs. “utilize”—because they are earthier and stronger, and typically a lot less pretentious. Use those simpler words as your base, then add more complicated and sophisticated words where they best work, if at all. You can’t lose by keeping it simple.

The ratio of short to long words should match your purpose: one-syllable words for punchiness, multi-syllable words when you want to slow the reading rate and produce more reflection.

Mix and match short and long words to change the velocity and the “music” of what you write.

When faced with using the same word over and over, occasionally substitute one of the available synonyms. But beware of overdoing it. Thus, there is nothing wrong with using “said” over and over, or even occasionally substituting a more precise or descriptive word such as “announced” or “exclaimed.” But too many substitutions begin to look obvious, forced, and worse, silly.

Always listen to the sound of words, even written ones. Go for the music. Read aloud what you’ve written; ignore the meaning and listen to the music of the words: does your prose sing?

Unless you are a poet, stay away from dictionaries and thesauruses. Use them only to check spellings or to find the right word that is already on the tip of your tongue. Never use words you aren’t comfortable with—you’ll inevitably get it wrong and look like an idiot.

Expand your vocabulary every chance you get. It is the one proven way to actually become smarter. It will also make your thinking richer. And it will make your words more precise.

If you want to be a professional writer, you must learn to love words.





Sentences are thoughts: A phrase is a fragment of a thought


Sentences are strings of words, and thus are strings of emotions. As such, they give logic and coherence to those emotions. A properly constructed sentence thus completes this collection of emotions, capturing a complete human thought. They achieve, in the most basic way, conclusions. Phrases, including prepositional phrases, are fragments of varying completeness, of those complete thoughts.

Note that these complete thoughts do not have to be explicit in the word composition of those sentences. They can also be implicit, evoking the complete thought only in the reader’s mind. That’s why, while a sentence “fragment” may be bad grammar (because the required pieces aren’t all there), it can be perfectly acceptable for the writer or reader if both parties understand what is not being said.

Note also that a true sentence contains only one complete thought—a subject and an action—around which you can add as many modifiers as you need to round out that thought.

Experience has shown that sentences under 10 words are usually better than sentences longer than 10 words. That said, there are great sentences (see the works of William Faulkner, Marcel Proust, or Victor Hugo) that run up to 500 words or more. But you need to be a very good, and confident, writer to pull them off. And, if you use them too often in a text, you will exhaust—and eventually lose—the reader, no matter how great your facility.

How long should a sentence be? As long as it needs to be.

That’s not meant to be a facile statement (well, not entirely). The fact is that a “sentence” is not yet a real sentence until the sum of its explicit and implicit emotions constitutes a complete thought. That’s why a phrase can’t be a sentence, but a fragment can.

How short should a sentence be? As short as you can make it. If a complete sentence needs to include all of the components required to make it a complete thought—whether it is two or 200 words—your goal should also be economy of language while not compromising the message. That may mean cutting just three words out of that 200-word sentence or cutting seven words out of a 10-word sentence. If both are short as those sentences can be without losing their intrinsic value, then you have done your job as a writer.

Keep in mind that you can still break apart sentences by splitting out ancillary phrases and adding subjects and (more likely) verbs. You can also expand sentences by removing a subject and/or verb and bolting two or more adjacent sentences together. Why would you do that? Rhythm and pacing. Any reading that maintains a constant, unwavering beat is boring. It’s like a song in which every line rhymes with every other line. Instead, you want enough variation to keep the reader slightly stumbling so that they stay awake and maintain attention. One simple way to accomplish that is to regularly, and randomly, change sentence length.

Some tips:

If you write short and choppy, take a breath occasionally with a long sentence—otherwise the reader feels pummeled.

If you write long and languid, let the reader catch his or her breath with a short, crisp sentence—remember: reading is a physical activity.

Sentence fragments: As already noted, don’t worry about them (unless you are writing an academic paper, where a priggish editor may punish you for it). If you’ve written a sentence in which you’ve screwed up and forgotten the verb or object, that’s one thing. But if your fragment implies a longer sentence—that is, “Nope” for “No, that is incorrect”—then the use of the fragment is just fine. Indeed, depending on the context, it may even be advisable.

Run-on sentences: These are only bad if you lose control of them, that is, if they contain more than one thought, they don’t let the reader “breath,” and worst of all, if they are boring and monotonous. If in doubt, break them up.

Metaphor: Metaphor is a complex concept and an even more complex mode of thought. But in practice in writing it is the connection between two seemingly diverse ideas, concepts, or things that somehow seem to work and, in the process, expand our understanding of the natural world. Metaphor is uniquely human; indeed, it has been suggested that, more than anything else, is what makes us human. And it is what brings art to writing.

 But metaphors are also dangerous. Use them sparingly or they quickly become distracting. Use them carefully or they look labored or wrong. And if you can’t be original, don’t use them at all—otherwise, you risk using clichés and becoming tiresome to the reader.

 Most metaphors are in the form of similes. Real genius comes from bolting two utterly different things together with a simple “like” and in the process expanding our understanding of the world and adding to the combined knowledge of mankind. Great similes are as close as writers come to immortality.

 Here are some examples of great metaphors:



“His bony hand drug its way like a squirrel into his overall pocket, and brought out a black, bitten plug of tobacco.” [Steinbeck, East of Eden]

 “A damp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue paint across her cheek and her hand was wet with glistening drops as I took it to help her from the car.” [Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby]

 “Raw cold daylight fell through the roof. Gray as his heart.” [Cormac McCarthy, The Road]

Tight construction, lively and active verbs, and mind-expanding metaphors; that’s the key to great sentences and great thoughts.





Paragraphs are ideas


By definition, a paragraph is a collection of sentences; that is, it is a construction of distinct thoughts that combine to create a complete notion, an idea.

A classic paragraph is constructed like a sentence. That is:

The subject/predicate of the sentence = the lead sentence in a paragraph.

Supporting phrases in the sentence = supporting sentences in a paragraph.

Prepositional phrase at the end of a sentence = the closing sentence that summarizes the paragraph.



The author is not a fan of closing sentences in paragraphs. They usually are too neat and often stop the narrative. You are better off keeping up the momentum, saving your summary to the big closer at the end of the chapter, article, or other narrative.

How long should a paragraph be? As long as it takes to get the idea across in a convincing way.

How short should a paragraph be? Short enough not to lose the reader.

By now, even this early in the book, it should be obvious to the reader that this textbook—and professional writing itself—is all about keeping the reader interested and engaged. Amateurs think the first goal of writing should be to present the best possible content. Pros know that if you haven’t captured the reader with good, smart, and disciplined prose, the quality of your content doesn’t matter because nobody will ever read it. And since paragraphs, even more than sentences, are the building blocks of good prose, you need to construct the most compelling paragraphs possible.

The fact is, there is no tried-and-true model for writing paragraphs. And that’s a good thing because it gives you the freedom to be creative and experiment. That said, if in composing a paragraph you get beyond four or five sentences—especially if they are long sentences—you should revisit that paragraph to see if you aren’t trying to convey more than one idea. If so, you should break the graph into two or three smaller paragraphs.

Here are two basic rules for writing paragraphs:

We break up words into heartbeats (we naturally write in iambic: duh dum, duh dum); we normally break up sentences into breaths (try writing for radio), and we naturally break up paragraphs into conversations. Imagine that you are talking with someone else: we tend to give each other a few seconds to make our point, and then the other person gets to talk. Talk too long and you begin to monopolize the conversation: you become a bore. The same is true with paragraphs.

We will revisit this, but reading isn’t just a visual experience, but an aesthetic one as well. When writing—and particularly when editing—pull back and look at your copy on the page. Do you see large, daunting blocks of paragraphs? So will your readers, and they will hesitate to take on the task of reading your work. Paragraphs, like sentences, should vary in size in order to create tension, let the reader catch his or her breath, and keep their attention. The great thing about paragraphs, as opposed to sentences, is that you can just look at the shape of the text on the page to see if you have accomplished this. And don’t be afraid of one sentence or even one-word paragraphs.

Why? [see what I did there?]

Because there are no real rules for paragraphs; even the grammar police won’t complain.



Here are some sample paragraphs, from fiction and nonfiction:

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett: “Sam Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down—from high flat temples—in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.”

Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas: “I have been trying to think of the earth as a kind of organism, but it is a no go. I cannot think of it this way. It is too big, too complex, with too many working parts lacking visible connections. The other night, driving through a hilly, wooded part of southern New England, I wondered about this. If not like an organism, what is it like? Then, satisfactorily for that moment, it came to me: it is most like a single cell.”

The Night Country by Loren Eiseley: “Man, who bumps his head and fumbles in the dark because of his small day-born eyes, fears the ghosts of the dark above all things. Maybe that is the reason why men string lamps far out into the country lanes and try to run down everything with red eyes that happens to waddle across the road in front of their headlights. It is cruel but revelatory: we are insecure, and this is our warfare with the dark. It began when man first lit a fire at a cave mouth and the eyes he feared—very big eyes they were then—began to blink and draw back. So he lights and lights in a passion for illumination that is insatiable—a poor day-born thing contending against one of the greatest powers in the universe.”

In the next chapter, we’ll string together these sounds, words, sentences, and paragraphs into actual narrative in their multiplicity of forms.





CHAPTER 3 Narrative and Composition


Sounds are senses

Words are emotions

Sentences are thoughts

Paragraphs are ideas





Narratives are conclusions


A narrative is a collection of words, sentences, and paragraphs that have a structure, a direction, a start, and a finish. It also has a point—a lesson or a piece of enlightenment or an increase in knowledge or advances a conversation or offers an explanation of an event. If your writing doesn’t have that point and if it doesn’t make some well-thought-out statement, then you are doing something wrong.

A question commonly asked by amateur writers is: Do you have to know what the conclusion will be before you get there? No, you do not. And even if you do have such a conclusion in mind, you may find that in the course of developing your narrative, its logic will take you somewhere else. But what you do need to know is that you will reach a conclusion. You will know that conclusion when you get there. And that the narrative won’t be finished until you have arrived there.





Types of narrative


Narrative, being the basic form of creative writing, comes in a multitude of forms, fiction, and nonfiction and is as diverse as human culture. Here’s a “short” list:

Essays

Letters and diary entries

News articles

Blogs

Columns and editorials

Nonfiction books

Memoirs

Biographies and autobiographies

Anecdotes and miscellanea

Songs

Poems

Short stories

Novels and novellas

Songs

Screenplays

Dramatic plays

Musical “books”

Marketing communications, which includes: Press releases

Advertising copy

Reports

Annual reports

Speeches





Tweets

Memos

Official reports

Abridgments and summaries

Research and academic papers



Note the sheer range of narrative forms. Yet all share the characteristics of exhibiting a narrative that has a hook, a direction, and a conclusion. Most people who are not professional writers impute more diversity to these forms than they really have—and are often astonished that professionals can write well in multiple narrative forms. Professionals know that all real writing springs from the same source and requires the same skills—and are only differentiated by the rules by which they operate.

Moreover, each of these writing types exhibits a range of values according to how well it achieves that conclusions, how much it accomplishes within the rules of its form, and, not least, the quality of its prose. There are great press releases and terrible ones, just as there are great and terrible poems and screenplays. And a true professional writer will treat all forms with the same engagement and will focus on producing the highest quality result.

But, unfortunately, in the real world, before you can be a professional writer you must first survive an educational system that emphasizes the distinctions, rather than the commonalities, between all narrative forms.

Ironically, the two types of narrative that are the most difficult to do for all but the most talented young people are poetry and essays. These forms, because of their demanding rules, take not only talent and a lot of training and practice, but typically also require the kind of experience and wisdom not reached by most people until middle age. Yet, essays and poems are typically what our education system demands of students. It would be far better if schools recognized this and simply asked all but the most gifted students to not write poems but songs and not essays but reports. They would learn more, and it would be a lot more fun.

Songs, by way of example, are almost always in iambic, which naturally lends itself to sing-songy rhymes and easy memorization. Lyrics are also almost always designed to be understood. For example, take the lyrics from this song from the musical “Oklahoma” by Oscar Hammerstein:

Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry

When I take you out in the surrey

When I take you out in the surrey

With the fringe on top

Poetry, by comparison, gets away from the melody. It typically exhibits complex rhythms and carefully chosen imagery. It is often non-rhyming (or uses very sophisticated rhyme schemes) and makes use of complex structural elements such as enjambment and caesura. You may not always understand the meaning of the words (thanks to everything from the poet’s use of personal experience, obscure references and play with the sounds of words), but you can still be carried along by the sounds and the meter. Here, for example, is an excerpt from “Little Gidding,” by T.S. Eliot:

Midwinter spring is its own season

Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,

Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.

When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,

The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,

In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,

Reflecting in a watery mirror

A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.

This is not to render a judgment on the relative value of the two narrative forms. On the contrary, each represents a high point in their respective twentieth-century forms. But they are not the same thing—though chances are that is what you have been taught. Besides, write a great song lyric and you might get rich—which isn’t going to happen with a great poem.

A second example:

A report is a form of nonfiction writing characterized by:

Starting at the beginning and keep writing until you’ve covered the topic.

The need to show how much you know.

Penalties for being entertaining.



An essay:

Theme statement at the beginning.

Supported by as many paragraphs as needed to support that statement.

Ending with a conclusion that brings it all together.

Compelling, or at least entertaining.



How to write narrative?

Just start writing: Don’t wait around for the perfect sentence or for inspiration. Writer’s block is just ego—thinking you can write better than you are at that moment. Get rid of your ego and get started.

Focus on that first paragraph: The tendency is to “inhale” to ramp up to what you want to say. Go ahead, then erase it.

Once you get your opening down, just plow your way through: If you have an outline, learn it, then ignore it while you write.

Try to do blocks of writing—chapter, section, and so on—in one sitting: But always start the next section, even one sentence before you stop.

Edit, edit, edit: Be ruthless. Cut out everything that isn’t important or that hurts the flow of your writing Fiction:

a. Don’t worry about the opening. Just get started.

b. Write down your characters’ names and all proper names.

c. Don’t stop. Write all of the way through.

e. Put it aside for a few days, if you can, then go back and edit ruthlessly.

f. Show it to someone you respect, but more important, trust.

Poetry

a. Listen to your words, enjoy the sound of language.

b. Don’t force rhymes or rhythms, ever.

c. Stay away from rhyming dictionaries and thesauruses unless you are utterly desperate.

d. Edit. Be willing to throw out everything, including the entire poem.





How long should an essay be?

As long as the editor will let you. And, until you prove your conclusion to the reader.

How long should a poem be?

As long as it brings pleasure or insight to the reader. And, as long as you need to implant the right emotions in the reader.

How long should a story be?

As long as you need to convince the reader to believe in the reality of the world you’ve created and follow the protagonist through a defining experience.





-4





Part Two

Corporate Careers and Disciplines



That completes a quick tutorial on language and basic writing. The next part looks at different forms of professional writing and careers that make use of those forms.

Each of the following chapters will address one of those careers. In each, we’ll look, in turn, at a definition of the profession, give a brief history of the field, provide a taxonomy of the different writing forms used by the profession, provide some standard forms that you can use in years to come, and offer tips for producing professional quality work. Finally, we’ll also address the advantages and disadvantages of the profession, as well as common career turning points.

In the final section of each chapter, we’ll also look at average salaries in that profession. (Because salaries regularly change due to larger economic factors, from inflation to economic downturns to shifts in demand, we cannot give definitive figures, but we can offer relative values in the hope that they will help you in your career planning.)

The next three chapters will look at careers typically related to corporate life—all of which fall under the title of “Corporate Communications.” Public relations, advertising, and speechwriting are often found as departments in large corporations, and as stand-alone jobs in smaller ones.

That said, this work is also found in independent agencies that serve the corporate world, as well as provide those services to government, academia, and the nonprofit sector. There are also a number of freelancers working in these professions, especially speechwriters. The result is a very synergistic universe in which freelancers are contracted by agencies, which in turn provide corporate departments with content materials (press releases, speeches, ad copy) for which they are kept on retainers. In this world, corporate communications professionals may produce their own written materials or act as managers/editors for these contracted agencies or freelancers.

Also, note that there are other writing careers within corporate life that are not directly discussed in this book. In some careers, such as marketing, writing may play a sizable role but yet remain sublimated to the larger work of the profession. In others, such as editing and writing in-house newsletters and magazines, the work is so similar to their independent commercial counterparts that we discuss them in the chapters dedicated to those professions.

As you read these chapters, please keep in mind one underlying theme of this book: it is that all forms of professional writing are valid career choices. And all deserve to be treated with the highest levels of ethics and professionalism.





CHAPTER 4 Publicist


What is public relations?


Public relations (PR) is the art of influencing the media to carry a story under its own banner, thus conferring the highest possible level of legitimacy with the target audience. This distinguishes PR from advertising or sponsorship, which are forms of purchased promotion. The official definition of public relations is: the practice of managing communication between an organization and its publics.





How PR works


Public relations targets the editorial side of media and is willing to sacrifice control over the end product for this degree of legitimacy. This makes PR the cheapest form of promotion. But this lack of control over the end content carries with it a certain amount of risk: you never know what’s going to finally appear in print or on the air. Journalists guard their independence and rightly resist any overt attempts to influence them. What that means is that there is always the danger—and it will happen several times in your PR career—that the reporter or editor will publish exactly the opposite story to what you’ve pitched to them.

Public relations typically targets legislators, key decision makers, customers, employees, current and potential customers, and the general public.





Why do we need PR?


Journalists don’t like to admit it, but 60 to 80 percent of all the content that you see in traditional media—and probably 90 percent of all “reported” news on the Web—is, ultimately, the product of public relations, and it is likely to become even higher with the rise of AI. The media, especially today, simply don’t have the resources to cover all of the stories they need to meet the demands of their users. Meanwhile, companies, nonprofits, schools, and social groups need public attention to stay successful, and they can’t wait until the media finds them or recognizes the value of their story. They have to be proactive, and the most cost-effective way to do that is through public relations.





History of public relations


Public relations, though the term is less than a century old, is as old as printing—indeed, before writing, in the form of word-of-mouth promotion. Read Balzac’s Lost Illusions to appreciate how ambitious individuals have always tried to influence the content of books, magazines, and newspapers.

Public relations as a profession, with its own rules and standards, really began in the 1920s, with the rise of mass media, Hollywood, and consumer products. From the beginning, PR’s impact has been controversial—educating the general public about pollution, hygiene, vaccinations, and other good works, but also convincing, among other things, women to smoke cigarettes and producing many of the excesses of consumer culture.

The biggest transformation in the history of PR took place in just the last few years, as the traditional media began to fade and were replaced by the Web and social networks. This has led to a profound shift in the nature of public relations, from essentially a printed press release/cover letter/mail process to one of Internet memes, social network management, and blogger relations.

Despite all of these changes, the essence of public relations remains the same: influencing the intermediaries that in turn influence public opinion. And if the modes of conveying this influence have changed, great PR still requires very good writing. A cogent, powerful message is just as important now as it has ever been—indeed, it is even more necessary today given the added noise that must be cut through to reach the target audience. Great PR writing will never be fully replaced by AI because it must appeal to the subjective, even irrational, in its recipients.

Unfortunately, that fact is increasingly lost on much of the public relations profession. This began even before the rise of the Web with the first public relations majors and degrees offered at universities, initially in the United States, then throughout the world. While historically most PR professionals came from the world of journalism—typically veteran newspaper reporters and trade press editors—the graduates of these programs rarely have any experience other than PR. In this new reality, the role of account executives has been emphasized, and the job of the writer has been discounted. The result has been a degradation in the overall quality of PR writing—ironic, given that the need for quality messaging may be greater than ever before.





Types of public relations


People new to public relations—and even some veterans—are often surprised at the many forms of PR. Even in a small company, or agency, where a PR professional is expected to wear many hats, these different types of publicity should still be in one’s quiver. Here is a quick description of the most common PR forms.

Analyst relations—Conveying and managing financial and product information to industry analysts who in turn influence company stock prices.

Media relations—What most people think of when they hear the phrase “public relations.” This work involves influencing reporters at newspapers, magazines, wire services, television news, and the Web.

Investor relations—Similar to analyst relations but reaches out directly to shareholders. Can include authoring a company’s annual report.

Internal communications—Reporting, writing, and editing in-house organs, including company magazines and newsletters.

Labor relations—Acting as the public spokesperson for the company regarding lay-offs, hirings, and union contract negotiations.

Financial public relations—Management of all communications related to the legally required publication of quarterly and annual revenue and profit results. As you might imagine, this is a job of great responsibility—as even a minor error in figures can have a devastating impact on the stock price.

Celebrity/VIP public relations—When you hear the term “publicist” what may spring to mind is one form of this type of PR: getting the name of important figures (such as movie stars) into print or out of it. This work, which has something of a sordid reputation, is (as you might imagine) extremely stressful—and thus is typically high paying.

Consumer public relations—This is educational/public service PR. It is typically undertaken by consumer-oriented nonprofits and government agencies to educate the general public on matters of policy and consumer interest.

Crisis public relations—High-pressure specialty work that focuses on managing media coverage during everything from a natural disaster to corporate lay-offs. Few corporations, even the biggest ones (excepting airlines and oil companies), have in-house crisis PR experts, as the need for such skills is few and far between. Rather, most companies contract agencies and experts adept at this work for the short term. Needless to say, it pays very well.

Industry relations—A relatively rare practice. Some industry associations either take “loan” PR executives from their member companies or hire a full-time specialist, with the duty of promoting not a single company but the entire industry. This duty is usually reserved only for the most veteran corporate PR professionals.

Government relations—Most large corporations have an in-house specialist or team, often holding the title of vice president, who takes on the combined role of lobbyist (or managing lobbyists) and promoting the company among legislators at the state and (more often) national level. These professionals have a very desirable and unique skill—hence their C-level titles—and are often also trained in the law. At minimum, they must be comfortable in halls of power.





The press release


The primary instrument of public relations—then, now, and into the indefinite future—is the press release. Traditionally, it is the key document sent out to the media—though it may be supported by other documents, including sidebars, photos, and a cover letter.

These days, the press release serves more as a source document from which to create other targeted content materials. That doesn’t reduce its importance; it remains the narrative that defines and organizes the overall message, and from which the spectrum of subsequent publicity efforts needs to derive to maintain consistency.

The role of a good press release is to capture the key points in the publicity “pitch.” The headline and lede should cover everything important the target reader needs to know. The release also should include usable quotes (and the name and title of the speaker), product specifications and capabilities, basic background information, benefits to users or participants, price and delivery (though this rule, sadly, is often ignored), and a boilerplate final paragraph that acts as a quick reference for the journalist as to the business of the sender.





Types of press releases


Just as there are multiple professions inside the world of public relations, so too are there numerous forms of press releases. Unfortunately, few modern PR professionals know this; instead they typically only work with a few of the most common types. That’s a shame, because the goal of public relations is to maximize good media attention, and the only way to accomplish that is to:

Expand the publicity effort beyond the related trade press and local media to other trade publications and the national media and

Reach other editorial sections inside of publications and websites—beyond just “News” or “New Products”—such as features, new product stories, news photos, and career announcements.



Here is a partial list of press release (and subsidiary) forms. Get in the habit of using them all:

News release—See above. This is the core written instrument of public relations. Note that a good news release does not try to be inclusive and include every little nuance of a story. Rather, it should be kept short and tightly written and include punchy quotes. All other content can be distributed through supporting documents, from the cover letter to sidebar releases. Typically, news releases are first sent to the media and then after a proper interval of time (a day up to a few weeks, depending upon the roll-out schedule to international markets) are placed on the company website, social media, and, if a video news release (see below), on YouTube or similar site.

New product release—The second most important form of press release. The new product release is designed to be the most cogent way to notify the media of the introduction of a new product, product upgrade, or service. The new product release is similar to a news release but focuses on a single product or service at the time of its public introduction. As such, it contains sections on product specifications, performance data, and likely markets and applications. Once again, every new product release should contain price and delivery information, and any “clever” attempt to escape including this information will damage trust with the media and should never occur, even if your CEO or marketing VP demands it. If you don’t have that information, hold off sending out the release until you do.

Feature/application story—The most difficult, but also the most powerful, form of press release. A feature story typically describes the application of the company’s products or services by a user in real-life application. As such, it needs to be more about that user than the product, and more about the use than the company behind the release. Feature stories require top-notch writing, equal or greater in quality than that found in a newspaper feature story. Indeed, the whole task of these releases is to convince a reporter to create an extended story based on the release’s contents. Feature releases, which can sometimes run several thousand words and are accompanied by evocative photos, are so valuable because they can reach the parts of publications and e-zines that other forms of publicity can never touch: the hugely valuable feature sections and cover stories. They can also extend publicity efforts to other vertical markets and the mainstream press that are otherwise almost never be reached by traditional PR efforts. For example, a computer company would likely never get coverage in a home improvement magazine—but just might if the story is about a couple using that computer to model new designs for their Victorian home. It follows that feature stories are usually pitched to one publication or website at a time as an exclusive, not sent out en masse to scores of targets, as with news and new product releases. For professional writers (and people who love slinging words), feature releases are the most satisfying, and creatively demanding, form of PR work.

Financial release—Financial releases are very formalized documents, in most cases required by law, by which corporations and other for-profit institutions announce quarterly and annual revenues, profits, and earnings-per-share (or, conversely, losses in those categories). Because the government requires very precise data presented in a very specific way—and because any mistakes in this reporting can not only crash company stock but also bring down the wrath of the government agencies—this work is only for the most responsible and precise public relations professionals. It is also advisable to establish a review process by which both PR and corporate finance offices work together to double- and triple-check the numbers before they are released to the public. The government also requires that these releases be delivered to a threshold level of media recipients; so it is important to carefully develop the routing list for these stories, including the use of wire services and even hard copies by mail. This is the one type of release where entertaining prose is the one element you don’t want. Plain, precise, and dull are your best friends.

Press kit—For the most important announcements, especially for the biggest new product roll-outs, a simple news or new product release is just not enough. You need a full package of promotional instruments in multiple formats. Here is a survey of those instruments: Cover letter—Given the importance of the announcement and your hope that the reporter or editor will be willing to plow through a number of different documents, it is always best to accompany a press kit with a personal cover letter. This is to underscore that your company or organization considers this announcement sufficiently important to create a custom publicity document for the recipient. It is also an opportunity to reinforce the message of the overall kit. Remember, be professional; even if the target journalist is a friend, don’t be too chummy or it will seem as if you are exerting too much influence. Also, keep it relatively short: leave the real message for the contents of the press kit—after all, that’s what it is for.

Folder—There are basically three ways to deliver a press kit to a journalist: print, email, or a PR wire service (via the Web). The first of these is increasingly obsolete; however, many companies will still deliver a hard copy to key publications in order to reinforce the importance of the announcement and, frankly, to make sure the journalist actually sees it (rather than hitting “delete” on an email). If you do choose to create a hard copy version of the press kit, you’ll want to put the contents into a folder—not a cheap, store-bought report folder, but a glossy and heavy stock folder, preferably white, with your company’s logo printed and/or embossed on the front.

Photographs—It is almost always valuable to include imagery with a press release, especially a new product release. If you choose to create a print version, you should include three to six photographs, preferably color in 8 × 10 inch and in transparency (large) versions. If you are using a virtual press kit, include links to the imagery in the Cloud or attach files. Virtual press kits also have the advantage of allowing you to add videos. This can be done either with embedded videos with the press release or as links to videos on YouTube or the company’s website.

 In developing imagery, try to create a mix of stand-alone shots of the product and its use in real-life applications. Hire a professional photographer and models to do the work—anything you attempt yourself will inevitably look amateurish. As for videos, use a professional videographer and a scriptwriter. Keep in mind that this will not be inexpensive, but the good news is that you can also use this production for a video news release (see below) and ultimately as a sales tool.

Sidebars—Sidebars in publicity are comparable to sidebars in journalism; that is, they are stand-alone documents designed to amplify and support the main story. Thus, if you are introducing a new smartphone, you might want to create a sidebar on the innovative technology in its new display, or its library of applications, or how it achieves extended battery life or the company’s long history in cellular telephony. Sidebars are not supposed to be long: they are rarely more than 500 to 1,000 words—mainly because anything longer will distract from the focus on the main story.

Backgrounder—Corporate backgrounders might be considered a form of sidebar, but they are so much longer and distinct in their targeting that they are really a different genre. The backgrounder in a press kit is designed with one specific goal: to brief the targeted journalist with whatever he or she needs to understand the company that is sending out the press kit. For that reason, backgrounders can be several thousand words in length and include separate sections on company history, physical locations, products, senior management, markets, and customers. In the best-case scenario, a well-written and complete backgrounder will not only be used by a reporter in preparing the back paragraphs of a news story but also will be kept on file indefinitely by that reporter as a reference document for future stories about the company.

Q&A—The Question & Answer is another distinct form of sidebar. In this case, the goal is to anticipate the most likely questions to be asked by the media and then answer them in advance. The goal, as with many of these instruments, is to minimize the amount of friction facing a journalist writing a story—and in the process increasing the odds of obtaining coverage. A typical Q&A is no more than a couple of pages and includes less than a dozen questions.





Personnel release—Of the rarer forms of press release, the personnel release sees the greatest use. Most local newspapers, as well as trade magazines/e-zines, have sections (often called “transitions” or a similar title) that document, typically in a sentence or short paragraph, job promotions or transfers by prominent figures in the community or industry. These items typically take the form of “Mary Smith has been named vice president of marketing for XYZ corporation” and includes added information on who that person is replacing, the subject’s prior positions at the company (or elsewhere), duties in the new job, education, family, and so on, and often includes a headshot photo. A personnel release should contain the same information and be in the same format as a news release. These columns are usually written by rookie reporters or bored veterans, so the less work required adapting the release the better. These are the easiest releases from which to obtain media coverage, so generating them should be a regular task of every corporate PR department. No fancy writing here—unless you have a great anecdote or a plain‑vanilla quote from the CE—and keep it short.

Milestone release—Popular a half-century ago (not least because it lent itself to the world of mass production factories), the milestone release today is all but forgotten. That’s a pity, because the milestone release has a remarkable ability to not only reach audiences otherwise untouchable but also to produce some of the best prose in the PR profession. Milestone releases celebrate key events in the story of a company or its products: the one-millionth device shipped, the retirement of an important (to the company or the market) product, the company’s 50th or 100th anniversary, and so on. Because they are celebratory—and not specifically trying to sell anything—milestone releases are an opportunity to indulge in nostalgia, trumpet success, and to pen some really evocative prose. The best of these releases feature some of the finest prose in the business world—a reminder that even PR can be the home of world-class writing. It’s a wonder that more writing-oriented publicists don’t fight for the opportunity to write this kind of release.

Photo release—In the Internet Age, one forgotten form of press release awaits its revival. The photo release used to be a standard vehicle for organizations (as well as government—think of all of the military photographs handed to the press during World War II). Essentially, photographers would be employed by institutions to go around and snap interesting imagery inside the enterprise—lines of new cars coming off the production, vast factory floors, huge machinery, intent assembly workers, and so forth. These photos would then be given a clever caption (snappy first, informative second) and sent out, typically in hopes of being picked up by a wire service, such as Reuters, UPI, and AP. A number of notable photographers—notably Margaret Bourke-White—got their start, and trained their eyes, with this work. Today, with the Web exhibiting an unquenchable desire for novel images and every company employee armed with a smartphone camera, there is no reason why companies and other institutions shouldn’t be continuously generating interesting images and regularly capturing millions of views. And to this can now be added video, with its own set of outlets and platforms.

Event announcement—This is the most elementary press release type. Basically, it is an invitation disguised as a news release. The difference is that this type of invitation is directed toward the media, and the format allows for a more detailed description of the event itself. On the other hand, while a typical invitation presents the opportunity for the recipient to attend an event for their enjoyment, an event release offers the journalist the chance to cover an interesting story. An event release should be short compared to other releases, but still long enough to make the case for attendance. It should also have precise details on location (include a GPS link), date, and time, and a means to give an RSVP (though don’t depend upon journalists to reply: their calendars are too unpredictable, given the possibility of breaking stories, and they don’t like to be beholden to publicists). And don’t just describe the event; make the case for why it will be a good story for the reporter’s readers.

Video news release—This type of press release takes the form of a video, and it may be the most influential—at least in terms of reach—of any of the publicity instruments on this list. When you see a medical story on your local evening news, chances are it was the product of a video news release, edited (sometimes) with some local inserts, and a new voice-over by a local reporter. Video news releases are a rare PR tool—which is a bit surprising given their impact—probably because they are much more difficult and expensive to create compared to purely written releases. You need to prepare a good script, hire a camera crew, set up field shoots hire a firm to create graphics and special effects, and contract a video editor. That’s a sizable sum—equal to a dozen written releases—and that doesn’t include paying for the satellite distribution. But a good VNR, beamed up to a satellite and then transmitted to interested media customers, can reach an audience of hundreds of millions of viewers around the world—far greater than any other publicity campaign. Moreover, you can take the same video—and in a longer version if you choose—and use it on your corporate Web page, in marketing and sales, and on sites like YouTube. Altogether, that’s a very good return on your investment. Try it; you’ll get better and more cost-efficient with experience. Your success rate will improve as you better understand the needs of local TV stations.



In-person events—Public relations isn’t just about managing clients and writing and sending out press releases. It is also about meeting face-to-face with members of the media. Though, strictly speaking, these are not occasions for writing, they are often occasions for the distribution of your writing. Thus, at a press conference, you will almost always hand out press kits along with all of the various presentations.

As these activities may also include other types of writing—such as the event announcement described above, as well as invitation letters, speeches prepared for the event, scripts, and so on—we include a brief description of each:

Briefings—These are casual gatherings, often regularly scheduled, by which a spokesperson presents news and updates as well as answers questions from the media. Corporations use irregular briefings to bring the trade press up-to-date on product developments and new technologies; as well as for managing information during company emergencies (lay-offs, disasters, stock crashes) or major business deals (mergers, huge contracts). For the former, you may be asked to provide a presentation on the fly; for the latter, you will have time for preparation, but the responsibility will be as great as for a financial release. Either way, it will be a high-pressure assignment. Don’t extemporize.

Media events—Think of these as briefing events—press conferences, major product announcements, annual shareholder meetings, and public user group conferences—only more formal, a lot more expensive, and with a lot more time for preparation. Press conference—These are the most casual of media events, and typically more news-oriented than the others. Unlike a briefing, which is designed to update reporters, press conferences are normally reserved for new announcements. The format is well-known: a podium or table in the front of the room facing the media, and a series of presentations. The media in attendance typically will receive their press materials (prepared by you) at the start of the gathering. Simultaneously (timing is important) the same press materials will be sent out to reporters not in attendance. You may also be asked to prepare the presentations of the speakers.

Major product announcement—These are often truly elaborate events, held in the conference center or hotel grand ballroom and featuring videos, live music, food, celebrities and VIPs, and multimedia presentations. Your duties will be the same as with a press conference, but typically with a lot more material.

User group meeting—Given the precedent set by Steve Jobs and Apple, user group meetings—once a sleepy gathering filled with speeches and break-out sessions—have now become as elaborate as major product announcements.

Annual meetings—By their very nature—convincing shareholders of the continuing value of the company—annual shareholder meetings are carefully orchestrated events for which you may be asked to prepare one or more of the speeches. Remember: the company’s goal at annual meetings is to either lull shareholders in attendance to hold onto company stock or to cheerlead with big promises that will induce shareholders to increase their holdings. In other words, shareholder meetings are conservative and well-rehearsed events—not occasions for experimentation.





Press tour—Despite their effectiveness, press tours have always been rare events. One reason is cost and another is availability. Even if a company is willing to pay the expense of putting you and a top executive on an airplane and flying you both around the country (or world) and putting you up in expensive hotels, there is still the matter of taking a valuable employee away from the front lines of the company for a week or two. Still, if you can pull it off, nothing beats going directly to reporters and editors in their offices, capturing their complete attention for an hour or two, and giving them direct and exclusive access to someone who can speak for your company. That said, the world has changed: reporters today are more likely to work out of their homes than newsrooms and to be scattered all over the landscape. The good news is that the need for physical travel has been largely replaced by Skype and teleconferencing. You may miss the expensive restaurant dinner but not the airplane food in between. The bad news is that it used to be that once you had an executive on the road you had his or her full attention. By comparison, the executive who now commits to a “satellite” press tour is very easily called away to other corporate duties. So, if you can’t get them on the road, make sure you get their full commitment to the virtual event ahead of time. Either way, train them beforehand to get the right message out—and not go off script. Entire companies have been destroyed by executives who go off script and try to ingratiate themselves to a clever reporter.





PR jobs


Careers in public relations take two paths—corporate and agency (or freelance)—though these paths may intertwine over the years. By the same token, these careers typically start from two distinct beginnings: from a journalism career or, now more frequently these days, from a degree in public relations.

Corporate jobs

Media relations—You interact regularly with reporters and editors at publications, TV, and radio stations, or the Web.

Writer—You compose and edit press releases and pitch letters.

Corporate level—You prepare the annual report, the company magazine, and quarterly financial releases.

Divisional level—You write or edit the division newsletter, introduce new products, write news releases, and interact with the media relations folks.

Speechwriter—(see next chapter.)



Agency jobs

Account Executive—You manage some of the agency’s clients.

Writer—You author press releases, pitch letters, and publications for clients.

Pitcher—You regularly contact the media to offer them your clients’ latest announcements and news.



Web jobs

Pitcher—You offer story ideas to bloggers and news editors.

Blogger—You write a blog that supports the image and the strategies of your employer (also known as “astroturfing”).

Commenter—A controversial, and often unethical, job in which you pretend to be an independent observer when, in fact, you are secretly making a case for your employer (also known as “trolling”). As the years pass much of this work is being done by AI-driven “bot farms.”





Career: The good


Corporate

Company benefits

Longevity—Corporate PR is one of the most enduring jobs in many companies.

Job security—Corporate PR professionals rarely get fired. That’s because you are both necessary and (frankly) unimportant.

Part of a team

Access to the top—You will regularly deal with the top executives in your company.

Travel

Staff—At the corporate level, you will likely have an assistant and/or secretary.

Nice work environment

A good landing place when you get too old or too burned out for journalism.



Agency

Good money

Excitement/lifestyle

Access to the famous and powerful

Wide-ranging interests—You will get the chance to deal with clients from every walk of life.





Career: The bad


You will sometimes be treated like a flack, a servant.

You may be asked to compromise your integrity if you work at a bad company.

There is no real job security at an agency.

Depending upon your perspective, it is not real writing compared with media or literary careers.

It can be hard to cross over to journalism, if you want that career trajectory.





Turning points


You get tired of telling just one side of every story.

You grow frustrated at being a second-class journalist.

You are forced to lie for your employer.

You get sick of dealing with sleazy journalists.

Your corporate stock options enable you to retire.

You sell for good money the PR agency you founded.





Sample press release


Here is a press release the author just downloaded from Cision/PR Newswire, a major distributor of releases to news outlets. I know nothing about the companies in the story or the validity of the claims made in the release. But, this is a good example of a classic press release and can serve as a template for the reader’s future work:





Ugreen Introduces World’s First 5-Port 300W GaN Fast Desktop Charger


PR contact: Pr@ugreen.com

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Ugreen Limited

05 Sep, 2023, 09:00 ET

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

WILMINGTON, Del., Sept. 5, 2023/PRNewswire/—Ugreen, a global leader in charging accessories, has partnered with Navitas Semiconductor, the industry leader in gallium nitride (GaN) power integrated circuits (ICs), to announce the release of the world’s first 5-port 300W GaN desktop charger—the Ugreen Nexode 300W Desktop Charger

“Navitas has been working closely with UGREEN for a long time; it is our relentless pursuit of innovation that continues to refresh the milestone of fast charging,” said Charles Zha, Vice President and General Manager of Navitas China. “This first 300W GaN desktop charger based on LLC structure can realize such astonishing power density with such small size, which once again propelled the revolution of GaN fast charging.”

Evan Li, Vice President of Ugreen said, “We are thrilled to introduce the world’s first 5-port 300W GaN desktop charger. This high-powered charger incorporates Navitas’s GaNFast™ chip and Ugreen’s product design innovation, representing a significant breakthrough in fast charging technology. We look forward to strengthening our partnership with Navitas and continuing to provide consumers with safer and more efficient charging experiences.”

A new addition to the Ugreen Nexode series, the Ugreen Nexode 300W Desktop Charger is a high-power device that can fast charge five devices simultaneously, with four USB-C ports and one USB-A port. The single port output can deliver up to a maximum of 140W, powerful enough to charge a 16″ MacBook Pro from 0 to 56 percent in just 30 minutes. This makes it the perfect solution for rapidly charging laptops, tablets, phones, and more.

The charger supports PD 3.1 and QC3.0, along with other fast charging protocols including PD/QC/SCP/FCA/AFC, ensuring hyper-fast charging. Safety is a top priority with the charger. It features a built-in smart Thermal Guard™ system that monitors temperature changes in real time, taking 6000 temperature readings each minute to protect connected devices from overheating, overcharging, and excessive current.

Encased in a robust, fire-resistant, and flame-retardant PVC shell, the Ugreen Nexode 300W Desktop Charger offers enhanced protection against fire hazards, as well as resistance to bumps and drops. This charger is not just a potent charging solution, but also an environmentally friendly choice. It can significantly reduce carbon emissions by up to 30 percent, potentially eliminating an estimated 2.0 Gtons of CO2 by 2050, according to data from Navitas.

Pricing and Availability

Ugreen Nexode 300W desktop charger is available for purchase starting today, September 5th, for $269 in the U.S. on Amazon.com and Ugreen .com. The recommended retail price for Amazon UK is £269.99 and €269.99 on Amazon EU.

About Nexode Chargers

The Nexode series are high-end chargers that offer better heat dissipation, smaller size, and lower energy consumption, among other high-quality features. Learn more on Amazon.

About Ugreen

Established in 2012, Ugreen specializes in providing distinguished accessories and digital solutions for global consumers. Ugreen has steadily grown into a trustworthy brand with over 40 million users worldwide, providing products ranging from charging devices, phone, and computer accessories to home and automobile accessories. For more information, please visit www.ugreen.com.

About Navitas

Navitas Semiconductor (Nasdaq: NVTS) is the only pure-play, next-generation power-semiconductor company, founded in 2014. GaNFast™ power ICs integrate gallium nitride (GaN) power and drive, with control, sensing, and protection to enable faster charging, higher power density, and greater energy savings. For more information, please visit www.navitassemi.com.

Notice some details about the form of this press release.

Letterhead—The company’s name is at the top of the release. This dates from the print era when releases were published on company stationery. That said, it remains a good idea to have the company name—and logo—in bold at the top of the first page of the release, in smaller form in the corner on all subsequent pages.

Headline—This states, in a few words, the gist of the release. It suffers from the current trend to put the company name (again) first. Old timers and purists would reverse that headline, putting the product first, as it is more important.

Subhead—This release doesn’t have it, but many such announcements have a short paragraph under the headline to give a quick summary of the story for busy journalists. Is it really necessary? No, but your challenge is to momentarily catch a reporter’s eye as he or she is making a quick and cursory sort through the dozens of press releases that come in each day—of which 95 percent don’t survive the thumb that erases them or throws them in the wastebasket.

Contact information—This was in the wrong place at the bottom of the release; the author put it where it belongs—at the top—for easy access. You don’t want an interested reporter searching around for a phone number or email address.

Dateline—Another holdover from print that is still valuable. You want the reporter to know where this story is coming from and the date the news is officially released. (Some companies try to embargo the announcement by announcing that fact and putting on a future date. Reporters usually ignore it; they are, after all, in the news business.)

Lede paragraph—Here is where you stuff all of the relevant information about the product: name, purpose, product specifications, and so on. Again, purists would say that putting the company name first is just vanity, but everyone these days does it.

Quote paragraph—Notice how a press release mimics the news style to which reporters are accustomed. The human voice, in this case a VP, comes in right away. Too often, this quote is cliched pablum; but in this case the quote actually has some useful content that will make it much more likely to be in the published article. Note that this release involves two companies, so the VP of the other company gets a (not as interesting) quote as well. The fact that it is two VP’s speaking is telling: really important stories get quotes from the CEO.

Main storyline—This is the meat of the press release, and it mostly involves performance specs and, in the best releases, potential markets and applications, all prioritized for the targeted publication. Bullet points are especially useful here.

Price and availability—This is one of the most important features of a press release. Some companies try to finesse this information by dropping this section. But if the reader can’t learn when the item is going to be available to them, and at what price, what’s the point of the story? Into the reporter’s wastebasket the release goes. (Of course, hugely popular consumer products usually can get away with it, because of their sheer cultural power. Still, reporters—and readers—hate them for it.)

Boilerplate—This section (in this case there are three: for the product line and the two companies) is essentially housekeeping for the reporter. It provides a quick summary of the company—history, product line, industry leadership, and so on—and the family of products of which this currently announced product is the newest member. This may seem like an afterthought, but it gives reporters on a tight deadline, especially if they don’t know a lot about the company, a quick reference and some precise phrasing they can use in their story.



And that’s it. You can use a variation on this template on just about every type of press release listed above.

Finally, if you want to be cool and look like an old pro, end the release with this old newsroom symbol for “end of story”:

“30”





CHAPTER 5 Advertising Copywriter


What is advertising?


Advertising is the profession of developing and buying placement in the media. Advertising’s controlled messages are designed to influence the behavior—typically the purchasing habits—of current and potential customers or users. Advertising, in various forms, is as old as civilization and as new as the latest communications technology.

Advertising is distinct from public relations in that the message is purchased by the advertiser—as opposed to being “pitched” for free coverage by a promoter. It means that advertising can choose its platform and form of presentation. Advertising is distinct from “direct marketing” because it is nonpersonal; that is, it is not directed at specific individuals, only types of potential customers with shared characteristics.

Advertising is currently a $600 billion industry worldwide, making it the single largest venue for professional writing in the global economy.





Why advertising?


It enables the advertiser to fully control the content, the experience, and the venue of the message. Once an advertisement is accepted by a delivery platform, its content will not be changed before it reaches its audience. This means that, unlike public relations and most other forms of corporate communications, the advertiser has complete control of its messaging, removing the risk of an intermediary (reporter, editor, blogger, broadcaster) intercepting the message and changing, or even reversing, that message. Advertising also takes advantage of the ability of the media to take a single message and scale it to millions of people simultaneously.





History of advertising


Advertising is as old as writing—indeed it might even be older: we can probably assume that Paleolithic man carved or painted a message in a high-traffic area to promote a service. We do know for certain that painted advertising began in India at about 4,000 BCE and in books in China at about 1,000 BCE.

As signage from Pompeii shows, the ancients made heavy use of signs, posters, and various forms of early billboards to promote their businesses and manufactured wares. The rise of printing was almost instantly followed by printed advertising—handbills, posters, pages in books, then newspapers and magazines. In Medieval villages, the largely illiterate populace was guided to vendors via signage that resembled the service being an office (such as a boot for a cobbler). The explosion of newspapers in the eighteenth century, particularly in England and the United States, and of books, especially in France and Germany, was underwritten as much by advertising revenues as sales.

The transformative figure in the creation of the advertising profession was Londoner Thomas J. Barratt, who developed a hugely influential advertising campaign for Pears Soap. His philosophy found a home in the first advertising “agencies,” first developed by Volney B. Palmer in 1840 in Philadelphia. Palmer bought space in newspapers at a discount, then resold them to advertisers at a tidy profit. Barratt, and those who followed him, learned to also offer the service of creating content (at a fee) for those advertisers.

What we think of as “modern”—Madison Avenue-type—advertising began in the 1920s. Advertising agencies adopted the theories of Edward Bernays—not coincidentally the father of public relations—in which subtle messaging could be used to tap into the hidden desires and subconscious beliefs of consumers and instill in them a desire for the goods and services being offered. Not surprisingly, this technique proved extraordinarily powerful over the next few decades, both in government propaganda and in creating the vast consumer culture we know today.

By the end of the twentieth century, advertising was ubiquitous in the developed world, finding venues in every corner of daily life—from radio to television to the Web to billboards to print, even to logos on clothing, and every other form of consumer goods. And whereas advertising in the 1950s and 1960s was primarily an art form, the intuitive creations of account executives and art departments, by the twenty-first century, were mostly shaped by empirical research, including surveys and focus groups.





Types of advertising


Not surprisingly for such a venerable and creative profession, the range of advertising forms is nearly endless. Here is just a partial list:

Fliers, postcards, and handbills—One of the oldest types of advertising. These advertising instruments regularly undergo revivals. Fliers and handbills are cheap to make and usually distributed by hand by volunteers or true believers, or via the mail. Needless to say, this limits the geographic range of their distribution. On the other hand, where they are distributed—on street corners (usually illegally) stuck to light poles, or pinned on kiosks—they can have a powerful impact. This kind of writing is almost always contract work, often done through printers.

Point of sale—This form is a kind of hybrid between advertising and marketing. Point of Sale tools include brochures, discount cards, fliers, and other promotional items found, as the name suggests, at checkout counters and similar locations where products are purchased. Most of these items can also be used in Direct Mail advertising, which is sent directly to a pre-qualified mailing list of current and likely customers. For writers, this is typically agency or freelance contract work.

Billboards—Increasingly considered a visual blight, billboards endure in controlled locations in cities and along major highways simply because they work. The idea is to present a simple, strong visual (and to a lesser degree, verbal) message to commuters trapped in their cars. Thus the size of billboards: they are designed to be big enough to provide the commuter with enough time before they pass by to assimilate the entire message being presented.

Radio—The dominant advertising platform of the first half of the twentieth century, radio remains a major medium, with audiences for news, talk shows, and certain syndicated productions exceeding even the audiences for their television counterparts. Radio advertising’s greatest challenge is the human voice, which must convey information at a much slower rate than printed words. Cross this with the constraints on time and radio advertising is, by necessity, limited in the content it can convey. Radio advertising is usually contract work done for clients by the radio station; the writer is contracted for the job.

Print—Newspapers, magazines, and specialty publications (including catalogs, fliers, and brochures) enjoy a number of advantages, including portability, quality image reproduction, high information capacity, and a comparatively low price of reproduction. That’s why printed materials were the dominant format for advertising for centuries, from Gutenberg to the rise of the Internet. Unfortunately for professional writers, print advertisement copywriting, a major source of employment, has rapidly lost ground in the twenty-first century. On the other hand, if you are an expert in the language, patois, and rhythms of the Web, ad copywriting will be a great career.

Television commercials—With its ability to project not just words (print) and sound (radio) but also full-motion imagery, television became the dominant form of advertising within decades of its creation. Even today, television remains the locus of the most creative advertising; and though its platform is evolving away from the television itself to laptops, phones, and embedded displays, “television” commercials will likely remain the dominant form of advertising for at least a generation to come.

 For all of its power, experience has now shown that television does have several major limitations when it comes to advertising. Two of these, image quality and portability, have been largely overcome—we’ve come a long way from grainy black and white broadcasts on fragile, vacuum tube console TVs to today’s hi-definition (and even 3D) broadcasts on sturdy flat-screen displays. But others, most notably production and placement costs, along with high viewer expectations, have only grown more pronounced over the years. TV commercials are expensive, with placement costs alone rising into the millions of dollars per minute during large audience programming, such as the Super Bowl. Moreover, a jaded viewing audience demands evermore elaborate productions and clever messaging—the modern Super Bowl commercial costs more per minute to produce than a Hollywood blockbuster film—which largely limits broadcast television commercials to only the biggest and most prosperous corporate clients. The proliferation of cable channels has somewhat counterbalanced this trend: late-night, second- and third-tier cable network advertising space can be purchased very cheaply—hence the proliferation of traditional, low-budget/low-quality advertising to be found there. But the audiences also are usually very small, with limited disposable income, and very specialized interests. National-level television commercials are almost always written by full-time professionals at major advertising agencies.

Television infomercials—Infomercials, pioneered in the mid-1950s by the likes of Ron Popeil (the “Vegematic,” “Pocket Fisherman,” etc.), were the result of the recognition by a few brilliant entrepreneurs that the reduced ad space costs of off-hour local television might be combined with county fair-type hucksterism to mass‑market products directly to consumers without the need for costly distribution and retail channels. The real breakthrough by these pioneers was the realization that it was possible to go beyond the 30–60 second straightjacket of established television advertising and instead to buy up the 30-minute blocks usually reserved for old, syndicated programming. The result was the “infomercial” (though it wouldn’t get that name until the 1990s), which, though often the butt of jokes, has proven to be a highly lucrative and—despite early attempts to ban them—an enduring advertising institution.

 Infomercials, like televangelists, derive their effectiveness from a combination of intensity (Popeil’s famous “Wait, there’s more!”) that makes them hard to turn off, contrived amateurishness (the everyday-looking demonstrator who operates the product with carefully choreographed expertise), a cheering audience, and repetition (unlike traditional commercials, infomercials can repeat their message a dozen times in half‑hour to drive the message home). In the age of digital cable, the opportunity for infomercials continues to grow as fast as the creation of new channels. Infomercials typically require very simple, repetitive scripts, often written by the promoter to control costs. Contract work is limited.

Web banners—The Internet, in part because it began as a free (or at most a subscription) experience, struggled for decades to overcome cultural resistance to any attempt to monetize the medium. As a result, advertisers had to all but sneak their products onto the Web. The result was the banner ad, a tiny step into web advertising consisting of small, narrow ads designed to frame, but not intrude upon, on-screen content. Typically, they consisted of an ad headline and a simple image. In traditional media, this would have been a disadvantage, but the Web brought with it some distinct technical advantages—not least that the readers merely needed to click on the ad and be “hotlinked” to a much more robust and content-filled website where the real pitch (and ordering) could be made.

 As everyone knows, Web banner ads still exist, but they have mostly evolved into other forms (see below). There is little writing work available on the banners themselves—in fact, most just port over copy from other media—but there can be considerable writing work—captions, descriptions, and so on—at the linked-to website.

 A more modern variant of the banner is what is known by the pejorative term clickbait. Clickbait takes two forms. The dominant version takes advantage of the revenues that can be obtained by advertisers per page view by convincing readers (usually through an interesting image on a mainstream website) to visit the clickbait site and page (“click”) through scores of images on separate pages. There is little opportunity for writers in this work, as most is done in poorer economies (as the literate reader quickly discovers).

 The second form looks exactly like the first, but is, in fact an actual sponsored advertisement designed to lure the reader to click on it and go to a web page designed to make the sale. There is a growing amount of demand for writers of these latter pages.

Web advertisements—Web advertising has recapitulated the history of a century of traditional advertising in a tenth of a time. Thus, as the Web became more valuable as a source of revenue (and users began to ignore banners) full-sized formal advertisements emerged. These were roughly the same as print ads (and indeed, often were), with the added advantage of, once again, being able to add links to almost infinitely scalable websites. In addition, given the larger real estate of the ads, it is also possible to embed videos. Web advertisements, like their print counterparts, are typically created by ad agencies. Copywriting for these ads, or the scriptwriting for the embedded videos, can be quite lucrative, and the opportunity to do so is often open to junior advertising people, who are assumed to be more in touch with the generation that spends the most time on the Web.

Web commercials—Web commercials are the next evolutionary step in Web advertising. This form was not constrained by technology—they were possible almost from the earliest days of the Web—but by cultural resistance: most users weren’t willing to accept elaborate video commercials (often expansions on television commercials) on existing sites. By 2010, as the Web and online shopping moved into a dominant role in the global economy, as the revenues advertisers could gain from popular sites grew sufficiently lucrative, and as hugely popular sites such as YouTube developed sufficient user loyalty, full-blown commercials began to appear. As with their Web predecessors, what these commercials offered was the appeal of television commercials with the scalability of links. Whereas, despite years of failed initiatives, television still required viewers to go to a store or on the Internet to make purchases of the offered goods and services.

 By comparison, on the Web, similar commercials empowered the viewer to go directly to in-depth product descriptions, demonstrations, user configuration, and, importantly, purchase. They could even tour past commercials for the same item as an alternative entertainment. The Web also offers advertisers the ability to embed links in noncommercial content to act as doorways to these commercials.

 Career opportunities for writers in Web commercials are currently almost unlimited. In time, most advertising is likely to migrate to the Web, and that will present opportunities for everyone from entry-level copywriters to the most veteran, top-end copywriters currently creating national TV advertising.

Logos and branding—This is a very specialized field, one deeply interconnected with graphic arts. Logos are more closely related to graphics, as the client typically already has a company or product name—and now wants it presented visually in the most compelling way. However, there are rare—and usually very high-paying—occasions when a new name and look are created at the same time. Experts in corporate name creation are very rare and specialized, as the work exists at the nexus of language (including ancient language roots), human psychology, and trademark law. This can be hugely interesting work; but, understandably, it is not a profession that can hold many players.

 Branding—Coming up with corporate or product positioning statements is a much more common activity. But because it tends to be one-off work, with months or even years between jobs for a particular client, it is often bound up with other advertising work (or even handed off to the PR department). That said, a talent for brand writing—and the diplomatic skills for dealing with different client constituencies—is valuable to any agency and can do wonders for job security.

Viral advertising—This is the youngest form of advertising—and also the oldest. In its original form, it took the form of targeted gossip: that is, a business, or more often a political campaign, would create a rumor or whisper campaign for its own purposes in hopes of having it proliferate across a community. In the modern, wired, world a similar effect is created using more scientific and systematic methods. One of the impressive (and sometimes disturbing) features of the Web is that it can perform the same proliferation at historically unprecedented speeds, sometimes reaching a billion people or more in a matter of days. In its darkest form—injecting false information into the global conversation—this has been labeled “misinformation” and is the bane of modern life.

 Not surprisingly, small companies and the advertising agencies of large companies have jumped on this phenomenon in hopes of having the same impact preferably without leaving their fingerprints on the process. Noted Silicon Valley marketing guru Tom Hayes created the term “beme,” that is, a portmanteau word combining “business” with “meme,” the latter the basic unit of an idea or thought that is transmitted and evolves in the manner of a biological gene. In Hayes’ formulation, a beme is a carefully crafted marketing/advertising message that is injected into the culture to self-perpetuate without leaving any record of its source. Thus, a beme is indistinguishable from a meme to the recipient, who passes it on without knowing it has a commercial purpose.



Bemes look like the ultimate form of advertising—that is, a commercial without any fingerprints. But there is one problem: yet, no one has figured out with any confidence how to intentionally create them. Nevertheless, their potential power makes them almost inevitable in the years to come—and anyone with a talent for creating them will become very wealthy.





Jobs in advertising


Advertising jobs can be found in two distinct venues: corporate executive offices and stand-alone advertising agencies. And though there is considerable duplication in the job descriptions found at each, the nature of those jobs can vary widely.

Agency—Ad agencies are private businesses that offer advertising services to corporate, no-profit, or government clients. Most agencies are independent enterprises. However, regular waves of consolidation have created a handful of national and international “super” agencies that often have scores of offices located in major cities that are treated as quasi-franchises. Local stand-alone agencies can be quite small, managing perhaps a score of clients with an all-purpose service. The big urban agencies—both independent and part of a larger firm—often have specialized departments ranging from consumer research to video production to ad space buys.

Copywriter—This is the primary job for professional writers in advertising agencies. Copywriting, which usually consists of writing the support copy in print ads or the script in radio and TV work, offers the opportunity for interesting creative work covering a wide array of subjects.

That’s the good news; the bad news is that copywriters are usually second-class citizens in ad agencies. The real glory goes to the creative folks who come up with the clients’ campaign themes. That said, veteran copywriters, after founders and partners, likely have the best job security in the gypsy-like world of ad agency life.

For this job, it is crucial to be able to write clear and succinct copy, often conveying complex messages in a simple style. It is absolutely crucial in this job to be flexible: you can’t fall in love with your prose, because the client may demand you do a complete rewrite for its own purposes and you will have to write that new copy with the same commitment and intensity. Veteran agency copywriters make good money, but not top money. In large agencies, copywriting operates as a separate department.

Account executive—The high priests of agency life—account executives (AEs)—manage all relations with individual clients. AEs often pitch prospective clients; then, if they land the account, direct all of the creative efforts (including copywriting) for that client and serve as the sole point of contact with the client for the duration of the relationship. When you think of ad agency life in television and film, it is usually the life of the account executive you picture in your mind’s eye.

Being an account executive is not a writing career—though occasionally a copywriter will rise into such a role, especially in a smaller agency. However, account executives are the equivalent of managing editors, with the best exhibiting a real skill at editing copy and recognizing good prose. Unlike copywriters, account executives have almost no ceiling on salaries, as wages and bonuses are typically based on the size of the client and the contract. By the same token, that salary can also go to zero—that is, they are fired—when a major client is lost.

Creative—Strictly speaking, “creative” at an ad agency is the art department, the graphic artists who come up with the design for an advertisement or visual storyboard for a commercial. These folks will treat your well-crafted copy as a mere design element—one of the deflating experiences of being an ad copywriter. That said, there is one form of copywriting to which even the creative folks will defer: these are the brief phrases that either are attached to a campaign (advertising slogans) or product/service (tagline). Since these phrases define almost everything attached to a campaign or product introduction, they are of supreme importance to the agency operations. And though they are typically a group effort by everyone involved with an account, they are usually devised by copywriters. Great phrase writers become famous and are amply rewarded—and, like rock stars, they aren’t known for longevity.

Web—Most ad agencies employ one or more in-house Internet specialists. The larger agencies have complete departments. At the turn of the twenty-first century, especially during the dot.com bubble, these specialists focused on creating and placing banners and other ads on the Web, as well as helping clients create promotional and e-commerce sites. Much of that work now has migrated to traditional agency departments, such as media, production, and research. With the rise of social networks, agency Web specialists shifted to focus on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. This remains a largely hybrid activity; that is, most Web specialists combine copywriting, art, and placement in their job descriptions making it interesting and eclectic work for writers interested in independence and technology.

Principal/partner—In the traditional organization chart for an ad agency, this job is at the top. We’ve put it at the bottom because it is the least likely position for a professional writer. It is very rare that any copywriter ever becomes a partner in an established agency; it is far more likely for someone already in a management position, such as an account executive or business manager. That said, it is not unprecedented for a superstar phrase writer to spin off from a current employer and become the founder of a new agency.

Corporate—Life in a corporate advertising (or “marketing communications” if it also incorporates public relations and in-house publications) department is very different from that in an advertising agency. For one thing, corporate advertising typically does very little creatively; rather, it acts as the client for independent agencies, contracting them to create and place advertising, monitoring the process, and measuring the results. That makes corporate advertising rather dull creatively but exciting in regards to the size of the budget and perquisites that come from holding the purse strings.

Copywriter—This job might be more properly called “copyediting,” as the professional writer in a corporate advertising department is largely engaged in the process of providing the information needed by an agency copywriter to create text, editing that copy, and fact-checking it thoroughly so the company cannot be accused of misrepresentation or fraud. That said, larger companies may create their own advertising targeted at their particular trade press—and departmental copywriters are often asked to prepare the copy for these ads—in part because they are likely to have considerable expertise on the subject and because the budgets for the creation of these ads are tight.

Product line Ad Director/MarCom—This is the corporate equivalent of the account executive. The fundamental difference is that this individual has as a “client” a manufacturing group or division of a company. For that reason, in a large corporation, this individual is just as likely to be employed by, and reside in, that division. Thus, a multinational corporation may have division or product ad directors scattered around the planet in scores of locations, reporting first to their product group and only secondarily to the corporate advertising department—the latter usually establishing company-wide design standards and protecting against overlap. How independently these individuals can operate depends upon whether or not they have their own ad creation and media buy budgets.

Corporate advertising director/VP—As the counterpart of the agency director/partner, the corporate advertising director is responsible for all of the advertising produced by the company, including that generated by outside agencies, as well as manages the budget for all corporate advertising in all of its forms. Some companies, especially those in consumer products and other large advertising buyers, consider this position of sufficient importance to give this individual a full company director or vice-president position (though never a senior or C-level title). In very large companies, not all advertising professionals may directly report to the advertising director, but rather to their own operating groups. Nevertheless, all company advertising professionals are required to adhere to the content standards, messaging, and campaign slogans as signed off by the director.

At this level, corporate advertising directors do little writing beyond reports (usually ghost-written by subordinates) and the occasional bylined trade media article (also usually ghost-written). That said, unlike in an agency, it is possible for a corporate ad copywriter to move up through the ranks to a VP/director job.





Career: The good


Advertising as a career usually appeals to a certain type of individual, typically a creative individual who is more interested in the process of artistic creation than the actual result—or who gets credited for it. Aesthetically, advertising work is as demanding creatively as any of the literary fine arts and typically is much more eclectic and far-ranging in subject matter than, say, newspaper reporting or magazine writing.

Agency

It’s exciting—When it comes to entertaining work environments and exciting venues, advertising is hard to top among writing careers. Agency life itself can be high-pressure, but it is also highly creative, respects eccentricity, and is filled with smart and witty people.

Great work conditions—Ad agencies, especially in the art and copywriting departments, are like toy stores for adults. It is also work punctuated by high-level public events (such as launch parties), cocktail parties, trade shows, and expense account dinners—mostly for account executives, but sometimes for copywriters and other creative types as well.

Very creative—Did we mention that it is very creative work? You may not be writing deathless prose, but there is a chance that the words you write—especially a clever slogan that will be repeated by millions of people—may even outlive you. But short of that, you will likely find yourself perpetually challenged to learn about a brand-new product, service, nonprofit campaign, or company—and then quickly convert that knowledge into precise, punchy, and informative prose. Whatever envy you may have of your counterparts in journalism, you can take comfort in the fact that they are covering boring PTA meetings while you are introducing billion-dollar products to the world.

Access to the top (Corporate, Hollywood, DC)—As with speechwriting (see the next chapter), and sometimes PR, advertising is a way to meet and work with some of the most powerful, interesting, and creative people on the planet. If you are dealing with the movie or television industries, you may find yourself writing public event scripts for (and sitting in on the filming of) stars. If you are working for a corporate client, you may find yourself making a presentation to the CEO and board of directors. And, because you are a contractor, rather than a subordinate employee, those encounters will be much more on a level plain. You will have some amazing stories to tell.

Good, even great, pay—When times are good and clients are happy, advertising agency work can be a very good living. And though copywriters typically don’t do as well as account executives, if you can reach the rarified position of writing slogans and taglines for giant clients, you can make a fortune; indeed, these superstars make as much as any form of professional writer.

Corporate

Job security—The single greatest advantage that corporate advertising offers over agency is longevity. Agency work can be a gypsy existence, as you move from one job to the next as a major contract ends. By comparison, you can grow old in corporate advertising, filling a long career that ends with pensions, stock, and a comfortable retirement. Companies don’t fire their advertising people; they have their advertising people fire their ad agencies and then have them try out new ones. Furthermore, corporate ad people don’t have to assiduously keep up with the latest advertising trends—they just have to know enough to make sure their ad agencies do so.

Management opportunity—Want to run an ad agency? Quit and start your own. By comparison, want to make VP of Advertising or Marketing Communications in your company? Work hard, be ambitious, take on evermore responsibility, and you may very well get there. Ad agencies resemble most PR agencies and marketing firms: that is (with the exception of the large global firms), they are organizationally flat and often never grow larger than the number of direct reports the founder(s) can handle. By comparison, corporate ad departments are typically vertical, with a defined hierarchy—including a professional management with its own upward and outward mobility. This establishes a well-marked pathway for copywriters to find their way into entry-level management roles and beyond, even to other jobs elsewhere in the company.

Power—Being one of the people who helps craft the public image of your company carries with it a considerable amount of influence in your organization, as well as with your professional peers in the advertising industry. Be part of a successful and/or clever campaign, and you’ll also enjoy the admiration of your friends, neighbors, and other business people you meet.

Huge budget—Working in the ad department of a large corporation will often make you directly responsible for the distribution of a large budget—hundreds of millions of dollars if you become VP Advertising in a large consumer products company. Copywriters rarely have that level of responsibility, but they do often have a budget for hiring agency talent. So, just about any job you have in corporate advertising will have some financial responsibility, and it will multiply as you rise through the department. That can have its own appeal, as it will give you more control over your fate than you normally would as an employee.

Access to the top—You may not be hobnobbing with movie and TV stars (unless you work for a studio or sit in on your agency’s ad shoot), but you will be talking on a regular basis with the executive row of your company—and that will be a whole lot more important for your career.

Glamorous (with some limitations)—Corporate advertising isn’t as exciting as agency work, but it does have its moments. As part of the team that creates campaigns and makes large ad buys, you will be invited to many of the glitzy events that are part of agency life. And there are advantages to being the client’s representative at these events rather than an agency’s foot soldier. Moreover, you get the best of both worlds: the excitement of the advertising world with the sense of family and stability of corporate life.





Career: The bad


While some people are made for advertising—they love the excitement, the connection to interesting clients, the constant change in subject matter, and so on—for others, the experience can be frustrating, even excruciating. What’s interesting is that it is almost impossible to know in advance how you will react. Some writers, who fear that their work will be degraded by the experience, find to their surprise that they love advertising copywriting, often because of its sheer novelty. Others, who assume they will like the business side of the work, discover that they cannot bear either the anonymity or surrendering ultimate editorial control to others. The lesson is, don’t assume you know how you will react to an advertising career until you try it, and certainly don’t dismiss or disdain this work until you can speak from experience.

Agency

No job security; gypsy existence—In agency life, you are only as good as your current client list. Last year’s superstar can be this year’s failure if one or more clients decide to take their business elsewhere. This is especially true for account executives, but even copywriters—who typically enjoy a bit more job security—can be victims. Disappoint a major client with your copy on a new campaign, and if you can’t fix it quickly you will likely be gone that day. And, since you are at the bottom of the food chain at most agencies, and since you don’t bring in new business, and because you can be easily replaced by a freelancer, should revenues fall far enough, you will also likely be the first to be laid off.

At the mercy of clients—Some clients have great taste and appreciate quality writing. Others have lousy taste and are fools. The problem with agency life is that you will have to deal with both types—as they say, anyone with money in their pocket is your boss. And as a writer, you don’t get the choice of which clients to work with. This will mean that some of your best ideas will be rejected in lieu of a copy for which you want to have no public connection. The perversity of life is that the lousy client usually has the most money and is the most loyal to you, so you are stuck with them forever; while the smart client moves on to another agency. Thus, a lot of being an ad agency copywriter involves swallowing hard and doing the work. And the only thing you can do about it is to try to educate stupid clients to be more discerning and to save your best rejected ideas for good clients when they come along.

Creative frustration—Literary writers grow frustrated when their prose isn’t as good as it can be. For advertising copywriters, the frustration is just the opposite: when they can’t get clients to buy into their best work. We just noted the problem of being at the mercy of dumb clients. But there are times when that isn’t an isolated event. Rather, you experience a run of vetoes on your copy from a series of clients. Usually, this is just a coincidence: your writing skills are as good as ever, and you just happen to have a group of clients with a different perspective. But that doesn’t make the experience any less painful. Nobody likes to have their skills, developed over many years, consistently devalued. Meanwhile, the agency itself will only have limited patience with a copywriter who can’t satisfy one client after another and is growing increasingly bitter. The only solution is to not let the frustration overwhelm you, trust in your skills and keep doing your best. Of course, that is easier said than done, and you may find that you need a change of venue: finding another agency or going corporate.

 A second source of creative frustration is that, unless you are a slogan writer, an awful lot of copywriting is repetitive. You are writing plain-vanilla copy for an unsophisticated audience for products that are a lot like each other. In other words, it can sometimes become boring and tedious, in which you are just plugging specialty terms into a copy template. If your life dream was to become a poet or novelist, this type of work can be soul killing. You can sometimes alleviate this frustration by doing your own, more creative, work on the side. Another is to just be patient, in hopes that more interesting assignments will soon come along.

You can’t grow old—Agency life is a young person’s game. Given the nature of the work, youthful energy—that is, the ability to create tons of copy for multiple diverse clients—can be more important than a well-crafted copy for a few similar clients. Some writers grow faster and more prolific as they age; most don’t. In addition, language changes—and few writers evolve with it. So, what was seen as elegant prose at the beginning of your career may seem to readers (especially young ones, who are the most important targets of most advertising) stuffy and out-of-touch. What this means is that your ad copywriting career may grind to a halt even as you are becoming, by any objective measure, a better writer.

 You also may eventually find the entire experience of agency life exhausting—the endless crises, the last-minute all-nighters, the rewrites—especially after you have a family and your priorities change. Finally, though no agency will ever admit it for legal reasons, there is a bias in the advertising business toward youth, who are automatically (though not always accurately) assumed to be more in touch with the Zeitgeist and the young customers of clients.

Corporate

Insider/outsider—You may feel, as an employee of a company, that you are an insider—just like your counterparts in manufacturing, R&D, and sales. But the reality is that most companies, and their executives, look upon advertising (even more than PR) as a supplementary activity, and not a direct contributor to the bottom line. That, of course, isn’t true, but it is easy to see from where that impression comes: you aren’t designing, building, or selling anything; you are merely raising the consciousness of potential buyers. Moreover, it’s difficult to make any direct correlation between advertising and revenues.

 On top of that, your dealings with your own company are necessarily limited. You may get briefed by-product teams, or get approval from senior management for your campaign strategy, but you will spend far more time dealing with your agency contractors.

 As a result, your fellow employees, while they may recognize you as a member of the company “family,” will also see you as an outsider to the organization. Ironically, the agency people you deal with will likely see you as an insider—their client’s gatekeeper and paymaster. Thus, working in corporate advertising can feel a bit like living in limbo, neither one nor another. That, of course, can have its advantages in terms of career flexibility; but if you are ambitious in either world, you may be frustrated.

Little creative—Corporate advertising, for the most part, is not a creative work; it is the management of creative work. If the challenge of being part of a successful advertising campaign—and supporting that effort with your writing talent —is what appeals to you most, then this is the job for you. But if what matters is the craft of writing itself, of sculpting powerful prose, then join an agency. A corporate advertising career will leave you frustrated, and your writing ambitions unfulfilled.

Scapegoat—Already noted is that corporate advertising has a lot of job security. That said, there is one real danger: a failed product launch. A great advertising campaign cannot save a bad product for long. And when sales at last collapse, the blame game will begin. Sales will blame manufacturing, manufacturing will blame R&D, and everyone will blame the marketing department, particularly advertising.

 Why? For one thing, no one really understands advertising. To the outsider (i.e., senior management and people in other departments of your company) what you do is both magical and frivolous. The sales folks don’t think you’ve done enough to help them close deals; empirical engineers think you should have built your campaign around performance specifications, and executive row now feels confirmed in their hunch that advertising is, at best, a self-indulgent waste of money and, as worst, actually drives customers away from buying company products. This is the cost of being, as discussed above, an insider/outsider: you risk being scapegoated for events that are beyond your control.

 Of course, you can always fire your contract advertising agency. But the ultimate cost will be to you and your department. You aren’t likely to be fired, but you will see your budget slashed, sometimes to the point that you won’t want to work for the company anymore—and then, you will, essentially, fire yourself.

 This, by the way, is a good reason for educating senior management on how advertising works, and what you can and cannot do. It is also an argument—especially if you are the company’s advertising director, but even as an entry-level copywriter—for developing contacts throughout the company and erasing that image of being an overpaid (!) and artsy outsider with a company name badge.





Turning points


The turning points in a career as an ad copywriter are similar to those in public relations and marketing communications, although, because of the high-pressure nature of the profession, these events typically occur sooner and stronger.

Growing older—As already noted, ad agency life is such that it is hard to grow older there. It is a young person’s business—not just because of the stress of the pressure cooker work life but because the target market for most products and services is young adults. At the start of your career, you likely will have a deep understanding of this market because you are part of it. As a young parent, you may have an even greater understanding of the more youthful end of this market. But as you approach middle age, you inevitably will lose touch with this market. You may no longer understand the lifestyles of these consumers, their fads and values, and even their vocabulary. You can maintain contact, but with each year it will require more and more effort—even as your younger workmates swim in this marketplace effortlessly. The question then may become whether you want to continue to make that, ultimately losing, effort or find some other career where your talents are more valued.

One of those alternative careers is corporate advertising. It is slower-paced, and less youth-obsessed—if only because you get to manage younger professionals, rather than try to be one of them. But there are limits even in corporate life: you are likely to hit your career ceiling at a younger age than in most of the other departments in the company.

Lost mojo—Creative collapse—or just creative stasis—can happen at any age; but it is more likely as you grow older. In the fast-moving world of advertising copywriting, when you have to regularly come up with clever new ideas on demand and with a tight deadline—a pace often quicker than for a beat reporter on a breaking story—you are always at risk of burning out, if only temporarily. “Temporarily” is the operative word here: it is rare when a professional writer simply loses his or her creative skills. A novelist may run out of plot ideas, but a novelist has to pull those plots out of thin air. As an ad copywriter, the information you need to construct a slogan or body copy for an ad is almost always in your hands. We will discuss the so-called “writer’s block” later in the book; but for now, just remember that often being blocked is simply the belief that what you are writing isn’t as good as you can do. If that is the case, just get over yourself. Write something, anything, and then edit it better.

That said, there are two very real forms of burnout:

Exhaustion—Your creative energies aren’t bottomless. There will be times in your career when maintaining an extended fast pace will simply leave you worn out. The mistake is to confuse this physical and mental exhaustion with the loss of your creative abilities. The reality is that you are just plain tired. Learn how to correctly identify this kind of exhaustion and then deal with it. Push yourself further, and you really will collapse. Tell your boss and take a few days off and get as far away from a keyboard as you can. If the boss refuses to give you the time or offers to give you added free time on the books, you should probably look for a new employer. Push too far past the point of exhaustion, and you will never be able to work in that profession again.

Losing the thread—This kind of burnout is a very different matter. It almost never affects copywriters, but eventually it does hit those advertising superstars who specialize in writing slogans or taglines. This type of work carries very heavy responsibilities (because the entire ad campaign rests upon it), requires enormous facility with language, and, most importantly for this matter, demands that the writer be deeply immersed in the culture to the point that he or she can intuitively sense even the slightest shift in mood. Few individuals can do this for long.

Not surprisingly, even the most talented and facile writers of this work can, with time, lose their grip on the culture. They achieve this high-paying/high-profile role during a sweet spot in their creative careers—and, like professional athletes and musicians, their time at the top is almost always brief. The only suggestion we can make is to know that it won’t last forever, enjoy it while you’re at the top, save your money, and don’t be shocked when it ends.



Writing tips

There are a lot of commonalities for copywriters in the tips for all professional writers, and especially so for professions in the business world. That said, most of the following tips have particular nuances for the advertising world:

Listen to the client—If you want to be an independent writer, producing work that follows your inner compass, get out of advertising. It is not for you (and don’t kid yourself: even fiction and nonfiction writing at the highest levels are still done for readers). You are taking your employer’s pay and your client’s nickel. They call the tune. If their demands are unacceptable or their oversight too heavy, then you may want to look for replacements for both. But short of that, keep in mind that both parties—and especially the client—ultimately will have to sign off on your work.

 So, if you don’t want to either re-do your hard work or get thrown off the account, it will pay you to at least get within range of client acceptance the first time out. And the only way to assure that is to determine just what that client wants. That means asking a lot of questions up-front, trying out preliminary ideas on your clients, and divining their expectations. If you want to try anything new or unorthodox, run it by them first. You may be surprised: some clients will be more adventurous than you predict.

Know the audience for the ad—There is one more important line of questioning: who does the client believe are the potential customers being targeted by the planned ad? Very likely they’ve done some focus groups or surveys on that topic and can provide them to you. It doesn’t hurt to ask. And if they don’t have that information, you may want to ask your account executive to propose gathering it for them; it will help you with your work and be a revenue source for your agency. If you are corporate, you need to demand this information for the sake of your employer; your market research people haven’t done their job.

Educate the client first, the audience second—Whether you know it or not, education is the heart of your job. Good ad copywriting teaches. It teaches potential consumers to become customers (i.e., why they need your product or service), and then it teaches them to become successful customers (i.e., they get the most out of that product or service). But before you can successfully teach the marketplace you must first teach your clients—about that market, about how advertising works (and how it doesn’t), and about what makes good copy. Most of all, you must manage expectations. Ironically, your clients may have more faith in advertising than you do—and what you consider to be a successful campaign could be seen by them as a failure. Teach them the reality of your profession beforehand.

Know the purpose of the ad—This is the ultimate purpose of your questions and research: to understand what the ad is supposed to do. At whom is it targeted? What story is it supposed to tell? What key messages should it convey? What visual and narrative style will appeal most to prospective customers? How should it make its appeal (i.e., what modality—emotional, empirical, specifications, utility)? What action is it supposed to induce? Until you know those things, you cannot proceed with any confidence of success.

Ad copy is subtraction, ad slogans are geometry—Great ad copy is economical, succinct, and makes the best choice of words. It never uses two words when one is sufficient. It is also almost impossible to write in one or two drafts. Rather, it is the result of intense editing, subtracting out everything that isn’t necessary to drive the message home to the targeted reader.

 Ad slogans and taglines are on a whole different level of writing; they are more akin to poetry, even haikus. Sometimes, it isn’t enough to remove everything superfluous—many great slogans (“Coke is It”) even strip out important, seemingly necessary, details and depend upon customers to fill in the blanks. This is incredibly difficult writing, not least because what works one year may be an utter failure the next. Because of that, you need to be ruthless with your writing and editing, and even then test it on audiences first. With slogans, your intuition may be your best guide, and your gut your best friend.

Every picture tells a story—So why tell that story twice? Whenever possible, get a look at the mock-ups of the proposed ads. Study the imagery: whatever you eventually write, it should either complement (i.e., complete the visual message) or supplement (add new material to the visuals). If you merely say the same thing as the images, albeit in print form, you have rendered your text superfluous. And if that’s the case, who needs you?

Support the slogan—Just as copywriting is designed to back up any imagery without duplicating it, copywriting needs to fill in the blanks created by the shorthand of the overall slogan. This can be accomplished in several ways. One is to continue the tone of the slogan in the copy in order to establish a mood (think of a perfume ad). Another is to counter an emotional slogan and/or tagline with a more concrete and detailed explanation (think of an automobile ad). And, more rarely, to establish a storyline to give emotional support or real-life applications for a plain-vanilla slogan (think appliances, electronics, homes, food ingredients, etc.). Since it is almost impossible to predict which of these it will want, this is yet another subject you should address with the client before you begin. Don’t be surprised if the client doesn’t know either and will order one of each.

Love the process, not the result—We mentioned this earlier but will repeat it for emphasis: do not fall in love with your creation, or you will be disappointed. Clients can be fickle—and not always in a good way. If you create something great, and the client vetoes it, put it aside in hopes you can modify it for a different client someday. Meanwhile, take pride in your skills and in your work—that is, the process of creation, not its eventual fate. That attitude will lead to a long and rewarding career. And if it proves insufficient, do your own writing—for yourself—on the side.

Edit most adjectives, kill all adverbs—This is not a hard and fast rule. If your copy is too long, look first to cut out all adverbs, as they are the most expendable. After that, look to editing out adjectives. Keep only those necessary to define the subject. After that, try to put verbs in the present tense. Look at replacing multiple redundantly structured sentences describing the same subject with a bulleted list. If all of that still leaves you with too-long copy, then prioritize the points being made and start cutting away from the bottom of the list.

Write fast, edit slow—If you are sweating over the first draft of your copy, you are probably doing it wrong. Great ad copy is bright and breathless, carrying the reader along with its enthusiasm. The best way to achieve that is to write the same way: pound it out in a single session in a white heat. Leave blanks or TKs if you don’t have facts and figures immediately at hand. Use strong verbs and don’t worry about leaving in adjectives and adverbs. Just get it down. Then go back and take your time editing that copy, whittling it down to be as tight as you can get it. The mistake that amateurs make is to do just the opposite: they write slowly and carefully, usually leaving dead copy on the page, and then follow that with a desultory edit. The inevitable result is the worst possible scenario: badly written, badly edited writing, and an angry client.

Know your subject—It is a natural tendency for writers to just get on with what they do best: writing. And the previous tip underscores this, by suggesting that you write when you are especially inspired. But don’t jump into writing too fast—learn at least something about the subject first. Why? First, because the nature of the topic you are writing about may shape not just the content but the form of the copy. A second reason is that if you are not focused on the content, you will likely fall into your standard writing tropes, and that will almost always lead to lazy writing. Content first, style second.

Write for your audience—This is a corollary of the tip about knowing your audience. Your job is to create copy that will have the most impact on potential customers for your client’s product or service, not to create prose that personally pleases you. If your audience is surgeons, then you will want to write for highly educated, highly trained, but not necessarily culturally, hip readers. If you are writing for a high school-aged audience, you shouldn’t write at the university level or referencing topics only appreciated by middle-aged adults. Market research should give you an idea of the nature of your audience—and while writing you should try to keep that profile in mind; and certainly so when you are editing that copy.

Think upside down—The “inverted pyramid” is a literary style usually associated with journalism. It’s the proven strategy that you should heavily front-load your copy so that the lede paragraph contains all that the reader needs to understand the gist of the story being told. Also, half of the information to the total information to be conveyed should be covered within the first few paragraphs; and all of the necessary information in the story should be delivered before the story “jumps” to a later page. We explore this in much greater detail in the journalism chapters of this book. For now, it is important to appreciate that in advertising copy, this inverted pyramid is even more severe—think a mile wide and an inch deep. The reality is that for most advertisements, the slogan and tagline—with the imagery —should capture all of the emotion and information of the pitch being made to prospective customers. The copy itself should only support this opening pitch; you should never introduce any important new material in ad copy anywhere beyond the first few lines.

The prettier the images, the more concrete the copy—When you think about it, the reason for this should be obvious. If the images in an ad are purely emotional, or nebulous, or mystical, then to complete the ad you must almost always provide some empirical content in the copy; otherwise the ad will seem incomplete to the reader. At the very minimum, you must use the copy to direct the reader to a retailer or a website where all of the reader’s questions will be answered or a purchase made.

 Conversely, if the ad simply shows a product, then the copy should “sing,” eliciting an emotional response in the reader. This is the main reason why you need to see the layouts (or script) and slogan/tagline of an advertisement or commercial before you start writing: your job is to not just provide information but also a counterbalance to complete the reader/viewer/listener experience.

Precise nouns; active verbs—As you train and apprentice to become a professional writer, you will often hear that what distinguishes good writers from poor ones is that the former consistently uses strong “active” verbs, while the latter—often because they fear making a definitive statement—use weak, “passive” verbs. Thus, while an amateur might choose “went,” a pro would be more specific, using “ran,” “walked,” “drove,” “flew,” and so on. True enough. But a second characteristic of good writers—and advertising copywriters in particular because there is such a premium on words—is that they use precise nouns. Thus, where in normal speech you might say “car,” the ad copywriter will use “the 1965 Ford Mustang 289 convertible.”

 Why? Two reasons. First, if the subject of the ad is that “car” you want to be precise enough that the potential customer knows what to ask for at a dealership or search for on the Web. Second, given the premium placed on every word you write because of the limited available real estate in an ad, or the time available in a radio or TV commercial, you want to compress as much useful information into your copy as possible—and that calls for the use of the right words: that is, 40-in 1080p 60MHz LCD flat-screen television. That provides a vast amount of condensed information to a potential customer that can’t be conveyed in, say, “full color flat-screen television.” Similarly, “collagen” provides much more precision than “bone by-product.” Of course, this creates a contradiction: you want every word to contain as much weight as possible while at the same time keeping the message simple enough to be understood by the average person. And that is why you are a paid professional.



EXAMPLE: A PR/advertising agency advertisement for itself. Note the amount of copy, which is more than most modern ads—that’s because this is designed to be an informational ad to corporate clients, not a consumer pitch. Nevertheless, the copy was edited numerous times to make it as tight as possible.





CHAPTER 6 Speechwriter


Speechwriting is among the oldest of writing professions—likely dating at least as far back as the birth of written language. Indeed, it’s quite possible that some Neolithic chief or priest memorized his speeches—or had someone create them for him—in strictly pre-writing verbal form.

More than any other form of language, speeches have changed the course of history. We remember the words of great figures millennia after they were spoken and more than any other form of writing those words still have the ability to thrill us today. Think of Cicero in the Roman Senate, Leonidas at Thermopylae, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Chief Joseph at his surrender, Winston Churchill standing before parliament in 1940, and Martin Luther King on the Capitol Mall. Even many of the greatest moments in other literary forms appear as speeches: the St. Crispin’s Day speech in Shakespeare’s Henry V and Hamlet’s soliloquy, the Nantucket minister’s sermon in Moby Dick and Tom Joad’s exit in the movie version of The Grapes of Wrath.

Great speeches can turn certain defeats into victory. They can galvanize people to act or to steel themselves for an impending challenge. They can explain, appeal to duty, draw upon the conscience, and in a few words (“Carthagio delenta est,” “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” “that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth”) bring inchoate thoughts into a tight focus that everyone can instantly understand.

For all of these reasons, the speech is often considered the queen of writing, and thus the profession of speechwriting an exalted one. But it also comes with sacrifices, especially today. In an older, slower time great and powerful men and women wrote their own speeches. One can picture Cicero walking slowly through a temple, using it as his memory theater as, in his mind, he attaches vivid images to every statue and fixture while composing his next speech to the Senate. Or Lincoln riding the train to Pennsylvania, composing his address on the back of an envelope. Or Churchill, in bed, whiskey in hand, dictating, “We will fight them on the beaches.”

But the demands of our fast-moving and increasingly complex world have changed all of that. These days, it is the rarest of the powerful who have the time, knowledge, or even the ability to write their own speeches. Instead, these important men and women are served by speechwriters—a single person or a team—who typically assume the task of interviewing the speaker to determine the message and goals of the speech, research the subject, draft the speech in a simulation of the speaker’s voice, and then edit that speech according to the speaker’s specifications.

The nature of speeches too has changed. An Athenian oration could last most of a day; a Restoration sermon an entire afternoon. Attendees broke for dinner during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. But the rise of modern media changed all of that. Franklin Roosevelt understood that he had to keep his “fireside” radio chats to less than 30 minutes. And over the last half-century clips of speeches broadcast on television news have shrunk from an already-truncated 10 seconds to just 3 seconds—long enough for less than 10 words. Smart political speechwriters know this and embed just such “newsbites” into their longer addresses. Meanwhile, in an age of short attention spans and fast information transfer, most speeches abjure not only florid descriptions, no matter how beautiful, but also extended logical chains and syllogisms; listeners are just too impatient for the former and too distracted for the latter.

The schism between screenwriter and speaker that has characterized the last century has had both advantages and disadvantages. Bringing professionals to the process of speech preparation has saved many an audience from a dreary hour; you only have to attend a few small-town Chamber of Commerce or Rotary luncheon to appreciate what we mean. It has also created a nice livelihood for writers that pays well, connects them with important and influential people, and puts them right next to the center of action. But it has also separated the message from its deliverer that it can be impossible to discern where the soul of the speech resides. Is this really how the speaker thinks and speaks, or is he or she merely verbalizing the ideas and words of the speechwriter? Who is really the man behind the curtain?

The result has been a growing contradiction. On the one hand, professional speechwriters are more popular, and more in demand, than they’ve ever been. What used to be mostly work with elected officials and corporate CEOs now extends to gigs with middle managers, entrepreneurs, professionals, and authors. Yet, at the same time, professional speechwriting may be less celebrated than ever.

Some of this anonymity goes with the job. Precisely because speeches are delivered verbally—and when done well appear to be extemporaneous—the profession of speechwriting is often forgotten by listeners. And since speeches are naturally equated with those delivering the speech (especially successful speeches), speakers are motivated to not credit the speechwriter. Indeed, and unfortunately, too often you learn the name of a speechwriter only when the speech fails and the speaker is looking for someone to blame.

But another, less obvious, force is at work as well. It may just be that the existence of speechwriters (still a novelty in the 1980s, when President Reagan’s speechwriters Peter Robinson and Peggy Noonan were celebrated figures in their own right) has now become such a common feature of public life that we take their presence for granted. After all, can you name an important figure in the twenty-first century who actually writes his or her own speeches?

The result is that speechwriters, at least for now, seemed destined to enjoy steady work and good pay all while laboring in obscurity. Most veteran speechwriters are content with that arrangement, as their work has always been designed to be behind the scenes, and the brief era of celebrity speechwriters is an exception to the rule. However, newcomers to the field should, in this particular case, be forewarned not to look back for career models, but around them at their current professional peers.





Why speechwriting?


Because public figures are either too busy, too stupid, or too ineloquent to write their own speeches. Also, because public address, in this multimedia world, is readily reduced to sound bites, each of which requires considerable craftsmanship to be effective.





Who gives speeches?


Almost anybody, from Junior League members to the president of the United States. All of us in our careers will be called upon to give speeches, even if they are only toasts at weddings. Even speechwriters themselves are regularly called upon to give speeches.

Every one of these speeches presents a potential business opportunity for a speechwriter. Though at the lower end, these opportunities may be mostly for community service or to help a friend, even that work can help build one’s reputation which in turn can lead to the call for more remunerative speechwriting jobs.

Speakers typically fall into a handful of categories:

Professional speakers—These are people who make their livings giving speeches. Typically, this work is connected with a parallel career, such as book authorship, consulting jobs, or personal development (or some combination of the three). Thus, a business journalist may write a book and go out on a speaking/publicity tour to support that product. Should the book prove highly successful, and the demand for public appearances strong, that author might well embark on a program of regular, high-paying speeches around the country or the world. Because these programs have a limited lifespan, that author is likely to write a quick follow-up book and start the speaking tour all over again.

Conversely, self-improvement speakers often begin with a low-paying speaking tour, slowly building both audiences and speaking fees. Only then is this established audience used as a target market for a subsequent book, which is then sold at the speaking events.

Either way, if everything works as planned, the books and the speeches are designed to create a virtuous cycle in which each component—book, speeches, and eventually consulting contracts—builds upon each other, making the professional speaker able to enjoy higher speaking fees, expensive consulting contracts, and guaranteed best-sellers. If, in fact, as a speechwriter you discover a talent for public speaking and self-promotion, you should probably consider this lucrative path by writing your own speeches and books.

Professional speakers, because they are likely to be writers themselves, usually write their own speeches. Thus, outside speechwriter opportunities with these individuals are rare. That said, there are still occasion (and high-paying) opportunities to either

Write the basic “stump” speech that the professional will modify for each speaking occasion, or, conversely

Take the professional’s existing stump speech and modify it for the venue, event topic, or audience. This latter job is likely to be as much research as actual writing.



Speaking professionals—These are individuals for whom public speaking is not their full-time job, but yet being successful at it may be critical to their careers. The list of these speakers includes elected officials, corporate executives, professionals, scientists and heads of government organizations and NGOs, heads of nonprofit organizations and foundations, university presidents, priests and ministers, military officers, and celebrities. And the number of speeches they give can range from one or two per year to that same number per week.

These individuals are the prime source of writing gigs for speechwriters, and the potential contractual commitments can include the following:

Editing or updating an existing speech

Writing a specialized one-off speech

Preparing (researching, writing, and editing) a standardized stump speech

A monthly retainer to “doctor” or create multiple speeches

A full-time position as a speechwriter to create any sort of content as needed



Needless to say, the remuneration for this work varies with the importance of the speech(es)—that is, length, audience, occasion, and so on of the speaker and of the speaker’s employer. Thus, a major speech before shareholders by the chairman of the Fortune 50 company is going to pay many times more than the speech by a start-up entrepreneur to potential customers at a middling industry trade show. The same is true for extended contracts: you are likely not to get such a contract, but rather be paid per job, by a Congressperson or small business owner; while you can probably make a very comfortable living on the staff of the Secretary of the Interior.





The two big categories of speeches


In the largest sense, speechwriting takes two forms: those speeches you write for yourself and those you write for others.

Speeches you write for yourself—If you are a member of one of the many writing professions described in this text—author, novelist, academic, and editor among others—you may well find yourself in that category we just described as “Speaking Professionals.” That is, to help sell your work, or improve your professional standing, or attract advertisers and readers, you may be required to spend some portion of your time giving speeches. But even if you are not in that category, chances are that you will still be regularly asked to give speeches at the local Chamber of Commerce, service club chapter, or industry group. Writers are constant targets of those invitations because people assume—rightly or wrongly—that people who write well can talk well too.

The biggest challenge to writing a speech for yourself is that it has to exhibit what you think. At first blush, that may seem liberating; you finally get to speak your own words, rather than putting them into someone else’s mouth. It’s only when you walk up to the podium for the first time that you realize that there is a wide gulf between writing a speech and delivering it. That’s often when you discover that while you know how someone else speaks—their vocabulary, cadence, personality, and mannerisms—you don’t necessarily know your own.

Moreover, it is one thing to sit in a comfortable chair at home writing a speech for someone else, secure in the knowledge that they will ultimately have to take responsibility for both its content and its delivery, and another to stand in front of 500 or 1,000 people taking that responsibility yourself. That’s when you make another discovery—one you long ago made about your clients, but never realized about yourself: you don’t speak the way you write. That veteran speaker client of yours may have enough breath discipline to get through your long, loping sentences without running out of gas, but you probably don’t. And your client probably knows how to enunciate those multi-syllabic words you love so much, doesn’t whistle saying sibilants, and knows better than to laugh at his own witty lines.

That’s why, even more that you do for your clients’ speeches, you need to spend a lot of time reading your speech out loud, in front of a mirror, with a stopwatch in your hand. Even better, test out your speech in front of someone you both trust, but who also cares enough about you to be ruthless in their criticism. Have them stop you every time you stumble and make you edit the text into something with which you are more comfortable. Listen carefully to your own rhythms and cadences.

Most of all, prepare yourself for your actual presentation of the speech in front of a live audience. Recognize that you are going to make mistakes, stumble, and perhaps even lose your place. Forgive yourself ahead of time and then prepare for these potholes. If you need reading glasses, take along two pairs. Blow up the font size. As you speak, track your words and keep your place with a finger on the text. Remind yourself to look at the audience. When you arrive at the venue, have someone walk you through your steps to the podium (especially stairsteps). Don’t eat much beforehand—and never, never have wine or alcohol (save that for when you get home with the check). Try to enjoy yourself.

Not only will these preparations help improve the odds of your speech going over well, but just the experience of giving your own speech can be a salutary one in other ways. It will help you better understand what your clients must go through, often with far greater consequences for an error—such as a stock crash or suspended trading, a lost job or reputation, falling employee morale, becoming a pariah in one’s profession—repercussions with infinitely greater costs than you face with your speech. If nothing else, it should motivate you to give that client the best work you can.

Speeches you write for others—For most speechwriters, this is 99 percent of their work. In one respect, writing speeches for others is much easier than writing speeches for yourself. As noted, you bear none of the burden of responsibility for the speech’s content and delivery. That doesn’t mean that the work is risk-free: as we said at the beginning of this chapter, if your client really, really screws up, he or she is going to look around for scapegoats and one of them is likely to be you. But even a small disaster at a speech can lead your client to lose faith or trust in you. Either way, you are going to get fired—and if it’s one of the big screw-ups you will also likely be blackballed in that corner of the world. It may not be fair, but that’s the nature of the profession—and the gamble you take being merely a scribe to the rich and powerful.

Still, the chances of that happening are pretty slim. So, the reality is that when writing a speech for someone else you get a lot of freedom to do your craft and carry little burden of responsibility in doing so—other than to do the best writing you can. Compared to many jobs described in this textbook, that’s a very good deal.

But in saying that speechwriting for others is philosophically easy, we don’t mean to say that it is not a lot of in-the-trenches work. In particular, you have to learn to embody your client, and then deal with the vagaries of shepherding your draft through the gauntlet of approval cycles to get it to the point where your words actually come out of your client’s mouth. Here, in detail, is what we mean:

In the speech, you must capture what your client thinks about the subject; what he or she wants to convey in the speech; and what goals he or she has for the speech. The last can range from “keep the audience entertained” to “find potential new customers” to “impact current legislation.”

To understand the speaker’s needs and capture relevant information, you typically need at least one interview (in-person is best, next best is over the phone, via email is the worst).

The speech must also not only reflect the current views of the speaker but also his or her past history, so as not to accidentally reflect badly. Learn of any scandals or bad publicity in your speaker’s past so that you don’t inadvertently remind the audience of them.

The speech must sound like the speaker—that is, it should capture the cadences, vocabulary, areas of expertise, and so on in his or her normal, everyday speech. If you make your speaker sound like an expert in a subject he or she knows little about, you may be setting them up for disaster during the question period or off-stage afterward. Make a speaker sound too “street” or “down home” during a speech and they’ll sound like a phony when they revert to their usual patois afterward; conversely make them sound too smart (i.e., obscure polysyllabic words, classical references, etc.) and they may face unreasonable expectations afterward.

The speech must be readable by the speaker in terms of phrase length, sounds, stresses, and accents. As an extreme example, don’t give a person with a small lisp a lot of sibilant sounds in the speech. By the same token, too many run-on sentences will leave the speaker panting for breath; while too many fragments will make them sound aggressive and abrupt. And make sure that your client can pronounce properly every word you give him or her.

You must deliver a rough draft of the speech to your client and have that person mark it up. You may have to go through multiple iterations of this step before you get approval to move on.

Once you get approval, you can then produce the polished, final, draft of the speech.

You must physically prepare the speech as much as possible. That is, lay out the text in the way you want it to read, with words marked for emphasis and pronunciation, breaks to enable the speaker to breathe, and a readable typeface. If you cannot deliver a hard copy to your client, then at least make sure that the hard copy he or she will use be printed out with the right font size (the older the speaker the bigger the letters) and appropriate page numbers. You can support this by sending instructions to the speaker or an assistant.

You must be prepared—and available—to make last-minute edits and changes. There is no shortage of anecdotes of speakers calling their speechwriters from backstage to rework a phrase or two. Some of these fixes will be at the behest of your client; but others may come as the result of recent news events, or even special demands by the sponsor or venue (i.e., the slide projector is broken or the length of the speech must be cut by one-third because of rescheduling). At these moments, you must be prepared to drop everything and scramble to make the necessary changes.





Types of speeches


As you no doubt have noticed by now, almost every type of professional writing is delivered via multiple—even scores—of vehicles. Speechwriting is no exception. Here are some examples, and how they are used. We’ve listed them in order of complexity (and typical length). The speeches at the top of the list, because of their brevity and lack of time for preparation, are sometimes improvised on the spot, from perhaps a few notes or outline. The speeches at the bottom of the list almost always must be prepared and practiced repeatedly ahead of their actual delivery.

Public statement—These are the very short, unornamented, and fact-driven speeches you typically see on the evening news. An event has occurred—a crime, a disaster, an arrest, a victory, an award, a death, a sudden retirement, and so on—that, to stave off an onslaught of questions from reporters, is delivered by a spokesperson who steps in front of the microphones and cameras and offers up the basic facts of the matter. Sometimes this speaker takes questions, sometimes not, usually depending upon whether it is good or bad news, or still ongoing.

Public statements are usually delivered by the subject of the news, a person in authority (such as a police officer), and occasionally by an official public relations person on staff (such as the Press Secretary of the president of the United States). Because of that, a professional speechwriter is rarely involved. But when they are called in, the time horizon for writing copy can be a matter of minutes. In this brief interval, it is important to keep one’s head, don’t try to be clever in the copy, and make sure the facts are complete and accurate.

Mea Culpa—This form of speech is much like the public statement, but it is almost always a job for a speechwriter. Mea Culpa speeches are a form of public expression that admits guilt or culpability while at the same time minimizes its impact. This combination, done right, can be hugely important: it may be the difference between your client having his or her career destroyed or living on to fight another day.

Great Mea Culpa speeches are among the highest form of theater in public life. The guilty party stands on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, or in front of a courtroom, or at a podium, usually flanked by a noble spouse, loving children, and well-wishers and supporters (the more famous the better) and admits his or her crime. The goal is to either have the audience there or watch at home either to forgive them or at least to psychologically minimize their crime. Classic examples range from the Nixon “Checquers” (where the vice president of the United States talked about his dog and his wife’s cheap cloth coat and turned disaster into a path to the White House) and televangelist Jimmy Swaggert’s tearful “I have sinned” speech, which kept his career damaged but ultimately intact.

Mea Culpa speeches present a real challenge to speechwriters: They must be carefully written to minimize the bad news, while at the same time provide the proper platform for the client to take responsibility, appear chastened and changed, look noble, and pull out all of the emotional stops. It helps that, more than a public statement, a Mea Culpa speech usually offers a little time for writing—and veteran speechwriters know to start the first draft well before the client admits—even to himself—that he is guilty.

Introduction—Done right, Introductions are the easiest, most fun, and potentially most rewarding of speech forms. They are easy because they are short and the audience rarely remembers them. They are fun because you are allowed to play with your comments and tease the speaker being introduced. And rewarding, at least for your client, because the very fact that he or she has been tapped to make the Introduction puts them at a higher level than the audience, and sometimes even the main speaker. They can also be rewarding for you: writing a few witty lines that make your client look clever can be a quick and regular source of cash or a retainer that can go on for years.

There are basically two types of Introduction speeches, and they each take two forms. The two types are formal and informal. Formal Introductions typically take place at formal, solemn occasions: investitures, graduations, funerals, shareholder meetings, and so forth. These Introductions are typically brief and list the speaker’s credentials.

Informal Introductions, by comparison, are typically given a luncheons and dinners, award ceremonies, reunions, and social gatherings. These are the speeches where your client will want to have fun—in particular, to find the right balance between getting through the necessary details about the main speaker, while at the same time being both witty and worldly.

The two forms of Introduction speeches are impersonal and personal. That is, the Introduction is either about someone, usually important, that you don’t know, or it is about someone you—and likely the audience—personally know, such as a former or current member, someone who lives in the community, or a past or present acquaintance or workmate.

Think of it as a 2×2 matrix with four possible combinations. At the most rigid corner is the impersonal formal Introduction, wherein you help your client essentially list the achievements and credentials of the great person and then get out of the way. And, at the opposite corner is the informal personal Introduction, wherein your client tells funny and warm anecdotes about his or her old friend in order to humanize them to the audience.

When writing Introductions it is important to know before you begin the nature of the event and the relationship between your client and the person he or she will introduce. If you get it wrong, you client will, at best (formal at an informal event) look like a stuffed shirt; and at worst (informal at a formal event, or getting personal with someone they don’t really know) like a thoughtless idiot.

The toast—The toast is essentially an Introduction that is short and places wit over content.

By definition, toasts take place when people either have drinks in their hands (such as cocktail parties, post-prandial celebrations, funerary wakes, graduations, and wedding receptions) or near at hand (formal dinners, reunion dinners, regimental dinners, bar mitzvahs, etc.). The ancient nature of toasting adds to their heightened sense—because so much depends upon their being done right. And, because the toasting is usually done with an alcoholic beverage, the first successful toast is usually a mark of achieving adulthood.

Toasts generally take two forms:

The targeted toast—This is most often found at a wedding, where some sibling or friend of the groom is asked to stand at the reception and make remarks about the newlyweds. This type of toast is done well so rarely that when it is performed properly, the audience remembers it for years.

 There are a number of reasons why targeted toasts usually fail so miserably, but mostly they come down to alcohol, sentiment, crudeness, and a lack of understanding about the purpose of the act. The embarrassing, obscene, endless maudlin wedding toast scene is a cliché of comedy films. In real life, such moments, because they lack the comedy, are far worse: endless, discursive, filled with inside comments no one understands, and ending with a weepy, incoherent finish.

 That’s why smart (and usually wealthy) people, when asked to prepare a targeted toast, hire the services of someone who can prepare the words for them. For a couple hundred dollars, it’s not a bad investment, especially if it saves the toastmaker’s reputation.

 The key to writing targeted toast is to keep it short and witty. The client should tell one or two amusing anecdotes about their common past, how the couple met (if appropriate), welcome the bride or groom to the family, how the pair were meant for each, predict great things for their future, and wish them bon voyage on their marriage. Anything over five minutes is too long. Never, ever mention embarrassing (especially sexual) moments about either the bride (especially the bride) or groom.

 As the writer, you can typically gain what you need in a brief interview with your client. Make sure your client practices the speech until it is entirely memorized—or nearly so—such that it can be given not only without notes but with an air of spontaneity.

The untargeted toast—It may surprise you how often, at a formal dinner, the individual standing to make a clever toast has either hired someone to write those words or copied them out of an old collection of famous toasts.

 Untargeted toasts are, as the name suggests, toasts made without a target, but rather designed to encompass everyone in the room—that is, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Queen!” or “may she always be right, but my Country right or wrong” (Stephen Decatur). Like an Introduction, an untargeted toast can be formal and solemn, or informal and fun. Indeed, formal toasts can be of stunning solemnity, wherein the toasters honor the dead, rededicate themselves to king and country, or swear mutual loyalty. Informal toasts are among the wittiest utterances in daily life, and great toasts are remembered and repeated for centuries. They are the haikus of elegant society.

 The mistake most toasters make is to either assume (once again, usually thanks to alcohol) that they can improvise a brilliant line on the spot, or that because others seem to make toasts so easily and casually that they carry little impact beyond the moment. The truth is that many of those casual and clever bon mots are in fact the product of paid professionals (like you) and the result of endless practice.

 Why do these toast makers go to such trouble? Because they understand that those few words can signal to powerful figures in attendance the intelligence, the cleverness and creativity, and the comfort in rarified surroundings, of the toastmaker—often far more than any resume or CV. What appears as merely a witty one-off among inebriated celebrants may in fact be a job interview for a higher position. That’s what you need to impress upon your client, and that’s why you must edit and polish their toast copy to a lapidary sheen.

 Practically speaking, a good untargeted toast should be no more than a sentence or two. If solemn, it should be of elevated tone, and you will need to research any established phrasing or ritual. If clever, be witty and not cruel, risqué but not vulgar, and, always, take advantage of memorable turns of phrase and clever plays on language. In other words, it’s not easy, so you should probably go buy one of those old books of great toasts, study its contents, and not be afraid to steal as needed.



Master of ceremonies—Serving as a master of ceremonies—not least writing the script for one—is a complicated duty. On the one hand, you are expected to be casual, engaging, and spontaneous. On the other, this style is expected to operate within a very rigid schedule that, likely as not, will run on a clock. As a result, any required stage-setting happy talk will have to be brief and limited to the opening and closing of the event, as well as during a few short interstitials.

Once again, the mistake many speakers make is to assume that they can just make this stuff up. The result is often an emcee who stalls the presentation by taking too long to tell an anecdote, or wrecks the mood by interjecting a comment that is either inappropriate or just unrelated to the action at hand. Again, the key to looking spontaneous, while still hitting your marks, is to prepare extensively ahead of time. And because most nonprofessional masters of ceremonies have their own busy careers, the smart ones will come to you.

The key to being a successful emcee lies in that word “Master.” Great emcees take control of the event from the very first moment and then serve as a knowledgeable and welcome guide to the end, where they cap the event with a summary of its proceedings and its place in the larger world outside. This is not a simple task: look how many famous entertainers have failed as hosts of the Oscars—a job Hollywood once took for granted because Bob Hope made it look so easy for quarter-century.

Some of the success of great emcees is a matter of personality and charisma. You can’t do much about that. Nor can you do much about the actual schedule of the event. But you can help in two ways:

Write the opening, closing, and interstitials in a manner that is warm, engaging, and brief. For the opening, you want to set the stage by having your client introduce the event, explain its importance, lay out the schedule for the evening, and make a few witty remarks about himself or herself. For the interstitial, write brief one-line comments on the proceedings, especially trying to amplify what is going on (i.e., “past awardees include ______” or “Now we come to the highlight of the evening,” etc.)

Help your client through the rest of the presentation. In particular, if he or she is going to be announcing a number of names as award recipients, you can help by putting the phonetic pronunciations in the script. You should also try to learn everything you can about the venue, so you can add any stage instructions that might be missing (“Stay onstage to the right rear of the podium during the acceptance speech”).



One of the biggest dangers for masters of ceremonies is ego. Given their central role, some emcees assume that they are the real star of the evening. There is not much you can do about that—though you might put in a few self-effacing remarks into the script to keep your client’s image in check, if only for the audience’s sake.

The acceptance speech—Acceptance speeches are fun; but they can also be, at the very moment of celebration, disastrous.

We have all watched the Academy Awards or Grammys or other high‑level award ceremony in which an honoree, after being cheered by the audience for their achievements, throws away all of that goodwill by getting up and giving an acceptance speech that is too long, too pompous, to insider, too maudlin, too vulgar, or all of the above. Astoundingly, after all of the bad examples of what not to do, some awardees still attempt to get up—in front of hundreds of millions of people around the world—and improvise. The cringe-worthy results are predictable.

A wise person will write a thoughtful acceptance speech beforehand. An even wiser person will hire someone like you to write the speech for them. Here are some tricks:

Find out how long the honoree is allowed to talk before the walk-off music begins. Write to that length.

Be witty, but not funny—even if the award is for a professional comedian. If they wanted to tell a joke they wouldn’t have hired you.

Be inclusive, but not detailed. Thanking a laundry list of people from an index card is tacky and boring, especially if your client starts naming agents and relatives. Instead, just thank everyone who helped your client in a single sweeping gesture—perhaps prefaced with a comment about there being “too many people to name.”

Thank no more than three people. If your client has to name names, keep the list to three or less and make sure there is a good reason for each of them.

Anecdotes work. If your awardee/client has a story than can be told in less than 15 seconds (“I want to thank my high school drama teacher who told me that my future was in chemistry, because I had no chance in theater. He was right.”) use it. Note that sad stories usually play well, as do funny ones—but never be cruel, self-pitying, or vengeful.

Have your client practice the acceptance speech to the point that he or she has it memorized. And don’t take long odds against your client winning the award as an excuse to be lazy—think of how many unexpected, and unprepared, winners you’ve seen over the years. If there is even the slightest chance, prepare.



The eulogy—Given the archaeological record of funerary rites of early man, it is likely that some form of funeral speech (along with the “call to battle”) is the oldest form of specialized speech. Today, eulogies are part of almost every funeral service, and often the centerpiece of the occasion. Typically, if a religious funeral, the minister, priest, or rabbi makes a conventional speech to sacrelize the funeral, then invite a relative or friend of the deceased to come up and say a few words. For a non-sacramental funeral, the funeral director—or even the eulogist—may act as host.

After the eulogy, other attendees at the funeral may be invited to come up to the lectern and say a few words of reminiscence about the deceased. These short speeches are usually spontaneous, so do not replace the duty of the eulogist.

Eulogies, as with other forms of speechwriting, take two forms: those you write for others and those you deliver yourself. And while the content of the two will necessarily be different, the structures of both kinds of eulogies are the same. In both cases, if you keep your head and exhibit some discipline in regard to style and length you really can’t fail. That said, while it is easy to right a mediocre, programmatic eulogy—basically a biography, a couple anecdotes, and a “We’ll miss the deceased” at the end—superior eulogies are very difficult to write, and great ones have lived for thousands of years.

Eulogies you write for others—These writing jobs are relatively rare and are usually in occasions when either the eulogist or the deceased is a very important person. These are kind of funerals where hundreds, even thousands, of other important people attend and where selected quotes from the eulogy will be carried by the Web or on television. Needless to say, this type of work carries with it enormous responsibility, and your words just might ring down through the generations.

 Conversely, you may be asked to write a eulogy for a client who wants to give a loved one an eloquent and moving send-off. In a way, this type of eulogy bears with it even more responsibility because whereas for a big, newsworthy funeral you are writing in elevated speech and following strict formalities, for a small funeral attended by people who knew and loved the deceased, you need words for your client that are intimate and knowing.

Eulogies you give yourself—The best way to fully understand the challenges of writing and delivering a great eulogy is to find yourself have to do one—and once people know that you can write speeches, you are going to find yourself being asked to do just that. Certainly you can say no—but wait until you find yourself asked by your mother or a sibling or your best friend’s widow. You will have no choice but to step up to the task and when you find yourself choking up at the lectern as you watch the tears of the attendees—all of whom you know—you will fully understand and sympathize with what your clients go through. The experience will make you a better writer.



Preparing a eulogy—All good eulogies have a similar structure:

The welcome: As the host/minister will have already welcomed the attendees, you should keep this part very short. Just saying that you are honored to be asked to say a few works about the deceased and your relationship to them.

Biography: Everyone in attendance will likely have known the deceased, but many of them will probably only have been close to them in specific settings (neighbor, fellow club member, workmate). Few will have known them over the course of their life. It’s your job to fill them in. This is accomplished by laying out, over the course of a few minutes, the biography of the deceased. The tendency here is to try to tell too much; the fact is that it is impossible in the brief course of a eulogy to tell all of the interesting details of a person’s life. So, just stick to the high points.

Telling anecdotes—You also can’t tell all of the fun and interesting anecdotes of a person’s life, but there is time to tell two or three of the best ones, especially if they illuminate the character of the deceased. Save the ribald anecdotes for the reception or the wake, and among a select audience. Rather, take the time to select the anecdotes that explain the character of the deceased—make the family and the attendees proud to have known the deceased.

Emotional close: End on a strong note, even if it is just “We’ll miss you.” But if you can come up with a send-off that is unique to the deceased: “We know you’ll be playing golf in heaven” or “Mom, we’ll be telling wonderful stories about you to your great-grand-children—especially about your chocolate-chip cookies,” and so forth. The fact that these words will inevitably set off an emotional response in the eulogist will make for a memorable finish.



Tips:

Get the fact—The most important part of a eulogy is the biography of the deceased. This information gets all of the attendees on the same page, uncovers little known facts, and most importantly establishes the deceased’s place in history (high school football star, attended Texas A&M, artillery captain in Europe in WWII, married in 1948, four children, six grandchildren, and so on). Or: Born in Enid, Oklahoma, father was a truck driver and mother a teacher, attended OSU, den mother, executive secretary, and so on. Try to get all of the high points and then look to add a few telling details. This is going to be the narrative spine upon which you add everything else.

Interview—Interview the eulogist to get everything he or she knows about the deceased. If they are an actual relative, that person should be a sufficient interviewee to get the contents of your eulogy. Better yet, if you can convince them to do so, have them write a rough draft of what they want to say. It will inevitably be too long, too anecdotal, and sentimental, and with a discursive narrative thread. All of that can be fixed; what matters is that it will tell you what the eulogist thinks matters about the deceased. You can work from there to create your working draft.

Multiple drafts—Funerals are emotionally difficult times. Don’t be surprised if your client remembers other anecdotes they want to add once they look at your first draft. The challenge now is to convince them that some of those anecdotes can be added, but for the sake of length (or other reasons, such as embarrassing the deceased’s family) they should be left. Don’t be surprised if you needed to go through several drafts of the eulogy. [As an aside, some faiths required the dead to be interred within a brief time interval. In that case, you will need to assert time discipline on your client: for example, giving them a few hours to make each draft edit. In the end, their desperation over the impending deadline will be your friend.]

Practice—It’s one thing to read a eulogy in your head, another to deliver it to a weeping audience. That’s when, no matter how much the eulogist is trying to restrain himself or herself, they are likely to choke up and be unable to finish the speech. Tell your client to, privately, deliver the entire eulogy aloud four or more times—and read it a half-dozen times more. Remind them that their task is to rise above their emotions and deliver the words; they can break down later and everyone will understand. An undelivered eulogy is a failed eulogy—for them, their family, and their friends. That said, being human, chances are they will still choke up—and no one will mind, especially if they can soldier through to the end.



All of these steps apply to you if you are giving the eulogy. The difference is that you need to interview yourself on what you know and don’t know about the deceased. You also will want to bounce your drafts off people who also knew the deceased to get the correct facts and anecdotes. And don’t be surprised if, when you are up there at the lectern, you find your words catching in your throat.

[As an aside, the author has never encountered a professional eulogy writer—though they may exist in government or a religious institution.] This kind of work comes along rarely—and happily so. This may be one of the rare exceptions to the rule that as a professional writer you should never write for free. The author has never invoiced a client for writing a eulogy; it just sees improper. If the eulogist wants to voluntarily offer you an honorarium for your work, he accepts it gracefully and with thanks—and again offers his condolences.

The formal address—Now we get to the big guns. A formal address is essentially any speech that

Is of sufficient length—typically 30 minutes or more

Stands alone in its presentation—that is, it may be part of a series of events, and even one of several speeches; but it still is independent and typically requires its own separate introduction

Is scheduled ahead—usually no less than two weeks, and sometimes as much as a year

Is promoted separately—that is, it has its own venue, or is listed as a featured event in a program, or is distinctly advertised in promotions for the event and is covered separately by the media



A formal address is almost always written in advance and delivered from a printed text, electronic display, or teleprompter. It has a beginning, middle, and end. And whatever entertainment value it may offer, that experience is always intermixed with the presentation of some useful knowledge, whether it is news, accumulated data, or just the speaker’s experience and acquired wisdom.

Formal addresses come in multiple forms, which we’ll now look at in turn:

The press conference—Press conferences are highly organized events designed to convey important news to the media (and thus the public) en masse. There are several reasons for holding a press conference. One is to give the media the information simultaneously, so that no one gets a time advantage (a “scoop”) over everyone else. Another is that it saves time: rather than giving dozens of interviews, the speaker can get the message out to everyone at once. Finally, there are regulatory reasons—for example, financial and other announcements by public corporations that can potentially impact stock values that must be delivered concurrently to all relevant media so that one group of investors cannot have an advantage over another.

 Anyone who has ever watched television news knows that press conferences are highly structured events that begin with a welcome, followed by an introduction of the main speaker—who speaks to the media briefly, offering the key highlights of the news event—and then, if the speaker wishes, this is followed by a (usually chaotic) question and answer session from reporters, during which the speaker may choose or not to answer specific questions or pass them off to other experts standing around the podium.

 If you are hired to be the speechwriter for the speaker at a press conference, the scenario will likely take two forms: It is an announcement—usually corporate—that has been planned well in advance, or,

It is a breaking news story, and you will have minutes to compose something, sometimes by hand on a sheet of scrap paper.





 The whole point of a press conference is control. In many cases you will have only a few moments to get the message before all hell breaks loose as reporters begin shouting questions. The key then is to be very brief and very factual—be sure to check every fact and number twice beforehand—and keep your client’s personal views out of the speech. The other stuff will likely come out during the Q&A, which is beyond your purview or control.

Policy address—This is typically the province of politicians, though this genre of speech can also be used by corporate and nonprofit CEOs, university presidents, and even military leaders. The purpose of a policy address is to present a long-term strategy or vision for an organization to that organization’s members. The goal is to offer a well-defined path to achieving that strategy, provide some limited rational for that plan, and enlist the various stakeholders into implementing that plan.

 Policy addresses can be very tricky because of one inevitable contradiction: the speaker wants to present the new policy as inevitable—indeed, a fait accompli—yet at the same time is still trying to convince the organization to support that plan. Thus, in writing such a speech for your client, you must walk a fine line between having the speaker come across as confident, competent, and decisive to the point of being autocratic (“the program is already underway”), while at the same time making your client appear open to alternative views (even when they are not) and democratic in asking employees or subordinates for their sign-in, and as someone who needs the support of the rank-and-file.

 In writing a policy address always keep in mind that everyone else involved in this announcement probably has a greater stake in it than you. You need to understand the strong opinions on either side of the matter and be prepared for the ones holding view opposite to your client’s position. You can also do your client and the organization a real service by using the address to not only announce changes but to explain them in the simplest and most transparent writing you can muster.

 Don’t get bogged down in details. The minutiae of the new policy will unfold in the days and weeks ahead. Your goal is to get the audience of stakeholders to, if not immediately, adopt the new policy, at least understand it well enough to give it a thoughtful consideration.

The lecture—A lecture is a formal speech designed to convey a specific piece of information to a captive audience, sometimes with some sort of measurement of the audience’s attention (test, quiz, survey, poll) afterward. Lectures are most often found in an academic setting, as they are the most commonly used pedagogical tool, especially at the high school and university level. But lectures can also be found in professional settings—such as in continuing education, certification programs, and training seminars.

 The lecture exists in private life as well. Get a speeding ticket and, if you don’t want to pay a fine, you’ll most likely have to sit through a day-long safety lecture/class. Your local hardware store likely presents Saturday morning lectures/tutorials on everything from weather-stripping to solar panel installation. And, seen from a certain perspective, even the Sunday morning sermon at church is a form of lecture.

 The reason that most lectures are dreary, even those with compelling content, is that they are usually written by the speakers themselves. There’s a good reason for that: they have been asked to speak because of their singular expertise. But great knowledge is not synonymous with good presentation—so the odds of getting both a useful and entertaining lecture are pretty low. Just ask any college student.

 However, it is possible to have both—and one of the best ways to do so is for the expert lecturer to pass the talk past a professional speechwriter, like yourself. It’s a rare occurrence, unless you volunteer to do the rewrite for free (do that sparingly). On the rare occasions that you do get a lecture rewrite gig, here’s how you can help: Brighten—Assuming that the useful content is already in place, try to shape the presentation by breaking it into sections and themes and then give each of those a clever, memorable title. Replace bland verbs with strong ones, add powerful adjectives and adverbs.

Tighten—Break up all long-winded sentences and paragraphs into shorter versions. Look to see where there are redundancies or time-consuming discursions and cut them out.

Lighten—Don’t force the audience to keep track of long, complicated logical threads. Stop and various points and remind them where they are—and even where you are going.

Declare– Show the bones of the lecture by using a lot of subheads, bullet points, even mnemonics when possible. The goal is to have the audience know exactly where you are in the lecture at any moment.

Prepare—Start the speech by telling the audience where it is going to end and the key points you are going to make along the way.

Compare—Insert real-life anecdotes as examples wherever you can. If some of those examples are from the lecturer’s own life, you will make him or her more human to the audience.





The honorary address—The honorary address is, as the name suggests, a speech that is delivered after the speaker has received some kind of honor or award. This differs from the acceptance speech, because the former is supposed to be brief and largely consists of thank-yous, while the latter is expected to be attenuated and to address larger issues revolving around the award. In particular, the speech usually is expected to address some special expertise for which the speaker is being awarded in the first place. The classic honorary address is the high school or university graduation speech. Whether given by the class valedictorian or the famous individual receiving an honorary doctorate, graduation speeches follow a standardized formula, and one should be wary of diverting too far from that format, as it has been proven over thousands of occasions over the last century.

 There are other kinds of honorary addresses as well—notably those given by the recipient of a major industry award, at the retirement of a notable figure, and for recognition of lifetime achievements.

 Honorary addresses are often written by speechwriters—and if hired to do so, one of the biggest challenges you may face is a divergence in views between you and the honoree over the tone and length of the speech. You may want the speaker to be triumphant, when he or she wants to be humble, or vice versa; and you may want to keep the speech short and strong, while the speaker wants to use this singular occasion as a soapbox or valedictory. You will do yourself a service by working out these differences at the start (and sometimes even politely walk away) than in the middle as the deadline date approaches.

 The key to a good honorary address is to make the speaker gracious and self-effacing, but also proud and deeply honored. Personalize the speech with insider references, but don’t go too far (see below). Be amusing with turns of phrases, but stay away from obvious jokes. Make the speaker understand—especially at a graduation—that this moment isn’t just for them, but also for the graduates, so don’t wander off (as many politicians do) into policy statements that have nothing to do with the event at hand. [Note that some universities want the speaker to talk policy because it gets the school on television.] Also, beware of the usual clichés spouted at these events, but be uplifting without being obvious, warm without being maudlin, and honor the audience even as it is honoring the awardee.

The monologue/stand-up routine—We put in this exotic form because it too is, in the end, a kind of formal speech. A stand-up comedy routine can be seen as a speech that is polished to the point of poetry, in which every word is weighed and chosen for its precise subjective impact, and the sentences themselves are recited with a very carefully orchestrated beat and meter to create the maximum emotion effect at the punchline.

 If you are writing a comedy routine, you need to remember the following: Momentum is everything—The best routines aren’t collections of individual jokes, but a narrative that ties the jokes together in a continuous story.

Transitions keep the audience attached—Organize your jokes in such a way that you can smoothly segue from one to the next without forcing the audience to make a sharp turn.

Have a beginning, middle, and end—Comedy routines are like novels: they have a rising action, climax, and conclusion. Don’t peak too early and leave the audience exhausted and waiting for the end. [In one of the best stand-up routines the author ever heard, the comic delivered a 20-minute narrative made up of numerous anecdotes. Then, in the last two minutes, the comic tied all of those diverse threads together in a single, culminating punchline. The audience was left breathless, then cheered the comic’s masterful achievement.]

Edit, edit, edit—Pare the routine down until there are no excess words and make sure those words that remain are the best at maintaining the highest level of audience amusement.

Practice, practice, practice—This is your client’s (or your) career: why would you not give the audience the very best he or she (or you) can give? Every mistake in a presentation diminishes the impact of that speech.





Industry speech—Outside of academic lectures and perhaps political speeches during election seasons, industry speeches are the most common form of speech in modern life. Thousands are delivered every day in the industrialized world and are the bread-and-butter income source of most speechwriters. Though they may seem monolithic—that is, a man or woman in a business suit standing in front of a hall filled with professionals and pointing at a graph on a glowing projection screen—industry speeches actually take three different forms. As a speechwriter, it is important to understand those differences or risk creating an unfriendly audience and an unhappy client:



 —Scheduled speech—These are what might be described as “content-driven” speeches. They are typically part of a larger industry event, such as a trade show, conference, or convention. They also typically take two forms. One is a smaller, focused, and more vertically oriented speeches that are usually given before an audience of less than 50 and are part of a string of such speeches on one of many content tracks for different sub-audiences. The other is the “keynote” speech that usually opens or closes a large industry event. These can be given in front of an audience of thousands and typically involve a well-known industry leader.

 As a speechwriter, you need to know the difference between the two. The “tracked” speech needs to be written to be more intimate (your client will be looking each audience member in the eye) and yet also more technical (the audience will expect your client to burrow down into the topic, not skim the surface). If you don’t share a deep knowledge of the subject, get help either from your client or someone they recommend. Keep the actual speech short—no more than two-thirds of the allotted time—and leave the rest open for questions and dialog.

 The “large” keynote speech, because it is addressed to a diverse audience—even if they are in the same industry—and should stay away from fine details and technical topics and instead should almost always be about larger and more sweeping topics: industry policy, government regulation, the future of the industry or its technology, the state of competition, and so on. A common problem for speechwriters with these speeches is that the speaker wants to use the time to promote his or her company, new products, or latest cause. Unless that was the specific reason for the speaker’s invention, you should do your best to pull them away from this inevitable mistake.

 Because Q&A’s are difficult to coordinate in very large gatherings, they should be kept at a minimum, or not at all. Another reason is that keynotes are often used to get all of the attendees into place, as breakfast entertainment, and to get the conference underway on time. That means the speech itself should use—at least 80 percent to 90 percent—of its allotted time, no less and most definitely no more. To keep that length from boring the audience, it always helps to have visuals (charts and graphs, photographs, movies, and PowerPoint) to provide a visual break.

 Luncheon speech—One of the most common mistakes speakers (and their speechwriters) make is to treat a luncheon speech as a scheduled (or to a lesser degree, a keynote) speech. They are very different. In a scheduled speech, the goal is to educate and inform the audience. Any entertainment value is incidental, and sometimes even unwelcome. A luncheon speech is just the opposite: whatever take-aways the audience leaves with are subordinate to the fact they enjoyed themselves.

 For that reason, luncheon speeches should be amusing, emotional, witty, trenchant; indeed any emotion evoked from the audience that leaves them satisfied by the experience. Remember: the audience is composed of people who are usually coming off a busy morning that has demanded their attention and participation; soon they will be heading into the afternoon filled with the same thing. They’ve just eaten a meal, they are chatting among themselves or checking their phones for messages and now they are being asked to spend an interval of time politely listening to your client. They want to laugh or cry or be called to arms; they don’t want to have to learn a lesson or take their medicine.

 The trick is to have a funny opening (again, not a joke), several anecdotes and some surprising facts—all at the service of one key point or message that the audience will remember. Keep the speech short: anything over 20 minutes and people will start digesting their meals and drift off. Take a few questions, but not many, and leave them wanting more.

 —After dinner speech—The after dinner speech is the luncheon speech in a tuxedo. It has much the same structure as its mid-day counterpart, but with the added factor of alcohol. That, plus the fact that it comes at the end of a long day and a heavy meal, will make the audience more philosophical, but also more sleepy. If the goal of the luncheon speech is to entertain, for the after dinner speech it is to enlighten. For the former it is to leave the audience with one new idea or concept; for the latter it is to synthesize multiple threads into a single, higher vision.

 That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be amusing—on the contrary. But, unlike a lunch, the goal is not to amuse, but rather, enlighten. In the best after dinner speeches, the audience comes away feeling like they have a deeper, even syncretic, understanding about their industry, their careers, or their lives—all given to them by your client as one smart person to another.

 None of this means that the after dinner speech should be any longer than the luncheon speech. But the open-ended nature of its scheduling usually means that the Q&A session can risk going on forever. One way to deal with this is to teach your client to say, “One more question, please, otherwise we can talk afterward in the bar” or something like that.





Structuring a speech


Ground the speech in the event or location—But be careful, because the audience will know those details better than your speaker. Present your speaker as worldly and knowledgeable, but not as an insider. Audience can sniff out frauds.

Use humor, but pretend not to —Be funny but don’t wait around for laughter. And no dirty or sexist jokes—ever. The author once attended a press conference in Silicon Valley by executives from a big, old East Coast corporation. The first speaker began his talk with a joke that managed to be vulgar, sexist, and worst of all, not funny. No one laughed but him. The reporter from the Los Angeles Times sitting next to the author whispered, “Thirty seconds in and they are already dead.” In the age of Twitter, your client will not only be dead, but buried within minutes.

Wit wins—That said, if your client can make an audience chuckle twice, they will like him or her and give them a good review. If he or she can make that audience laugh twice, they will love your client and recommend them to their friends.

Show the bones—There is nothing wrong with announcing at the beginning of a speech how you plan to structure the speech—and then remind them where you are in that structure as you go along, that is, “My third point ” The old line that you should “tell your audience what are going to say, then tell them, then tell them what you just told them,” may be a cliché, but it is absolutely correct.

Look for memorable titles and phrases—After you’ve drafted a speech, go back and look for ways to say things more cleverly or more memorably. Acronyms help, but even better are clever titles and phrases. Great speechwriters will spend more time on these phrases than the entire rest of the speech.

Less is more—Never leave the audience fully satisfied—or worse, wishing that the speech had been just a little bit shorter. As the old vaudeville line goes, “Leave ‘em panting for more.”

Close at the climax—Rather than fading out at the end, finish hard at the peak of the speech. Use the subsequent question period as the aftermath and conclusion.

Beware PowerPoint—There is nothing wrong with using slides, but if you do use them, assume the audience knows how to read, and so just amplify the words on the slide; not let your speaker read them out loud and verbatim. Also don’t overdo graphics; there are cases of speakers, over-enthusiastic about PP, who have actually made audiences physically sick from spinning and bouncing slide content.

Know the room—Will there be a stage or dais? A podium with lectern? Will there be a light on the lectern? Will your client be speaking into a fixed microphone or lavalier? Is the hall wide and shallow or long and narrow? Will there be cameras? [A spotlight can leave your client temporarily blinded and squinting. Have him or her stare at that light, unpleasant as it might be, before going to stage, to adjust their eyes.] Try to get your client to come early for the speech and check out the hall for these factors, so that there are no surprises. If it is a local speech, you may want to attend and take care of these matters yourself—and to learn more about your client’s delivery.





Delivering a speech


Read aloud as little as possible—If your client has read the speech enough times, he or she can likely just glance down at the beginning of each sentence, then look up to deliver. If they can maintain eye contact with the audience, the audience will do the same in return.

Spare the notes—This follows from #1. Get your client, if possible, to know as much of the speech as they can to the point that they can even improvise without the notes.

Don’t trust technology—Teleprompters break, lectern lights burn out, the remote controller to the slide projector has dead batteries. Your client should be prepared to make the speech without any external help.

Practice and time the speech with your client—What looks long on the page can prove short when spoken, and vice versa. Moreover, don’t clock your own reading, but that of your client, the actual speaker, because there are great divergences in speaking pace. Never delude yourself that your client can hit the required time length by either talking faster or slower. Cut or pad the speech instead.

Train your client to talk forcefully—With his or her chin up (no easy to do when reading) and to enunciate. Warn them to keep their eyes open; you’d be amazed how many speakers talk with their eyes closed out of fear of the audience.

Underline or italicize stressed phrases and words in the speech—Show your client, during rehearsals, how to come down with emphasis on those words and phrases, raising their voices, moving up a note or two, and carefully pronouncing every syllable.

Stay in command—Audiences can smell fear in a speaker. Train your client to finish every sentence strong and not fade off; to focus their eyes on the audience at regular intervals, and to end the speech stronger than they began, particularly the final sentences. Tell your client that no matter what happens—the microphone goes dead, the slide show crashes, and so on—remain calm and unflappable and the audience will be on their side.





Types of speechwriting jobs


Speechwriting can pay well, though mostly only at the highest levels. And even there, salaries are a fraction of that made at the top in other professions. Often the best and most secure speechwriting jobs are those hidden behind other titles, such as VP Marketing Communications or Director of Public Relations.

Part-time PR speechwriter—This is often how you start, as a public relations specialist (sometimes agency, but usually corporate) who is asked to write or edit the occasional speech for a senior executive. There won’t be any additional pay or bonus for the work—but do it well and you may get asked again and again until it becomes a major part of your job and one that gets you much more access to, and attention from, the very people who will decide your future at the company.

Corporate communications part-time speechwriter—Same as above, but this time you are working in corporate communications or on a company publication. Writing speeches for senior management, especially the CEO or Chairman, often leads (because you know their style and positions) to jobs writing bylined articles, shareholder letters, and other written productions for them.

Both of the previous jobs can eventually lead to:

Corporate speechwriter—Most large corporations have one or more full-time speechwriter for at least the CEO. Since top executives, once they’ve found a speechwriter with whom they are comfortable, rarely change them, job openings are few and far between except when that CEO moves on. So, at least in mature companies, the best chance of getting this job is to be the part-time speechwriter for another C-level executive fast-tracked for the CEO slot. There are much better odds too with young, fast-growing companies, where the part-time speechwriter is invited to take over the brand-new head speechwriter job. And, since these individuals are often offered stock options, this is one of the few ways to get rich as a speechwriter.

Government speechwriter/Political speechwriter—These are the best-known speechwriters—though it is important to note that at the level of a presidential speechwriter, you are almost always part of a writing team. That means, if you really care about your prose, you’d better be prepared to swallow your pride in your craft when you are edited out in lieu of someone’s else’s deathless phrasing. That said, you are at the center of power, with access to the greatest figures of the era—imagine what you’ll tell your grandchildren. And sometimes you just may get the chance to write that one phrase that rings through history, which is as close to immortality as you can get as a writer. Just ask Peter Robinson: “Mr. Gorbacher, tear down this Wall!”

Author/touring speaker—At any given moment there are hundreds of people traveling around the country giving speeches and making often very comfortable incomes. Many are authors, others are professional (often motivational speakers), and most are both. There is a singular symbiosis between speaking and nonfiction writing: that is, many authors write books in order to attract big money ($10K-plus) speaking fees; and many professional speakers write books to sell them at their speeches. Done properly—a book every couple years, 20 or more speeches per year—and a critical mass can be reached. This virtuous cycle can ultimately result in best-sellers and six-figure speaking fees. Properly done (and if you have the right combination of talents) this strategy can be maintained for decades.

Stand-up comic—As noted earlier, we usually don’t think of stand-up comedy as public speaking. But it is a very close relation. And though it is rare that a comedian depends entirely upon speechwriters (Bob Hope is the most famous example), many of the most successful ones do have a stable freelancers to help them. This can be very high paying, but unpredictable, work. Writing your own stand-up routine is a different matter, and your success and failure will largely depend upon your native talents.

Hired-gun speechwriter—There are contract speechwriters out there, but, at least full-time, their numbers are few. Most have other work and are either brought in as one-off consultants or are put on a small retainer to be accessible when needed. At the highest level, these hired-guns are equivalent to “script doctors,” brought in to save a movie project and able to charge very large fees. More often, this work is occasional and good for a little cash on the side.





Career: The good


It’s real writing—Great speeches contain some of the most lyrical prose ever written. And, unlike most other corporate work, you will be pushed to the limits of your talent, and there’s nothing better for a writer than that.

It can help sell books—If you have just published a book, supporting it with a speaking tour can multiply sales (and royalties).

It can be for the ages—“Four score and seven years ago.” Great speeches are among the most enduring creations of mankind.

You can change the world—A great speech can be more powerful than an army. You may get very few opportunities to write such a speech, but most people never get such a chance in anything.

You’ll have close access to the very top—Look at the memoirs of speechwriters. If you want to be around the great and near-great, learn their deepest thoughts and help them make history; there is no better place to be.

It is an entrée into other writing fields—Who is better to write the biography of the great man or woman than the person who wrote their words and was at their side during good times and bad? Or, conversely, who understands policy and thus is the perfect candidate for a fellowship at a think tank or a job as a newspaper/magazine columnist—than the person who helped formulate and explain that policy to the world?

It’s a way into politics—This is a tricky one. Many speechwriters underestimate the other factors, besides policy and speechmaking, that make for a successful politician—including deal-making, fundraising, charisma, and compromise. However, if you can cross that divide, a background in making speeches and explaining policy to the public can be enormously useful.





Career: The bad


Ultimately, you are putting your words into other people’s mouths, and they are getting credit for it. If you can’t check your ego and live without a byline, this is probably not the career for you. And keep in mind: you may be willing to give up credit at 25 because you figure you’ll get it eventually, but not at 45 when you are running out of time to build your legacy.

You are unappreciated by the audience, sometimes even your own client—Imagine what it is like writing that brilliant speech that the whole world is talking about and no one knows you wrote it. Worse, you watch your client taking credit on CNN for his or her genius. If you can’t live with that, you probably shouldn’t get into speechwriting. If you can, more power to you—the world always needs great speeches.

It’s a chance to die in public—If you are giving your own speech, you may discover there’s a reason people rank public speaking just after dying as their greatest fear. As you write your speech, you’ll imagine your audience on its feet and cheering but sometimes in real life, they only stand to boo louder—or walk out. As for your client, if that disaster befalls them, they will scapegoat you—end of that contract.

It suffers from volatile job security—Speechwriting can be the most secure of jobs until your client retires, loses the election, or gets fired. Then, often well into your career, you may find yourself looking for work.





Turning points


“I just can’t go out there anymore”—If you are giving your own speeches or doing stand-up you may find over time that it is getting harder and harder to walk out on stage and experience the pressure of live performance. Even Laurence Olivier, arguably the greatest actor of the twentieth century, admitted to a debilitating stage fright in his later years. It may never happen to you; but then again, it may sneak up on you when you are least prepared for it. If that happens, find alternative work until it passes (if it does). Keep in mind that your personal speechwriting skills can be transferred to others—consider contract work.

“I’m tired of that stupid fool getting credit for my brilliant words”—This is the age-old “valet” problem: as the saying goes, no man is a hero to his valet. There is something particularly frustrating about putting your great words into the mouth of someone who doesn’t deserve them—or worse, gets all the credit for them. Sometimes, this can be solved by finding a better client (including yourself), but other times you must simply swallow your pride and start exploring other lines of work.





CHAPTER 7 Technical Writer


What is technical writing?


Technical writing is the careful use of language to make the complexities of technology and science—especially the application of the former and the understanding of the latter—understandable to users, students, professional peers, and other interested parties. The range of applications for technical writing includes operation, repair, application instruction, and, in the case of technical and scientific papers, the sharing of new knowledge.





What makes technical writing different?


More than most other forms of corporate writing, and certainly more than writing for media, technical writing gives priority to clarity of communication over art and style. And whereas accuracy is vital for all forms of media writing—especially for all forms of journalism—with technical writing absolute accuracy is nearly an obsession. And for good reason: make a mistake in instructions for, say, the repair of an airplane engine, and the results can be catastrophic.

For that reason, those individuals who gravitate to technical writing are different from their counterparts in the rest of the writing professions, even from other corporate writing jobs. Indeed, they seem to exist in a different reality from those counterparts, with their own training (there are far more technical writing programs than there are for all other professional writing careers combined), professional organizations, conferences, and seminars.

Because the priorities of technical writing are so different, potential professional writers who care most about writing—rather than content or style over clarity—would be well advised to steer clear of the technical writing jobs. They will be doomed to unhappy careers. Conversely, writers who give priority to explanation and to helping others understand may find a very comfortable home in this profession.





Types of technical writing


As a rule of thumb, technical writing takes as its province those tasks that involve a complex process or a difficult topic that must be translated into a linear and highly organized narrative or series of steps that are explained in plain language mixed with accurate terminology. Thus, the most common vehicles for technical writing are texts that deal with the operation of complex systems (how to fly an airplane, how to operate a gas chromatograph), the repair of such systems (diesel engine repair), or procedures for working with a complex methodology (computer programming, surgery).

A second application for technical writing revolves around the cataloging of information that requires great accuracy and precision, such as a listing of product specifications or prices, or a catalog of goods for sale. A variant of this is a record of results, such as the output of a lab experiment.

Finally, a third common application of technical writing is in the creation of scientific or technical papers, where the most advanced ideas must be presented in a cogent and precise manner that can be understood by peers in that profession. A variant of this is represented by reports by researchers that have to be presented in a manner understandable by corporate executives, government agencies, and other nontechnical enterprises and institutions.

Here are some sample applications of technical writing:

Operator Manuals     Catalogs

Instruction manuals     Specification sheets

Repair guides       Performance records

Rule books        Technical reports

Textbooks        Tech product advertising copy

Trade magazine articles   Technical articles

Scientific papers     Rulebooks

Guidebooks       Handbooks

Product warranties    Product guides





Key tenets of technical writing


Get trained—Unlike most professional writing careers, the technical writing profession has developed its own infrastructure of training programs, certifications, ethical guidelines, quality control, and associations. It isn’t necessary to do any of this to start a career in technical writing, but it certainly makes progress in that career easier and opens the prospect, later in your career, of becoming an instructor yourself or being entrepreneurial and starting your own technical writing firm. If you choose to go corporate, certification also increases your job prospects. But most of all, training will teach you skills at the beginning of your career that otherwise might take you decades to learn on the job.

Know the subject—It isn’t necessary to be an expert on what you are writing about, but for sure it helps. That’s why many technical writers stick to one or two areas of interest in which they can maintain high levels of expertise and stay on the leading edge of innovation. No one expects you, as a technical writer, to be an actual scientist or engineer, but you will be expected to have sufficient knowledge of the subject about which you are writing to:

Be able to talk to those scientists and engineers

Be able to take their work and understand it enough to explain it to others in a comparatively simple way

Be able to edit their work, if not for small data errors, then at least for larger errors in logic and fact.



Organize, organize, organize—Because much of technical writing is designed to walk inexperienced people through a series of steps to a predetermined and successful end (restoring a house, tuning an engine, troubleshooting a procedure, writing a program), it is vital that the nature of these steps and the trajectory of the process be carefully determined beforehand. A missed or confused step—even too far a step—will lose the reader and render the experience a failure. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial that the project be carefully outlined, and then that outline be fine-tuned and tested.

Indeed, the outline of a technical writing project should be the equivalent of the lede sentences in a news story: that is, it should consume as much as half of your time and energy. Ideally, your outline should provide you with every detail and turn of your final narrative, such that the actual writing will be little more than fleshing out its entries.

Accuracy is everything—As a reporter, an error in your copy can lead to the embarrassment of having to publish a correction. As a novelist or screenwriter, an error can leave your readers or audience scratching their heads about a failure in continuity. But an error in a repair manual can lead to millions of dollars in damages to expensive machinery—or even deaths.

For that reason, technical writing needs to be an obsession. You need to check and double-check and triple-check that every word you have written is the correct one. And after you have checked your writing enough times to be certain there are no errors, then you need to check it again using someone else who understands the subject, most likely another expert than the one who gave you the assignment.

Think in multiple media—Being a successful technical writer in the twenty-first century means understanding that words and numbers aren’t the only way to convey information. In years past, your ability to use photographs, illustrations, and certainly video was seriously constrained by the cost of production. Your future is just as likely to be producing YouTube videos than writing printed manuals.

No more. And this means that part of your preparation for a technical writing project is determining what is the best presentational format for the job. It may still be a written manual; but just as likely that manual will be filled with photographs or illustrations to show the actual physical action at every step of the way, demonstrate the use of tools and identify the parts and components involved.

By the same token, you may also determine that the best way to convey the necessary information is to video the entire process and put it on YouTube or in the Cloud for easy access. This doesn’t mean you won’t still be writing, but it will now take the form of a script, with a narrator.

From all of this, it should be obvious that the nature of technical writing is evolving faster than many other forms of Professional Writing—and that if you want to have a long and successful career you need to regularly upgrade your proficiency with the latest tools, as well as become competent in other writing forms, notably screenwriting.

Clarity always trumps artistry—A well-wrought sentence—a dynamic verb, perfectly chosen adjectives and adverbs, multiple clauses hung onto the end to precisely place the subject in the natural world—can be a beautiful thing. But it has no place in technical writing. Here you need a different esthetic, one that celebrates simplicity, clarity, and efficiency. Save your poetic writing for your personal life. On the job, your goal is to convey the maximum amount of information in the fewest and simplest words. And to take the typical, untrained, reader and, by the end of the text, have them fully prepared to tackle the task at hand. That means very careful writing, in particular:

Define your objects and tools—Don’t assume your subject knows anything. Whenever you introduce a new device, part, procedure, or tool, you must explain them: what to call them, how they are used, and what are the proper terms to describe their purpose or application.

Contextualize actions—Users want to know how the procedure they are performing fits into the big picture of the overall project. This can be done quickly and easily (“the clutch conveys the rotational power of the engine to the transmission, and from there to the differential and rear axle”).

Control adjectives and adverbs—Unless the modifier is of direct purpose to the instruction, leave it out. Thus, “look for the red wire” stays, but “closing the case should be accompanied by a healthy plastic click” doesn’t need those two adjectives. They are distracting and should be removed.

Don’t get distracted by peripheral knowledge—The airplane wing repair person doesn’t need to know that the original Wright flyer had neither flaps nor ailerons. Stick to the business at hand.

Make the bones show—Make full use of chapter titles, subheads, bullet points, and other techniques to show the organization of the text and as guideposts for users to help them navigate through the text. Even consider specialty navigational tools, such as colored tabs, to help with the process.

Harmonize text and imagery—There’s nothing worse than reading about an action and not finding the accompanying imagery on the same page. Work with your publisher to make sure that the layout of your text not only puts the right words adjacent to the right images but that the captions of those images reinforce the text. In technical writing, unlike some other forms of writing, the imagery should never advance the text—rather it should reinforce the text.

Expand both ends of the text—Many writers treat the table of contents and index with relative indifference. That should never be the case with technical writing. Anything you can do to help the reader navigate the text is valuable—and few features are more important than an expanded table of contents (not just chapter titles, but all subheads) and a complete index (if you don’t want to do it, put it in your contract to hire someone who will).

Follow the format—Technical papers and reports often have very specific guidelines regarding content, charts, and graphs, and the formatting of sections. If you are writing one of these items, don’t be creative with style, write exactly to the format required. Otherwise, with a technical paper, you risk having it turned down—with the complaint that you have created more questions than you answer. That will not go over well with your client (and is the reason why the author is not a technical writer).

Follow the style—If you are writing a manual or product handbook, don’t assume your usual style is best. It may well be, but the publication still must be congruent in style with the other productions of your client—and your different style will stand out. Before you begin, obtain and study other company publications; study their style and imitate it.

Edit, Edit, Edit—All professional writing needs editing. It is an inescapable part of the craft. But the editing of technical writing differs in important ways from most other writing forms. Once again, the emphasis should not be on better writing, but on clearer writing. And that kind of editing can be much more difficult because you are not just trying to improve the quality of the prose but more precisely relate it to actions in the real world. This can be difficult enough if you are writing a manual and working from a description of how something works (without ever having done it yourself), but it is even harder if you are editing a scientific paper about a topic only a handful of people in the world as‑yet understand.

There are several approaches for doing this:

Tighten up—When the author was a teenager, he was contracted by NASA to edit scientific papers by its astronomers and astrophysicists. I had almost no idea what I was reading in those papers, and I was even more intimidated because several of them were written by Carl Sagan and his team. But it turned out that it didn’t really matter; the biggest contribution I could make was to break up run-on sentences, fix redundancies, replace passive verbs, remove unnecessary phrases and clauses, and correct spelling mistakes. In other words, even with such recondite topics, my job still came down to the usual blocking and tackling of cleaning up messy sentences.

Break it up—Smart people who are also bad writers (and their numbers are legion) tend to produce exceptionally murky prose. Not only are the sentences often indecipherable patchworks of obscure terms, passive verbs, and pretentious grammar, but their paragraphs are endless.

 The result, more often than not, is a solid slab of text that runs a page or more per paragraph and filled with dense, airless sentences. The result is off-putting: the mind just doesn’t want to enter that black hole or verbiage for fear of never getting out alive. The simplest strategy is to just wade in and start breaking up the text into paragraphs of two or three sentences each.

 Where you break up these paragraphs, because the text usually has little narrative thrust, can be almost arbitrary. Just look at the copy and see where the breaks should be—and then look for a likely space nearby.

 Educated people also have a tendency to use Latinate words whenever a simple Anglo-Saxon term works far better—thus, “utilize” rather than “use.” Sometimes, you must use the technical term—for example, “bolus” instead of “injection”—but for nontechnical nouns and most verbs, always go for the simpler form. The same is true for endlessly long sentences: cut them up, repeating the subject words as needed.

 Mark it up—Technical writing is all about precision. So is the editing of technical writing. Learn the basic editing marks and use them. Be consistent in your editing all the way through the text. If editing by hand, keep your red pencil sharp and make precise marks; if using editing software, use the comment function regularly to explain what you have done. Don’t hesitate to make the copy bleed with your edits; ironically, it will make you look more professional. Also, use the search and replace function heavily.

 Since you likely won’t know the meanings of all of the technical terms being used, you’ll want to identify each time one of those terms appears in the text, understand its context, and make sure the spelling and capitalization are consistent. You may well discover that your author doesn’t quite know the definitions (or spellings) of the term either. If you do find the definition of a term, as used, to vary in the text, look it up, post it in one of your editing comments, and ask the author whether he or she is comfortable with those differences.

 Stand up—You are probably not surprised to learn that scientists and engineers can be exceptionally arrogant people. Professionally, much of that arrogance is earned (if unnecessary); unfortunately, that arrogance often also extends to other parts of their lives, not least their writing abilities. Few people look at a great artist and automatically assume they can draw as well themselves. That’s because most people know they can’t draw. But most people do know how to write—and so, many believe they know at least as much about creating prose as professionals. Thus, it will not be an uncommon occurrence in your career as a technical writer to encounter an author who simply ignores your edits, or worse, edits your edits badly.

 The risks associated with this are obvious. The author may tell your employer that you are incompetent and in so doing damage your reputation. Or, the author may say nothing and go ahead and publish his or her version—and the world thinks you are responsible for this piece of lousy writing.

 You have two recourses. One is to simply stand up to the author. Remind the author that you are the professional and privately (not publicly, that turns a mess into a catastrophe) show him or her the manifold grammatical and content mistakes they’ve made.

 If the author still refuses to use your edits, go to the person who hired you and explain the situation. Bring along both drafts to make your case. At this point, you are not going to win with the author, but you can at least salvage your own reputation. Get your employer’s agreement that you are in the right (that will likely get you hired again in the future) and politely ask to bow out of working with the author ever again. With luck, your position will get reinforced by the next poor editor tasked to work with that author. If you’ve got the nerve, or are obviously the aggrieved victim—or if you also don’t want to work with this company ever again—demand a kill fee. You deserve it.





Career paths


Much like PR and advertising—but with some interesting differences—technical writing careers have two basic paths: in this case, corporate and freelance. Plus, there is a third, hybrid path growing in popularity, that might be called a contractor confederation or writing shop.

Corporate—In-house technical writer jobs are a luxury usually enjoyed only by the largest corporations, or by smaller firms with a heavy output of technical material. This type of employment enjoys all of the advantages (and disadvantages) of working for a large company, including:

Job security—Since no one else in the company, especially management, really understands how you do what you do, but only sees the results, your chances of being laid off are pretty slim. And if your employer does get into trouble and you are let go, the odds are good that you will immediately be hired back as a freelancer.

Specialization—Working on a single technology at a single employer really gives you the opportunity to make yourself an expert. And the company will likely pay to keep you up-to-date on that technology by attending training programs and seminars. And that will only make you more irreplaceable. Being an acknowledged expert in your field will also open side freelance opportunities to write books and manuals.

Insider knowledge—Continuous work on a single technology or product family in a company will give you unequaled access to both research and product development people. That in turn will give you a forward look into products and technologies to come—something that, for a technically oriented writer, can be particularly rewarding (but not as a source of stock investment that’s against the law).

Management opportunities—More than public relations or advertising, and especially corporate communications, technical writing departments at the corporate level tend to be small, and at the division level rarely more than one or two individuals. Sometimes they are even merged into those other departments. That said, there is still an opportunity to move up into a supervisory or even a management role.

Teamwork—As with any corporate job—and unlike freelancing—corporate technical writing offers the chance to be part of something bigger than yourself, to work with others in different lines of work, and to share your company’s successes. Moreover, if you put in the years, there may also be the opportunity for stock options, stock purchases, profit sharing, and a pension. This may seem a secondary matter at the beginning of your career, but it looms large as you approach retirement.

Freelance—Because of the intermittent nature of the work, most companies have neither the money nor the inclination to retain in-house technical writers. For that reason, most technical writers operate as freelancers, taking gigs at different companies as projects present themselves. Sometimes this can lead to extended periods without work, but at other times it presents an opportunity to double or even triple up on work and enjoy a considerable pay day.

Freedom—The biggest advantage to being a freelance technical writer is the independence it offers. You can take on work when you choose and turn it down when you want to take a break (or perhaps try your hand at other writing). Of course, you don’t want to turn down too much work—or you might lose that client—but certainly the flexibility is far greater than in the corporate world.

Ranger of experience—Unlike corporate work, where you are typically assigned to one subject matter for long stretches of your career, as a freelancer you will likely take on lots of different jobs on many different topics. This can certainly make your working life a lot more interesting. The trade-off, of course, is you will likely never develop the expertise in a single subject like you would working for a single employer.

Entrepreneurship—Working as a freelancer, one might assume, forecloses the opportunity to obtain the perquisites of a corporate job, including stock and a pension. Perhaps surprising to outsiders, freelance technical writing actually offers a different opportunity to earn far more—in particular, founder’s stock in new start-up companies. Needless to say, a lot of those shares will turn out worthless but one or two successful start-ups can set you financially for life. For that reason, freelance technical writers should always dedicate some portion of their time to working for stock, not money, speculating on interesting new companies.

Business—Freelancing means self-employment, and that in turn means control over the business side of your career. Being good at business and finance can make being a freelancer not only easier but actually more lucrative. Rather than leaving withholding in the hands of an employer and foregoing deductions because those items are provided, a financially astute freelancer can maximize revenues—they charge their clients as much as 30 percent more—and minimize taxes and thus earn a higher income.

Needless to say, this cannot be repeated enough, if you are going to be a freelance writer in any form, you need to run your career as a real businessperson—and that means immediate invoicing and careful record-keeping.

Writing shop—If you want the advantages of both freelancing and corporate life, one solution that has attracted many technical writers is to form a group, a kind of confederation of professional peers. The one comparable for this is to a doctor’s office or a law firm, in which essentially independent operators share facilities and services (such as bookkeeping, billing, marketing, etc.) to enjoy economies of scale.

 Technical writing shops are typically organized around a veteran writer who also has management and organizational skills. This individual typically exchanges these skills for a salary composed of some fraction (usually 5 percent to 10 percent) of the fees charged by the other partners. This frees this director to do less technical writing and instead focus on the challenge of building and running the organization. For many freelance technical writers, the writing shop represents the best of both worlds, combining work independence with business support. Others, especially those with their own business skills, often still prefer to go on their own and keep all of their revenues.

 Technical writing shops typically succeed if they share the following traits:

Comparable skill levels—While these shops may include interns and neophyte writers, the actual partners—that is, those who share earnings on projects—need to be of comparable experience and skill. Otherwise, there is liable to be resentment in which one hard-working partner comes to feel he or she is carrying another slow-moving partner.

Complementary partner skills—If all of the partners in a shop have identical talents and knowledge, there is liable to be competition for the available work. It is far better if the partners have skills that dovetail—that is, one is experienced with manuals, another with marketing documents, still another with instructional videos. Such a combination will enable the shop to pitch potential customers with a complete line of services—and thus improve its odds of landing a full-service contract.

A business director and team—As they say in the law, the most successful legal firms have “a finder, a minder, and a grinder”—that is, someone to land clients, a second person to run the business, and a third person to do the actual legal research. This is also the case with a technical writing shop: you need someone to serve as the manager or owner and actually run the business. And you need someone (it may be the same person) who markets the team and signs customers. And everyone else needs to do the actual work of writing according to their skills. For the shop to remain healthy, the manager must fairly distribute the available work to the partners so that there are no recriminations, which will tear the shop apart.

Management of facilities and services—Successful technical writing shops act as the representatives for their members in all non-writing activities. These activities include locating, negotiating, and managing facilities and support staff; obtaining discounts on equipment, furniture, and supplies; billing clients; managing bank accounts and distributing payment; and negotiating with and managing service providers, including bookkeepers, attorneys, and tax accountants.





Career: The good


Job security—More than just about any other form of writing, technical writing confers the best job security. You can start young as a freelancer, jump into corporate life a few years later, and after you retire join a writing shop. And it is the kind of career in which you can enjoy steady work well into old age.

Certification—Technical writer is one of the only writing careers where you can receive actual college-level training and certification in your craft at almost every level of experience. This rationalizes the profession and makes competing for work more efficient.

Independence—Especially if you are a freelancer, but even if you work in the corporate world, you will enjoy a considerable amount of work freedom. Many companies won’t require you to be on-scene, but let you work at home. And because your job is so specialized, few will look over your shoulder as you do your work (though they will scrutinize your results).

Available work—As the modern economy becomes increasingly defined by science and technology, its need for technical writing only grows—and because of the unique skills and temperament involved—there will likely never be enough good technical writers to meet that demand.

Reward—Not only can technical writing be satisfying work—teaching people to use equipment and tools properly cannot only increase productivity but even reduce injuries and save lives—but the work pays well (if not great), and— of particular interest to freelancers—it pays consistently.





Career: The bad


It’s not creative writing—If your temperament is correct for the work, and your priorities are for precision and communication over emotional impact and art, then technical writing can be very satisfactory work. But if your priorities are of the latter type—that is, you are what most people think of as a “writer”—a technical writing career can be a living hell and you will likely either quit or fail.

Lack of respect—As the above suggests, creative writers don’t understand technical writing and give it little respect. In fact, most other writers don’t even think of technical writing as being part of the writing profession (A confession: I even forgot to include this chapter in the first draft of the book). What that means is that if you want to feel part of the great guild of writers, you are likely to be disappointed—rather, you will spend your time with other technical writers. Meanwhile, working as closely as you will with scientists and engineers, you will find many of them will treat you not as a writer but as a mediocre member of their profession. And because they know little about writing, they won’t give you much credit for that either.

Ghettoization—If you dream of starting out as a technical writer and then using the credibility you’ve gained there to bridge to another type of writing career, forget it. Because other writers don’t really consider technical writing to be “real” writing, even the most distinguished technical writing career won’t do much if you want to subsequently become, say, a novelist. On the other hand, the skills you learn as a technical writer—including clarity, simplicity, and organization—will stand you in good stead. The noted novelist Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club) began her career as a Silicon Valley technical writer.





Turning points


Wrong place—There aren’t many turning points in a technical writing career. But the big one usually takes place at the beginning: you enter the profession confused about its nature and expecting something very different, such as creative writing. It won’t take long to realize that this isn’t the work for you. The best recommendation is to be honest with yourself and get out—it won’t get any better.

Go it alone, get it together—It is not unusual, at the mid-point of a technical writing career, to either get out of corporate life and enjoy the independence of freelancing or conversely to leave freelancing for the safe harbor of a corporate job.

Losing your edge—Technology moves fast, and science nearly as fast, and if you don’t keep up with those changes—or your particular field goes obsolete—you may find yourself without work. Depending upon where you are in your career, you may at this point choose to retire, get more training, or move to a different industry.





-9





Part Three

Writing Careers in Media



As we’ve just seen, corporate writing careers are characterized as much by the job of being an employee of a larger enterprise as they are by the actual writing work itself.

By comparison, writing jobs in the media typically put the writing work first. If you consider the creative writing process to be of prime importance in your career, this second type of work may prove more appealing, and satisfying. to you.

You’ll also notice that this is, by far, the biggest part of this book. Writing for the media is in fact the largest source of employment for professional writers—ranging from being a blogger sitting at a computer in your spare bedroom and writing for a loyal audience of a few dozen readers to writing the screenplay of the blockbuster movie that costs a half-billion dollars to make, filmed in a half-dozen exotic locations, and destined to be seen by 100 million viewers. Media writing careers also range from the most precise and formalized nonfiction to the most obscure and experimental fiction.

In fact, there is almost no type of media-oriented writing that has sparked your interest that doesn’t present at least a small chance of you earning a living from pursuing it. What that means is that you shouldn’t just scrutinize one of these chapters to learn more about the tricks of your own current trade, but perhaps look through the other chapters as well to see if another type of writing captures your imagination. It may be a side, or even second, career to which you can aspire.

Note that several of these chapters include additional parts taking a closer look at specialty careers within these genres. In those cases, such as “investigative reporter” in the news reporting chapter, the main chapter is the typical gateway into the specialty career, the latter often reserved for the most successful practitioner of the former.

Finally, personal experience has shown that while you may need to pay more dues—and get paid less money—to be successful in these careers than in corporate life, these kinds of jobs are uniquely emotionally rewarding. A creative life can be a very satisfying life.





CHAPTER 8 Blogger and Podcaster


“Blog” is a neologism created from the phrase “web log.” Strictly speaking, a blog is a website on which an individual or group of users record opinions, information, interesting links, solicit comments, and, more rarely, conduct traditional field reporting on a regular basis. There are an estimated 200 million bloggers currently active in the world. The universe of bloggers is usually called the “Blogosphere.” While it is possible to earn a living as a blogger, the percentage of bloggers who do so is extremely small, as the competition for readers is high and the business model itself is not particularly lucrative.

“Podcast” is a portmanteau of “iPod” and “broadcast” and was first used in The Guardian newspaper in February 2004 (some historical rewriting has been attempted to get the Apple connection out of the name—i.e., “Play on Demand,” but the record is undeniable). The traditional definition of a podcast is that it is digital audio content that can be downloaded and played on portable digital devices. The reality today is much different: many podcast fans still download episodes of their favorite podcasts on their phones (and in recent years, in their automobiles), but there is also an army of millions of podcast fans who download video versions (and video blogs—“vlogs”) on their laptop computers and cable televisions to watch at a time of their choosing.

In many ways, podcasts can be seen as the direct descendant of blogs—and, in fact, they still have many characteristics in common. They are designed to reach dedicated audiences of a shared topical interest with content that is too narrow or specialized for mainstream media, though some of the most successful bloggers and podcasters today reach audiences greater than radio or television. Podcasts and blogs are both designed to be personal, opinionated, intimate, and uncensored; those are keys to their appeal. Both are also designed for low overhead and ease of market entry. Indeed, for a blog you merely need a Web (URL), Web address, and a keyboard; for a podcast, add a good microphone and your computer’s built-in video camera.

What blogs and podcasts also have in common is they were supposed to be obsolete by now, a phenomenon unique to the early years of the twenty-first century. Instead, thanks to specialized quality of their content, charismatic hosts, and intellectual freedom, combined with technological advances (Zoom, faster Internet and data storage, inexpensive video editing software and equipment, and great data storage), both blogs and podcasts (especially the latter) are bigger than ever. There may be a hundred million or more of these two media presently at work in the world.

The final factor in the success of blogs and podcasts is that the commercial world, in recent years, has discovered these two formats. As with everything about the Web, it took a long time for advertisers to figure out a way to effectively monetize blogs—and to a lesser degree, podcasts. The result was that blogs often sat in their corner of the Internet, slowly building readerships and trying to monetize themselves by selling subscriptions and merchandise. It was very slow, demanding (because you had to continuously add new content to keep up reader interest and return visits), and slow (it might take years to get several thousand readers). The result was a bloodbath of new bloggers every few years, as a large fraction of them simply gave up.

Podcasts looked to be taking the same trajectory. Even the most successful ones still require listeners to download each episode in order to play them while commuting or just at a different time at home.

Then, about 2015, something happened. Part of it was technology: video on the Web truly came into its own thanks to ubiquitous broadband and smartphones, and those available video podcasts could now be easily reached (or discovered for the first time) on YouTube, Spotify, and other platforms. Blogs too took on a new life as an alternative news and opinion source in the face of perceived bias in traditional news media, and the most innovative bloggers began to operate from video sets, creating “video blogs”—Vlogs—that could be sprinkled with news videos, comedy, and other visual material.

Technology had an even greater effect on podcasting. Video news and commentary used to be solely the province of network television and their local affiliates—operations costing tens of millions of dollars each year. Cable television broadened the reach of this type of television and created the 24-hour news network, but the operating costs were still exorbitant and affordable to a handful of businesses. But, just as the Internet and World Wide Web presented a platform for bloggers to inexpensively assault the giants of traditional media (tellingly, now called “legacy” media), so too did the Web and emerging technology make podcasting affordable to just about anyone who had something to say.

Finally, there was the COVID lockdown beginning in 2021. Long commute times had been a major demand source underpinning audio podcasting. But now, with the entire world trapped at home and desperate for human interaction, video podcasting became vital to maintaining contact with the larger world. The result was a boom in the profession, from weekly long-form “casts” to daily brief commentary (particularly popular because it maintained regular contact) to Zoom-based interviews to “reaction videos” (to music, TV, and movies).

[The arrival of TikTok, essentially consumer-made brief amalgams of podcasts and short homemade videos, quickly captured the entire Generation Z to the point that it provoked a national (and legislative) backlash over the danger of another national government harvesting young users’ private data. Given that, and the fact that TikTok content is essentially user-generated freeware, it really isn’t a place for professional writers. Whatever influence you gain won’t be counterbalanced by what you are surrendering.]

Today, high-end audio production can be done with just a quiet recording studio, a couple of good microphones and headphones, and a personal computer with the right mixing and editing production software. [The author, in the earliest days of his podcast, once had to record an episode with his co-host on a single cellphone propped up on the center console of his pickup truck.] A good video podcast can be achieved with the same set-up, plus several digital cameras (one each for single-shot close-ups and a locked-down third camera for wide-shots, plus a dedicated computer or two for recording and video editing). An entry-level video podcast can be accomplished with just a couple of personal computers with built-in cameras, a pair of microphones for better sound quality, and a Zoom (or comparable) video app.

With a little success, you can add a producer, who adds bumpers to the show, edits it to length and cleans up mistakes, and pours the result onto YouTube and the many podcast services (such as Apple, Google, and Spotify). Many of the more successful podcasts also maintain an extensive website where they post the show as well, along with an accompanying blog and comments section, and merchandise for sale.





Why blog?


Blogging sits at the nexus of the natural human desire to share our thoughts and beliefs with others, with the hope that our words will live forever, and with the speed and infinite scalability of modern digital technology. Most bloggers get into the profession because of its very low cost and ease of entry (most blogging software is either cheap or free), and stay in despite the limited likely financial return because they enjoy both the platform for their writing and opinions, and the interaction with loyal and equally opinionated readers.





A brief history of blogs


Blogs began as extended diary entries (hence “log”) and essays on the pioneering sites of the Internet, such as the Well, Compuserve, and BBS sites. Successful diarists—usually the most colorful and opinionated writers and experts in tech-related fields—found that they were gaining loyal, even obsessive, followers and continued because they enjoyed the response.

Archival data suggests that the first real blogs appeared in 1994–1995 at Swarthmore College by a student named Justin Hall—and by other pioneers such as science fiction writer and essayist Jerry Pournelle, who moved his Byte Magazine column “Chaos Manor” (founded in 1980) to the Web.

The transformative event in the history of blogging was the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack and the perceived failure of traditional media to keep up with the pace of news. The events of 9/11 made the reputation of Matt Drudge, and his news portal “The Drudge Report,” which would soon have millions of visitors each day, became a model of how much influence a single individual could have using the Web. Ev Williams, who went on to found Twitter and Medium, devised blogger, which provided the first tools for blogging, and made becoming a blogger easy even for non-techies.

The size of the Blogosphere likely peaked around 2010 for two reasons. First, a lot of early-generation bloggers discovered just how difficult it was to maintain a regular blog over the course of months or even years—especially when it was never financially rewarding nor attracted a lot of readers—and quit. The number of bloggers leaving the field eventually exceeded those entering. Second, the rise of Twitter offered a quicker, shorter alternative for self-expression on the Web. Even professional journalists found Twitter a more appealing way to speak to their readers.

Nevertheless, the blog is still the vehicle of choice for millions of writers. Why? Because it is the simplest, easiest, and least expensive way to become a writer, write about what you love, and have the potential to reach a vast, global audience—or at least a group of loyal readers anxious to talk about what you’ve written. And, with luck, you may even make an income doing it. Some bloggers have even made history by exposing stories that the traditional media refuses to touch. That’s why blogs are likely to be around for a long time.





Types of blogs


Blogs basically come in three forms:

Thumbsuck: Thumbsucks are the most common form of blog. Thumbsuck blogs are essentially a series of journal entries and commentaries. The term comes from newspapers, where a top feature writer would be promoted to writing a personal column about anything that interests them at a given moment. And, like those predecessors, thumbsuck blogs are written by a single individual, though they can be groups of like-minded individuals. In terms of style, they can range from intensely personal to comparatively detached opinions on larger topics and events. Thumbsuck columns have certain comparative advantages, including that the author enjoys complete editorial control, intense relationships can be created with readers, and, in the case of a successful blog, any revenues do not have to be shared with others. The downside of thumbsuck blogs is that they are hard to maintain: the author must meet regular and frequent deadlines to maintain a readership, and, when a blog is especially personal and tight focus, the blogger can simply run out of interesting content.

Shared knowledge: These are sites dedicated to sharing expertise or ideas, typically around a single theme. The topics of shared knowledge blogs can range from professional skills (law, politics, management, engineering, architecture, and countless other professions) to hobbies (photography, vacations, collecting, film, books, and an almost endless number of fashion blogs). Needless to say, it helps the blogger’s credibility if he or she is actually knowledgeable on the subject (though good reporting can make up for a lack of expertise)—though being a good, precise, and entertaining writer is even more important. The advantage of shared knowledge blogging is that it comes with a built-in audience, and it provides a venue by which otherwise unknown professionals and experts can reach a national, even global, audience and burnish their reputations. That said, nearly every one of these target markets was long ago saturated by other bloggers, many with world-class credentials—so the big challenge is finding a way to break through the noise and establish one’s own market niche.

Portal: The most successful form in terms of audience, but also the most demanding, is the portal blog. These sites, almost always managed by multiple editors, are typically composed of short set-up entries, often in the form of commentary, featuring a link to another site. In the United States, perhaps the most successful one-person (though he has lately added other contributors) portal blog editor is University of Tennessee law professor and author Glenn Reynolds, whose Instapundit blog offers as many as 20 such entries and links per day. Portal blogs have the advantage of being easy to start and an almost unmatched potential for audience building (especially if they are eclectic in their coverage). That said, they are a tremendous amount of work to maintain—as they are usually updated many times each day, as opposed to once every several days with most other blogs. And that doesn’t count the enormous amount of reading and Web searching required just to find link sources and to be knowledgeable enough for the eclectic commentary.

Astro-Turf: These problematic sites are the one type of blogging in which it is possible to earn a living, or at least a sizable fraction of one. Astro-turf blogs are those in which the blogger is employed by a corporation, institution, or politician to tell its story, report its news, and advocate its interests. Most of these entities operate transparently on such matters; however, some try to camouflage this advocacy. Working for the former is an acceptable career choice, so long as you understand that it may compromise any plans you may have for future employment in journalism (though in the twenty-first century, for good or bad, those boundaries are not as rigid as they used to be). Should you take such a job, you should try to make it a condition of full employment—that way you’ll enjoy all of the benefits—instead of a contract position.

 If, on the other hand, a company or other employer/contractor wants to hire you to write this type of advocacy blog, while keeping your business relationship secret—or worse, wants to hire you to write comments on other blogs and websites while keeping your paymaster hidden—walk away. This is unethical and unprofessional—and if found out it will wreck your career as a writer; and even if it is not found out it will rot your soul and no salary (and this work doesn’t pay much) is worth that.





Meta-blogs


Related to blogs, and often outgrowths of them, meta-blogs operate at a much larger scale and can even be multi-million dollar enterprises. Meta-blogs are all but indistinguishable to readers from Web magazines—the fundamental difference being that the editorial content of the former is usually created by multiple contributors, often unpaid; while the latter, usually the Web wing of print publications, feature a large percentage of staffers. Moreover, meta-blogs can take submissions from a small army, even hundreds, of contributors, while Web magazines are more likely to work from a smaller collection of contributors.

Make no mistake, meta-blogs are real businesses. Unlike simple blogs, they have business managers, advertising directors, salespeople, editing staff, and investors. And even if they are built on the backs of unpaid contributors, they still require large amounts of capital to get underway and to operate. Unless you have access to millions in venture money, you probably won’t be able to start a successful meta-blog; and unless you still live at home, have another source of income, and are only looking to pad your resume, you probably won’t want to write for one other either.

Meta-blogs take two primary forms:

Neo-magazines: These are the equivalent of traditional news, commentary, and literary magazines for the Internet Age. On these sites you’ll see reporting, reviews, and commentary, almost all of them bylined. What fundamentally distinguishes these Web magazines from their print predecessors is the crucial role played by commenters; whereas the older model never had more than a couple dozen letters to the editor, Webmags are as much defined by their comments sections, which may have hundreds of entries and lively debates as the articles themselves. Examples include Huffington Post, Salon, Slate, and Ricochet. They include bylined articles, features, and criticism with an added blog/commenter factor.

Uber-bulletin boards: This type of meta-blog is an evolution of the bulletin boards (such as the Well) that characterized the Internet before the advent of the Web. These sites, which can have hundreds of thousands of loyal users, are characterized by content created by those users (often linking to outside sources) and immense chains of commenters that can sometimes exceed more than a thousand messages. The most popular of these sites, such as the liberal Democrat Underground and the conservative Free Republic, are characterized by their intense (“rabid,” each would say of the other side) political opinions and calls to action. These sites do not pay contributors and largely survive on donations.





Blog topics


As you may imagine, with a couple of hundred million bloggers out there in the world, blog subjects cover just about everything under the sun. But that said, blogs do seem to fall into a finite number of general categories. Here are some of the broadest of those categories. Among them you are likely to find the blog you’d love to write:

Politics—These blogs approach politics from the top down (party leaders, government insiders), bottom up (get out the vote volunteers, precinct walkers, local officials), inside (party professionals) and out (think-tank experts, political scientists, and academics), left, right, and center (and every form of fringe). Political blogs also address everything from the mechanics of governance to the most outrageous conspiracy theories.

Religion—Religious blogs range from personal witnessing all the way to the most obscure theological thinking in all of the world’s great and lesser religions, and in almost every sect.

Daily Diary—These can be among the most appealing (and conversely, among the most insular and boring) of blogs. Because Internet records are likely to be all but immortal, history is likely to treat these diary blogs with great respect as unvarnished histories of daily life in the twenty-first century. Shorter term, even if no one else ever reads them, these blogs represent a unique scrapbook for future family generations.

Sports—Professional athletes typically don’t have the time, inclination, or talent to blog, though some teams will keep a blogger on staff. So, sports blogging is largely the province of amateurs—true fans, fantasy league players, university alumni, and so on. Most of these bloggers write for a relatively limited audience, but they can enjoy considerable range as they often swap links with their peers. This is challenging work: you have to find a new angle to differentiate yourself from competitors; you have to write quickly and assuredly after (and often before) each game; and you have to come up with creative content during the long months of the off-season.

Response to news events—More than any other, news blogs have the potential to blow up into a national readership numbering in the millions. The key is to stay on top of breaking news stories and then post smart, thoughtful, and clever commentary. Everybody has opinions, especially about politics, but when faced with writing down those opinions in a logical way and backing them with considerable research and erudition, the task gets much, much harder. Then doing all of that under a tight deadline (usually just a few hours, before the news cycle moves on) you can understand why there are so few really enduring and influential political bloggers. Still, if this interests you, it is worth a try: if you have the aptitude for it, there is almost no easier way to get your views heard by the people who run your country.

Hobbies and expertise—Most people are experts at something. Historically, the challenge has been to share that expertise with other like-minded people, especially when they are geographically scattered around the country, and around the world. Blogging, combined with search, turns the Internet into a vehicle by which they can connect, share knowledge and news, and improve their skills. On top of that, traditionally, it took credentials to earn a reputation as a leader in your field—now anyone who can maintain a blog and write with adequate skills can build a similar reputation. This democratization of merit is one of the most important, and exciting, features of the Internet Age.

Local and community—There are different-sized audiences, and anyone who is willing to play in a smaller pond—their neighborhood, or community, or region—can write a blog that will give them outsized influence on everything from school curricula to local zoning to politics. Local and community bloggers often become celebrities among their neighbors and can develop rabid readerships that depend upon them to learn everything from the topics of the next city council meetings, this week’s school lunch meals, high school sports scores, and the work of local nonprofit groups. In the longer run, many of these local and community blogs will be cherished as capturing their era better than any other record.

Travel—There are an endless number of travel-related blogs; yet most survive because they not only serve an audience of interested travelers but also act as a kind of virtual scrapbook of one’s own journeys that is far more flexible and richer than social media, such as Facebook. This dual-purpose application—especially when enhanced by the added satisfaction of communication with other world travelers—makes this type of blogging especially appealing.

Collections—A quarter‑century ago, there were only two ways to share one’s collections—and expertise about those collections—with others: (1) join a local club, with all of its limitations; and (2) subscribe to a collector’s magazine in the field. There was also another way—(3) attend a collector’s convention or show—but that was expensive, and so few people could attend even once per year. The Web has created its own version of these three experiences in one, and for free. Smart bloggers who focus on collecting have learned to not only write blog entries that cover their own expertise and comment on related news stories (such as auction prices), mutually link with other bloggers, and sell (often in conjunction with the same listings on eBay) and buy items related to their collections.

Surveys—This kind of blog, similar to a portal but more narrative-driven, regularly looks at the state of a vertical industry or topic by analyzing trends, polling readers, and offering summaries of academic papers and other articles related to the blog’s theme. Successful survey bloggers often become leading lights and opinion makers in their fields.

Lifestyle choices—This genre covers perhaps the widest range of blog topics, from sexual orientation to parenting to health and nutrition to age cohorts to self-improvement programs. One of the great advantages offered by the Web is that while the number of people who may share your niche lifestyle in your community may be surpassingly small, the number of people who do so around the world almost always amounts to millions of other like-minded individuals.

Owner/user—Own a Porsche 356C? Building a crossbow? Repairing your obsolete stove? Want to know how to de-pill a wool sweater? How about washing your Aran sweater? This type of blog overlaps collecting, hobbies, and lifestyle blogs, but features a much greater attention to the actual operation and repair of physical items. The type of individual who operates this type of blog is typically adept at filming or photographing these activities and knows where to find and how to install replacement parts, upgrades, and after-market equipment. Particularly popular versions of this type of blog also include classified ads for readers/owners who want to sell items and have lively advice sections to help readers.





Career: The good


Blogging is easy to do. It can be on any imaginable subject. And—in theory—it is almost infinitely scalable; in terms of production, it is no harder to reach a million readers than to reach one. It is also incredibly cheap: you can start a blog on the Web using free software and post your first entry today. Best of all, you are free to write about anything you choose, write about it as often as you like, and prepare your prose in any style you choose. Want it to consist almost entirely of photos with short captions? Fine. Only post short science fiction stories? No problem? Make it your ambition to create a blog solely about the bioluminescent fungi of New Guinea? Knock yourself out—though you’ll still probably discover that someone has already beat you to it.





Career: The bad


For all of the advantages of blogging, there is one big problem: Noise. With 200 hundred million bloggers out there, it is almost impossible to get noticed. That’s why the average blog never sees more than a couple of comments per month, nor traffic of more than a few hundred visitors—most of them via Google. It may be possible to earn a living blogging, but the odds against you doing so are astronomical. More likely, you will make a few bucks per month from the banner ads that ad brokers place on your site, and you still need hundreds of regular readers to get that.





Turning points


Starting a blog can be exciting. Seeing your comments page filling up is even more. But if you can’t make real money being a blogger, and it consumes hours per week that you could otherwise use more productively and lucratively, how long will you keep doing it? Six months? A year? Five years? Ironically, your biggest challenge will likely not be that you can’t come up with enough good content (though it can be tough with thumbsuck blogs), or build an audience of loyal readers, or even that you won’t make any money, but that you will do just well enough in each category that you don’t want to quit, but can’t justify going on indefinitely. The most painful blog retirement entries are those in which the blogger finally says goodbye to his or her loyal readers in order to spend more time with family or job or just to get some relief from endless exhausting deadlines.





The podcasting experience


Why podcast? With a few exceptions, everything that has just been said about blogging also is true about podcasting. Though at the high end the most successful podcasters and podcasting operations can become very lucrative and with millions of followers, the average podcast struggles to get both attention and retain viewers. One reason is, again, the noise of thousands of new podcasts appearing every month. Moreover, reaching potential new viewers is difficult because there is nothing in podcasting similar to the “blogroll” on blogs that link to other, bigger, blogs in the hope that they will link you back to their blogrolls.

Further, the acceptance curve of podcasts is often even longer than for blogs, which is saying a lot. For both, the curve of total listeners (or subscribers) is hyperbolic: it may take several years (with the numbers for those first few of those years so low that you consider quitting) before that curve finally starts to go vertical. By then, you may have long since walked away and found a better source of income. It’s easy to say “don’t give up,” but in those first year or two the only thing that will keep you doing your podcast is your love for doing it.

As already noted, it may be really inexpensive to get into podcasting. But, ultimately, if you are going to play in the big leagues, you are going to need help: a dedicated producer, camera operators (or one running a remote control system), and a marketing/graphics person skilled in IT who can run your Web page, create imagery for your YouTube page, and ideally gather added video and animated content to slick-up your production.

Finally, let’s be realistic: video is merciless. There’s a reason why people in television news are good-looking. If you aren’t at least moderately good-looking, you will probably have a great life—but not as a television “talking head.” The same is true if you have a facial tic, speech impediment, or a halting or very slow manner of speech. Most of all, if you freeze up looking at a camera lens or are unable to improvise during an interview, becoming a successful podcast is going to be a challenge. On the other hand, you can overcome all of these impediments if you can take a good, honest look at yourself and take steps to remedy those concerns via make-up, speech training, wardrobe choices, and so on. Keep in mind that the most interesting, creative, and successful people in the world would never get a job as a TV anchor—play to your strengths and what makes you unique.





Tips to successful blogging and podcasting


It’s a business—The first thing is to understand that successful blogging and podcasting is a form of entrepreneurship. In other words, whatever the subject of your blog, it is a business and needs to be run as a business using business techniques and methodology. In addition, you will have to make some financial (and time) sacrifices before you reach a large enough audience to be contacted by advertisers and hire some help. Some of those techniques are described in this book, notably PR and marketing communications. You must also be comfortable with self-promotion, marketing, graphic art, and design.

It’s your product—Recognize that you have a product—your content. You need to not only produce a high-quality product (edit!) but increase your churn rate (i.e., regularly add new entries) to bring your customers back. New entries twice per week should be your minimum; daily is best. Most of all, you need to capture the reader’s interest (strong writing, topical, timely). That’s why veteran bloggers tend to write shorter and more often. Podcasts also need to be regular, typically once or twice per week, in a digestible length—less than 10 minutes is a rule of thumb for commentary, a half-hour to an hour for news and interviews, and 15 minutes to a half-hour for other content, such as history, movie and music reactions, and political commentary.

Brand—To rise above the noise, your blog or podcast needs to be identified with a human being. Typically, that means you, or you with regular guests. Your audience wants to think of you as a trusted friend, so you must be willing to step out of your formal duties occasionally and present your real self by talking about hobbies, personal events, and others.

Tools—There are a lot of diagnostic software tools out there to help you understand the operation of your blog: rates of traffic at different hours and in relation to your postings, geographic locations of your readers/viewers and commenters, and so on. Use them. Try different content and timing and see how it changes your traffic. Use what works.

Durability—You should go into the business of producing your blog/podcast for the long haul. Too many bloggers start out as sprinters and burn themselves out quickly—which is why at any given moment, almost as many bloggers are quitting the field as joining it. Get a rhythm and pace going that isn’t too burdensome, then keep it up until you’ve turned that pattern into a habit. This combination of rhythm (it’s not tiring) and habit (you feel the need to get it done on a regular basis) is the most powerful tool a writer has. It will not only keep your blog fun and fresh but—as an added benefit—also train you to write books.

Differentiation—In a typical blog, what distinguishes you from your competition is your narrative style, your voice. Blogs and podcasts are supposed to be intensely personal, so don’t be afraid to state your feelings, your opinions, and so forth. Stronger voices tend to attract larger audiences. This is true even if the topic of your blog is empirical—such as a tax blog.

Writing—Blogging and even podcasting are writing careers—that’s why they are in this book. That should be obvious with blogging—but note, that even if you are running an aggregator-type blog, you are still going to have to rewrite a dozen or more introductions or interstitials for the content each day. As for podcasting, even if you are improvising what you have to say, you are going to need to do extensive research for each episode and prepare for yourself a briefing document so that you can address intelligently each topic. And, of course, if your podcast consists of interviews, you had better have your questions well thought-out and cogently written before you go on the air—otherwise, you risk looking like an ill-prepared idiot.

Marketing—This is where most blogs fail. Most good bloggers aren’t necessarily good businesspeople. But the reality is that with all of that noise out there, the only blogs that succeed—including those with great content—are those in which the bloggers work hard to add readers. There are three primary ways to do that: Get your entries picked up either by scores of other low-traffic blogs or by one big one. This means developing relationships, sending links to the owners of other sites, explaining why their readers might be interested in your latest entry, and carrying other bloggers’ links to get them to carry you (via links to their stories, blogrolls, etc.)

Send your most interesting blogs to publications and websites you admire in hopes they will pick up the story, run with it, and credit you. This can get you in front of huge audiences.

Team up with other bloggers if you like to create a group blogging site. This not only combines your readers but also reduces your frequency demands. Or, write a blog for a big neo-magazine or aggregator site like the Huffington Post and use it as a lure to readers to come to your site (it also means more work).





Sales—Once you get up to a traffic level of several hundred readers per week, you should begin looking into revenue sources: banner and other ads, Amazon resellers, and eventually retailing blog-oriented items. Again, it is almost impossible to make a living as a blogger, but you may be able to offset your time and effort with a few hundred dollars per month. That may be enough to keep you going.

Customer service—Solicit comments from your readers and then try to reply to everyone. The more you can develop a relationship with your readers, the more loyal they will become. A lively comments section can be even more valuable than the blog itself.

Strategy—Writing for love usually isn’t enough over the long term—eventually, you just fall out of love. But if there are other, compelling incentives, you can keep pursuing them. So, determine what you want to be the end result of your blogging: better writing skills, a book deal, speaking gigs, a job as a full-time journalist, to be recognized as an expert in your field of interest, to network with famous and influential people, to stay in contact with your friends and peers, and to leave a permanent record for your descendants. Decide which of those things matter deeply to you, and write and market your blog toward them.

Be patient—This can’t be said enough. You may start a blog or podcast and gain thousands of followers right out of the gate. But you probably won’t. You may also start a blog or podcast and, ten years later, still have only a few hundred followers. But you probably won’t. Rather, you are most likely to start one or the other of those formats and then spend months, or even years, slowly building a loyal audience that will, one day, give you those hundreds of thousands of weekly eyeballs. The great paradox of blogging and podcasting is that you must be timely and enthusiastic and distinct in every episode you create—and yet, somehow, remain patient and focused on the long term. It is like running a marathon composed of hundreds of short sprints, all while you are being distracted by the rest of life’s demands. Once again, the pressure to give up will, after a few months, become almost unbearable; but in almost every case, you will succeed in the long run if you have your priorities right. You may never get rich, but in our noisy, crowded world, having a platform to have your voice and views heard is its own reward.





CHAPTER 9 News Reporter


What is news reporting?


Reporting the news is the heart of journalism, which is why it has always constituted the front page of newspapers. Reporting is the primary work of wire services and is the cornerstone of a good journalism education. News reporters make up the plurality of nearly all newsrooms. All other types of reporting are second in priority to the news.





What is news?


It is in the word itself. “News” is made up of events of importance to the reader that have either just occurred or that are still unfolding. Reporting on these events typically requires the reporter to be on the scene of the events (if possible), gathering facts and quotes, and preparing a story under a tight deadline. In television and radio, this reporting is often done live, with the reporter standing before a camera or microphone and improvising the story from rough notes.





Types of news reporting


In terms of format, all news reporting is basically the same—as we shall see. Where news reporting is differentiated is by beat; that is, by the particular area of daily life where news stories are most likely to be generated. Here is a list of some of the most common beats for news reporters:

General assignment—This is often the first job of the neophyte reporter. As the name suggests, general assignment reporters arrive each day on the job and are told by the assignment editor what story they are to cover. The stories can come from any one of the various beats, even from one of the other departments of the publication or station. For newcomers, general assignment reporting is sort of a test by fire: every day is something new and often unpredictable. One day you can be interviewing a famous figure visiting your town, the next could be covering the horror of a plane crash.

 For veteran reporters, general assignment offers both novelty and a kind of completeness. The author used to work in a newsroom across from two women, both veteran general assignment reporters who had chosen to stay in general assignment work. Because I was a business reporter, my desk was constantly buried in press releases and briefing documents related to uncompleted stories. By comparison, the two ladies, when they finished their work day and filed their stories, would just sweep all of the stories off their desks into a nearby waste basket and go home without a worry. I often envied them.

Metro—This is the traditional newspaper term for metropolitan (i.e., city, suburbs, and immediate outlying districts where the majority of the newspaper, television, or radio’s readership/viewership are found). Typically, all of the news stories from this area are gathered together in a separate, usually second, section in a newspaper and covered immediately after national and international news in all three media (as well as on the Web). That said, the biggest metro area stories, if sufficiently important, can move to the front page of the paper and the lede in radio and TV newscasts. In terms of raw numbers, the number of metro reporters likely exceeds any other type of news reporter. Typical metro reporting beats include:

City hall—This coverage focuses on news coming out of city government, notably the office of the Mayor or City Manager, plus all administrative offices. Many reporters on this beat, particularly in big cities, have offices in city hall and rarely go to their own newsrooms.

City council—This work, especially in smaller cities and towns, is often done by the City Hall reporter. But because City Councils typically meet at night, this coverage is more often handled by a separate reporter, often a general assignment person on the night beat.

Crime—This reporter, who often has an affinity to the police (sometimes too much), either sits in an office at police headquarters or by a radio in the newsroom and upon hearing a report of a breaking crime or fire rushes out to cover it. This is some of the most exciting reporting work—stories are often composed in real time over the phone to a copyeditor—and as such is not for the old or faint of heart.

Local politics—Depending upon the range of a paper or station, the news may cover more than one city government, as well as the county board of supervisors or other form of governance. Because they may have a major important on readers’ lives as well, they expect coverage of these entities.



State coverage—Coverage of news around the state is often bundled into a separate section in the paper or a distinct segment on a news broadcast. Usually, this coverage takes two forms:

State politics— Unless the paper or station is located in the state capitol, it typically either has a bureau there covering the state government or contracts regular coverage from a freelancer or a reporter at a news operation located there. Most of this reporting involves votes of the legislature or press conferences held by the governor’s office.

Statewide news—Usually this is a round-up of stories from around the state, reported by other publications. A general assignment reporter is often asked to search through a pile of these stories, convert them into short summaries, and compile them. This is the grunt work of general reporting and is often given to rookies or even to interns.



National and international coverage—Only the very largest newspapers and radio/TV stations are capable of maintaining news bureaus and paying correspondents to cover news at the national and international level—and even they are cutting back on those operations. Thus, almost all national and international coverage is purchased from other sources, especially wire services and newspaper story syndicators. If you are interested in pursuing this type of work, applying for work at one of these services, such as Reuters or the Associated Press, can be a very interesting way to start your career—though in the author’s experience, a sizable fraction of wire service reporters eventually grow tired of the pace and comparatively low pay and move on (with impressive portfolios) to other venues.

Other beats—There are a lot of other venues for news reporting than just general interest, traditional news. All of the other sections of the newspaper, Web news site, or departments of TV/radio stations have, to some degree, an element of breaking news. The skills required for this reporting are identical to those of the front sections/segments. The difference is that the reporters involved may be required to mix these breaking news stories with the writing of extended, longer-term features. Here are some examples:

Traffic—Radio and TV stations are the venue of choice for traffic coverage because of their timeliness. The standard daily coverage of commute times and accidents is one form of news reporting and is usually created from multiple reports. But there are occasions—notably major accidents—when a reporter will need to race to the scene to give live coverage.

Weather—The coverage of weather is pretty standardized, with a reporter taking news feeds from the national weather service and turning it into a narrative. But, when severe weather—hurricane, tornado, blizzard, heavy rains accompanied by flooding or landslides, and so on—hits, reporters will usually be sent to the field to provide extended, on-scene reporting.

Education—The education beat is normally pretty staid, with comparatively long lead times on features about local programs, graduations, teacher awards, and so on. However, this beat can sometimes become exciting when stories break about protests, scandals, and other features of modern educational life. Most of these latter breaking stories are covered by general assignment reporters, but education writers are often asked to help because of their unique knowledge and access.

Sports—The daily coverage in the sports section or segment is bimodal. Part of the staff of a sports department spends much of their time writing analyses of teams, conducting interviews with sports stars, making predictions of outcomes, and so on. But the other half spends their time at the games, providing (especially on the Web) real-time coverage and box scores. Of all the forms of news coverage, sports reporting has some of the tightest deadlines.

Business—Financial reporting resembles sports reporting, in that part of the job involves feature writing, with its longer lead times, extended length, and analysis while the other part—sales and earnings announcements, new product introductions, lay-offs, etc.—are pure news reporting, with the stories written under the pressure of deadlines. Nowadays, much of this latter work, which is mostly rote and to fit a template, increasingly is done by AI tools (this is happening as well in sports—especially box scores). This has its own dangers: it may take the load of busy work off reporters, but it puts more demand on copy editors to confirm the accuracy of the generated copy.

Arts and entertainment—Most coverage of Hollywood, the fine arts, and television consists of feature stories, notably profiles of celebrities and reviews of various productions, and gossip items. Still, a lot of breaking news—awards, announcement of new products and their stars, weekly box office results, and many other topics—emerges from this world and a lot of readers care deeply about that information. Most publications, stations, and websites dedicated to arts and entertainment combine wire stories (which they rewrite for their readership) with in-house reporting. Several times each year, they typically send their reporters on meet-and-great lists to Hollywood to interview studios and stars, or to New York or Paris Fashion Week to cover the latest styles.

Technology—The pace of technological innovation guarantees a constant supply of new product innovations and upgrades. Meanwhile, the basics of digital electronics—such as silicon gate technology—are so complex as to be of limited interest to the general reader. Thus, technology reporting tends toward news coverage. The chief requirements of a good tech news reporter are, first, to stay on top of the state-of-the-art in the key technology markets (especially consumer) and, second, to be able to translate arcane tech topics into everyday language. Technology reporters are in great demand during tech booms and bubbles, but they may find themselves unneeded and unwanted during the periodic industry busts. For example, when the Internet Bubble burst in 2001, the international media all but dropped its coverage and closed its offices in San Francisco—only to miss the emergence there of social networks just a few years later.

Science and medicine—These two types of reporting are closely related and are heavily influenced by public relations—especially in the case of television news. Indeed, much of the “news” you read about the latest breakthroughs in medicine or discoveries in science are the creation of PR agencies that (unlike most television stations) have the money to create all of the graphics and wide-ranging field reporting to tell the story. These video news releases are then put up on the satellite—where they can be downloaded without fee by any news program that wants them. Some of these stations will then use their own science and medicine reporter to edit the VNR with local footage and interviews; others will run the verbatim, or at most record their own voice-overs verbatim.





Secrets of news reporting


Prioritize your writing—You should be thinking about the lede to your story even as you gather information on that story, modifying it as you go. Research has found that most newspaper and Web news readers, television news watchers, and radio news listeners almost universally pay attention to the headline and the first lede paragraph. But by the time they get a few seconds beyond that into the story—or to the “jump” by the story to another page deeper in the newspaper—half have dropped off and continue to do so after every additional paragraph or second coverage, until less than 10 percent of those readers, watchers, and listeners who began remain at the end.

 Your priorities in writing your story should be the same: put your main attention on the start of the piece—and less as you go along. There is more than a little truth in those movie scenes where the reporter telephones in the story by carefully enunciating the lede and making sure the initial quote is precisely recorded, and then ends by saying to the editor, “Et cetera, et cetera just fill in the rest.” Obviously, you can’t quite do that in real life, but the overall idea is the same.

Let the five Ws be your guide—“Who? What? When? Where? and Why?” may be a cliché, but no one has come up with a better guide for the scope of questions that need to be answered in a typical news story. Moreover, the goal should not only be to answer those questions but to move those answers as close to the top of the story as possible—the sixth question “How?” because it usually requires a longer answer, it can be left until later in the piece.

 Veteran reporters often make it a personal challenge to see how many of those five Ws they can answer in the first two paragraphs of a story and still do it with clarity and style. That’s not a bad habit to get into—and one you can roll around in your mind as you cover the event and prepare to write and file.

 Answering the “How?” is more difficult. Here the challenge is to take what may be a long and complicated series of events and present them in a short, coherent manner that nevertheless gives the reader or viewer a comparatively complete understanding. If this is not possible, and the explanation will be too long and complex, you should discuss with your editor whether to write a second explanatory article or sidebar (or get someone else to do it) either that day or in the days ahead if the story still has strength. Finally, always beware of injecting personal opinion into the “How”—subsequent events may make you look like the fool.

Get the money quote, and get it right—The classic news story begins with a strong lede or one or two paragraphs, followed immediately by a quote. As noted at the beginning of this text, we are all hard-wired to attend to the human voice. We crave it. And it personifies the subject of the story by giving us someone with whom to identify. That’s why veteran news reporters make an extra effort, whether they are on the telephone or on the scene of a news event, to find a person to interview who is an eyewitness—or better yet a participant—and interview him or her. Watching these reporters in action you’ll notice that, while they may ask a lot of questions, they will focus on no more than one or two and for those answers, they almost always will ask the subject to repeat them, will write them down, or record them very carefully, and will usually repeat those comments to make sure they got them just right. Those are the “money” quotes—the ones you will see at the start of the published story.

Spell their names right—It was the great nineteenth-century showman P. T. Barnum who reportedly first said, “I don’t care what you say about me, so long as you spell my name right.” Ever been part of a newspaper story, or been interviewed for television or radio? What was the first thing you looked for when that story appeared? No doubt it was your name first, and your title second. Now, imagine if the reporter on that story got either one of those things wrong. How would you feel? And how much at that point would you care about the rest of the story? Well, every person you write about as a reporter in the course of your career feels exactly the same way, and if you get their name or title wrong they will be extra motivated to contact your editor and demand a very public correction. You don’t need that career embarrassment.

Make your notes retrievable—Some of the most impressive reporters you will ever meet, though their numbers have all but disappeared, are those who take their notes on a story in traditional shorthand. You don’t have to go that far. But if you do take your notes by hand, there are several things you should do.

 First, get the right notebook. There is a reason why many reporters carry a long, thin spiral bound notebook; it is small and flexible enough to stick in your pocket; you can flip over the cover and put it in the back, and if you bend it slightly along its length it becomes a rigid surface you can hold in one hand while writing with the other. Conversely, you can get yourself a full-sized binder that holds pads of paper. They are bulkier, but they do provide a large, rigid platform. But only get one in which the cover can be folded behind or it will be ungainly.

 Carry several pens with you at all times; if you only carry one, inevitably it will run dry halfway through the interview.

 Most importantly, write neatly as fast as you can. There is a tendency, when interviewing someone, to scratch down notes as fast as the person is speaking for fear of missing something. The author can’t tell you how many times he’s gone back to a newsroom and spent hours trying to decipher his illegible chicken scratchings. Overcome that tendency: slow down the interview, and whenever the subject says something important that you know you are going to use, have that person repeat what they said, slowly, until you know you’ve got it right. As for names and titles: don’t write them, block-print them. And if you have any doubts, turn the notebook around and show the spelling to the subject.

 If, on the other hand, you choose to digitally record your interviews, be careful. If you screw up the recording you have no backup. And beware of ambient noise—even if you have a directional microphone, stick that recorder or smartphone right up into the subject’s face. And as soon as possible, download that file somewhere safe for security. With the new transcription apps, quickly print the results (note that a 45-minute interview may produce an equal number of pages of hard copy). Most all, don’t trust the transcript. Even the best transcription apps can contain a lot of errors, so the moment you get the hard copy, go through and mark it up: correct every error you remember. Finally, to save time when you get to writing, mark off areas in the transcript that will be useful to your story; otherwise, you may waste hours flipping back and forth between pages trying to find that one crucial quote.

Keep your eye on the clock—More than most other types of journalism, news reporting operates on very tight deadlines. Some days you’ll have hours to polish your story, but on other days you’ll have no more than minutes to pound out a quick story. If the latter is the case, get your lede down fast, as well as the first quote. Just use standard form, don’t try to be creative—you don’t have time. Then just get the rest of the facts down, add a second quote, preferably from another source, and finish out the piece as quickly as you can. Don’t worry about rereading and editing the piece; there’s no time for that either—just send it to the editor assigned to the story and let him or her do a quick edit and send the story off to composing and the back shop. Delay this process and you may delay the entire paper—layout, printing, and even delivery. Or, if you are doing a television or radio news story, you may throw off the entire broadcast.

 When the author was first starting out in newspapers, he found himself in an unusual position, as a business reporter, writing a front-page news story. I wrote as fast as I could, but I wasn’t used to that torrid pace, and so I found myself in the humiliating position of typing in a frenzy while my editor, from the far side of the newsroom, shouted “Malone! You’ve got ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven . . .” as the entire editorial staff turned in their chairs and stared. I managed to hit the “send” button with two seconds left.

 Then, to my horror, I realized I’d put an inaccurate piece of data on the last line of the story. So, without telling anyone, I made the correction, adding a half-dozen words—that is, another line to the story. What I didn’t know was the editor had already edited my story and the line I had just appended now made the piece too long for the front page.

 Ten minutes later, the managing editor pulled me out of my chair by the collar and, calling me various obscenities, dragged me down the hallway to the composing room where, waving an Exacto knife in front of my face, he demanded to know where to make the cut. Then, visibly shaking with anger, he told me to get back to work and to paraphrase, “never do anything that stupid again.”

 News reporting means to always work with very little margin for error.

Keep a tickler file—One of the biggest challenges to completing a news story on time is getting quotes from “experts”—individuals with a particular set of knowledge or skills that enables them to speak with authority about the topic of the story. These experts can be academics, industry analysts, government officials, legends in their field, and so on.

 The problem is that you may know who these people are, but reaching them is another matter. And if you do manage to get through their filters and get them on the phone or by text, there is still no guarantee that they will be able to provide an intelligent comment on the subject.

 For that reason, most news reporters keep a “tickler” file. This is a list of individuals who have proven to be good sources of quotes in the past, and who will either answer your calls immediately, or get back to you well before your deadline. When you create a tickler file, the standard procedure is to include not only their contact information but also their area of expertise. Often, PR people will solicit you to include the name of their client on your list. Whether you do or not is your choice, but even if you do so those individuals are usually given one chance to deliver.

 Over time you will interview the folks on your tickler file so many times that you will not only have to look up their expertise, but you will have memorized some of their contact numbers. The trick, however, is not to get into a rut—using the same sources again and again can become obvious to readers. And you don’t want to become too dependent upon the opinions of just a few people; rather, you should mix it up: when you aren’t on a tight deadline you should search for new sources. If you find yourself going back to the same person on several stories in a row, try someone else on your list.

 Finally, you are going to find that some sources who have been dependable in the past suddenly begin to take their role for granted and become increasingly inaccessible or, conversely, start stating opinions on matters that don’t match their expertise. You don’t have time for games: take them off the list and find new sources.

Get to know people in authority—If you are covering downtown politics, get to know people in the mayor’s office, including the mayor. If you are covering the crime beat, get to know the police chief. And so forth. These individuals are uniquely positioned to help you obtain access, give you credentials (such as Press Pass), and sometimes even give you a heads-up on a breaking story.

 Don’t assume that these people in authority are the only people with power and access. That desk sergeant in the Sheriff’s Office can be particularly useful in getting you an interview with the arresting officer; the elderly clerk in the county records office can help you find that one escrow document you need, and her counterpart in the courthouse can let you see that legal brief.

Ask a veteran—The one person who can help you the most when you start a new beat is the reporter who had the job before you. He or she may have retired, been promoted, or switched to a different beat. In almost every case they will not only be willing but even anxious to share their acquired wisdom, their connections, and their bag of tricks with you. They may be initially gruff and crusty—that’s the nature of old news reporters—but once you get past that (often after a few drinks) you’ll likely find them warm and willing to help. Cultivate that help. Ask for permission to call them whenever you get stuck and promise yourself that you’ll one day do the same thing for your replacement.





Career: The good


It’s exciting work—Being a news reporter will likely be among the most exciting and engrossing work of your professional career. When something newsworthy happens, you are there in the thick of it. You will end up with a body of experiences and stories that will keep you, your family, and acquaintances entertained for the rest of your life.

At the center of history—It is a cliché that news reporters write “the first draft of history,” but it is nonetheless true. Future generations will use your reporting as original source documents as they interpret and re-interpret the story of your times. At the highest levels of national and international reporting, your words or broadcasts will survive almost forever—in some cases even more than celebrated book authors and historians.

You define the message—As a news journalist, you have a particular responsibility to get the story right, because it will be how the general public begins to interpret events. Your lede will become, at least at first, the received view of what actually happened; and the words of the people you choose to quote will be the first analysis of an event—as well as the eyewitness reports that will be used by future authors and academics.

Access to the famous and powerful—Particularly if you are covering news for a specialty beat—for example, politics, business, or sports—you will enjoy unequaled access to the key figures in that beat. Thus, as a business reporter, you will talk directly (typically at a press conference or other public event) with the most powerful CEOs in the world. As a sports reporter, you will do the same with famous athletes, typically in the locker room after a game. And, of course, political reporters, whether at City Hall, the State Capital, or the White House, have extraordinary access. Those experiences will be priceless in years to come.

Start anew every day—Remember those two lady reporters who sat across from the author? While I had to come into the newsroom each workday morning facing the legacy of unfinished stories and piles of notes, they got to sit down to an empty desktop, get their assignments, and know that at day’s end, they would clear their decks and go home.

You never know what will happen next—Because every day is brand new for a news reporter, every day is also fresh. You may occasionally know of a scheduled event you need to cover that day, but you never know how it will turn out, or whether you may get pulled off that story and sent off in pursuit of some other breaking story.

You can help people—People read the news not just for its entertainment value, but also to make their lives better. Your breaking television story about a new medical discovery may save the lives of some of your viewers. That story about an automobile recall may do the same for your readers. And that radio story about a family left homeless by a house fire may convince listeners to step in and help. Journalists tend to diminish the importance of their daily work; but for news reporters that impact is very real, very visible, and usually immediate.





Career: The bad


It’s short-lived—As the saying goes, “today’s news is tomorrow’s fish wrap.” By definition, news has a very short life before it is replaced in the public’s mind by the next breaking story. Feature stories are often read and set aside for future reference, giving that kind of work a durability and extended impact. That’s rare for news stories. The best reporting you’ve ever done will likely be forgotten in a matter of days—while that recipe in the back pages of your same publication will be cut out and used for generations.

High-stress career—Being a news reporter is a lot like being a cop or firefighter; all are work lives punctuated by extreme and unpredictable spikes of high excitement. That kind of life is hard on body and soul—and so, not surprisingly, news reporters seem to have a higher risk of many of the health-related problems including smoking, alcoholism, and heart disease that are associated with extremely demanding careers. These problems can start early, so if you pursue a career as a news reporter you should take care to live a healthy lifestyle.

Negative career trajectory—Because it is less writing than access and energy driven, you get better as a news reporter over time, but not that much better—not like you do as, say, a columnist or critic. What you do get is more expensive, as raises and seniority increase your salary and your overhead to your employer. What this means is that at a certain point, usually a couple of decades into your news reporting career, it becomes more cost-effective to replace you with a younger reporter who will chase stories with a whole lot more energy for a whole lot less money. At that point you will need to either move up into management, which is unlikely given your professional skills, or face the prospect of slowly being shunted off an exciting beat and onto one—such as school board coverage, obituaries, or night police radio monitoring—that is not only less appealing but is ultimately designed to convince you to quit or retire. The ugly fact is that, unlike feature writers, news reporting careers often don’t have particularly happy endings. Know what is coming and plan for it with a follow-up career (see below).

Few secondary careers—News reporting skills are also not particularly transferrable to other jobs. A business reporter can go into corporate public relations. A technology reporter can freelance for electronics magazines. A sportswriter can work for a professional sports team. But a news reporter’s options are limited. The good news is that those options are better than they used to be—ranging from reporting for an in-house corporate newspaper to blogging.





Turning points


There are two big turning points in being a news reporter, and they take place at opposite ends of your career. The first is when you are promoted from being a general assignment news reporter (or even an intern) to getting your first real beat. That is when you can finally settle in, get to know the players, and start developing your expertise. For now, and for years to come, you are the journalist synonymous with that beat and you will enjoy considerable job security and power.

The second turning point takes place years later when you are taken off that beat and offered a lesser job. The stated reason is usually that the publication or station wants to bring in some “new blood,” but you know the real reason is that you are no longer cost-effective. This is the moment when you need to decide if you want to look for a new career or to stick around, even if it means ever more demeaning work, in order to get your pension.





Investigative reporting


Investigative reporting is the most celebrated form of news reporting. Much of that reputation is deserved.

On the one hand, investigative reporting is still news reporting and follows most of the rules and advice listed above. But on the other hand, it is very different for the following reasons:

The team: Most news stories are reported and written by a single reporter, perhaps with contributions by one or two others. Most investigative stories, and particularly series, are reported and written by teams of reporters and editors, often chosen for their distinct skills.

The stakes: Investigative stories often deal with high crimes and corruption. They also uncover these crimes, rather than simply reporting upon them.

The scope: These stories are often multiple-part series published over several days, with main stories, sidebars, charts, and graphs.

The time: Regular news stories are typically one-day productions. Investigative stories can take weeks, even months, to report.

The risk: An error in a news story can require a public correction. An error in an investigative story or series can lead to devastating lawsuits. That’s why almost every important investigative story is picked over by libel attorneys.

The impact: An investigative story often is designed to lead to changes in laws and regulations. They can also lead to imprisonment of targeted subjects.

The honors: If a typical news story is forgotten the next day, investigative stories and series not only can lead to permanent change in a community or nation, but the reporters themselves have a strong chance of earning their profession’s highest awards, such as the Pulitzer Prize.





Secrets of investigative reporting


Investigative reporting is, in many ways, the highest calling of the news journalist. Because the stakes and risks are so high, only the best reporters are given the opportunity to do this kind of work (though less experienced reporters sometimes do get the chance to be part of the team, if they have unique knowledge or they first uncovered the story). It is hugely exciting work, but also hugely challenging. And the responsibilities can be enormous: as the result of your work, people may go to prison, laws rewritten, and lives saved. The reporters themselves may even find their own lives at risk.

Needless to say, this is not work that can be taken lightly, and it can take a heavy emotional toll. Few news reporters ever become, or remain, full-time investigative reporters. But while you have the opportunity, there is no greater use for your professional skills.

Here are some tips to help you be a successful, effective, and sales investigative reporter. The list is necessarily incomplete but does reflect the wisdom gained by the author from his own successes and failures.

Establish the scope of the project—Before you get underway, determine exactly what this investigation will cover—and just as important, what it will not. Investigative stories have a tendency to go off on tangents following paths of least resistance. Because of that, they also tend to be open-ended: you just keep reporting until someone tells you to stop. You can save yourself a lot of trouble—and stay in the good graces of your editors—by establishing goals and deadlines from the start. And, painful as it may be, it usually pays to have a tough-minded rather than an easy-going editor with the power to keep you on track.

Double your backup—In the news reporting section above, we discuss the need to have a reliable means of capturing your interviews—and the value of having a backup system. In investigative reporting, you need to doubly ensure that you’ve got this information, because you may never get a second chance. Once, while working on a story about drugs in Silicon Valley companies, my partner and I interviewed a young woman in a halfway house where she had been sent for rehabilitation. She had a wealth of knowledge on the subject—so much so that several times during the interview I checked the tape recorder to make sure the VU meter needle was bouncing to confirm that the microphone was working.

 It wasn’t until we were back in the newsroom, congratulating each other over capturing such a great interview, that we discovered to our horror that the recorder’s pause button had been on the whole time. Luckily, the woman was willing to repeat the interview.

 The lesson for you is to never trust your tools. That doesn’t mean you should handwrite your interview notes—on the contrary, using pen and paper makes it difficult to get accurate quotes and can intimidate the subject. But, if you are using a digital recorder or smartphone, use two, even three and make sure that each one is fully charged and you have a good directional microphone.

Don’t be bound by arbitrary rules—On another investigative story, this time looking into toxic chemicals used by the tech industry, the author and his partner found themselves inside a large corporation requesting access to official health and safety records on that company. We were told we could look at the documents but only for a few moments, and could not take notes. We asked if at least we could have a private office to look at the papers. The company agreed. So, we picked a room that just happened to have a copier. So, while I stood watch at the door, my partner copied the documents as quickly as she could.

 That information was crucial to setting off a transformation in how Silicon Valley handled its dangerous chemicals that continues to this day. The lesson? Get the story. You have a higher calling.

Trace your sources—On still another investigation, this one into sweatshops, my (different) partner and I started out struggling. Though we had heard rumors, we just couldn’t find any proof that these illegal operations actually existed in our community. We asked every contact we had—nothing, at least not initially.

 Then, amazingly, after a couple of weeks of frustration, we suddenly began to hear from the latest round of sources that they had heard, quite recently in fact, reports of sweatshops throughout Silicon Valley. Excited, we redoubled our efforts—and, incredibly, we started hearing more and more of these reports. Finally, we were on to something.

 >But it felt wrong. Everything was unsubstantiated rumor, no real evidence emerged. It was then that the truth hit us: the rumors we were hearing were just our questions going full circle through several intermediaries and coming back to meet us from a different direction. The lesson? Don’t just get information from your sources, find out where they got it.

Work with law enforcement—As it happens, we did find those sweatshops, and my partner and I decided to see if we could conduct a sting and meet a shop operator and negotiate some illegal work. We used the home of a friend of mine to hold our sting. And as we waited for the man to show up, we considered locking him into the house with us and threatening to call the police if he didn’t give us information.

 Luckily for us, the operator was happy to talk. Because, in retrospect, if we had trapped him in the house we would have been in more trouble than him—that would have been kidnapping. We would have known that if we had talked to the police first.

 On another occasion, when the author was running a magazine, I gave one of my editors the assignment of looking into online child pornography. Shrewdly, he suggested we talk with the FBI before we started and let it know our plans. The resulting story, which won several major awards and led to numerous arrests, proved emotionally devastating to that editor. He was truly heroic in his efforts—and all would have ended badly, even in prison, if we hadn’t cleared it with the authorities in advance.

 And on a third occasion, when the author was investigating a criminal-terrorist group conducting robberies at local corporations, authorities warned me that I should hide my notes at all times and take a different route each day to and from work. I followed their advice. Did it save my life? I’ll never know. But the lesson I learned from these experiences is that if there is any doubt (even if you are investigating them) keep law enforcement constantly updated on what you are doing. Investigative reporting often puts you above the rules, but never above the law.

Back up with legal paper—One of the best skills you can have as an investigative reporter is a facility with court records, deeds, and other legal documents—and good relationships with those bureaucrats who can help you find them. As we’ll see with the next tip, anything in your story that isn’t backed by some sort of official support is vulnerable to being removed from your story. It is a heck of lot easier to start with that legal paper than it is to try to find that kind of support post facto to writing your story.

 This may sound like needless work. But that same partner who worked with me on the sweatshop story won a Pulitzer Prize by finding a trove of real-estate filings in an obscure courthouse on the other side of the country. As it turned out, those papers documented the hidden wealth of a foreign dictator—and my old partner got to watch on the news as a half-million people marched in a distant capital, many of them waving his story. The dictator stepped down a few days later. It was the kind of a once-in-a-lifetime story every investigative reporter dreams about. And my partner did it with boring old paperwork.

Expect to be edited to death—Every publication or station that regularly pursues investigative stories keeps on retainer a libel lawyer or two. These professionals are paid firstly to protect the publication from being sued; and only secondly, to help get the story into print or on the air. What this means is that they will be ruthless with your copy. Being an investigative reporter can be exciting and romantic, but it also means sitting in a small room with your editor and the attorney going over every sentence in your story. Every claim and every fact in the article will be challenged, and if you can’t back it up with legal documents or a published statement, you will get to watch the attorney make a big red X and cut it out of the final story. And there goes weeks of hard work.

 There is no easy way through this experience. Just expect to have a sizable portion of your work cut—and to have no recourse. Just look on the bright side: at least you won’t get sued well, probably not.

Know the law—You don’t need to be an attorney to be an investigative reporter, but it sure doesn’t hurt to know something about the possible crimes being committed by your story subject(s), and about libel law. One substitute for the first is to talk with a criminal attorney—or the local district attorney. For the latter, you can choose to depend upon your employer’s attorney—the one who will edit your copy—but it helps to know enough to keep from committing libel in the first place—and not raising any more doubts in your employer’s mind about your reporting skills.

Tap your sources—Investigative story subjects will sometimes drop in your lap—the author knew a reporter who would occasionally find secret documents in his mailbox at the newspaper office. He never knew how they got there, even how the source got into the building. That said, most investigative stories are uncovered. And since, by definition, someone has hidden them, your best chance of finding them is to regularly poll your sources—especially those who inhabit the gray market and other borderline criminal activities to see what they’ve heard. Of course, never fully trust those sources—check everything—but they can often be a good place to start.

Recharge your batteries—As will be discussed further below, there are some severe occupational hazards to being an investigative reporter. If you don’t give yourself a break after each story, your career will be short. So, after the story or series is published, give yourself some time off. Go somewhere where the skies are sunny and the food good and people don’t commit crimes (that you know of or care about) and heal your soul. Only get back into the game when you are ready. And if your superiors don’t understand that, it’s time to update your resume.

Remember the victims—Finally, keep in mind that even if the cause of your investigation is righteous, and that your target is indeed guilty, there are figures on the periphery who may be caught in the blast as well. That bad person may have a wife, or worse, children who are entirely innocent and when your story appears, they too will have to encounter their relatives and friends, neighbors, and schoolmates.

 That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue your investigation with everything you’ve got, or that the subject is any less guilty. But the knowledge of those others, the innocent bystanders, should at least temper any exultation you may feel in successfully completing your story. When you are out at that celebratory luncheon or preparing to receive an award for your work, at least give them a moment’s thought. It will make you a better person.





Career: The good


As a journalist and writer, this will likely be the most important thing you will do in your professional life. You will bring justice to the afflicted, bring down the bad guys, and perhaps even change life for the better for millions of people—and your reporting and writing talents will be tested like never before. But every day you will know that what you are doing matters. What more can you ask for?





Career: The bad


Investigative reporting can take a heavy physical and psychic toll. And sometimes, even a vacation won’t entirely heal those wounds. You should look for these symptoms in yourself—and if you find one or more of them, either get help or go back to the life of a regular reporter:

The avenging angel—Not every bad person you pursue will you successfully take down. That corrupt official or businessperson may have the money to put up such a wall of lawyers that you can never breach it. Or, your libel attorney may tell you that just don’t have enough legal proof to make your case. Whatever the reason, sometimes there are people whom you just know are guilty but can’t touch.

 When that happens—or even when you’ve had a long and successful career as an investigative reporter—you can find yourself operating beyond the law, serving as judge and jury to your erstwhile opponent. The author knew one great reporter who, when he failed to take down a figure whom he was convinced was a criminal, took to calling him late at night to whisper that he would get the man someday.

 You are not the legal system; you are a reporter. And never forget it.

Risk Aversion—Most investigative reporters start out full of energy, ambition, and bravado. But over time a few failed investigations, errors, and even physically threatening situations can make them less willing to put themselves on the line and to take on riskier stories. They slowly drift, sometimes unconsciously, toward stories that are safer, that don’t have as much at stake, and that don’t produce real change.

 If you find this is happening to you, celebrate the end of a great career, and step aside for a younger replacement who still has the fire in his or her belly.

Cop’s disease—In the midst of one of the darker story investigations of my career, I found myself growing increasingly cynical about mankind. I remember driving home one evening and looking at the drivers in the cars around me on the freeway and thinking, “All of them! Every one of them is guilty. I’ll get them all.”

 Happily, my father, who had been an intelligence agent and a criminal investigator, noticed the change in my personality, sat me down and gave me some advice. Yes, he told me, everyone has something to hide; everyone has a skeleton in his or her past—even you. But the glory of humanity, he said, is that nearly everyone rises above those mistakes, put them in their past, and tries their best to live good and decent lives. and you should honor them for it. Don’t be like those policemen who increasingly come to loathe human beings for their weaknesses. Instead, celebrate people for their strengths.

 It may have been the best advice anyone ever gave me. Thanks, Dad.





CHAPTER 10 Critic


What is criticism?


Criticism is the application of a deep understanding of a topic or field to the newest creations of that field. Criticism can also place past works of art or creation into a current context by challenging icons, rediscovering lost achievements, or redirecting the viewer, reader, or participant to new modes of understanding. Individuals who make their living in the field are typically known as critics; those who do it part-time are usually called reviewers.





Why criticism?


Because all fields of human endeavor, in order to advance, need critical judgment to recognize genius, determine quality, and otherwise set standards. Criticism should be subordinate to the works themselves, yet should hold equal weight in terms of value to society.

Types of criticism—Criticism can be distinguished not just by subject matter but also by venue. Thus, works of criticism are created under tight deadlines; others can take years to prepare. By the same token, the majority of reviews deal with a single book, musical or dramatic performance, television show, movie, or recording. But there is also a genre of criticism that looks at the entire oeuvre of an artist, placing him or her in the larger context of the entire era or creative school.

Here is a partial list of types of criticism:

Newspaper reviews—These have the tightest deadlines of any form of criticism. And they run the gamut from books to opera, plays and musicals, musical performances, television and movies, audio recordings, video games, and so on. It is the nature of newspaper publishing—that is, the need to make the next day’s edition—that creates the time pressure. Writing newspaper reviews typically involves attending an afternoon or evening performance, then returning to the newsroom (or remotely filing via email) to write the story in the hours (or minutes) before the morning edition “goes to bed” (i.e., is sent out for printing). At best—perhaps for a weekend book review section—the reviewer may have a few days to prepare their copy. Though there has been some great newspaper reviewing over the last two centuries, it is definitely work in which erudition and strong opinions take precedent over elegant writing. Newspapers that serve large metropolitan readerships typically have full-time staffers as reviewers (though with the decline of newspapers, that is changing), while smaller circulation papers usually hire freelancers.

Internet reviews—Web criticism written for websites (usually for blogs, Web magazines, and the online wings of print publications) is, in terms of process, largely indistinguishable from newspaper reviewing. The fundamental difference is in deadlines: as there are no distinct editions on the Web, stories can be filed and posted at any time day or night. In practice, however, this doesn’t add much time to the process, as most public artistic events—movie premieres, concerts, plays, and musical openings—have a time value, and must reach a hungry readership as quickly as possible. In fact, Internet deadlines can sometimes be even quicker than newspapers, as there is no need to wait for the next edition but can be filed immediately. Internet-based reviewers are almost always freelancers—or, even more often, work for free.

Magazine reviews—Magazines, especially with the death of the weekly news magazine, usually have monthly deadlines (though there are still some important weekly magazines noted for their reviews, such as The New Yorker). This allows for much more time to write the review but also places upon the reviewer the duty to produce more thoughtful copy, one that typically exhibits greater research and more in-depth contextualization. Magazines usually have reviewers on staff.

Social commentary/cultural criticism—This, one of the highest forms of criticism, involves writing about current events and cultural trends in a way that analyzes them, judges their value, and places them in a larger historical context. The best cultural critics play an important role in society, are typically masters of the essay form, and are wonderful prose stylists. Interestingly, many of these writers actually use as a launch pad one of the other forms of criticism and then take it to a new level. Thus, Isaiah Berlin was a historian and philosopher, G. K. Chesterton a novelist and mystery writer, Walter Lippmann a political columnist, and Emile Zola a novelist—yet all became hugely influential cultural and social critics. Not surprisingly, this type of critic is older, has another career (such as an academic or fellow at a think tank), and publishes only rarely. Thus, their most common role is as a “contributor” to a quality publication, such as an arts or political journal.

Product reviews—Reviewing products—everything from new model automobiles to appliances to the latest consumer technology—is its own genre and most often found in consumer rating publications, trade magazines, or their Web counterparts (i.e., CNet for electronics). Top‑flight reviewers can have an enormous impact on product sales, even on the stock price of the manufacturer. That’s why the best of them, such as Walter Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal, have been among the world’s best-paid journalists. Good product reviewers don’t have to be great writers, but they have to be extremely knowledgeable about the subject, have a consistent methodology, and have a reputation for rock-solid integrity. Ultimately, they are only as good as their reputation.

Literary essays—For the purposes of this chapter, “literary” means a form of criticism that might be seen as more complex, researched, and sweeping in its subject matter. Because they are usually not written to a tight deadline, they are also likely to feature superior prose. Thus, where a standard book review for a newspaper or website might look at a single newly published book, a comparable literary essay, for say, the Atlantic Monthly or the (London) Times Review of Books, might look at five new books that exhibit a growing trend toward “women attorneys in danger” or dissect the entire oeuvre of one author and how it has changed over the course of 20 books and 40 years. Similar essays might be written about movies (“Reassessing the Films of Stanley Kubrick”), other arts (“Balanchine at 100”), politics (“The Changing Face of Neo-Liberalism”), and culture (“The Star Wars Generation Hits Its Twilight Years”). This type of essay is typically a one-off creation, as opposed to a regular feature (though there are exceptions, usually reserved for the most veteran and esteemed critics). And because they demand a lot of editorial space, they are found only in a limited number of publications—notably literary journals—many of them expressly created for this type of content (such as The New Criterion or The New York Review of Books). This type of writing sometimes can pay quite well—though even when written without financial compensation, still pays highly in terms of professional and cultural cachet.

Art monographs—These are publications, rather than articles, and represent an extended investigation into the work of a single artist. Monographs often begin as scholarly papers—and especially doctoral dissertations. And though they have a limited readership, that audience is extremely influential—so much so that a single much-admired monograph can make an art critic’s or art historian’s career. In the past, these publications were often strictly prose, given the cost of high-quality color reproduction. Nowadays, it is no longer a challenge; so monographs are typically as richly illustrated (though often less readable by the general public) as mainstream art books.

Satires—You may not think of satirical writing as criticism, but rather as comedy. Still, satire has a long and noble history as social criticism dating back to the ancient Greeks, notably the playwright Aristophanes. And no one would accuse Jonathon Swift or Mark Twain or Voltaire of writing strictly for laughs. So incisive can the criticism of satire be that it can get its authors killed or imprisoned in many countries today. Good satire requires tremendous wit and superior writing skills, which is why only a small number of writers in each generation can make a living from it usually beginning as a columnist or feature writers, then turning it into book authorship. For every P. J. O’Rourke or Dave Barry, there are thousands of budding comic writers today who attempt satire, fail, and retreat into stand-up comedy or sitcom writing or other less-demanding forms of humor. That said, if you can do it, satire can change the world and make its author wealthy and all but immortal.

Appraisals and critical biographies—This type of criticism is a genre of nonfiction writing, one in which the tools of criticism are applied, in an extended format, to the life and work of a notable (or soon-to-be notable) figure. This type of writing typically serves as a re-appraisal, or introduction, of that historic figure for a new generation of readers. Another reason for this type of writing is to take advantage of the appearance of newly discovered (or newly publicly available) information on the subject or to cast the subject in a new light based upon larger cultural changes. These types of books are mostly of limited potential sales, which is why they are typically published by university presses. That said, sometimes one of these books will break out and become a mass-market best-seller. One place where such books are well-represented is as recipients of literary prizes for their authors.

Critical analysis—This type of criticism is usually targeted at trends in the arts, government and foreign policy, and cultural movements. Think of it as an expanded version of literary essays and cultural criticism. This type of writing takes two forms: extended articles by experts for targeted publications (such as Foreign Policy or Commentary) or books, usually published by a university press or a think tank. Books of this type are designed to influence policy or, like Alan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind or Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, to establish thought leadership by exposing the weaknesses or dangers in the status quo. Successful critics in this genre often find themselves nominated for government posts and university distinguished professorships.





Critical subjects


The various types of criticism and reviewing represent but one axis of this world. The other axis is the subjects of this type of work. Here is an abbreviated list of topics and in what venues they typically appear. The emphasis here is on how professional writers can earn an income, if not always a living, by writing on these different topics:

Movies—Movie criticism can range from single-paragraph mini-reviews to extended blog entries to magazine essays. At its most influential, movie reviewing can materially impact a movie’s revenues (Siskel and Ebert) and at its finest (James Agee, Pauline Kael) it can approach the best literary art.

Books—Book reviewing can be done by amateurs (jacket quotes—usually untrustworthy) by noted figures to short reviews in magazines and Sunday newspapers to 10,000-word essays in literary supplements. Many famous writers (including George Orwell and John Updike) have also been notable book reviewers. Other than in extended retrospective essays, almost all book reviews are about new books and appear within one month of the publication date.

Television—Because of the nature of the medium, television reviewing is mostly done under an extremely tight deadline—literally within hours of a show’s broadcast. Networks try to mitigate this when possible by sending (nowadays via the Web, but sometimes still on DVD for security) advance copies to reviewers. A growing phenomenon on entertainment magazine sites is to run a simple summary of an episode and solicit—that is, “crowdsource”—comments from viewers. This often yields excellent results but isn’t a positive trend for professional writers.

Radio—Reviews of radio programming is a comparatively small field, particularly so now that radio is dominated by music programming and talk shows. However, NPR in the United States and BBC radio in the UK are examples of radio networks with traditional feature content—and thus are occasional subjects of newspaper stories and reviews. But this small amount of programming is insufficient to employ anyone as a full-time radio critic—rather, it is work usually handled on occasion by other types of reviewers.

Popular music—Pop, rock, hip-hop, world, and other forms of contemporary popular music have always been the subject of a healthy market in reviews, survey features, and even literary essays. The Web has only further proliferated this work. The good news is that popular music review is a field that is easy to enter (just create your own website or blog) and lends itself to young, neophyte, writers, as they tend to be more hip to current fads and trends. That said, it is also true that music criticism rarely pays well—even major publications such as Rolling Stone and Spin pay only small sums for music reviews, both recorded and live concerts. It is also a profession in which, after a few years, it becomes a struggle to stay current on the latest trends. That said, a few individuals—Dave Marsh, Robert Christgau, and Greil Marcus—have managed to enjoy long careers by moving to writing books and by taking employment at mainstream publications.

Classical music—Classical music reviewing (both recorded and in concert) has a century-old history. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of the finest classical music critics have also been superior composers or performers—most famously Virgil Thompson in the middle of the twentieth century. As newspapers slowly fade away—and as the audience for classical music turns increasingly into a niche—the traditional venue for this type of writing has all but disappeared. The advent of the Web has not changed this situation—at least for professional reviewers—because most of this new reviewing is performed by users on retail sites such as Amazon. That said, there are blogs and review sites that specialize in classical music, but most are authored by their creators and produce almost no revenues, but are usually fans writing to other fans. Nevertheless, there remain a number of publications—from major newspapers and magazines to intellectual journals—that still carry extensive writings on classical music. Better yet, most of this writing is in the extended essay format.

Jazz—Jazz criticism has largely gone the route of jazz music itself—from a widespread and popular genre in the years after WWII to a very narrow niche today A few jazz critics endured into the new century—notably Stanley Crouch and Nate Hentoff—writing extended essays for the likes of the Village Voice. But even that has largely disappeared. Yet, jazz criticism does survive on the Web, in specialized blogs for limited audiences. Income from this writing is virtually nil.

Art—Art criticism has a long, long history. Examples of this kind of writing can be found as early as the works of Plato, and surprisingly, the Roman Christian theologian St. Augustine. Modern art criticism is generally considered to have begun in the early eighteenth century almost simultaneously in France and England. By mid-century, it achieved its first peak in the writings of the legendary French encyclopedist Denis Diderot. By the nineteenth century, art criticism was being produced by some of the world’s leading writers, essayists, and poets, including John Ruskin, William Hazlitt, Charles Baudelaire, and Oscar Wilde. In their hands, writing about art—ranging from gallery and museum shows to profiles of new and established artists—became a major cultural force. In the twentieth century, abstraction found support by the Bloomsbury Circle (in particular Roger Fry); while after WWII, abstract expressionism was championed by Americans Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg—both of whom were often more influential than the painters they wrote about. The most important art critic of the final years of the century was Australian Robert Hughes of Time magazine. Art criticism today is as healthy as ever, with venues for reviews ranging from the Web to weekly alternative newspapers to daily newspapers. Longer art criticism can be found in a wide range of art magazines published throughout the world. Except for the staffers of art magazines, most art reviewers and critics are freelancers, often college art professors. The most lucrative art criticism markets are exhibition catalogs and art books (individual artists or schools)—work that is usually written by gallery or museum directors, though also academics and freelancers.

Architecture—This is a very specialized field—for good reason: there aren’t that many new buildings being constructed at any given moment. Indeed, most architecture reviewing and criticism is done by art critics, who see it as part of their purview. It is also a job that requires considerable travel, as new architecture has not only become a global phenomenon, but many of the most interesting new architectural commissions are now taking place in the developing world. Books about architecture remain as popular as ever and can offer a good income to veteran critics with an established “name.” While most of these works are laudatory toward its subject, one individual who broke the mold—and arguably the most influential architecture critic of all time—was Ada Louise Huxtable, whose often skeptical column on architecture appeared first in the New York Times and then the Wall Street Journal.

Culture—Cultural criticism is often confused with political writing (across the political spectrum), which it can sometimes be, but in fact it covers everything from obituary writing to profiles of emblematic individuals to extrapolations from unusual news events to larger cultural shifts. Cultural criticism can also range in format from standard “thumbsuck” pieces to actual field reporting. Thus, the list of important cultural critics of the last century ranges from the Marxist book critic Edmund Wilson to gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson, and novelist/social essayist Tom Wolfe to columnist and music writer Mark Steyn. Cultural criticism can also reach very high art, as in the Depression-era writings of novelist and movie critic James Agee and trenchant columnist Alfred Kazin, who often wrote about the immigrant experience, and Dwight MacDonald, the critic of middlebrow culture. It is extremely difficult to be acknowledged as an influential cultural critic; but in the Internet Age, it is quite easy to become one: you simply announce yourself as one, start a blog, and get writing. The hard part is finding an audience who wants to follow you.

Products—Product reviewing is distinct from the other forms described above because its emphasis is not rhetorical but empirical. This type of work also has its own venues: product review publications and websites such as CNET, Popular Science/Electronics/Mechanics, Car & Driver, Motor Trend, and the most influential provider of consumer product reviews Consumer Reports. Many major newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal, also have in-house reviewers that produce weekly features. Getting into product reviewing often requires little more than a workmanlike prose style, but a considerable expertise in the subject, and the ability to conduct, and cogently organize the results from, systematic evaluation. This is particularly true when reviewing dedicated product review publications. At the highest levels, product reviewing does require superior writing skills—especially for automotive publications, which pride themselves on entertaining copy. Product testing and reviewing can be a well-paying full-time job with considerable job security—but often with a long apprenticeship.





Keys to good criticism


Deep knowledge—You need to know your subject—well. Indeed, you need to know it better than your readers. If you don’t—especially in the Internet era, with its emphasis on reader comments and interaction—you will hear it from every reader who knows more than you and who will be happy to point out every one of your mistakes. Deep knowledge will also provide your writing with content: if you can describe the performance of a product in depth, compare it knowledgeably with competing products, and even place it in a historic context (i.e., precedents, past practitioners, earlier models), you will not only easily fill your allotted editorial space but provide your readers with a valuable service. This kind of knowledge doesn’t come easily; that’s why many reviewers and critics are academics with advanced degrees or individuals who have worked in the field for decades. If you don’t have that education or experience, and especially if you are starting out in the field, do your homework. Don’t guess and don’t assume you know what you are talking about—it will quickly come back to bite you.

 Strong opinions—Anyone can be ambivalent; we read reviews and criticism for strong opinions, incisive judgments, and when necessary, devastating take-downs. If you are of two minds about your review subject, don’t write the review. You won’t help either your readers or your own reputation. Ponder the topic a little longer, until you finally do come to a strong opinion one way or the other. Then write. Also, beware of the pathetic fallacy: if you feel unexcited or wishy-washy about the subject—say a dull play or a weak musical performance or a mediocre novel—don’t let your review be equally dull or second rate. Find a way to write about your subject in a dynamic and interesting way.

 Sense of duty to standards—Criticism is a craft with a noble history and an important role in society: that of identifying and celebrating works of superior quality, calling out weak, indifferent, or corrupt works, and educating the audience to both appreciate good art and to understand its historic antecedents. To do this on a consistent basis demands that you never coast or produce anything less than your best work—the profession’s dismissive phrase is “they mailed it in”—every time you write. You owe that to your subject and to your audience. A side benefit is that consistently working at your best will also make you both a better critic and a better writer.

 Intellectual courage—Being a reviewer or critic means making people angry. It’s the nature of the business and if you are afraid of causing offense then you shouldn’t be in this profession. To be a good critic you must have the courage of your convictions. If a work of art is flawed, you must say so, even if it will anger powerful or famous people. By the same token, you cannot be afraid of being publicly embarrassed and humiliated: if you suspect that your judgment will go against popular opinion or taste, your attitude should be “damn the torpedoes” and you should publish, confident that you are in the right and that history will redeem you.

 Strong, muscular prose—Just as critical writing should have a strong point of view, so too should it have a strong style. Wishy-washy prose undermines your argument—which is something a true critic should never allow to happen. You not only need the strength of your opinions but also the strength of your logic if you are going to convince skeptical readers, not just entertain them. Live performance reviewing particularly requires strong, rich prose because you want the reader to actually feel as if he or she is actually there, sitting beside you, watching the performance with you. That’s why reviewing should be much more than a mere accumulation of titles and plot points, but the description of an experience.

 Consistency—Great reviewers and critics have a firmly established point of view, a yardstick of quality, that they develop early, hold to strongly, and apply consistently to all of their subjects. A critic or reviewer who has a flexible value system that is applied inconsistently is not someone whose writing can be trusted, nor can be used as a reference for readers. That’s not to say that a critic or reviewer cannot evolve with time, experience, and maturity—but that is a matter of decades, not weeks.

 Self-discipline—Reviewing is a fast-moving profession, with tight deadlines and—especially with television and movies—a rapid pace, especially during certain seasons. For that reason, successful reviewers have excellent time management skills, can pound out copy quickly, and are dedicated to producing clear prose. When necessary, they can file a quick piece off their phone or laptop in the field without having to wait to get into a newsroom or home office. They are also obsessed with precision and accuracy: they get names and roles right every time, because editors often don’t have that information at hand to check.

 Healthy lifestyle—This isn’t discussed often enough. The best reviewers, and especially critics, are older, as lengthy experience provides the best context and the most developed sense of quality. But you’ve got to get their first, and much of the lifestyle of reviewers—late nights, wolfing down fast food while rushing to the theater, short deadlines, decompressing in a bar after filing the story—is hardly conducive to leading a long life. And there is no shortage of immensely talented critics—Agee, Kenneth Tynan, Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Andre Bazin, Apollinaire, rock critic Lester Bangs—who died too quickly to achieve their full potential. Dying young is only romantic to people who are young and healthy—if you want to live long enough the both create a sizable body of work and achieve the kind of quality criticism that comes from the wisdom of a long life you should aspire to follow the example of the great American social critic Jacques Barzun, who produced his masterwork, From Dawn to Decadence just before his death at 104. Few of us will reach that kind of milestone, but we can try—and that means staying healthy and living at a sane pace.





The ethics of criticism


Fully experience the work of art or product you are reviewing. Read the book carefully and take notes. See the movie twice if you have time. Same with the television episode. Listen to the CD or MP3 files multiple times. Go back to the restaurant a second time and try something different. This will not only give you more time to ponder the experience but will also assure that your initial opinion was affected by a bad mood or an anomalous event (the chef, or the actors, had a bad night).

You owe it to the work you are reviewing or criticizing to take it seriously—even if you choose in the end to mercilessly mock it. Go into it with an open mind, or don’t go in at all. You should always reread your copy for accuracy and grammar, but also do so for balance.

You are allowed to be opinionated—indeed, that’s what criticism is—but you must disclose all biases other than those created by your aesthetic judgment. Transparency should be your rule. If you have a conflict of interest (“the reader should know that the lead actress is my cousin”) or a prejudice (“I bloody hate musicals”) announce it, clearly.

You owe it to the artist and your audience to experience the work in its entirety—or explain why you abandoned it early. (“Half the audience was so bored that they walked out at the intermission. For the same reason, I joined them.”) Don’t let your editor convince you to walk out early just to meet a deadline.

Beware hyperbole—Save extreme comments (“the best movie I’ve ever seen,” “the worst play of all time”) for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Even then, you should modify the remark (“This may be the best movie I’ve ever had the honor to review”).

Recuse yourself if you have a true conflict of interest—for example, you helped edit the screenplay, or you are a consultant to the product’s manufacturer. Be honest about it, set a precedent for this kind of honesty early, and, with time, it will be easier to do. Train your boss to your integrity.

Make your money off your publisher—not off free tickets, free books, or free review products unless it is allowed by that publisher. Find out the rules from the start. Also, if you have been given expensive tickets to an event and decide not to attend, you should return those tickets immediately—don’t deny the venue its revenues or keep seats from people who do want to attend (more below on cut-outs and readers copies).

Do not accept gifts from people or organizations you are writing about. The one exception is when you are dealing with a culture that typically gives gifts at important events. Even then, you must always refuse an expensive gift and must give all inexpensive gifts to charity. During his saloon reviewing days, the author (and his wife) once had dinner and drinks at a bar. The owner adamantly refused to let me pay the bill—so I left the entire amount as a tip to our waiter. A week later, a friend had a drink at the same bar and complimented the owner on the positive review in the paper. “It ought to be good,” said the owner, “I comped the guy and his wife a full dinner.”

Do not abuse review items or the people who provide them. During his days in corporate public relations, the author regularly sent expensive electronic devices to trade reporters for review. Many simply kept the items—their homes looked like electronics stores. One couldn’t find the power cord, so used the one from his electric razor, burned out the device and then sent it back, demanding a replacement. Another returned it in a too-small envelope that was duct taped to hold it together. The reporters did those things because they could: they knew that I couldn’t complain and risk a bad review. This is despicable behavior—and if you do it, you can be sure your victims will remember and figure out a way to get even, including notifying your employer or suing you.





The work of criticism


As with every genre of professional writing, criticism is a craft, with specific practices, tools, and instruments. Here is a quick overview.

Reader’s copies—In the publishing business it is common practice to provide reviewers with “reader’s copies” of new books a month or more before the official publication date. These copies usually have plain paper covers, an unfinished table of contents, and lack an index. They also usually carry information about the publication date, PR contacts, and a warning that this version may still be edited before final publication. The proper treatment for one of these reader’s copies is to use it as source material if you are, in fact, writing a review (and to check with the publisher if you intend to quote from it, in case the copy has changed) and whether you use it or not, to toss it away afterward. Do not try to resell it. If you want an official copy, contact the publisher and request one.

Gallery and museum openings—Remember, you are a journalist, not a guest. Don’t overindulge in food or drink. If there is a separate media preview event, go to that, not the public opening (unless you want to remain anonymous). Keep your note-taking discrete or retire to a quiet area and do your write-up there. Don’t interview attendees inside the event; do it outside, approach them politely, give your job title, and keep your questioning brief. Try to get any press materials ahead of time, so that you are prepared. Include in your review information about the show’s location and dates and times of the exhibit.

Concerts and show opening nights/premieres—Dress appropriately (i.e., formal clothes for the symphony or opera; business clothes for plays and musicals). Study the program beforehand—including researching the music or play, learning its history, and Web searching the major performers. If possible, get press materials beforehand. Learn to take notes in the dark—do not use a flashlight, lightpen, cellphone, tablet, or anything else that may distract actual paying audience members and diminish their experience. Write your notes in the lobby or during intermission. If there is a final rehearsal or media performance, attend that and let the theater make money on the expensive opening night seat you would have taken. As with art gallery reviews, include details on the show’s run (dates and times).

Private screenings—Many major cities have small private theaters run by Hollywood publicity firms that enable movie reviewers to see films before they open and with minimal interference. Typically, local reviewers are notified which films will be shown at a given date and time—and when they show up, are given a media kit, and escorted to a tiny theater with no more than a dozen seats to watch the film. No effort is made by the theater’s operators to influence the reviewer—only to make them as comfortable as possible, and this is the best frame of mind. As a film critic, you may or may not choose to participate in this process—many reviewers choose to watch new films, especially comedies, where they can gauge the audience’s reaction—at public cinemas. If you choose the latter, be sure to be on the routing list of the major studios to get publicity materials in advance.

Review copies/items and cut-outs—Publishers, other media companies, and publicists often send out to reviewers content material that they don’t want to be returned—often because it is more expensive to mail twice than the material itself. This includes CDs, DVDs, some books, and cheap consumer products and electronic devices. For TV reviewers, some of those DVDs will be recordings of upcoming television episodes. For audio, these items will have the print insert clipped in the corner—a “cut out,” this is called. Increasingly, these items are being transmitted over the Web, but many remain in traditional formats. The question then becomes, after you’ve written the review—or decided not to do so—what do you do with all of those items, which can represent a score or more per week? Rather than throw those items away, the temptation is to resell them. This is an ethical gray area—and one you should address with your employer. You’ll find, especially if you are a freelancer, that many publications and websites consider this resale part of your compensation. Always check first.

Backstage access and sneak previews—One of the rewards of being a reviewer is access. With proper warning many artistic productions, from plays to rock concerts, will provide you with badges or backstage passes in order to see the actual workings of the production and, possibly, interview key participants. Needless to say, you will be there as a professional, not a starry-eyed fan, so you must be low-key and stay out of the way. Don’t ask for autographs or free tchotchkes, and always ask permission to record conversations, conduct interviews, or take photographs. Otherwise, you may never again be given permission.

 Sneak previews are more structured events also designed to give you special access. In this case, you will be invited to see a production in advance of its formal opening. It may be a sneak preview at a local theater of a new film—sometimes also attended by cast members, the director, and studio representatives. For plays and performances, you may be invited to see the final rehearsal. And for gallery openings, you may get a private viewing. Implicit in these preview invitations is the agreement that you will quickly turn around your review and have it published before the official opening—or, at worst, less than 24 hours later.

Deadlines—The hardest part of being a reviewer or critic is not the esthetic analysis of the event, nor even the writing of the review. It is meeting your deadlines. Criticism is work that largely takes place in a vacuum: you may have the plot of the play, or the biography of the artist, or the song list of the band—but there is nothing there to tell you how to render your opinion honestly, compellingly, and of interest to your readers. For those things, you are on your own. And it only gets worse the longer you wait to start writing. That’s why many critics and reviewers start immediately—even to the point of writing the lede in their minds while they are still at the event and then finishing while they are still in a white heat from the experience. They do this even if it is 3 a.m. and the deadline is a week away. That said, there is rarely that much time; that’s why reviewers must be able to write immediately and write fast—and be able to write their way through any creative wall.

Carving out a niche—Smart reviewers quickly learn to carve out an area of expertise at which they are the acknowledged expert (to keep away competitors), yet enjoy a large enough reader audience (to guarantee job security). Being known as an acknowledged expert has other advantages. For example, it presents the opportunity to write a book in your field, give speeches, and even become an adjunct professor or lecturer at your local university. Establishing such a niche can be as simple as writing a couple of hundred reviews on a single topic—say, your city’s symphony—over the course of a decade; such that you can compare current performances to those of years before, or so that you personally know (and can get quotes from) key figures; or you can identify improvements or weaknesses in performances. Needless to say, you can accelerate this process by doing a bit of research or fieldwork.

Creating an audience—Successful critics are conscious of their audience and cultivate them at every opportunity. Loyal readers make for enduring careers—they buy subscriptions, read ads, write comments, and send positive letters to the editor. While it is natural to elevate your writing to impress your professional peers—or in the name of art-for-art’s-sake—you should never forget that your first duty is to your readers: educating them, developing their critical faculties, warning them against wasting their hard-earned money on bad experiences, and alerting them to positive experiences. Take care of your audience, and they will take care of you. Review, say, a new movie and write only about the cinematographer or the film’s relationship to an obscure 1920s silent film and while you may impress other reviewers, you will lose your following—and eventually your job.

Building a career—Like all writing jobs, the career of a reviewer or critic has a trajectory, one that you need to manage in a professional manner if you are going to enjoy long-term success. Typically, this means taking what is an established position and leveraging it into something larger that offers the prospect of ever-greater wealth and fame. Here are some ways to do that:

 The right venue: It is difficult to make a comfortable living (i.e., support a family, buy a house, retire comfortably) being a reviewer or critic for a small local, or even regional, publication, website, or television news show. You need to have the ambition and willingness to do the hard work, to land a job at a big city newspaper, a national magazine, or a national website or television program. You do this in several ways—by taking on bigger projects (like subject profiles, extended features, investigations)—that are part of your normal job description, by building your resume with more prestigious freelance work, and by constantly applying and interviewing for jobs at the next higher position in your profession. At some point, you are going to bump up against a ceiling on your career—but if you are good, that will come later than sooner, and you will have landed a well-paying gig.

 Conferences and festivals: At a certain point in your career, your professional reputation will likely reach the point where you are invited to give speeches or serve as the master of ceremonies at industry events or university conferences. You may see these invitations as distractions (if they’re not paying) or intimidating (if you are not comfortable as a public speaker), but nevertheless you should accept everyone you can. They are a quick way to elevate yourself among your professional peers, they certify you as a leading expert in the field, and they are a great way to network for career promotions. At some point, you will be able to command a sizable fee—often the equivalent of several month’s salary for a weekend of work—and you will become one of the leading figures in your field. The pinnacle of this kind of work is when your name is attached to just such a conference or festival—thereby cementing your position at the top of your field. [If you do have stage fright, or (like most people) are uncomfortable with public speaking, start small, join a toastmaster’s group, and get used to it.]

 Compilations—An important career step for any reviewer or critic is making the jump to writing books. We’ll explore this more in the next section, but for now note that the easiest way to get into the book business is with a compilation of your writings, including reviews and essays. Needless to say, you need to have written a fair number of pieces—and have an established reputation—before any publisher is going to give you such a deal (unless you choose to self-publish). But once you reach that level, this should be an easy decision and a crucial next point in your career development. Best of all, it turns what was short-lived, fugitive work and turns it into content that something that will sit on library shelves—and in the hands of your descendants—for generations. And isn’t that, ultimately, why you write?

 Books and biographies—Compilations aren’t the only book writing opportunities for veteran reviewers and (especially) critics. Having established an expertise in your field, you become the most likely candidate to write surveys or history books on that field—or biographies of key figures within it. Books like this often have the possibility of becoming best-sellers—and thus command large advances or produce considerable royalties. A successful book of this kind will only further advance your reputation and lead to future book deals.





Career—The good


Lifelong work—Reviewers and critics (in part because editors don’t really much care as long as deadlines are met and editorial holes filled) typically enjoy considerable job security. It is not unusual for, say, a music critic or movie reviewer to retire from a publication after decades of employment. Though the likelihood of hitting a salary ceiling is there (see “The bad”), over the long haul, critics and reviewers may very well enjoy a higher lifetime income because they don’t suffer the long periods of unemployment often suffered by their editorial peers.

Get better as you get older—A second reason why critics and reviewers have a high job security is that their critical skills tend to improve with time. Their insights grow sharper, and their historical knowledge of the field only grows stronger after they’ve written several hundred reviews. This makes it one of the rare careers, even in writing, where you can be better at what you do at 70 years old than when you were at 25. That means you may well be spared the experience of career obsolescence experienced by many of your professional counterparts.

Tremendous power and influence in your field—Unlike many other careers, where you can feel like just a cog in the big corporate wheel, being a critic can give you influence and earn you respect from the very beginning of your career. And, while your corporate counterparts are still enjoying only limited influence even at the general manager or vice presidential level, by the middle of your career you can be enjoying a sizable amount of fame—and a profound influence on your field of interest. By the time your counterparts have hit career ceilings (other than the handful who make it to the CEO’s office) you will have become the “dean” of critics in your field, and your influence may be as great as any artist. That’s not a bad career trajectory.

Enduring work—Criticism is one of the most long-lived of all types of professional writing. We still read criticism of Greek life and culture 3,000 years later. That may not seem important at the beginning of your career—but in its final years, when you are thinking about your legacy, it will be very important. In the Internet Age, you can pretty much assume that everything you write will be traceable somewhere, probably for generations. But if you want to improve the odds of that happening, you’ll want to pursue the creation of books—from compilations of your writings to original works.

Independence—Critics were among the first journalists to mostly work away from the office. That’s because they typically had to attend screenings, gallery openings, and so on away from the newsroom and while some then would go back to the paper or magazine late at night and pound out copy, others would simply write from home and send it in. In the twenty-first century, it’s rare for a critic or reviewer to visit the office at all—except perhaps to occasionally remind their editor who they are. Needless to say, for websites and online magazines, there is no there-there anyway, so the critic’s office is his or her home office. Hit your deadlines, and the life of the modern critic is one of almost complete independence—even more so than home workers at corporations, who still must report to their superiors and attend virtual meetings.

Free stuff and collectibles—We’ve already noted the ethical challenges regarding “review” copies and gifts. And those rules at your employer must always be followed. That said, if you are a music critic you are inevitably going to be sent hundreds of CDs or free music downloads—with no expectation of returns. The same with book criticism or electronics reviewing. And, even if you are not receiving free items, your expertise will likely enable you to make smart purchases in your field—such as art and engravings—the average gallery patron might not make. The result is that, in the long run, you will likely develop a valuable collection of superior works in your area of specialty. For many critics, such collections have proven to be a nice added retirement—or a tax write-off donation to a local library, university, or museum.





Career—The bad


There aren’t a lot of negatives about a career as a critic or reviewer. That said, if the work doesn’t fit with your personality it will become increasingly difficult to maintain over time.

Pay—If you don’t make the leap to authorship, national media, or conferences (and sometimes even if you do), the income from criticism and reviewing is, at best, an average income career. At a newspaper, you will make the salary of a mid-level reporter or editor, and rarely more. It is possible to jump to national syndication—but few critics do. And very few freelance reviewers ever earn enough to make a living from it; but rather, you’ll likely do this kind of work as a supplement to a regular job.

Voyeurism—Ultimately, criticism is about looking at and judging the work of other people. This can get old after a while, especially (as noted) if you want to be doing that work yourself. But even if you aren’t envious of artists and are content with your own career work, it can seem as if you are intruding on others’ lives—and don’t deserve to do so. This can be especially the case if, in the course of your work you learn something private, but salient, about an artist or performer’s life—and feel obliged to publish it.

Contempt and fear by people you admire—Also, as mentioned above, you can assume that you will never have a sincere relationship with anyone you write about. The power relationship is just too one-sided—in your favor. You’re subjects, often unconsciously, will either suck up to you or keep their distance, simply because you have their fate in your hands. Worst of all are the subjects who will be friends to your face but attack you to others. If you get into the business to get to know on a personal basis the important figures you write about—famous artists, movie stars, authors, and so on—you have made the wrong choice.

Bias—Developing biases is an inevitable part of the profession of criticism. There will be mediocre artists you like, and great artists you truly hate. The challenge is to keep your criticism balanced and fair in the face of both emotions. But that can be a heavy burden: the only thing harder than honoring someone you hate is to give a bad review to a friend you like and admire. If you allow your biases to affect your work, then you are no different from the type of critic who abuses their power and authority by picking winners and losers for your own gain. And, like those power abusers, letting your biases color your work is a sign that you need to change careers.





Career: Turning points


You become bigger than your subjects: Though it is comparatively rare, in most artistic fields and about once per generation, a critic can be so esteemed and influential that he or she becomes more powerful than the subjects of their writing. This kind of reputation can actually distort the entire field, as the critic begins to attract all of the attention, and the actual practitioners are reduced to operating in their shadow and compromising their work to appeal to that critic. When this happens, it is sometimes better for the critic to move on to other subjects where their influence is not so great.

You abuse your power: This is the corollary of extreme fame. Critics who enjoy considerable power in their field, if they lack sufficient professional integrity, can take advantage of that power—picking winners and losers for their own advantage, allowing their judgment to become personal, and even earning money under the table. It takes a strong character—and considerable pride—not to succumb to this kind of power. If you find yourself drifting toward this kind of behavior, get out while your reputation is still intact.

You grow tired of being an observer: It goes without saying that—given your job of making or breaking reputations and with great fortunes sometimes hanging in the balance—being a critic or reviewer is a job that enjoys a lot of respect, but not a lot of love. The artists themselves often secretly hold you in disrespect, if not downright contempt. They, after all, are doing the hard, risky work; you only have to come along and judge them. It was the Nobel prize-winning novelist Andre Gide who famously wrote: “The dogs bark but the caravan passes on.” And that was a relatively nice comment about critics. “Vultures” is a more common epithet. Meanwhile, those same people speaking that way behind your back may also suck up to your face. If you can’t live with that treatment, you probably shouldn’t be a critic. Almost as common are those critics who initially set out to be creative types themselves and when it didn’t pan out did the next best thing and became critics. But they never abandon their original dream, and it haunts them to watch others succeed while they can only write about them.

Intellectual cycles—Criticism is a dynamic field, with universities producing new schools of thought—the “new” criticism, critical analysis, post-modernism, and so on—every decade or so. It is extremely difficult for someone who has made his or her reputation with one of these schools to maintain their reputation in the next. These shifts don’t really affect reviewers in newspapers and magazines, mostly because their readership just want thoughtful and decisive opinions, but in intellectual journals such shifts can signal the end of a career.





CHAPTER 11 Essayist


What is an essay?


It is a venerable form of nonfiction writing that endures because of its power to influence readers. Essays are typically short (500–5,000 words), tightly constructed, attack a single and comparatively narrow theme, and drive the reader quickly and directly to a conclusion. Typically, essays have an obvious structure, reference larger outside forces, and are topical and timely.

Essays can take a number of forms, including many found in the other professions described in this book, including art and literary essays, political tracts, one-off columns, extended blogs, opinion pieces, and editorials.





Why write essays?


Because they are so powerful. All of the great minds of the last three thousand years have written in the essay form. Some essays (see below) have changed history. Part of the appeal is that they are the equivalent of a compressed argument, transformed into print. Another reason is that they are comparatively brief: for writers, that means essays can be written quickly and can be sold to magazines and newspapers. For readers, a lot of the appeal is that the average essay typically can be read in a single sitting and doesn’t require the commitment of, say, a nonfiction book. Finally, because they can be turned around so quickly, essays can be timely—and hooked to recent news—in a way impossible with longer formats.

The biggest problem with the essay for writers is that the form is inevitably bound up with bad memories of having to write “essays” (actually reports) in school. This is unfortunate because the true essay has almost nothing to do with that debased form, the latter being little more than a form of punishment. The trick is to not let those bad memories deter you; there are few more enjoyable and rewarding forms of writing.





History


The essay—or at least a prototype form of the essay—can be traced to the Greeks, in particular the post-Socratic philosophers. Plato’s dialogs, such as The Republic, are structured as conversations in which Socrates is prompted by interlocutors into extended monologues that are almost indistinguishable from short essays. This is particularly the case with his celebrated “Parable of the Cave.” Aristotle, in turn, achieves the essay format with his Nicomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics. Other essay-like writings from that era include Epictetus’ Golden Sayings, a founding document in Stoicism.

The Romans made many important contributions to the essay. Notable are the writings of emperor and Stoic Marcus Aurelias, Cicero’s speeches, St. Paul’s letters in the New Testament, and Augustine’s Confessions. With Aristotle’s ethics, all had a profound effect on the development of expository writing because of their rediscovery during the Renaissance. In imitating these works, the leading writers of that later era adopted the essay form and perfected it.

A parallel development of the essay occurred in Japan, most notably in Shonagon’s The Pillow Book (written circa 1000 AD) and Tsurezuregusa by the Buddhist monk Yoshida Kenko, written three centuries later.

The literary side of the Renaissance is synonymous with the essay, and its leading practitioners are also among the greatest figures of that age. They include political essayists such as Machiavelli (The Prince) and the poet John Milton; personal essayists such as Montaigne (Essays), cultural essayists such as Castiglione (The Book of the Courtier), scientific and philosophical essayists, including Francis Bacon (Essays, The Advancement of Learning), Pascal (Pensees), and Descartes. Besides the historical precedent, another source of the appeal for essays during this era was the rise of printing. Essays could be written quickly and distributed in volume cheaply for mass distribution to an increasingly literate populace. As a result, essays enjoyed an enormous influence that would have political implications in subsequent centuries.

The eighteenth century constituted something of a Golden Age for the essay. During the Enlightenment, the essays of Coleridge, Addison, Burke, and Samuel Johnson enjoyed considerable popular support; while Voltaire and Swift wrapped social commentary and criticism in satire. Political essays, such as Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” provided an impetus for the American Revolution. Romanticism was launched with Rousseau’s attack on reason and rationality in his extended essays, many of them embedded in his novels.

The nineteenth century saw the creation of some of the most important essays ever written, including those by the Romantics, notably Hazlitt’s and Goethe’s essays on science, literature, and aesthetics. The middle years of the century featured cultural critic Matthew Arnold (Essays in Criticism) and the rise, in the United States, of the transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau. The last years of the nineteenth century saw powerful philosophical essays by Nietzsche on human will, power, and morality. The century ended with one of the most powerful essays ever published: Zola’s “J’Accuse,” which called out government corruption in the Dreyfus Affair.

The twentieth century saw an explosion in essays, propelled by both newspapers and a medium that proved a perfect home for this literary form: the magazine. The list of major essayists during this century is too long to enumerate in these pages, but here are some examples, many of them famous in other writing fields, and a sample of their best essays:

CP Snow—Most famously identified as the growing schism between science and the humanities. “Two Cultures.”

GK Chesterton—Literary essays and Christian apologist. “A Piece of Chalk.”

TS Eliot—Literary critic. “The Metaphysical Poets.”

Isaiah Berlin—Social science, culture, human liberty. “The Fox and the Hedgehog.”

Hillaire Belloc—Religion, travel, and history. “On Them.”

Dwight MacDonald—Radical politics, cultural criticism. “The Book-of-the-Millennium Club.”

Rebecca West—Travel, politics. “The Strange Necessity.”

Stephen Jay Gould—Paleontology. “Ladders, Bushes and Human Evolution.”

Loren Eiseley—Anthropology, human culture. “The Star Thrower.”

Virginia Wolfe—Literature and arts. “The Death of the Moth.”

Martin Luther King Jr.—Race and America. “Measure of a Man.”

Tom Wolfe—Social criticism and culture. “Sorry, Your Soul Just Died.”

Jorge Luis Borges—Literature and history. “Borges and I.”

Ramchari Sigh Dinkar—Nationalism and anticolonialism. “Memorial for Dr. Kashi Prasad Jaiswal.”

George Orwell—Politics and literature. “Down and Out in Paris and London.”

Frantz Fanon—Africa and anticolonialism. “The Fact of Blackness.”

Felicien Marceau—Art and literature. “Balzac et son Monde.”

Thomas Mann—Literature and German culture. “Dostoevsky in Moderation.”



The essay in the twenty-first century has evolved to reflect the dominant issues in the early years of this already tumultuous century: international terrorism, globalism, the technology revolution (in particular, the Internet), and the biotechnology revolution.

Marilynne Robinson—Religion and faith. “Open Thy Hand Wide.”

Christopher Hitchens—Politics and society. “From 9/11 to the Arab Spring.”

David Foster Wallace—American culture and sports. “Consider the Lobster.”

Alain de Botton—Philosophy and human relationships. “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person.”

Theodore Dalrymple—Medicine and the underclass. “The Heart of a Heartless World.”

Roger Scruton—Conservatism and English culture. “The Politics of Culture.”

Roger Angell—Sports. “Distance.”

Kate Jennings—Feminism and language. “Home Truths.”

Mark Steyn—Music, politics, and culture. “Dependence Day.”

Camille Paglia—Feminism and literature. “Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders.”

Gerardo Fernandez Fe—Cuban culture. “Cuerpo a diario.”

Sebastien Lapaque—French culture and politics. “Salauds de pauvres!” (Poor Bastards!)



Types of essays—Centuries of essay writing have shown that almost every topic can be the subject of a compelling essay, from personal confessions to the latest twists and turns of world affairs to the meaning of the universe itself. But whatever the form, the key to a great essay is a tight focus on the subject, a logical progression to a strong and compelling conclusion, and powerful prose. Here are some of the subject areas that essayists have found to be rich subjects.

Politics—Political essays cover the entire spectrum, but typically focus on larger ideological themes. News-related political writing usually takes place in columns.

Culture—Perhaps the most popular topic for long-form essays. Topics range from art and literature to popular trends to classical themes. There is a venue for just about every one of these subjects.

News—These are comparatively rare, as the extended time to create an essay works against the timeliness of news. This is more the subject of short columns or blogs. That said, major news events—such as war—that extend over time have been the subject of some great essays.

Technology and business—These are popular topics in the twenty-first century, given the electronics revolution and the emerging global marketplace. The best essays on this topic deal with the implications of these changes to civilization, work and leisure, and what it means to be human in a digital world.

Personal life—Essays of this type can range from the deeply moving to the riotously funny. They typically deal with real-life anecdotes, parenthood, marriage, and aging.

Nature and science—Some of the most celebrated essays of the last century have taken recent discoveries and inventions—and extrapolated them to human culture and mankind’s place in the Universe.

History—Each new generation needs to revisit the past in order to re-evaluate key events, discover new lessons, and provide context for the present. Some of the best essays offer a re-appraisal of important historical figures and events raising some reputations, lowering others, and discovering the long-forgotten.

Entertainment—An important role of the essay is to identify new trends and schools of thought. The essay also serves as a vehicle for surveys of new art, music, film, television, and so forth.

Call to Arms—One of the most important essays ever written was Thomas Paine’s “The Crisis,” with its famous opening: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” As a ringing call to sustain the American Revolution it was unmatched (George Washington had it read to the Continental Army), and ultimately changed history. That said, the “Call to Arms” is a common essay form beloved by every fanatic and ideologue and is usually a wasted effort.

J’Accuse—This type of essay has a very distinguished history. As noted, Zola’s essay of this name was a legendary attack against the corruption and anti-Semitism of France’s Second Republic. J’Accuse essays are very risky: some have gotten their authors murdered. And they must be very accurate—or the author (and publication) risk libel suits. But as instruments of justice, they are all but unmatched.

Sports—Sports writing attracts top-flight reporters, but they rarely are given the chance to put that talent to work. When they do—in essays that celebrate great athletes, teams, and sports moments, that follow the mixed fates of sports heroes, or limn the contradictions between sport and real life—the results can be haunting, hilarious, and unforgettable.

Profile—The difference between a profile-type feature story and a profile-type essay is that the former typically restricts itself to telling the story of the subject, and usually features extensive quotes. The latter usually has fewer quotes, and instead places the subject in the larger context of history, culture, antecedents, and influence.

Satire—The satirical essay may be the most difficult form of all of these to pull off successfully. One reason is that while a mediocre straight essay can still be readable, a mediocre satirical essay is indistinguishable from a failed one. Great essayists can be created with a lot of work and effort, but great satirists seemed to only be born. If you are one of those rare individuals, start with small venues and perfect your craft. With satire, you usually don’t get many chances to fail with major venues.





Markets


Magazines—Some mainstream magazines regularly publish freelance essays; more publish essays from staffers (on the op-ed page). Arts, culture, political, and academic journals are the largest and most consistent publishers of essays.

The Web—The Internet has proven to be a major new opportunity for essayists. Though the blogosphere is increasingly defined by ever-shorter entries, there still remain numerous opportunities for long-form writing, especially essays. The bad news is that there is rarely much pay (if any); the good news is that a top-notch essay has a good chance of being linked to scores of other sites and results in millions of readers—the kind of audience that builds reputations.

Newspaper Op-Ed sections—The editorial pages of newspapers feature regular columns (by staffers, often without bylines), guest columns (bylined), and, less regularly, actual essays. The boundary line between the last two is not well-defined—nor does it need to be. That said, a short (500–900 words) opinion piece on a particular topic is usually considered a column. An in-depth analysis by a guest expert, not hooking on an immediate news topic, and typically running twice as long, is usually considered an essay. This type of essay writing is usually given special treatment, appears most often in top-tier newspapers, and commands a premium price.

Newspaper Arts & Review sections—These sections, which appear in major publications (The (London) Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal Arts & Review, etc.), are dedicated to both book reviews, arts criticism, and typically one or two extended essays, usually of cultural criticism. These are very high-prestige venues—and unfortunately, the essay assignments are usually given only to important people with recognizable names—though publications, even big ones, will sometimes buy topics by lesser-known figures if the topic is unique and important.

Opinion journals—The publications which range from national magazines (Commentary, The Nation) to political journals (Foreign Policy) to cultural and academic journals (Hudson Review, The New Criterion) are the home to most of the essays published each month. While these publications lean toward authors with either the right credentials or recognized expertise, they still offer an opportunity for new writers to build their reputations.





What makes for good essay writing?


We’ll look at this more in depth in the “Tips” section below. For now, we’ll take a high-level look at what makes an essay “work” for the reader—who is, after all, the person—not your editor, not yourself, not your friends—for whom your writing should always be targeted.

Engaging opening—If you don’t grab your reader from the first sentence before they even realize they are reading your essay, you’ll lose them. When that happens, no matter how good is the rest of your writing, how strong the message, or how compelling the conclusion, it won’t matter. They’ll be gone.

Strong organization—You need to drag your reader through the whole length of the essay. That’s done with smooth transitions and a logic that pulls them through to find out what comes next.

Precision—The intelligent reader will be challenging you at every point—and nebulous, imprecise phrasing will not help your case. You must make your points clear.

Twists of thought, irony, powerful phrasing—Why read anything if it isn’t fun, or at least compelling? The best essays are not only powerful in their logic but also delightful in their style and their insights into the author’s thinking.

References and appeals to a higher authority—Back up your case with references to other official sources. That gives your work legitimacy. And support your argument with references to acknowledged experts in the field. That gives your work credibility.

Clear, elegant writing—Once again, it is important to be entertaining. Experts have a common weakness for lapsing into the jargon of their profession because it offers an even higher level of precision. But it can also make the prose unintelligible—even insulting—to the average reader. Be precise in your argument, but mainstream in your prose style as well as simple in your rhetoric.

Powerful close—In following your entire argument, your readers are taking a journey with you. So why, when you’ve taken them to the mountaintop, would you show them an empty vista? No, your job is to blow them away with a strong closing, one that vibrates in their brain for hours, even days, afterward. Creating a powerful close to an essay is just as difficult as writing a great opening—and takes just as long to create.





The good news


It is the best writing you’ll ever do. Being an essayist puts you in the company of some of the best writers alive. It is the big leagues. You can build your reputation on this kind of writing, and it will be something you will look back upon with pride.

You can influence events. More than any other form of writing, essays mobilize the citizenry, impact legislative, turn opinion, and sometimes change history. Other than novels (and perhaps films), essays are a writer’s best chance at fame and immortality.



The bad news

It’s hard to make a career. Essay writing tends to be a collection of one-offs. There are very few full-time essayists; so, as you might imagine, there is a lot of competition for very few positions.

It’s usually a sideline to another job. It follows that, since there are few full-time essayist jobs, if you want to pursue this line of work you’ll need another job. One possibility is academia—but that, unfortunately, can also be a burden, as you are not considered a “real” expert. But careers in most other professions don’t leave much time for writing.

Lots of competition. It’s not just at the top. Some people think they can write novels, or epic poems, or even movies. But all people think they can write an essay—“It’s just like a school paper, isn’t it?” As a professional writer, you can usually rise above all of that competition, but it’s still noise, and your work can get lost among all of those other submissions.





Careers


Academic—You may have lower odds of getting an essay published in mainstream media, but your odds skyrocket when writing for academic journals, literary magazines, and so on. And, term breaks and summer vacation give you large blocks of time to write. Moreover, getting an essay published doesn’t just get you paid, and a readership, but it can also be a career builder and a path to tenure.

 Columnist—See the chapter on “Columns.” For now, note that writing a column offers the independence and personal creativity of essay writing, with a lot more job opportunities (and a much faster pace).

 Full-time essayist—As already noted, this is a very difficult job to get but if you do, it is one of the best jobs a writer can have. As with columns, pacing is everything: don’t burn yourself out. And if the frequency is too fast, try to negotiate a slower publication rate (but don’t lose the job in the process). If you can maintain high quality at a reasonable pace, this is one of the most secure jobs any writer can find.

 Editorial page editor—The opinion page(s) editor typically rewards himself or herself for regular authorship of the lead editorial. These pieces are often of flexible length according to the subject—thus, making them resemble essays. On the other hand, they are also almost always anonymous, take positions aligned with the owners, and are linked tightly to daily news events (often local). If you can live with these compromises and are willing to put in the time to climb the career ladder at a publication—usually a newspaper—this is a very influential position with considerable power in the community.





Tips for essay writing


Think before you write. This isn’t school: you don’t just start writing and continue until you run out of things to say. You need to organize your argument to be seamless, logical, and powerful.

What is your main point?

How are you going to support that point?

Can you logically carry your argument from suppositions to conclusions?



Spend 50 percent of your energy on the lede. If you don’t pull your reader in before they even know they are reading, then you have failed before you’ve begun.

Are the first two sentences as tight and as powerful as you can make them?

Have you buried the lede? The key point of the essay had better be in the first two paragraphs of that essay, preferably in the first sentence of the first paragraph. If you need to “clear your throat” with sloppy words and phrasing to start writing, go ahead and do it but edit them out later.



Use the human voice wherever you can—famous quotes, lines from poetry or literature, and so on.

It connects your writing with the reader.

It is authoritative and legitimizes what you have to say.

Always give recognition to your sources.



Summarize the question or problem to be addressed.

Devote a paragraph early in the essay to state the situation briefly and cogently to make sure all readers share the same basic knowledge.

If you can, quote an authority in your summary to show that you are being fair.



One paragraph per point—even if the point takes one sentence to make. This isn’t an ironclad rule, but the more you can expose the “bones” of your essay, the easier it will be for readers to navigate through it. Placing your key points in separate paragraphs is one way to do it; another is to simply enumerate them—that is, “first, […] second, […]”

Let the conclusion find itself.

If you know at the beginning how you want the essay to end, write that ending down and work toward it.

If you don’t know the ending at the beginning, follow the logic of your argument.

Don’t fit your text to fit your predetermined ending; instead, abandon that ending and write a new one that follows the logic of the preceding argument.

If the ending you ultimately reach disagrees with your lede, go back and change the lede.

If all else fails and you can’t come up with a clever ending, just repeat the lede, but rewrite it to incorporate the points you’ve made in the essay.



Reread the essay as if you are the audience. That can be difficult to do soon after you’ve written the piece. So, if you have time before your deadline, set the essay aside for a few days, and only then revisit it as a tough editor.

Fix logical holes.

Give the essay “air.” That is, break up paragraphs that “look” too long on the page.

Ask yourself: Does the essay answer the problem posed by the lede?

Is it intellectually complete?

Does it answer the assignment?

Does the piece physically “look” appealing to read?

Can you find more opportunities to include a human “voice”?

Can you rewrite the conclusion to make it more accurate, more encompassing, and more clever?





Use the technology you’ve got. Always take advantage of your available tools.

Use the Internet if you have access. Gather supporting documentation, quotes, data, and so on. Keep track of your sources—especially if you need to footnote.

Make full use of word processing: spell check, insert, key points, footnote, use tables and charts, even write in a nonlinear fashion and then piece together the diverse paragraphs in the best order if that helps you compose.

Unless it has been assigned, write the title last. Make it pithy and memorable.

Especially on the Web, look at how the copy lays out on the page. Try different fonts and type sizes, italicize and embolden. Change margins to get rid of widows, and so forth.



Submit electronically with a brief cover note.

Don’t write a long message—let the essay sell itself.

If you get an acceptance, invoice immediately.

If you get a request for edits or changes, make them immediately and re-submit.



Promote yourself.

Don’t depend upon the publication or website to find all of your readers.

Have a developed email routing list of friends, family, and influential people who follow your work or the subject matter of the essay.

Email the article (as a file or a link) to that list.





CHAPTER 12 Nonfiction Book Author





What is book authorship?


The authoring, co-authoring, or compiling and introducing a full-length (40K to 300K word count) hardcover, softcover, or electronic book. The process typically takes 12 to 15 months to complete the work, of which the actual writing is about 9 months. Time to publication after completion of the book can range from days (e-books) to more than a year (traditional hardcover publishers). For the purposes of this book, we distinguish “author” which we will use for nonfiction books only and “novelist,” a title used exclusively for fiction.





Why write nonfiction books?


Because some subjects are of sufficient importance and complexity they can only be treated at book length. Also, putting one’s work between covers confers on it a value and gravity impossible in any other publication format. Finally, more than any magazine or newspaper article, books are substantial physical objects that can endure for years, even generations.





Types of books


The range of different subjects for nonfiction books is as wide as human interests. In other words, it is almost infinite. Here is a (incomplete) list of broad topics. Under each of them, you can probably create a list of subtopics just as long. The point is that, especially in the modern global marketplace, there are probably enough potential readers in each of thousands of subgenres of nonfiction to make it commercially viable for you to write a book on that subject. And if you are willing to write out of love (or for reputation building) instead of money, the potential topics are probably 10 times that.

History

Biography



Natural Science

Political Science



Computers

Health



Politics

Travel



Religion

Culture



Business

Technology



How-to

Repair



Personal Finance

Tutorial



Philosophy

Government and Politics



Professional Development

Humor



Autobiography

Military



Memoir

Cookbooks



Lifestyle

Autobiography



Self-improvement

Celebrity



Health and Fitness

Diet



Architecture and Design

Photography



Compilation

TV, cinema, and radio



Survey

Review



Textbook

Reference



Gardening

Sports





The book writing process


Writing a book is a major effort, one that can take thousands of hours and months out of your life. Too many people become obsessed with an idea for a book, sit down, and just start writing from page one, devoting many hours per day for the first couple of weeks. This is a recipe for disaster—which is why only a small fraction of books started are ever finished. Most often, these writers simply burn themselves out. Or other responsibilities call and they abandon the effort. Or they discover they don’t have enough material for a book-length work.

By comparison, professional authors treat book writing as a long-term, complex campaign that can consume a year or more—and that requires a long-term strategy, short-term tactics, logistics, considerable preparation, and pacing. They know that writing the book itself is typically less than half the process, with the rest taking place either before they type the first word or after the finished manuscript is sent to the publisher.

We will now take a closer look at this entire process, segmenting it into phases.





Phase one: The idea


Writers come to book ideas in different ways. Some, typically academics or experts in their field, often reach a point where their knowledge of a subject is superior to just about anyone else, or they have unique access to the unmatched source material (like the papers of a famous person). They may then decide it is time to put all of that knowledge together into a book.

Other authors find themselves obsessed with a topic and want to use the writing of a book to explore the matter more deeply—and perhaps even get paid for that research. Finally, some professional writers decide it is time to write another book—and then go in search of a compelling, marketable topic.

Whatever the approach, the subsequent steps are the same:

Subject—You need to take the time to determine two things:

Are there other books on the same topic? If so, do you have anything new to offer—original sources, recent discoveries, a different style (mass market versus academic)? If there are comparable books, how long ago were they published? If more than a generation ago, you may still get a publishing deal.

If there are no other books on the subject, why not? Is your idea so original that no one has ever thought of it before? If so, be very careful that you aren’t deluding yourself. Consider the possibility that other writers have thought of doing the book and, for one reason or another—paucity of source material, a litigious widow, and so on—they have abandoned their own efforts.



Rough research—You need to be able to tell the “story” of your proposed book initially to yourself and then, as we’ll see below, to your agent and potential publisher. Work in big strokes. Don’t worry about the fine details of your narrative; you’ll get to those when you start writing the book. For now, be able to give an extended “elevator pitch” on your book idea: What is it about? What range of time or topics or ideas does it cover? What special expertise or access do you have to the subject?

Theme—Just as important: what is the book’s “theme”? That is, what is the point of the narrative? Don’t confuse this with the “message” of the book, which is something you usually want to stay away from, as didacticism is usually the kiss of death for a nonfiction book. Rather, “theme” deals with what a book is about in terms of its storyline. Is it a look at the darker side of a famous figure? Does it look at the formative younger years of a celebrity? Is it a new approach to learning a particular skill? The theme is the action that works upon the subject of the book.

Contents—This is something that new authors don’t expect. You’ve found your subject, determined that there is a market for it with little competition, and you have a good idea of what the book will be like in terms of theme. You may think that you’ve got everything in place and the sale of your book is assured. But in fact, your book may have been doomed from the start—and all of your efforts so far have been in vain. You may still get the book published with a smaller publisher (with no advance), and of course you can publish the book yourself as an e-book. But any chance of selling your book to a major publisher—and getting a large enough advance to cover your expenses while writing it—may never have existed.

 Why? Because the book publishing business has changed and as this textbook is being written, there seems little chance of it ever coming back to the status quo ante of its golden years before the end of the last century. The predations of technology and the distractions of other media have forced the big publishers to cut their annual publications lists and to focus more on blockbuster books. The era of these publishers (and there are fewer now, thanks to mergers) publishing well-reviewed but low-selling prestige books is almost over. And many will hesitate even to publish a potential best-seller if they don’t see guaranteed mass sales (corporate purchases, book clubs, links to television series, etc.) even before the book is published.

 Publishers don’t like to talk about this change, especially to authors—and barely even to themselves—because it represents the death of the old, elegant model of publishing. So instead, the truth is often wrapped in an alternative explanation. You’ll know it when you hear it: the message from a potential publisher will be: “We think you’ve got a terrific idea there. However, it seems more like an extended magazine article than an actual book.” That is the kiss of death, from which there is no appeal—no offer to expand the scope of the book to contain more content will work. You are done: find another publisher or come up with another book idea.

 What can you do to protect your book idea from this fate? Not much. But you can at least look at your book idea and see if there is a way to expand its scope in such a way as to also increase its potential market size. Meanwhile, if you can find a source of volume sales for your book—or even a sponsor (considered unethical years ago, it is now not uncommon)—all the better. All that still may not be enough to convince a publisher that is being very selective about its catalog; but if nothing else, it will help your sales with a smaller publisher.





Phase two: Preparing and pitching


As you can see, having a great idea for a book is not enough. No publisher is going to go looking for you; rather, you must find a publisher. And that is no easy task. Like all great institutions—indeed even more than most—publishers have constructed very sophisticated filters to keep outsiders from penetrating their walls.

Your task is to get past those filters. And really the only way to do so is through a combination of good representation and a strong proposal/pitch. In many ways, certainly at the start of your writing career, this phase may prove even more difficult than the actual writing of the subsequent book.

If you think the steps that follow are easy, you are kidding yourself. Probably more serious book ideas have crashed on the shoals of this phase than even on the actual process of writing. Give each of these steps the seriousness it deserves.

Write a proposal—A book proposal is the vehicle by which you will gain an agent—who then will use it to convince a publisher to buy your book. Successful book proposals have been as short as a cocktail napkin (literally) and as long as 50 single-spaced pages in length (or as much as a quarter of the length of the finished book). You will not sell a book with the former—that is reserved for veteran and highly successful authors about which there is no doubt of their abilities or market size. Nor will you likely need to prepare the latter—that’s also for veteran writers, in this case, who are going for a huge advance.

The proposal you will write for your first books will likely be between 6 and 20 pages, double-spaced. In it, you will introduce the themes of the book, its potential marketing, the book’s length and delivery date, and include an expanded table of contents. You likely also be asked—after more than a score of books, this author is still asked—to write a sample chapter of the proposed book.

In other words, preparing a book proposal is hard work. It is not simply a matter of dashing off your idea and expecting to learn about the book’s topic as you go. Rather, you need to think about your book in advance—a lot—enough to be able to describe the entire narrative of the book and its formatting, as well as how you are going to support its sales and marketing.

In getting published, you face two major challenges up-front: getting an agent and then getting a publisher. Often the first is harder.

Finding a literary agent—There typically less than 50,000 books published in all forms each year. There are probably 10 times that many books that are submitted for publication. Though convincing a publisher to publish your book may seem the bigger challenge, most of the actual filtering out of book ideas is done by literary agents. That’s because agents make their money only when they sell a book to a publisher—meaning that they don’t waste their time on books they don’t think they can sell.

So, how do you land an agent? This is publishing’s great paradox: you can’t get an agent unless you have a book that a publisher wants, and you can’t get a publisher to want your book unless you have an agent representing you.

What’s the solution? Simply put: get a literary agent any way you can. [This isn’t entirely true—every year a few unsolicited book proposals or finished manuscripts get picked up by the big publishers, but the numbers are so small that they almost seem like a publicity effort to convince first-time writers to keep trying.]

Literary agents typically take two forms: those based in the world’s publishing centers—notably New York and London—and those based everywhere else. They both do the same work, but how they go about that work is often different. For example, an agent based in New York City typically spends his or her day racing around Manhattan meeting with publishers. By comparison, the noncentralized agent will often gather together a batch of book proposals and carry them back to a publishing center once per quarter.

In practice, what this means is that not only is it hard to get a literary agent, but it is even harder to get a certain class of literary agent. There’s no reason not to try contacting an agent to see if he or she will represent you (only send a letter, never send an unsolicited manuscript), you may get lucky, but chances are you will receive a reply that says some variant of “I’m sorry, but we currently are not taking new clients.” That is half true: they are just not taking new clients like you. Should a former president of the United States contact them for representation on an autobiography likely to get a $10 million advance, or even an award-winning veteran writer wanting to switch agents, they will take that person on in a heartbeat.

So, how do you, a regular person, get an agent? Connections. Why do you think budding writers sign up for Masters of Fine Arts programs? Or show up at book readings and industry conferences? Because the best way to get an agent is to get walked into an agency by a writer who is already a client. Even literary agents who publicly announce that their roles are filled will still give a hearing to a writer with such a connection.

If it sounds cynical to suggest that you should get to know a veteran for that purpose, it is. But the simple fact is that you should be getting to know your fellow writers, especially those who can serve as your mentors, anyway. And, truth be told, it is also part of the profession: chances are that older writer got his or her agent the same way.

Don’t know a successful published writer? Attend talks by well-known agents at book fairs and try to make their acquaintance. Write them a letter, listing your relevant background (writing experience, awards, and anything else you can think of) plus your book idea—keep it high level and short and see if you can get a response (again, never send an unsolicited manuscript). Short of that, see if you know anyone who knows an agent. This author got his first agent when he was interviewed for a book by a famous novelist/screenwriter, who found I had interesting stories to tell about Silicon Valley and recommended me to his own agent.

In other words, you need to be brazen, creative, ambitious, and lucky to get a book agent, especially a top-flight one. And the chances of getting a top-flight agent as a rookie author are almost nil unless you already have an incredible resume, a huge and ready market, or are a celebrity. That said, there are regional agents who still can take your book idea to the major publishers. And the good news is that once you land an agent, you can pretty much depend upon them representing you for your entire writing career.

Finding a publisher—With your agent, you now have a skilled partner in your corner. And that partner is an expert at taking your book to a publisher. Your challenge now is to arm your agent with what he or she needs to go out there and pitch your book to potential publishers. In other words, you need a book proposal.

Here’s the standard formatting of a book proposal:

Cover letter: This is not for your publisher, but for your agent. The cover letter (these days usually an email) is appended to your proposal (a separate document or file) when you send it to your agent. Don’t try to sell them on representing your book—they’ve already agreed to that. Rather, note that the proposal for your proposed book is attached, summarize its key theme, and note any additional or ancillary new information since the proposal was written you hope they will convey to the publisher (“My company has just agreed today to buy 2,000 copies”), (“I can get (famous person) to write an endorsement”), and your commitment to get the book done on deadline. Just be friendly and say that you look forward to your agent’s thoughts on the proposal. Done. Act like a pro: crisp and professional. Don’t try to draw an agent’s pity or convince them how ardently you want to be a writer—that’s what amateurs do. You became a pro the moment your agent agreed to represent you and your book. Now, on the actual proposal, which your agent will convey to key editors (whom they know) at multiple publishing houses. (Never, ever circumvent your agent by going straight to a publisher with your proposal “over the transom.” That’s how you lose your agent.)

 Now, on to the actual book proposal that you will prepare, your agent will edit (actually, will make you edit) and then send out to publishers:

Format: The key here is readability—for your agent, and ultimately for your publisher. Don’t send copy in single-spaced or with wide margins. Let some light into your layout: 1.5 or double-space, relatively wide margins, extra spacing between sections, page numbers, subheads, and so forth. Use a good, readable font: don’t try to be clever or artsy.

Title: Start the first page with titles—the title of the book, plus the subtitle. Don’t worry, you can change both later. Format it as follows:



Book Proposal

THE WORLD OF VIDEO GAMES

A Survey of the Best Games ever Created

By

Mary C. Jones

Put your name and contact information in the upper right corner. Don’t assume that just because that information is on your cover letter it will be enough—they often get separated.

Summary or overview: This is the main part of your proposal. It should consist of several hundred words that provide an overview of the proposed book. Again, be professional: no hyperbole, no exclamation points, a minimum of underlined or italicized copy, and no personal appeals. Just a precise and well-written section that includes the following: The need for such a book

The importance of such a book

The key points of the book

New material in the book

Why you are uniquely suited to be the author





Production and delivery: This section, usually quite short, explains what the final manuscript will be like—in particular, if you will be including charts, graphs, illustrations, and/or photographs. More importantly, this section needs to include when you expect to deliver the book. Six months to a year is typical—though if you need more time, don’t hesitate to say so—it’s better than delivering late.

 You also need to say how long the finished book will be. Again, it isn’t crucial to be exact, but you need to give a likely range in order to help the prospective publisher prepare. The rule of thumb is that a book shorter than 50K words is hard to sell and earn a profit from (unless it is a paperback): the standard informational nonfiction book is 50–100K words), and anything longer is typically a book of history or biography. Usually, only specialty and reference books are longer than 200K works. (Note that we’re talking in words, not pages. That’s because a 50K word manuscript, depending upon book size, margins, font, illustrations, and other factors, can be anywhere from 150 to 200 pages, or more.)

Audience: In this section, you describe your likely readers and their numbers. Typically this is done by describing different audiences (historians, classic automobile owners, citizens of Michigan, corporate C-level executives, etc.) with a rough idea of their size. Think of vertical markets (stamp collectors, HR professionals) and horizontal ones (children ages 8–11 years, senior citizens, romance fans). Spend some time researching the size of these markets, as the size of the total addressable market for your book will play a key role in whether a publisher will want your book (needless to say, they will do their own research).

Marketing: In this section you talk about how you can help the publisher promote your book to those audiences. List your connections to publications that reach those audiences, your prospects for print or television reviews or interviews, potential volume purchasers, potential for speeches, organizations to which you belong, and so on.

Author biography: Here is where you talk about yourself. Obviously, list your key academic and career achievements. But also list any affiliations that may enhance your image as being knowledgeable about the subject of the book—including past writings, organization memberships, personal affiliations, and anything else you can think of. This section can be as much as a page and doesn’t have to be prose but can resemble a resume or CV. (Note that this is not a LinkedIn page: you don’t need to throw in every event in your life, such as where you went to high school, nor should you list your personal attributes as if you are applying for a job.)

Table of contents: Besides the overview, this is probably the most important part of a book proposal. This is not what you think of when you read “table of contents”—rather it is all that plus a paragraph or two with each chapter giving a deep insight into its intellectual content. These paragraphs should be written in prose, not telegraphed in shorthand. Be sure to touch on all of the main points. This section may consume half or more of the proposal.

 There is some debate on just how long this section should be. Some publishers (and especially if you are a newcomer) these days want a very long table of contents—up to 10 percent of the final manuscript—to reduce their risk. Others still are happy with a couple of paragraphs summarizing each chapter. Your agent should tell you what is needed.



This is the book proposal to which your agent will (likely, a first draft that needs no editing is rare) submit to publishers. When this happens, it doesn’t mean your work is done. If you are a neophyte—but even if you are a veteran writer proposing a work that is outside your usual turf—a prospective publisher will want to cover his or her bet on you by asking for a sample chapter of the proposed book.

This sample chapter can be a tricky business. For one thing, you probably haven’t done enough research yet to write such a chapter. You will need to do that. There’s also a likelihood that the chapter you write will look nothing like its final version in the finished. One way to minimize both is to make your sample chapter the first chapter or Introduction of the proposed book, not some chapter in the middle of the narrative. Using the first chapter allows you to set the stage for the whole book, doesn’t require a lot of detail you don’t have yet, and likely spares you from having to totally rewrite a middle chapter that no longer fits.

Now, with your book proposal written—assuming that it is accepted by your new literary agent as worthy of showing to publishers—it is time to deepen your relationship with that person who will represent you to the publishing world, perhaps for decades to come.

Targeting—Once you get an agent, he or she will likely begin by having you polish your book proposal. What you initially prepared may have been enough to interest your agent, but chances are he or she has some very specific ideas on how to revise the proposal to make it more saleable to publishers. This is not a time for pride: your book proposal is merely a tool, and no one is better at wielding that tool than your agent. Take his or her advice and edit the proposal according to their instructions—even if it means taking the book in a slightly different direction. Just remember, your agent understands what publishers want at this moment far better than you.

Pitching and selling—This can be the most frustrating part of being an author. During this period, your book idea is largely out of your control. Your agent has contacted editors at different publishing houses that he or she thinks are likely to be interested in your project. If you are lucky, your agent has also set a general deadline for a reply. Either way, you are likely to spend several weeks waiting restlessly for that reply. At some time during this period, you may be asked to take a phone call from a publisher to answer some of their concerns.

There are basically three scenarios for the final result:

The publisher wants to buy your book. Celebrate—you are about to become an author.

The publisher wants your book but wants you to make major changes. Find out in detail what those changes are and decide if you are willing to make them. Keep in mind that individual editors at publishing houses look at one hundred or more book proposals each year and likely have a much better idea of what will make a successful book than you do.

The publisher turns down your book idea. Don’t worry; your agent has likely sent out the proposal to a half-dozen other publishers. Wait until you hear from all of them. And even if they all say no, your agent still has more on a list of second-tier publishers. If all of them turn down the proposal too, then either go back to the drawing board and come up with another book or look at alternatives, including niche publishers, publishers, regional publishers, and e-book publishers. (More on this later.)



If you are exceptionally lucky—or more likely, you have a terrific book idea—you will land more than one interested publisher. In that case, your agent possibly will organize an “auction” of your book. Typically, this means a day set aside in which the publishers involved can place their opening bids, then out-bid each other until just one is left standing—or, at the deadline, the book contract is awarded to the highest bidder. Book auctions are rare, and most authors are lucky to experience one in an entire career. But if you are to ever see that fabled seven-figure book advance or sale, it will likely come as the result of a book auction.

Negotiating—Just because you have agreed on a deal doesn’t mean the deal is done. There is still the matter of agreeing upon a contract. This is the other way that agents earn their salary. Publishers have their standard contracts, but most agents do too—and where they differ often is grounds for negotiation. The publisher’s draft contract will contain the expected stuff: your advance, delivery date and manuscript length, and your royalties. Those royalties are pretty much standardized among major publishers but may vary with the smaller and regional publishing houses. Among the big houses, the deal will probably be a royalty of about 10 percent on the first few thousand books sold, then going up in increments of 2.5 percent to 5 percent with larger increments of book sales.

By comparison, there are other publishing operations, some of them run by the big houses themselves, others independent, that offer different deals to writers. For some of these, if the author will eschew any advance, will turn around the book in a fraction of the time required by traditional publishers (six months or more), and will split profits 50:50. E-book deals often require the writer to pay an up-front fee but will also split profits.

Even the traditional book contract will contain a number of other points that few writers ever think of, including television, film, and radio rights; reprints; serializations; and usually most important, international publishing rights. Regarding the last, as the global marketplace grows, so does the value of book rights sold outside the country of origin. These rights, though small by country, can add up in total. Who gets that money is often a matter of dispute between the agent, representing the author’s interests, and the publisher, which wants to get as much of its advance money back as possible.

Typically, within days of signing and returning the contract, you will receive the first advance payment, if you are to get one. How those payments will be made is also the subject of negotiation and will be included in the contract. “Advance” is kind of a misnomer, as you will never get all of the money up-front when you start the book. That may be in your best interest, but it isn’t for the publisher. It wants to pay as much of your advance as possible when you finish the book, but before it is published.

The final agreement will lie somewhere in between. Likely the best deal you will get will be 50 percent of the advance upon signing, 25 percent upon delivery of the finished book, and 25 percent upon publication. Note that means you may not receive that final payment for as long as a year after you finish your manuscript. That’s a very long time to wait for being paid. Ask your agent to try for 50 percent upon signing, 25 upon completion, and 25 percent upon final acceptance of the edited final manuscript by the publisher. But don’t be surprised if you don’t get it.

You now have a book contract and money in your pocket. It’s now time to deliver on your side of the agreement and write your book.

Now, what if all of this fails, and you don’t get a book deal with a major publisher—or even an agent—do you just give up and walk away? No. What the author tells his students is that, whether or not they realize it, they live in the Golden Age of book publishing. Thanks to the digital revolution and its effect on publishing, printing, and marketing, your chances of getting a work published are greater than ever.

A few decades ago, if you had what you thought was a great book idea, you essentially had three choices: get an agent and approach a New York (or London) book publisher, pitch your book to a small press university academic book publisher, or self-publish with a so-called “vanity” press. Your odds were slightly higher than with a big publishing house (though still miniscule), almost zero with an academic press unless you were a professor—and, if you went to a vanity press, you spent money and ended up with a box full of poorly printed books bearing the stigma of being “self-published.”

Today, there are fewer giant publishing houses, and they mostly publish general-interest books with the potential to be best-sellers. That not only means that they aren’t interested in you, but you may not be interested in them. Meanwhile, there are hundreds, even thousands, of small press publishers out there in many different forms—topical, genre, vertical, professional, regional—that are publishing more books each year than ever before. Many are affiliated with national distribution and retailing businesses that are a match to the big publishers (long the latter’s biggest advantage). And the quality of their graphics, editing, and printing are just as good, too.

There are two potential disadvantages to these smaller publishing houses. One is that they typically give advances, but only pay on unit sales. But then, the big publishing houses are paying smaller advances these days, too. The second is marketing. The big publishers have publicity departments that have personal contacts among reviewers at the major newspapers and magazines. If you go with a smaller publishing house, you are likely going to have to market your book yourself: writing the press release/kit, sending your book off to reviewers, etc. Or you can hire one of the growing number of book marketing and publicity agencies.

There’s also another way to publish: electronic publishing. The old stigma attached to self-publishing vanity books is long gone. Nowadays, even best-selling authors publish their new books on Amazon’s Kindle. Why? Because they have a huge and ready market, publishing time-to-market is measured in days not months. And perhaps most importantly, these authors not only can set the prices for their products but they enjoy much higher royalty rates. Given that these authors have gigantic mailing lists of fans, direct subscribers, and followers on social networking sites, it makes perfect sense to use this alternative to traditional publishing.

Can it work for you? Absolutely. But keep in mind that, as with small press publishers, you are going to have to do all of the marketing and promotion yourself. If you have the money—or are of an entrepreneurial bent—this may be a perfect solution. As for ordering a print version of your electronic book, keep in mind that the stigma there is gone too. After all, when was the last time you looked at the spine of a book to see the name of the publisher—as readers used to for names such as “Scribners” or “Putnam” as a sign of quality?

It is indeed a Golden Age of book publishing. If you have a book you want to publish—and don’t take advantage of this era—you have only yourself to blame.





Phase three: Writing and editing


It is now time to get to work. For the first three to six months you have two immediate tasks:

Research and gather source materials

Develop a highly complete outline that you will use to guide your writing of the draft manuscript.



It is best to do these two tasks simultaneously—that’s because it is hard to know what to research before you know what you’ll need for the book, and it is equally hard to write a detailed outline until you know what materials you have to work from. So, what this means is that you’ll want to take the table of contents and use it to rough out the outline chapter by chapter. Then, as you do your research, use those results to flesh out your outline.

That said, don’t be a slave to process and procedure when writing a book. As a teenager, as the author began to transition from writing to impress girls to considering writing as a career, I happened upon a public television show about writing. The host was a very serious woman, a librarian who wrote freelance magazine articles, who spent the next half-hour explaining her system of putting all of her research and notes on separate file cards, color-coded for every imaginable category. Then, she explained, when she had enough of these cards to write a story, she would lay out the cards in some sort of organizational matrix from which she would write the first of several drafts.

As I watched in growing horror, I decided that I would never be a writer because I was utterly incapable of being that organized. On top of that, I realized that professional writing, if it was anything like what she was describing, couldn’t be very much fun at all.

Happily, I didn’t listen to her. In fact, after two dozen books, a thousand newspaper stories and editorials, and several hundred magazine articles, I have never done anything like the process she described. Instead, my process was simple: get each piece done in the quickest, most efficient way possible for me. All that woman was showing me was the simplest process for her—and she was insane.

So, that’s my recommendation for you: find what works and do that.

The secrets to writing a book—In my first book I did everything wrong. I spent too much time gathering information and conducting interviews, leaving myself almost no time to write the book. I then started writing without a real outline and quickly went off the rails, ultimately writing a manuscript twice as long as agreed‑upon. I then started on the last day of October and wrote day and night—sometimes as much as 10,000 words per day—sleeping on the floor of my office, not eating, not exercising, and finishing (300,000 words in) in mid-January. I then sent off the book and collapsed. Exhausted and sick, I slept right through my 30th birthday. Worse, because of the timing, I ended up going through the publisher’s edits of the manuscript during my honeymoon.

Roll forward 20 years and more than a dozen books. I contracted in January to write an even bigger book than that first one for a much larger (more than 10x) advance. I also knew that I would be leaving on a safari in Africa in mid-June. Luckily, I had all of the notes I needed for the book, so I “merely” had to write 180,000 words in 180 days. I did just that, writing 1,000 words per day every day, which gave me the time to enjoy the rest of my days, get outdoors, see friends, and eat well.

In June, on the day before my wife and I (and our two kids) got on the plane for Africa, I emailed the finished manuscript to my publisher. I was healthier than when I started the book and was thrilled to get an email from the editor a few weeks later that, incredibly, he had no big edits. That first book, which almost killed me, was an interesting book, but it also was a mess. The later book, which was almost effortless to write, was recently described by a business magazine as “the best business biography ever written.” I’ll leave it to the reader to determine which scenario he or she would prefer to experience.

Here are some other tricks:

Bravado—When talking with the publisher act like you know exactly what you are doing and what the book will be about—even if you don’t.

Structure—Have a pretty complete outline in place so that you know where you are and don’t lose your way. Going off on a tangent can be costly in time and effort, and it is painful to edit your way back.

Organize your work—Take the book one chapter at a time. Expand your outline to a high level of precision before you start each chapter.

Gather your materials—Put together everything you need to write the next chapter. Either mark or highlight the content you want to use in longer pieces (or you’ll waste endless time trying to find that particular content again). The author, when he has printed materials for a chapter puts them in a semicircle on the floor around him, in the order of the narrative, and then picks up each item as he gets to it. When most of your content material is digital, put the articles in a separate file for the chapter, in order of use. If you are working on a desktop, use a big display and put the notes in a corner with the chapter you are writing in the center. Call down the content as needed.

Give credit—Never cut and paste content from another source unless you credit that source or quote in a footnote. Create the footnote on the spot—don’t put it off until later. You will either forget or be unable to find the reference.

Discipline—Try to write each chapter continuously—that is, over a string of consecutive days. Try to write something every day until the book is completed. Aim for a daily pace you can maintain. If you need to take a break from writing, do it between chapters.

Continuity—Finish each session knowing what you are going to write next. If necessary, leave a quick note to yourself.

Stay in your game—Just as it is important to try to keep up a comfortable pace, it is equally important not to overextend yourself. If your pace is 1,000 words per day, don’t suddenly push yourself and write 4,000 words one day. You will pay for it in the days that follow.

Don’t look back—Don’t worry about what you’ve already written. You can deal with that after the book is done. Just keep pushing forward to the finish line.

Stay healthy—You won’t do yourself any favors if you break your health before you finish the book. Beware of repetitive stress problems—get away from the keyboard and rest your fingers and wrists regularly. Eat well, get a good night’s sleep every night, look out the window regularly, and exercise. You can party yourself sick after you’ve submitted the manuscript.

Writing technology—As a professional, you want the best tools for your work. On the other hand, you also don’t want to waste your money on trendy junk that ultimately will reduce your productivity. Here’s a list of basic items. Needless to say, with the pace of technological change, this list should be revised on a regular basis. Your goal should always be maximum comfort and efficiency—keep in mind that you are going to spend months using those tools every day.

A comfortable chair—Don’t scrimp on your seating. Take it from the author, who managed to compress one spinal disk and herniate another spending a year writing slumped over in an old wing chair. Get a sturdy, ergonomic office chair with top-notch lumbar support and adjustable arms. Put it on a rug or pad so that it doesn’t roll quickly and slip out from underneath you when you climb in or out.

Proper keyboard—Professional writers always have top-of-the-line keyboards, even at the expense of everything else. What this means is an ergonomic design (though you don’t need those eccentric designs—just a standard design will do) with “positive tactile feedback.” The last is important: it means keys that have a springiness and either a sensation or an audible click that lets you know that the letter, number, or punctuation mark has registered. That is the fastest, most accurate way to type. Touch keys, like those found on smartphones and tablets, offer none of that and require you to constantly look to see if your finger tap has registered. That’s fine for a phone number or text message; it is exhausting for 100,000 words.

Good monitor positioning—In the best scenario you have a very large screen, or two screens, so that you can put up all of your notes at the same time with your text. But even if you are using a laptop (as the author is writing this textbook on), make sure it is in the best position for viewing, not reflecting ambient light (hello eyestrain), and is of sufficient brightness.

Wireless mouse—If you are using a laptop, don’t use the touchpad or keyboard mouse for any length of time. You may start to develop thumb pain that will compromise your productivity. Get a nice, ergonomically designed, wireless mouse that minimizes hand strain. Even the nicest ones are pretty cheap.

Word processing software—Most apps are so ubiquitous these days that we don’t think about them. And, since you also will be running your own writing business, you’ll likely be buying Microsoft Office or some other multi-use productivity software package, and it will contain the latest word processing app. On the other hand, to save money at the start of your career you may choose instead to download some comparable freeware. That’s fine too.

Just be careful. There are some features in these programs that don’t really matter to a writer. For example, you likely never need more than a couple of common fonts—all of those other ones are for graphic artists. On the other hand, you want a powerful spell-checker and, if possible, a powerful grammar application (you may not need its advice—but it will help you identify problems). A good editing app, with “track changes,” is also a necessity.

As for AI tools: they can be a real aid in your fact-gathering process with their ability to intelligently search the Web at lightning. But only amateurs will ever use it for serious, professional writing. If you can make your living off your prose style, why would you ever use a computer to write like a high-school term paper? Talent is what you can do that others cannot. Keep perfecting your writing skills to make the reader empathize with your story—not simply read it—and you will always have work.

Internet—Writing isn’t gaming; you don’t need a huge amount of broadband Internet pumped into your computer while you’re writing your book. On the other hand, during the promotional phase (see below) you may want to be able to generate a nice, clean online interview with the media, rather than having to travel to (and pay for) a college or corporate television studio. Same deal if you want to create and transmit any promotional videos for your book.

Memory—You don’t need a huge amount of computer memory to write a book. These days your phone probably has more than you’d need. On the other hand, the one kind of memory you don’t want to scrimp on is back-up. There is nothing more devastating than spending hours or days on copy for your next book—and then lose it. It happened to me once and my wife found me at 3 a.m. banging my head against a wall at 3 a.m.

Don’t be me. Buy an external drive (they’re free) or sign up with a Cloud back-up service. Set your computer on “autosave” so you don’t have to remember to hit the save key. And if you fail to do that and you manage to lose a chunk of your writing—or your on-board disk crashes, or all of your files get encrypted by malware or ransomware—don’t try to recover it. Take it immediately to a professional and see what can be salvaged.

Copier/printer/scanner—Yeah, it’s Oldware. But there are occasions when you may want to take a newspaper or magazine clipping and make a copy of it on a full-sized sheet of paper for filing. Or you want to print out a chapter to do some careful editing by hand. Or you just want a hard copy of your book. Here in the twenty-first century, a copier/printer/scanner isn’t really necessary; you can always go to the local copy shop. Having one of your own—and they are getting cheaper too—is just more convenient.

Wrap-up—Once you finish writing your book (Congratulations!) celebrate. Go out to dinner, sleep in for a couple of days, and read that book you’ve been putting off. Chances are that you’ll be bumping up against your deadline—but if you do have a couple of weeks, set the manuscript aside so you can see it with new eyes. What you’ve written may surprise you—after all, you wrote some of it months before and only saw it once.

But whether you have the time to be leisurely about it or you only have a day or two before the manuscript needs to be sent in, there are certain steps you need to take:

Assemble—If your chapters, appendices, graphics, photos, and so on are in different files (not a bad idea, because if something crashes you won’t lose everything), now is the time to assemble them. Take your time: this can be a difficult process, as you have to keep track of where you are at any point. Append page numbers, and the title of the book on each page at the top corner. BTW: this may be the first time you’ve actually seen a word count of your manuscript—feel free to let it blow your mind: you wrote all of those thousands of words.

Check-through—Run a spell-check on the entire book. Make any corrections on the spot. Look for misspellings of names (you’ll be amazed how they can change through the book—novelists really have that problem). Check twice before hitting the “change all” button.

Read the manuscript—It will likely be difficult, even if you have the time, to read through the entire book at this point. So just “read” it: race through the text, making sure nothing clunks or leaps out at you. Use the grammar checker to locate awkward, fragmented, or run-on sentences. Again, don’t be a slave of your grammar checker—the choice is yours—but just use it to spot potential problems for the reader.

Titling—Now is the time to create a title page, a dedication page, acknowledgments, and to go through and establish both the final phrasing and font style/size for your chapter headings. If you have photos, digitize them as needed, and write captions for them (your publisher will determine where they will go in the text).

Now, send your finished manuscript to your publisher. You’ve done it. Go celebrate again—and then be prepared to wait a month or two.





Phase four: Marketing and promotion


There is a lag time between when you complete a book and when you move on to this—the final phase of publishing a book. If you are publishing your own e-book, that lag time is as long as you want it to be to do your own editing, layout, and packaging. If you are working with a quick-turnaround publisher, you will have a few weeks while the editing, layout, and publishing are done for you. If you are working with a big traditional publisher, you may wait as long as a month while your manuscript is being edited by a contracted editor (typically a graduate student).

For this section, we’ll look at the latter two publishers (i.e., not you as a self-publisher). Here are the usual steps:

Deliver the manuscript at deadline or earlier (or beg for more time). [If an e-book, publish.] This is the necessary first step. The publishing process doesn’t start until you deliver the complete book. Your editor may ask to see sections of the book after you write them, but that is solely for content editing before you get too far along. None of the rest of the machinery at the publishing house starts until your big file arrives.

Answer line editor and fact-checker questions. If your editor has any important changes to be made in your manuscript you will need to make those immediately. Then, once those are accepted, and after a few weeks, you will receive via the mail a print out, or electronic file, of your book. It will look pretty beat up and will exhibit numerous edits per page in red or blue pencil—depending upon the size of your manuscript, it can total several thousand edits. Most of these edits, notably punctuation corrections, you will not have to deal with, merely initial in the margin. Other edits, especially when there is a question mark or an actual question, you must answer—everyone or the book cannot be published. If the manuscript is in print, write the answer in pencil, then attach a sticky note on the side of the page to notify the line editor where it is. If it is in digital form, you’ll want to look at the track changes and answer any comments.

Added material. You may also get requests to create footnotes, add a definition to an obscure term, and so on—do them all. Finally, you may also get a sheet or two, single-spaced, with more explicit questions. These need to be answered in the text; you should list on the separate sheets where those edits were made. When you have finished with all of the edits, package up the now well worked-over hard copy of your manuscript and ship it back to the publisher, insured with the carrier. If it is a file, save it on your computer and in your back-up, and send it off—request a return notice of acceptance.

Now wait another few weeks.

Write, help with, or approve publicity and marketing materials—During this time you will hear from your publisher’s marketing department. Typically you will receive a document to fill out with your personal data—in particular, groups and clubs you belong to (including alumni organizations); local newspapers, radio stations, and television stations; and any publications you regularly write for. You will also likely be asked to provide a brief biography and photograph (for both the book jacket and the press release).

If you so choose, the publisher will write the press release copy for your book. The good news is that they are pros, the bad news is that they need to write scores of these releases each year—and they know next to nothing about your book. As a professional yourself, you are usually better off writing your release for them—and providing them with a list of targeted media that may be larger and more encompassing than the one they plan to use. That said, unless you have special access, let the publisher deal with the biggest media outlets and their book editors—they work with them regularly.

Receive the reader’s copy—A few weeks after you return the edited manuscript you will receive a box of “reader’s copies” of your book. The pages inside will give you a glimpse of what the finished book will be like. But the cover will be paper, usually with a warning that this is not the final version of the book. This book has two audiences: book reviewers who want the lead time to prepare their reviews (hence the warning), potential authors of jacket quotes, and you. This will be your last chance to make any changes to your book. Don’t take this opportunity for granted: give the book a close read and make sure that no errors were inserted in composing. Just as important, if there are any updates to your narrative, put them in now. Send your edited version back to the publisher.

Collect quotes—Take the dozen or so other copies you received and send them out, with a nice cover letter, to people of interest soliciting jacket quotes. These people of interest are typically high profile, influential individuals whom you would like to provide you with a jacket quote, or in the case of one person, your foreword. You may also want to send a copy to anyone who might be interested in a bulk purchase for his or her organization. Don’t waste your copies on reviewers—have the publisher send those out to a list you have provided for them. Again, to those to whom you do send copies, append a nice cover letter making the request—but for the foreword writer, also explain why you want them in particular to write it (how much you respect them, their expertise, etc.) and how long it needs to be. Don’t be afraid to politely suggest what you’d like their comments to say. Give everyone a deadline. Also don’t be afraid to follow up with a note reminding them of that deadline.

Promotion—A couple of months later, just before the official publication date of your book, assist your publisher by distributing publicity materials to your personal list. Contact your print media sources with a letter offering the prospect of them serializing a piece of your book in single or multiple parts (your agent can help with this). Work with the publisher’s PR people—or if you can afford it, contract a part-time publicist of your own—and work to set up bylined articles, interviews, and book signings in your area.

Publication day—Celebrate. Enjoy that moment when a big box arrives on your door step and you tear it open to reveal your pristine books inside. Visit a book store to see your book on the shelf—or better yet, in a display. And, if you dare, read the reviews. If you get good reviews, don’t entirely believe them. If you get back reviews, don’t entirely believe them either. All that really counts is that you got reviewed. Study where they appeared and where they did not—and develop a quick strategy to capture the latter.

Interview day—Some publishers, in lieu of a book tour, will set up for you a single intense day where you will do a score of interviews, one after another, with radio and television. This is a very efficient promotional strategy, but it will be hard on you. Get some rest beforehand (it can last up to 20 hours) and a headset (otherwise your ear will fall off). Put together a list of basic comments you want to make with each interviewer—then check them off with each interview so you don’t repeat yourself.

Book signings and media tours—If you have a big book, you may be asked to go on a media tour, complete with book signings and interviews, in major cities around the country. Do it, but be prepared: these week-long events are exhausting. Lay off the booze, get to bed early, and bring lots of changes of clothes. Room service, instead of going out every night, will let you get some extra rest. As for the rest: your handlers will take care of getting you to events on time. Enjoy the experience: it’s great for the ego.

Sign with a speaker bureau—Smart professional writers know that the money you can make talking about your book can be many times greater than the money you made from the book itself. I recently worked with an author who was willing to trade an advance for the chance to get published quickly. Thanks to a vast mailing list with his organization, he ended up with a big best-seller. But that was only part of his strategy. He quickly signed on to a speaking agency—at $20,000 per speech around the world. He made a couple hundred thousand dollars in royalties from the book; he’s made a couple million from speeches on the book. You won’t make that kind of money at the beginning of your career (or perhaps ever), but it should give you a good idea of how to make money from the secondary market for your book. In fact, some people write books just as a platform for their next run of speeches.

Start planning your next book—One mistake neophyte book authors make is to not think about their next book until the entire lifecycle of their previous book has ended. But that can mean as much as five years from when you first came up with the idea for that previous book. Pro-rate the money you’ve made and it can look pretty tiny per year after a half decade. Instead, when you first send off your manuscript to your publisher, start thinking about what you’d like to write next. Start doing some basic research and saving clips. And, since your contract likely says that your current publisher has the right of first refusal on your next book, you can use this time, when you are in regular contact, to bounce off that publisher some of your ideas to see if you get a response.

Money—Did you skip to this section first? Here are the financials (in U.S. dollars) typically associated with book authorship.



Think in terms of advances, not revenues (there likely won’t be any)

1st book advance—$0 to $10K

Later advances (based on the success of the previous book) $10K to $300K (celebrities get much more)

Royalties: 10 percent, rising to 15 percent with sales

Foreign rights: Not much, but valuable in multiples

Speeches: $1000 to $50K

Movie rights: $10K to $500K, though films based on nonfiction works are much rarer than on novels





Career: The good


There is a whole lot of good about being an author, which is why so many people want to become one.

You get to be a book author, with all of the fame, social cachet, and satisfaction that accrues to that title. You also have a shot at having your name remembered long after you are gone—something even powerful businesspeople and government officials rarely enjoy. Your great-grandchildren will read your writings.

You have the potential to make big money. A best-selling book that goes through multiple printings and then is adopted by high schools and universities can make the author a fortune. Short of that, even with modest success, your advances will increase with each book you write.

You can leverage your authorship into other careers. Merely writing a book makes you, to some degree, an expert on the subject. That can mean speeches, consulting gigs, teaching positions, board positions.

That expertise can also be converted into becoming a thought leader in the field, with the potential for follow-up books, later editions, spin-offs, workbooks, and so forth. Some self-help and business book authors have built entire careers—even business empires—off one highly successful book.

You are the master of your own career and your own creation. It has your name on it and you get credit for your hard work.





Career: The bad


Frankly, if you follow the advice on book writing so that the project doesn’t turn into an endless, unending nightmare, there’s not a lot of bad about being an author. It certainly beats most office jobs.

Isolation—There’s no way around it: you will spend thousands of hours, alone, hunched over a keyboard. You can minimize this by spending time with your family and friends when you aren’t writing.

You are betting a year of work on a single roll of the dice—Spending all that time only to have the book not sell, or earn bad reviews, can be dispiriting, to say the least. But at least you have been in the arena, not just sitting in the bleachers. And take some consolation in the knowledge that your friends won’t care about your bad reviews—and no one else will remember anything other than that you wrote a book and they will respect you for it.

Still, bad reviews are bad reviews. Speaking from experience it is not a wise response to go to bed with a bottle of whiskey. Just get on with your life. No one else really cares—people close to you will take your side. Promise yourself you’ll do better next time. And keep in mind that you have no idea how the future will treat you: that book whose bad review put me to bed? It recently was republished in a special “classic” edition. Meanwhile, a couple of my books that I’m particularly proud of went out of print long ago.

 The author comes from Irish bricklayers, railroad laborers, and body-and-fender car repairers. I learned long ago that words are just bricks and my task is to mortar them together and stack them the best I can. When I’ve laid a couple hundred thousand bricks, I can step back and discover what I’ve built. It may be a cathedral or it may be a very big lavatory. What really counts is that I’ve laid those bricks the best I can so that I can take pride in the process.

 I recommend that philosophy. It’ll get you through the bad times and give you the right perspective on the good times.





CHAPTER 13 Television and Radio News Reporter


What makes TV and radio news reporting different?


All writing is colored by the medium in which it appears, but with television and radio news, the writing is largely defined by the nature of those media. With television, almost all writing is subordinate to the visual imagery available—and the words almost always precede the image. As a result, television news reporting (as compared to print reporting) is typically more of a headline and caption production. In radio, the limitations are almost always due to time, as the spoken word is much slower than the read word. Also in radio, any nonverbal sounds (from real-life recordings to sound effects) are almost always subordinate to the spoken word—or used as a set-up to those words.





Why pursue a TV or radio news writing career?


One reason is that television and radio news—especially the former—are just more glamorous than print. That’s because an on-air face or voice is much more individualized than a simple print byline. Still, as the years pass, the three media are growing closer together as the Web enables television and print reporters to write in a longer format and print reporters to go on-air with Web videos.

Television and radio news also typically reach a larger audience than print, especially in an era when newspapers are fading and dropping editions—and television and radio news are extending across the 24-hour cycle. Also, because of the delays created by press runs, TV and (even more) radio news are typically more timely, with updates and breaking news presented throughout the day.

But perhaps the most important reason for pursuing television or radio journalism over print is the personal connection you make with your audience. This is especially true with television, where viewers can come to believe they actually know you—and will sometimes come right up and talk to you in public places as if you are an old friend. That can be irritating, but if you have the right, outgoing, personality becoming a local celebrity can be an added reward. That kind of attention almost never happens with print reporters, even popular columnists.





History


Radio: Radio had a nearly complete monopoly on nonprint broadcast news for its 30 years, beginning in the 1920s. As a result, it essentially defined the nature of modern mass media and broadcast “stars”—such as gossip reporters Walter Winchell and Louella Parsons. Radio also created the first media news “stars,” many of whom went on to even greater influence and fame in television. The most famous of these journalists was Edward R. Murrow, who first made his name in radio covering the London Blitz in 1940, then went on to become the most important journalist in early television. Radio evolved over the course of 80 years from mostly music to dramatic and comedy programming (much of which—such as The Lone Ranger—migrated to early television), back to music, and then, in a major transformation in the late 1980s, to 24-hour news and “talk” programming. In the process, radio brought news and culture-related conversational programming to the masses—notably through the likes, in the United States, of Studs Terkel, Rush Limbaugh, Teri Gross, and “shock” jocks Opie and Anthony and Howard Stern. Radio remains the single most influential (in politics and culture) and largest audience medium in most countries around the world—with top radio celebrities drawing tens of millions of listeners.

Television: The defining medium of the modern world. Though it made its first appearance in the 1930s, television didn’t find widespread adoption (both because of cost and limited programming) until the late 1940s. Though popular throughout the developed world by the mid-1950s when the first television celebrities appeared, television news really only found its footing at the end of that decade. Once again, Edward R. Murrow was a seminal figure: he all but invented most of the tropes of television news, including the investigative documentary (he famously helped pull down the reputation of Senator Joseph McCarthy), the incisive interview, and the celebrity profile. His last important appearance was hosting the news coverage of the Kennedy inauguration.

Television news became a dominant cultural force in the 1960s through the coverage of NASA spaceflights, a U.S. presidential assassination, and the Vietnam War. As television news coverage expanded, both nationally and locally, so too did the celebrity of network news anchors—notably, in the United States, Walter Cronkite. Television news only expanded its influence as television fragmented in the 1990s into hundreds of channels—especially with the arrival of 24-hour television news from CNN/CNN International and Fox/Sky News. During crises, elections, national celebrations, major sporting events (i.e., the Super Bowl, World Cup, and Olympics), and national celebrations, television remains the medium of choice for national populations to gather in a shared news event. That said, the Web—especially when television couldn’t keep up with unfolding events such as 9/11 and the death of Princess Diana—increasingly has challenged this hegemony. By 2020, it had surpassed television as a go-to news source.





What makes for good TV and radio writing?


It is important to remember that writing for television is essentially the equivalent of writing headlines for print publications; while writing for radio is mostly the equivalent of writing the two or three lede paragraphs for print stories. What that means is you need always to write economically and front-load your copy. That is true for all print news writing, but for these two media it is absolutely essential. Radio and especially television are not places for nuance, extended description, or repetition.

Television: Always let the visuals tell the story. What this usually means is that you will first tape your interviews, stand-ups, and b-roll in the field, then go into the studio and record your copy. What writing you do should be not only economical and tight but should also use strong verbs. Try not to repeat in your voice-over what you already are showing on the screen, but rather to amplify those images—or to explain what might be confusing to the viewer. The one time your words should be redundant with the image is when you are giving an interview subject’s name, while showing that name in a title box on the screen.

If doing a report from the field—especially live—practice your copy beforehand to make sure you don’t trip over any words or stumble over a name. Use your on-air time to quote sources for whom you have no visuals. Prewrite a nice, tight wrap-up. On your voice-over, don’t try to explain complex terms unless you have to—try instead to find another word or phrase to make it intelligible to your audience or add a chart or graph in post-production.

Radio: Radio is the opposite of television in the sense that everything of content must be conveyed in words; while mood is best captured in the audio backdrop. Keep in mind that radio, because of the limitations of the human voice, cannot convey information as swiftly as either television or print. That means your writing must be very, very tight, and you must love the sound of words. Great writing for radio almost always exhibits a perfect sense of timing—pacing, pauses, the balance of sounds, and the mixture of long and short words. Some of this is the product of the on-air reader, but that can go only so far if the writing doesn’t have those attributes.

Writing for radio takes practice and a lot of editing. If you are also reading your copy, then find a mentor or other radio veteran who can show you how and when to breathe, edit your copy for enunciation, and teach you timing. Very few people are natural at this, and it is a valuable skill that will improve with time and experience.





Types of TV and radio writing


There are at least as many writing jobs in television and radio as there are in print. And, for the most part, the work itself is quite similar; it tends to be divided into beats, has deadlines, and largely is targeted at the same audiences and markets.

That said, there are some fundamental differences. TV and radio newsrooms tend to be much smaller, so it is not unusual for reporters to cover other beats than their own or be sent out on breaking news. Moreover, while newspapers have radically cut back the number of editions they produce, TV and radio news seem to be still expanding, adding shows in the morning, lunchtime, evening, and late night—some even jumping to 24-hour coverage. This can add stress to the job—at minimum adding the requirement for multiple updates on the original report or story. On top of that, as with print, most television and radio stations have added a Web presence and that can mean not just porting over the prepared audio or video but also the creation of added copy and content.

Finally, tightening budgets at many stations means that work that used to be done by a small team—for example, with television, a reporter, shooter, sound person, a producer, and even a van driver—is now handled by just the camera person and the on-air reporter. The author was once interviewed by a television reporter in Montana who set up and ran the camera while asking me questions, then locked down the camera, ran around, and shot her own reverses. Then, her competition, a reporter from another station, did the same—and then helped her carry her gear out to her car. Happily, the new camera and recording gear are much smaller and lighter than they used to be. Needless to say, you are increasingly on your own; it is no longer enough to be good on air; you will also need to be an expert at digital editing, graphics, and voice-over recording/sweetening/editing.

Breaking news coverage—This is the bread-and-butter of television and news reporting. As the saying goes, “if it bleeds it ledes.” Breaking news is exciting, dramatic, has very tight deadlines, and is typically live. This work is for the young, and often for the neophyte; it is many reporter’s apprenticeship in reporting. The key is to develop your lede sentences on the spot, then look around for people (particularly officials) who can be interviewed to fill in any explanation. Don’t draw conclusion, just present the facts. And if you can’t get all the interviews you need, call and get a quote from an expert. Be prepared to present that story and any footage/audio live.

Trend stories—The nature of these stories is in the name. Your job is to combine multiple stories or events, using them as data points to extrapolate to a larger story, a “trend.” For such stories, always try to get three examples, and then support them with the analysis of an “expert”—anyone from a police detective to a college professor to a fellow at a local think tank or consulting firm. You are expected to draw some conclusions from these stories, even to make considered predictions, if you can properly support them.

Science and technology news—Thanks to the technology revolution of the last 60 years, most stations have an in-house science and technology reporter. This can be a rewarding gig, as there is an endless number of science stories and technology product announcements that come out every year—and medical researchers, hospitals, and tech companies are prolific in creating video news releases and b-roll footage; so there is no shortage of visuals to accompany these stories. Often this beat also incorporates a business beat as well, as the hottest companies in our time are almost always related to tech. The downside of this work is that if you are not based in a tech region (and sometimes even if you do) you may find yourself occasionally sent out covering the dumbest, cat-in-the-tree stories. This can be particularly appalling when a major tech or medical story is breaking that day, but your managing editor just doesn’t understand its purpose. Thus, a crucial part of your job is educating and pitching your superiors on the value of your stories.

Lifestyle news—Lifestyle features are a standard part of television news (because of their appealing visuals) and to a lesser degree radio news. “Lifestyle” covers everything from the opening of a new restaurant or park to the growing popularity of a children’s exploratorium or new kinds of plastic surgery to a fad diet. Typically, these stories place audience entertainment before actual news reporting, are heavily visual (in television), and defined by ambient sound (in radio). These stories typically have multiple user interviews. And, for television, the reporter often inserts himself or herself into the story as a participant. Because they don’t have the same tight deadlines as breaking news, they are expected to have much higher production values.

Crime—The reporting of crimes is a subset of breaking news and is usually done by the same reporters. These stories usually are much more stereotypical in their construction, combining (for television) an image of the crime scene, a precise description of events (usually provided by a police spokesperson), the naming of the victim (if approved by the police), and descriptions or mugshots of the perpetrators (if known). This can be exciting work but, like investigative reporting, it can be debilitating over time as you can develop “cop’s disease”—a dark and cynical view of mankind after spending too much time living among its dark side.

Sports—The best part of sports reporting is that you never run out of stories. In modern life, there are always a half-dozen major sports in the thick of their seasons on any given day, especially so on weekends. The other thing about sports reporting is that it requires an expertise that is both wide (from Formula One to NBA basketball to horse racing) and deep (you need to both know the key players and have an in-depth knowledge of each sport). That keeps down your competition; while many people want to cover sports, few can successfully do so. The downside of this work is that it is something of a career ghetto: it’s hard to jump from sports reporting to any other beat. Moreover, it is mostly a headline service: other than a few highlights, to which you can add commentary, most of the coverage is reading box scores. That said, sports news on both radio and television is a guaranteed daily segment of a generally set length, which means you get your airtime and are unlikely to be sent on another beat.

Features—Feature stories are a superset of lifestyle pieces but can cover many more topics, including negative stories. Television and radio features are like mini-documentaries—and as such, the reporter may be given several days to prepare one. Features are also usually longer time segments to tell their stories. The trade-off is that viewers expect more in-depth reporting than a typical news story. For that reason, features are usually reserved for more veteran reporters who can be trusted to do a superior job.

Segments—Segments are expanded feature stories. They may be one-off stories, or they can be regular (weekly/monthly) or irregular components of news broadcasts. Segments are usually the highest level of production at both the local and national news levels. They get their own logo and are generally assumed to be candidates for Emmys and other industry awards. Some large city stations today have their own investigative units that can spend weeks preparing a dedicated segment. Other segments amplify a local news trend and can be the product of a smart pitch by a news or beat reporter.

Profiles—Profiles are yet another form of feature story, in this case focusing upon a single individual. Typically, these individuals are important local figures passing through a milestone in their lives: career promotion, election, award, retirement, and so on. Production normally involves interviews with the subject supplemented by historic footage (or, if radio, biographical material). Another form of profile is the story about an individual who is emblematic (an activist, a homeless person, etc.) of a larger trend. Profiles, because of the time devoted to them, as well as the importance of the subject, are usually given to experienced reporters—though that rule is regularly violated with younger reporters who have unusual access (typically because it is their beat) to the subject.

Interviews—Needless to say, interviews are the heart of television and radio reporting, and a typical reporter may conduct a half-dozen short interviews per day. But full-blown interviews, which may last three to five minutes on air, are a specialty form, a hybrid of the profile in which the conversation almost wholly replaces any feature components. In radio, interviews are far more common than profiles. Thus, the in-depth interview is typically a back and forth between reporter and subject, face-to-face, recorded in real time on radio and with a minimum of camera reverses on television. Edits are kept to a minimum. For that reason, interviews have a shorter turnaround time than profiles and can thus be more timely. Interviews, including any raw footage left on the editing floor, can be valuable assets for stations as the years pass—and if the subject becomes sufficiently famous, may end up in museums and libraries.

Documentaries—Extended features or investigative stories, documentaries are the highest form of the television and radio reporting arts. They are rarely ever integrated into the usual news programming but placed instead into primetime programming where they can be promoted and draw the largest possible audience. As this often means pre-empting popular existing programming, documentaries represent a sizable financial risk to the station—and thus must be of the highest news value and production quality. Being given the opportunity to report, host, or produce a documentary is the greatest honor in a television or radio journalist’s career. And the result will almost always be put up for local, regional, and even national awards. Great documentaries, such as Fred Friendly/Edward R. Murrow’s “Harvest of Shame” about migrant workers, can lead to new legislation and change the nature of daily life in a country. Any time a reporter gets the chance to be part of a documentary production, he or she should take it: not just because it demands the highest use of their skills, but also because, career-wise, it is the best ticket to a better job, either at the station or in a bigger market. Great local documentaries are the ticket to a position in national news.

News magazine shows—The growing importance and quality of television news, including documentaries, led to the creation of a new form of primetime news programming: the television news magazines. These began as extensions of evening news shows, and then evolved into their own distinct formats. These “newsmagazines”—which typically are composed of several segments, each of which takes weeks or months in development—have proven to be among the most popular and enduring of any TV productions. 60 Minutes, a one-hour primetime series on the (American) CBS network, has been continuously on the air since 1968, has won numerous awards, and has consistently ranked among the most-watched television shows on U.S. television. In the UK, the BBC’s Newsnight, a public affairs program, began in 1980 and is shown every weeknight. Similar programming can be found in most large nations around the world on both the radio and television. Because of their audiences, news magazines typically have the highest production values and attract the top news talent on any network. Landing any writing position on one of these shows—including intern—is considered a major career coup. Such an offer should never be easily dismissed: you may not get a second chance for decades, if ever.

Opinion—Comparatively rare on television, but more common on radio, are opinion pieces. These are the equivalent of editorials in print and on the Web; that is, they are preset intervals of editorial time in which a representative of the station or network (news director, station manager, station owner) is free to read a commentary, usually on a news topic or subject of concern to the audience. Though these opinion pieces are usually presented as being from the speaker, they are often written by a professional on the staff—usually after consultation with the speaker. This type of work is typically not a full-time job, but rather one of many responsibilities for a veteran staffer. That said, it can be an interesting distraction from the usual reporting work and a platform for expressing views that wouldn’t be proper (or ethical) in a news setting.





Markets


Most populated regions have their own (few) television stations and (many) radio stations. A few are likely to be affiliated with national networks, while the majority—especially radio stations—are independently owned. The typical career trajectory of writers, reporters, and producers in radio and television is to begin fresh out of college at a small market station to learn the profession and gain “seasoning.” From the very beginning, and throughout one’s career, it is considered acceptable to be constantly updating one’s “demo reel” and applying for a new job—either a higher position at the current station or a comparable (or slightly lesser) position at a bigger station in a larger market.

The other side of this career trajectory takes two forms: (1) personal development, often done with the assistance of professional advisors and consultants, to improve one’s on-air appearance, presentational skills, voice, and use of technology (i.e., weather maps). This is typically for reporters who wish to pursue on-air careers; (2) career development, which involves the pursuit of high visibility, stylistically diverse, award-targeted stories in order to build the strongest resume and demo reel.

The following job markets for radio and television writers are listed below in a typical career trajectory from entry level to a top position in the profession:

Local TV and radio stations—This is the bread-and-butter work of the profession. Local stations serving mid-sized cities and their surrounding regions feature brand-new reporters and writers just out of school and serving the equivalent of an apprenticeship. These youngers are usually mentored by older reporters who typically have chosen to freeze their careers in place in order to settle down in their hometown or in order to have families. This creates a unique dynamic not really found in the markets to follow.

Upmarket stations—These stations operate in the metropolitan areas of large cities and often reach audiences of one million or more viewers or listeners. Unlike smaller stations, upmarket stations can be career destinations for reporters and writers, as the pay is good and a certain amount of celebrity attaches to the job. It is not unusual for reporters and writers, once they reach this level, to stay for their entire careers. That said, upmarket stations can be excellent launchings for jobs at the national level.

Regional stations—Regional stations take two forms. The first are stations that are attached to mid-sized cities but have the transmission power (or metropolitan area) to serve much larger, less-populated regions that might hold dozens of smaller towns and cover sizable geographic areas. These jobs resemble those at upmarket stations but require much more travel and are less likely to present the opportunity for high-profile, career-making, stories. The second are stations that serve very large cities and their environs—and reach audiences of several million. A legendary regional station, Mexico’s XERF, was located on the U.S. border; its combination of 250,000 watts (five times the U.S. legal limit) and disk jockey Wolfman Jack gave it a loyal audience throughout North America—and, when the atmosphere was right, even in the Soviet Union.

Syndicated news shows—These programs are typically created by an independent production company and then syndicated either on a cable network or placed with individual stations. Content ranges from cultural programming (The South Bank Show), entertainment news (Entertainment Tonight), and regional features (Evening Magazine). These shows can have astonishing durability, with many still on the air after decades. This is stable, if not always respected, work for writers. That said, it can be a good platform early in one’s career to launch to the national level. The key is to take on major assignments of the type that look good on the demo reel. The downside is that, other than cultural shows, these programs are rarely award winners.

Network news—This is the queen of television and radio reporting. These productions are given key time spots on network television and radio networks and are designed to reach a national audience. Network news regularly deals with major issues, interviews the most powerful people in the world, and can have a major influence on public opinion and government policy. Among the writing positions available at network news are investigative reporting, news reporting, features, and interviews, and the work can take you around the world (including long-term posting as a foreign correspondent). The pay is superb and combined with the quality of the work, this is a job most people in the profession try to keep until retirement. Other than the occasional intern, work at this level is only for proven veterans. Network news productions usually take two forms: the nightly news and primetime network news “magazines,” the most famous being 60 Minutes. Both of these program types capture most of the major television awards.

Documentary series—The production of television and radio documentaries normally comes from one of two sources: in-house productions by staff or independent productions by contract producers. Most documentaries are presented as one-offs or as limited-run series. Sometimes, however, they are aggregated from multiple sources into quasi-series. At the network level, many news operations have in-house documentary teams; at regional and local levels the work is done by members of the news staff (who often take the work in hopes of capturing national recognition).

Cable news/specialty—The rise of 24-hour cable news (CNN/CNN International, Fox/Sky, MSNBC/CNBC)—both for breaking news and business/stock market coverage—presents a major career opportunity for news and feature writers and reporters at the national level. What was once a small number of positions at a handful of network news operations has now blossomed into hundreds of jobs—in the process making the jump from local and regional to national easier than ever before. Moreover, as cable news ratings now challenge, even surpass, their network counterparts, the opportunity for premium salaries, reputation, and awards has grown commensurately.

Web radio and video—The migration of viewers/listeners from network to cable to Web continues apace, and the trajectory seems clear: over the next few decades, most news and feature writing jobs will be found on productions targeted at a global audience on the Internet. Some of this programming will be on Web-only sites; others will originate on other platforms but will be reached by the majority of the audience via Web radio or the Internet. Most of this work will be similar to the older forms—but given the unique nature of the Web, will likely also add additional multimedia work, including video production, link creation, and the enlistment of listeners/viewers into crowd‑sourced story creation.





Jobs


On-air reporter—This is traditional reporting, comparable to print, but with some twists. In both radio and television, you will be regularly required to do live feeds. With prepared stories, you will need to record or tape your story in editing—with television you will need to add visual content (new footage, b-roll from the station archives). Improvisational skills are required, as well as the ability to compose in real time. A good clear voice is needed on the radio; that, plus an appealing unthreatening appearance is desirable on television. The ability to consistently conduct interviews that yield at least one good sound bite is immensely valuable.

Off-air reporter/newsroom editor—This is traditional reporting/editor work. You need superior reporting and writing skills, as well as the ability to work seamlessly with on-air staff.

Managing editor—This job requires a strong news sense, and an ability to spot news angles. You also need a talent for picking the right reporter for the story and the organizational skills of a traffic policeman.

Producer—Superior storytelling and writing skills. Mastery of the editing suite. Ability to construct features quickly in a long or short format.

Researcher—Web information drilling skills, strong empirical sense, and comfort with data, charts, and graphs, understanding of libel laws, and searching through official records.

Correspondent—Domestic (i.e., White House): quick development of a network of contacts and sources, familiarity with official sources and spokespeople, ability to work independently. International: Quick ability to immerse oneself into different cultures. Strong language aptitude. Ability to go extended periods without airtime—then sudden immersion into high-stress situations. Strong ability to operate independently. Resourcefulness in both getting stories and getting them to the station.

Investigative reporter—Similar to print investigative reporter, but usually with tighter deadlines and shorter presentation of content (even with multipart stories). Ability to identify the core story, develop strong ledes, and explain complicated concepts. Willingness to conduct confrontational interviews. Fearlessness. Precise understanding of libel laws. Comfort dealing with everyone from law enforcement to politicians to criminals.

Freelance producer—Similar to staff producer, but greater need to pitch stories. Ability to run a profitable independent business.

Documentary producer—Similar to producer, but with a greater need to organize all of the resources and content for long-format creations. Top-notch storytelling skills; understanding of multipart narratives and story arcs.

Executive producer—Personnel skills. Resource management and routing. Critical path monitoring. Scheduling. Marketing and promotion.

Anchor/host—Appealing looks and manners. Teleprompter reading skill. Ability to improvise on a moment’s notice. Ability to deal with crisis—breaking news, extended airtime, orchestrating multiple incoming reports—with accuracy and cool.





Career: The good


If you are on the air, you will likely become a star of some magnitude. You will be recognized when you are in public, be asked to speeches and host events, and regularly be listed as one of the most influential people in your community. You will also never worry about getting a table in a restaurant.

You will be at the center of the action. No matter what major event occurs in your viewing/listening audience—be it your town or the entire nation—you will be involved in the reporting of it.

If you are a daily beat reporter, everything is new each day. When you finish your shift you can clear off your desk—and not think again about it.

You will have an impact. With one of the largest media audiences (print and Web will usually be only a fraction of yours), you will largely establish the conversation with your audience for every news event. That is considerable power—one envied even by elected officials.

The pay is excellent—as long as it lasts. And it will last a whole lot longer if you aren’t in front of the camera.





Career: The bad


There’s not a lot of original reporting, and what there is is brief. Radio is limited by the speed of the human voice, television is mostly voice-overs to images. As a result, both are largely headline services. Even long-form documentaries carry fewer words than a single newspaper or magazine news story.

It’s not real writing. Once again, television and radio are essentially headline services, and what writing there is must often be “dumbed down” for the general audience. This kind of writing takes its own kind of talent to produce. But other than the rare documentary or feature, there is just not any demand for the kind of prose styling and lyrical writing found in print or on the Web.

It is a gypsy existence. Just about the only way to advance your career in television or radio is to move to a larger station or a larger market. And if you don’t do that every few years, your career is considered to have stalled. That can be fun at the beginning of your career; but at certain point you may want to settle down, get married, and have children. Then those moves get a whole lot more painful. When this happens—usually at an age when your corporate peers are beginning to enter senior executive positions—your own career progress will end.

There is zero job security. This is particularly true for on-air personalities, and especially in television. Because the entire industry is in constant flux, no individual job is secure for long. That said, beat reporters, and especially newsroom writers and editors, have much more security.

If you are a television anchor, you are only as good as your looks. On-air reporters can become more “seasoned.” But anchors, because they are the “face” of the news they must remain young and fresh in appearance. Would that this weren’t so, but audiences are very picky and unforgiving.





Turning points


You get stuck in a dead-end market. Radio, and even more television, is a pretty ruthless business. The pyramid of advancement narrows pretty quickly—and there isn’t much room at the top. As a result, the odds are that you will at some point find yourself in a job and a market for which there is no way forward.

You get tired of dumbing down your writing and not being able to tell the whole story. As a writer, you get bored with working for what is essentially a headline service.

You get sick of moving around. You want to settle down, own a home, raise a family, and be part of a community.





CHAPTER 14 Screenwriter and Playwright


In this chapter, we look at two types of writing that appear in very different ways but, structurally, are nearly identical. Both are dialog-driven and both involve actors and actresses who perform the author’s words and instructions. Where they differ has less to do with the writing and more with venue, modes of transmission, timeliness (one is “live,” the other not), and cost.





Screenwriting


What is screenwriting?


Screenwriting is designed to be viewed or heard, typically in a reading or performance that involves someone besides the author, and delivered by mechanical/electrical/digital means. Screenwriters produce screenplays that are typically converted into working scripts, which are used to make motion pictures, Webcasts, and television shows. Screenwriting can take the form of a monologue or dialog, and may or may not involve instructions to other creative personnel (instructions for camera shots, actor actions, etc. are usually reserved for the “shooting script.”)

Screenplays have a long-established format that needs to be followed by the screenwriter if she or he is going to have a chance at making a sale. You need to learn that format and be fluent in it. The world will not bend its century-old system to you; you must adapt to it.

Movies have had a powerful grip on humanity for more than a century. Though the venue has changed, from Nickelodeon parlors to movie palaces to mall multiplexes to streaming services on home screens, the impact of film on humanity—and not least budding screenwriters—has not diminished. Indeed, there are more people trying to write screenplays right now than there has ever been. Who doesn’t walk out of a theater after watching a mediocre film and thought: “Hell, I could write a better movie than that.” Well, when writers think that, they often sit down and write a screenplay, figuring that with a good story, they have an excellent chance of breaking into Hollywood.

But the reality is nothing like that. The truth is that the quality of the story is way down on the list of Hollywood’s priorities—that is especially true now when the movie industry is focused upon endless sequels.

The reality—and you should never forget it—is that Hollywood is not an art form, but a highly competitive business, in which millions are spent and hundreds of people employed—even on low-budget films. With the exception of independent films, the movie industry is built upon putting butts into seats and charging those butts a lot for being given the opportunity. The movies are just the bait. And the only way to make a profit in films, given their enormous cost, is to present audiences with what you are pretty sure they want, and the best way to do that is to give them what they have already shown they want. For that reason, you can even think of ground-breaking movies as merely consumer field tests of potential new product forms that, if they make a lot of money, will themselves be overworked to death.

Does that sound cynical? Haven’t you seen all of those movies that, even more cynically, show how Hollywood really works? Of course, you have. And so has everybody else. But still, we dream.

What the author is trying to be is realistic. The odds of you selling a screenplay are much worse than selling a book or a magazine article. You need to know that going in—and not be surprised when your brilliant screenplay fails. Is it always doomed to fail? No, a few newcomers break through the walled world of moviemaking each year. But even they have learned how to play by the rules of the game.





Types of screenwriters


First of all, let’s get past the notion that screenwriting is only about theatrical movies. Though the term “screenwriting” is typically associated with television or film, it actually encompasses just about everything creative you write for the electronic or digital media—even if it is just a few lines to announce the next show on the schedule. Here are some examples:

News stories—If you are writing for television or radio, the line between screenplay and script blurs. You are essentially writing copy, often under a tight deadline, to be read on air. In this high-pressure setting, you are often writing words to be either memorized and said, or to be put into a teleprompter to be read on air. Formatting is straightforward; it is rarely more than the news copy with the name of the reader(s) appended in a narrow margin and large font layout.

Announcements and interstitials—This is copy designed to be read in a matter of seconds to serve as a segueway between shows or productions—that is, “Next, on tonight’s episode of ‘What’s Up?’ Mary encounters an old friend.” Needless to say, succinctness and economy of words—combined with the speaker’s ability to read clearly and quickly—are of prime importance.

Introductions and lectures—Educational films, corporate videos, online class lectures, and so on are rarely extemporaneous, though they may seem so. Rather, these productions should be seen as screenplays written for a single actor or monologist. And, in fact, they often are formatted as a kind of simplified script, with instructions for when the speaker should pause, point to a screen, set up an image, elicit a response from the audience, and such as these.

Ad copywriting—Nonprint advertisements for the Web, television, radio, or even for movie theaters are always carefully scripted. This is especially the case if there are actors involved. In those cases, the screenplay will be treated just like a television show or film, using the full formatting—even with an accompanying storyboard. This shouldn’t be surprising when you consider that top-tier commercials are often more expensive to film per minute that major movie blockbusters.

Radio scriptwriting—This work is basically news reporting, with some added wrinkles. For one thing, you must write to the time available and incorporate any available audio—including interviews, ambient sounds, etc. You must also write to the speaking skills of the news reader, even if it is you, by playing to their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses, keeping sentences short and limiting vocabulary.

Television narration—This type of writing is for voice-over work related to a larger production. This is almost identical to radio scriptwriting in terms of writing to the abilities of the narrator. What is added is that this writing must also be done to the images in the production. That is, your task is to amplify, not repeat, the imagery; as well as talk during lulls and transitions, and shut up when powerful imagery commands the viewers’ attention. This means that the writing should not occur separately from the production, but at the same time, with one eye on what is appearing on the screen. This can become complicated, as the production may also be organized by the narration. So, which comes first? The answer is: both and neither. In practice, the narrative is writing with a sense of the imagery available. Then, in turn, the imagery modifies the narrative in a process that may take several iterations.

Television screenplay—The screenplay that will become the script for a 1-hour television drama or a 30-minute situation comedy must conform to industry-standard formats. This is highly creative (and very lucrative) work that is equivalent to being a short story writer or novelist. This type of writing requires considerable work and polish and is often done under a tight deadline (a typical modern sitcom may run as much as 30 weekly episodes—it used to be more). For that reason, unlike most of the previous jobs on this list, television screenplays are usually team productions, with different writers taking on different scenes, subplots, or characters under the discipline of a predetermined plot structure—the pieces then being glued together by a producer or editor.

Film screenplay—Writing for film is the most esteemed form of screenwriting. As with novels, this work is high risk/high reward. The odds against any movie screenplay being optioned, much less produced, are astronomical. That is all the more reason to learn your craft, follow the rules (i.e., formatting), and polish your dialog until it shines. There are also a number of external factors that come into play with films (and, to a lesser degree television) including registering your screenplay with the screenwriters guild, obtaining a copyright, finding and hiring an agent, and working your contact network (which, in the case of motion pictures, usually means moving to Los Angeles). The single most important factor in screenplay creation is formatting. You cannot devise your own (see below).

Now you see why a good story, even though it precedes and is the key to everything that follows, is of low overall priority. If you aren’t willing to jump through all of these hoops, turn your story into a novel.





What makes screenwriting different?


It is time-disciplined—Almost every form of screenplay, from the television interstitial to the theatrical film script, operates under a clock—from, say, 10 seconds for the former to the standard 120-minute running time of the typical movie. And because the narration or performance is created out of spoken language, screenplays by necessity must deal with word counts that are much smaller than other media, such as nonfiction books and novels. This demands considerable discipline, which can be seen as either a strength of the form or a compromise.

It is performer-disciplined—The content must be delivered by someone: an anchor, announcer, performer, and so on. And so, though the words may be powerful, they typically cannot overcome the limitations of these performers; conversely, a great speaker or actor can take even weak writing and invest it with a power it otherwise might not deserve. It is important then to understand the strengths or weaknesses of the performer or narrator involved with a project and modify your text to their best advantage.

Imagery (or sound) comes first. The highly successful movie screenwriter (“Duel in the Sun”) and novelist Niven Busch once explained to the author that “writing for the movies isn’t that tough. All you need to do is to write as if you can only stare through the camera lens—you see only what the camera sees.” This was his way of saying that you write to the pictures, or the soundtrack. Otherwise, you will spend too much time explaining what isn’t important, and you will lose your audience’s attention. Save your explanation for those things that can’t be seen, but must be understood by the audience.

It is format-disciplined—Radio is audio only. Television is mostly restricted by budget and movies by presentation time. In other words, you cannot ask a radio audience to look at pictures, produce a $250-million television miniseries, or ask filmgoers to sit through a 20-hour movie. If you want to sell your work, you will have to write to those limitations.

Dialog takes precedence over narrative—Over and over in this textbook it has been noted that we human beings prefer the human voice-over prose. Nowhere is this more the case than in radio, television, and film. That’s why even documentaries will use interviews with participants—or experts —whenever possible, instead of the voice of a narrator

It is cost-disciplined—Television is expensive: even a documentary or news show will cost several hundred thousand dollars an hour to produce at the national level. Movies are immensely expensive, with even “low-budget” independent films costing several million dollars to produce—and studio blockbusters hundreds of millions. Even radio, while comparatively cheap, still can require millions of dollars in capital expenditures for the construction and upkeep of production and transmission equipment. The calculus of revenues versus operational overhead and operating expenses determines just how much these different media can invest into new productions. The easiest way to get turned down by one of these platforms is to pitch a project that doesn’t fit with its budget model.





Screenwriting tricks


Buy screenwriting software—Even if you know how to format a screenplay, having to do so manually, even on a computer, is a miserable experience, with constant shifts in margins and justifications. That’s why it is recommended that you use screenwriting software—either commercial versions (typically under a couple of hundred dollars for even premium versions) or popular freeware versions. Both can be downloaded from the Web. The best of these programs will not only automatically format the page as you type but will also provide prompts and remember names. You can assume that every agent and studio you pitch to will demand that your screenplay is in the proper format, or it will immediately be rejected. There are several versions of screenwriting program available (the most popular these days seems to be Final Draft). All regularly go through upgrades (as this is being written, Final Draft is on its twelfth version) and all are likely to soon integrate in AI tools. Buy one of these programs, get fluent in it, and regularly upgrade. It will matter more than you can imagine.

Read your work—Screenplays are all about the spoken word. So why would you write a screenplay without reading it aloud to hear how it sounds? Listen to the music of your words. If you run out of breath on a sentence, cut it in two. If it sounds choppy, bolt sentences together. And if it doesn’t sound authentic, be ruthless; rewrite it.

Radio: paint a mental picture—Radio, because it must rely on a single sense, must make an extra effort to play to that sense. It is not enough to simply report the news; the writing must convey a fully rounded experience of the event. This is done with background sound and evocative writing.

TV, film: show, don’t tell—Again, screenplays for the visual media should be written to see through the camera’s eye, with narrative enhancing that vision. You can add more content through other means, including titles and graphics. But beware of trying to stuff too much information onto the screen—you can overwhelm the viewer.





Careers


There are a lot of different jobs in screenwriting, but they fall under a limited number of categories, most of them mutually exclusive. That is, it is hard to move from a job as an advertising copywriter to writing screenplays for the film industry (but it can be done, look at the career of Ridley Scott). That said, skills learned in one of these fields—economic and vivid writing, skill with dialog, working in the script format—can give you an excellent start in another. We’ve already described most of these careers, but here’s some added information on each:

Ad scriptwriter—This kind of work is typically open to an advertising professional who is already writing copy, as a lateral move that typically begins with limited work and expands to take on longer formats. A degree in advertising is a good start, but it also helps to have taken some screenwriting courses along the way.

Radio announcer—Radio announcing work is often given to reporters who show an interest in the work. Happily, the same skills that are valued in radio reporting are useful in writing announcements. As scriptwriters often are expected to do their own recording, a good voice—that is, even better than the normal radio voice—is valuable.

Reporter—Television and radio reporting typically learn their craft in two ways—in college broadcasting courses (including working for campus stations) and during the long apprenticeship climbing the ranks from small local stations to large regional and national stations.

Editor—Because of the nature of the work, a radio or television editor usually does more writing than their print counterparts. This is because most station reporters are sent out into the field to cover stories, leaving editors to prepare much of the copy derived from wire service stories and other sources.

Producer—The title of “producer” is shared by two groups in this world: individuals who organize and manage the resources for the creation of a television series or motion picture and the editor/writer of a news documentary or feature segment. The latter is of interest here: this work not only requires considerable amount of writing but of a very high quality. Producers often combine training in broadcasting or communications with an education in literature or creative writing.

Screenwriter—As history has shown, anyone can write a movie screenplay. But just because the door is open doesn’t mean many newcomers are invited in. You need a great plot, strong dialog, and interesting characters—and an understanding of how to organize all of that into the limitations of time and format. Most of all, you need patience; because with few exceptions, you are going to write a lot of screenplays before you sell, or option your first screenplay.

Script doctor—This is a rare, but extremely lucrative, career reserved for writers who have already created successful screenplays and whose skills are in demand to “fix” other screenwriters’ works. It is a long road to this profession, and few (if any) writers start out their careers with this job as their goal. Still, it is not a bad destination if you can keep your ego at bay.





Turning points


Screenwriter, even more for the fictional side than the news reporting side, can be a very volatile career. You can be a nobody one day and a star the next and a nobody the day after that. And if the rewards can be great, the losses just as great—and averaged out of time can prove to be no more remunerative than a less glamorous writing career. You can find turning points for news scriptwriting careers in the chapters dedicated to reporting. Here we’ll focus on fiction work:

Failure—The chances of selling a movie or television series screenplay are even worse than for a novel. This means that even if your work is good you are still likely to be rejected. Indeed, it sometimes can seem as if the quality doesn’t matter at all when dealing with Hollywood—or at least it takes a back seat to industry connections, experience, and luck.

Age—Television and film, like pop music, are mostly for the young. Thus, even veteran screenwriters, after long and successful careers, can find themselves left behind by the twists and turns of cultural change. And there is little remedy for it.

Hit production and its consequences—Success is its own threat. There is so much fame (at least within the industry) and money that comes from the successful sale of a major film or television series screenplay that it can distort your life. Expectations for the next screenplay will be raised, fortunes will be offered for you to take on second-rate projects, and the new wealth itself will be a challenge. This may seem like a welcome burden to bear, but hold your judgment until you actually experience it.

You run out of stories—Writing a novel can take years out of your life; a movie screenplay can be completed in weeks, even days. That difference can make you exceedingly productive, but it can also mean that you run through story ideas quickly. If you are not adept at converting news events from the outside world into new and original storylines, your screenwriting career will end early.





Playwriting


You can think of playwriting as screenwriting in a box. You can’t call forth thousands of extras or spend fortunes on computerized special effects or relocate to exotic locales. All you have is a stage, a simple set or two, and actors that you need to give words as they move across that stage.

This may sound deeply limiting—and in fact, it is. But as any veteran painter will tell you, the discipline of narrowing the number of colors in your palette actually can lead to the creation of better and more vivid work. Also, for the writer, working on a play can be a much more hands-on, personally rewarding experience: the playwright is much more welcome in the theater than the screenwriter is on the film set.





What is playwriting?


The simplest explanation is the creation of a dramatic narrative to be performed by actors on stage. Plays can be dramatic, tragic, comedic, or musical and can take almost any facet of human existence—past, present, or future—as its subject, limited only by the playwright’s ability to invoke imagery in the audience’s imagination.





Types of playwriting


Because they are innately abstract, plays only take a small number of forms—and most of those differences are peripheral. But also, because they depend upon the audience’s imagination, the potential content of plays is all but infinite.

Amateur and equity—This is one of those peripheral factors—in this case, dealing with the nature of the performers. Amateur productions—plays performed in schools, by local theatrical groups—are distinguished by the fact that the actors work without pay. By comparison, equity—registered—actors must be paid. It would be easy to assume that plays by professionals will be “better” than those featuring amateurs. But experience will show you that this isn’t always the case. So don’t prejudge the venue in which your work will appear.

Tragedy, comedy, and melodrama—As has been often noted, tragedy and comedy are two sides of the same coin—often the only difference is one of perspective—while melodrama (also called tragicomedy, the modern “dramedy,” or simply “drama”) is a hybrid of the two. That said, television has made these dramatic forms seem far more simple than they really are. The great teacher of this is, of course, Shakespeare—and any budding playwright would be well advised to read his plays closely not just for their style and plots but also for the depth of the Bard’s understanding of human nature. That said, you must go back to the Greeks for the original definitions of both tragedy and comedy, and they are not only not simple but even paradoxical. Thus, tragedy is a tale of human suffering designed to produce catharsis, or pleasure, in the audience. Thus, in a weird way, the sufferings of Lear or Hamlet or Willy Loman are designed to uplift us. And, it is not unusual, by this definition, for tragedy to make us laugh.

Conversely, comedy was defined as a conflict between two dissimilar (power, age, culture) groups that results in enlightenment and amusement for the audience. In other words, a traditional comedy can also make us, briefly, cry or grow angry. Consider Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, which to modern audiences is dark, intense, and deeply disturbing for three acts, resolved only by an “amusing” final act. Yet, it is classified as one of Shakespeare’s comedies.

This is not to suggest that, as a playwright, you should follow the old rules, but as a reminder that your play doesn’t have to be purely tragic or a string of jokes (the title of one of the darkest American tragedies—O’Neil’s Iceman Cometh—is actually the punchline to a dirty joke). And that the greatest plays ever written often contain bits of both.

Musical—Musicals, usually comedies but occasionally tragedies and melodramas, are essentially plays with songs. But the reality, particularly the process of creation, is much more complex. In practice, the “book”—the story—of a musical is usually written by a professional playwright, while the music is composed by a professional composer. Making things even more complicated, the lyrics of the music may be written by yet another writer, the lyricist. Usually the book comes first, but there are musicals created around a collection of pre-existing songs.

What this means is that unless you have a rare talent in multiple creative disciplines—Meredith Wilson, for example, wrote all of “The Music Man” (with assistance on the original story), while a genius like George Bernard Shaw needed Lerner and Lowe to turn his play “Pygmalion”—and four decades between—into “My Fair Lady”—you are going to have to find yourself, at the very least, a composer to work with you. And if you are not experienced at songwriting, you are going to need to find a good lyricist, too.

That doesn’t mean that if you have the bug you shouldn’t try your hand at writing a musical; they are among the most beloved artistic creations in modern life. Just don’t be surprised when it turns out to be a lot more complicated than you thought.

Live or filmed—This isn’t a big deal, but you should know about it. A play is a live event seen from the front of the stage (or nearly so, from the balcony). But the film/video of a play is a recorded event that can be shot in shorter segments, and from the best camera angles, to produce the most impressive result. Make no mistake: a filmed play is still a play, with a play’s physical limitations. It is not a movie. But filming does allow you to “blow out the walls” of the live play to include added footage, long shots, limited effects (if you have the budget), and so on. In other words, you can go a little way down the path to actually selling your play to the film industry for a full-blown movie production.

It is almost always a mistake to write a play with one eye on it being filmed—it distorts the staging. But if you should take the opportunity to create a permanent recording of your play, you should keep in mind this added opportunity.





What makes playwriting different?


Think of playwriting as a more extreme form of screenwriting. It is almost completely dialog-driven. Personality and character must be presented almost completely in the interaction of a character with other characters. Context and setting, beyond a few words in the program, must also be explained by dialog. Unlike film, where there is an army of performers, camera operators, editors, special effects firms, hundreds of extras, and so on to back you up, on stage it comes down to your words and the skills of a handful of actors. It is limiting, but also liberating.

One of the most surreal experiences in the life of the author took place years ago when his play about railroad hobos received an equity production. With his young son, he drove down to the theater in San Jose, California, on a misty winter evening. As we drove up to the darkened theater—and it’s even darker parking lot—I was astonished to find the lot crowded with men in their late twenties, all scruffily dressed, and wandering about in the darkness. It got even stranger when he pulled into a parking slot—and heard a muttering sound. Rolling down the window, the muttering turned into a score of voices: the men were all talking to themselves. It took several moments before I realized that the ghostly figures were reciting the lines I’d written months before.

They were there to audition for my play.

Stage craft—The stage and the theater around it are not like the real world. Veteran playwrights know this and write their plays to recognize—even take advantage of—that fact. Neophytes often fail to understand this—and as a result their plays are more stilted, and less magical, than they need to be. The audience’s experience in the theater should be one of stepping outside of everyday reality, where the suspension of disbelief—“Wait a second: this isn’t really the battle of Agincourt, it’s just a dozen actors on a plywood stage”—never occurs to them. This is accomplished by a deep understanding of the movement of actors in relation to each other and to the set, careful management of the traffic of the actors on and off stage, pacing of the plot, and most of all careful editing of dialog for the maximum impact in a live setting.

Limited visual support—To repeat: by its nature, the physical support of a play is necessarily limited. Even the most elaborate sets—like those found with opera (which are essentially “sung plays”)—are still inferior to the outside, natural world that can be captured in movies or on television. That said, a well-designed set—take the frame of the house in Death of a Salesman—can be profoundly evocative as it universalizes the audience’s experience, rather than restricts it with details.

Blocking and tackling—The term is from American football; it describes the attention that must be paid to the basics of the sport before you can turn that attention to more advanced actions. But “blocking” is also a theatrical term for the task of the director in working out how to move the actors around the stage, key the lighting, and determining the “traffic” patterns of entrances and exits by the actors so they don’t have to run around behind the curtain or so they can have the time to change costumes or stop by the prop table. Blocking is the choreography of the stage.

As a playwright, you can help this process by thinking about it in advance. For example, you can’t have an actor exit stage left and then reappear a few moments later on stage right in a different costume. Ultimately, being a traffic cop isn’t your job—it is the director’s—but if you want your play to be performed in a lot of places by a lot of acting companies, both equity and amateur, it can only help it to have a reputation for being easy to stage.





Key success factors


If you are a writer, especially a fiction writer, you owe it to yourself to write at least one play—for the experience, for the practice in writing dialog, for the feel of a live audience, and just for fun. Here, finally, are some things you can do to make the experience successful.

Practice, practice, practice—That’s the punchline to the old joke about the tourist asking for directions: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” We assume that actors need to endlessly practice their lines and go through exhaustive rehearsals. But, by the same token, if you want to be a playwright chances are very slim that you will create a performable play on your first attempt. More likely, you will write several plays, none of which are performable in themselves, but pieces from all of them may end up one day in a viable subsequent work. Playwriting is harder than it looks—and the only apprenticeship is actually writing plays, polishing them, and if you are lucky, getting them performed so you can see their flaws in performance. That means you will need a lot of patience.

Read-throughs—Even if you can’t get your play performed, you can still get a group of your friends (preferably actors) together and do a reading of the play. This is a great way to “hear” how well your work sounds. Meanwhile, if your play does get produced, there will inevitably be read-throughs by the cast. If you can, you should sit in—with a copy of the play in hand—to make edits and rewrites on the fly.

Be able to adapt to cast, stage, and audience—Every play, like every novel, story, or poem, needs revisions and edits. But with plays, it goes beyond that: you should also be prepared to (slightly) modify your play for differences in the actors cast in the same roles, for the nature of the theater and stage (Are the wings narrow? Does the stage project into the audience? Will the performance be miked? Etc.). You may object that this compromises the purity of your creation by pandering to the audience—you are right. And you can remind yourself of that purity when you put your unpublished play on the top shelf in your closet. Remember: a play has no value if no one ever sees it. So improve your odds however you can.





CHAPTER 15 Fiction Writer and Novelist


What is fiction writing?


The creation of literary material, in one of many formats, is based upon an imaginative construction of events, not directly from actual events.





Why do we need fiction?


Because real life, despite its extraordinary range, is often too messy, complex, and undirected to present us with a coherent story that can amuse, challenge, ennoble, frighten, and educate us the way carefully constructed imaginative fiction can.





Why does fiction seem so different?


No field of writing is more enveloped in myth than creating fiction: especially short stories, novellas, and most of all, novels. Even people who make their living writing nonfiction can find themselves intimidated by the prospect of creating fiction—to the point that they invest the process with a kind of magic. It is as if every other kind of writing is professional work, while fiction is an incantation; one apparently in which you wait for the Muse to appear and whisper great plots and dialog into your ear.

Part of the problem is that “literature” is considered an art form; while every other kind of writing, such as journalism, is considered merely a professional activity. Interestingly, we recognize that being a musician or a visual artist may require creative inspiration—but also a whole lot of preparation and craftsmanship, proficiency with tools and materials, and a ton of work. Yet, somehow, fiction writing is seen only as genius and inspiration.

Here’s the truth: creating fiction is just writing. It may have a strong creative component, but so to one degree or another does every other kind of writing, from creating a compelling press release to authoring a top-notch feature story. The fundamental difference is that fiction writing involves the creation of an alternative reality (a setting or mis en scene) in which your subjects (characters) move through a storyline (plot). Creating those three factors is where talent comes in—but just about anyone with discipline and the proper training can write a novel, much less a short story. Of course, the quality of the result will vary.

Everything else is craft. Vocabulary, sentence construction, continuity, pacing, and all of the other components of every type of writing. Take a sentence out of context from a speech, a corporate newsletter, or a famous novel—and you probably can’t tell which belongs where. In fact, the sentence from the novel may be the worst written of the three. That’s because many novelists aren’t, in fact, very good writers craft-wise, and they overcome that weakness by being very good at the other parts of fiction. And there are some great novelists who are so good at just one part of the process—such as a plot that pulls you along, or an unforgettable lead character—that you overlook the fact they are lousy at almost everything else. But even that’s not unique to fiction: think of how many nonfiction articles or essays you’ve read that held your interest despite awkward or turgid prose because of the story or the message.

The message of all of this is that if you are a writer you can be a novelist. The actual mechanics of the process of writing a novel already are within your skill set. As for the other factors, they are mostly a matter of practice: you need to write fiction—a lot of fiction—if you are going to be good at it. In fact brace yourself, it is very likely that the first novel you write, the one you spent months on composing tens of thousands of words, you will throw out. The key is not to think of it as a failure, or that you are unworthy of being a fiction writer, but as your apprenticeship. It’s no different than pitching a bunch of feature stories and getting them rejected: you would rightly consider that learning your craft. So why consider your first novel to be any different? Just pay your dues and get on with it. If you’re lucky you’ll sell your first novel—something that is a lot easier to do in this age of regional presses and e-books. But even if you don’t, don’t give up. Keep writing.

Part of the problem facing new novelists might be described as a limited perception of the profession. Most of the older fiction we read is the product of a winnowing process: we only read what survives—that is, the very best or most popular novels. The rest disappear down the memory hole. If you managed to dig out those forgotten novels you’d have a much better idea of the range of quality in newly published novels at any given time—and you wouldn’t be intimidated. Instead, in school you only read the masterpieces, giving you a very skewed idea of the profession.

A second limitation is that few outsiders have any real idea of the actual process of writing a novel. Just as mathematicians often work backward and forward, and even follow hunches, in developing a proof—and then clean it up to erase all of their missteps—so too do novelists like to treat their finished work as if it sprung fully formed from their imaginations. You see the polished author being interviewed on television, not the author in a pair of baggy and stained sweatpants shuffling down the hall to the home office and slurping cereal as they write. You also see the finished book, not the messy manuscript that several editors and friends tore apart several times because it was all but unreadable. If you could see all of that, you wouldn’t be intimidated by other novelists.

One more note. Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. famously said: Real artists ship. He was talking about code writers, but his comments work equally well with word writers. The worst thing you can do as a novelist is to unilaterally decide that your novel isn’t good enough. There are closets all over the world with nearly finished novels slowly yellowing on top shelves because their authors gave up. And those stacks of pages are still there because those authors still regret their failure.

There is no reason for you to join their ranks—especially not in the twenty-first century when there are so many ways to publish. No, the biggest reason these days is fear. That their work isn’t good enough. That the world will laugh at their creation. That they won’t live up to the expectations created by years of telling people about the great novel they’re writing. That the image they’ve carefully cultivated of being creative, and an artist, is fake.

That is the biggest difference between writing nonfiction and writing fiction: the latter takes real bravery. Write a nonfiction book and a bad review or two can be depressing; but after all, it’s just your work. But write a novel to the same response and it can feel like a judgment on your worth as a person; on your character; on what you thought was your life’s purpose. Getting through that experience—and then starting your next novel—takes courage.

That, not talent or even discipline, is the real test of becoming a novelist. And if you have the guts to stick with it, you will succeed in becoming one. On the other hand, no matter how good that manuscript is in your closet—and it could be great—it won’t matter. Because real novelists publish.





Types of fiction writing


There are more forms of fiction than we normally include in the genre. But if we throw a net out to include all kinds of imaginative writing, the list is very diverse.

Poetry—We discuss this genre elsewhere, but note here that it includes

Haiku

Sonnet

Ode

Heroic verse

Epic



And all of the subgenres of form, style, and meter therein.

Ficciones—This type of writing—short, highly imaginative, surreal, philosophical—is normally equated with the work of Jorge Luis Borges.

Yarns and storytelling—This genre is among the oldest forms of human communications and includes myths, tall-tales, amusing anecdotes, scary stories, and heroic legends. Though they can be deeply serious and instructional, they are just as likely to be brief and humorous.

Jokes and riddles—This type of fiction is also very old, though it is rare that a joke or riddle popular in one era will remain equally humorous or interesting in the next. Both forms are typically short, with a surprise punchline or solution designed to delight.

Short story—A form of fiction that derives from early storytelling that has a long and venerated history of its own. Short stories are rarely more than 5,000 words in length, differing from longer fiction forms by normally focusing on a single plot, limited characters, and few scene changes. The greatest short stories are among the modern world’s greatest intellectual creations.

Graphic novels—Graphic novels are essentially a hybrid between the novella and the comic book. Like the former, graphic novels are written for a sophisticated reading audience that is interested in experimental writing, mature plots, and a powerful even transgressive language and dialog. Like the latter, this writing is at the service of illustrations—again, many of them edgy and experimental. Though some graphic novelists do both the writing, some of the most famous graphic novels (Watchmen, Dark Knight) are collaborations between top-notch writers and illustrators.

Novella—The novella is a hybrid format, longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel (hence the name)—and that is usually how it is created: beginning as one form and either growing too long or finishing too short. This is not to diminish the value of the novella; among the greatest literary creations in history, Tolstoi’s “The Death of Ivan Illyich,” Mann’s “Death in Venice,” Solzhenitsyn’s “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch” are in the form of novellas. Like the novel, the novella can allow for subplots and multiple characters but works with a smaller palette (though no less complexity) than the novel.

Novel—The queen of fiction, the novel achieved its true form after several thousand years of development across multiple genres. It has remained in its supreme position in the human imagination because it is a supple format, not only able to deal with almost every possible plot but also adaptive enough to evolve with human culture and technology. It emerged in the pre-industrial, pastoral world and survives today in the world of the Internet, Artificial Intelligence, and the global economy. We will look at the novel and its creation in a special section at the end of this chapter.





History of novel


The creation of fiction is older than written language—indeed, it may be older than spoken language. It is very possible that Neanderthal man, unable to enunciate words, may have acted out for family or tribe members the memory of a past hunt. Early modern man developed an extensive oral tradition of stories, myths, and legends—much of it performed by shamans in mystical ceremonies. With the arrival of language, many of these stories made the transition into actual written forms. These written stories from the birth of writing are mankind’s cultural patrimony from which all modern fiction is the descendant.

Here is a brief history of the modern novel and its antecedents, with some of the best-known examples.

Roots in the epic tradition—The form and style of modern fiction was born in extended oral epic poems and narratives. The “world’s oldest story,” the 6,000-year-old Sumerian Gilgamesh, contains many fiction elements—and stories—still used by writers today. This epic tradition continued for Millennia and is still attempted today often being adopted by different civilizations as their national epics.

Iliad and Odyssey

The Aeneid

Beowulf



Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The Faerie Queen

The Song of Roland



Arabian Knights

Bagadivad Vita

Shakespeare’s Plays





Roots in religious tradition—Religious texts not only are an important source of stories, but those stories also become freighted with the power and duty of faith. We distinguish here between epic verse and religious text by whether they place esthetics before or after religious and moral lessons. Thus, most of the works described in the epic tradition are more about the plot, those in this section give precedence to religion.

Old Testament

New Testament

Pilgrim’s Progress



Paradise Lost

Medieval Passion Plays

Augustine’s Confessions



Pan Tadeusz

The Sienkiewicz Trilogy





The birth of the novel—The earliest fictional narratives that can be described as “proto-novels” appear in the late Renaissance and early Enlightenment. Structurally, they retain some of the features of epic poems (no distinct story arc, tangential plots, inconclusive endings, etc.), but their sensibility (a figure undergoing a profound change against a distinct landscape, consistent point of view, complex protagonist and antagonist) is distinctly modern. Unlike the often super-human or divine characters in previous works, the reader can identify with the characters in these works, which makes them as readable today as then.

Don Quixote

Pamela (Richardson)

Candide



Gulliver’s Travels

Robinson Crusoe

Tristam Shandy



Tom Jones

Moll Flanders

The Tale of Genji





Modern novels/nineteenth century—This is the era in which the novel truly comes into its own, in a form that is still in its use today. A strong argument can be made that the nineteenth century represented the greatest era for novels—combining worldly (as opposed to academic) authors, complex social structures (including an aristocracy), and a readership not distracted by other media. Some of these novels will likely endure as long as there are human beings. From here on, the list will be by author, as most wrote multiple works of lasting value. This section will also be listed by country of origin.

Great Britain

Jane Austin

George Eliot

Thackeray



Trollope

Dickens

Scott



Stevenson

Wilde

Kipling





France

Balzac

Dumas Fils et Pere

Stendahl



Flaubert

Zola





Spain

Galdos





Germany

Nietszche

Goethe





United States

Cooper

Hawthorne

Melville



Twain

Crane

James





Russia

Doestoesky

Turgenev

Tolstoi





Rise and fall/twentieth century—The twentieth century, thanks to improvements in printing technology, mass marketing, and distribution, saw an explosion in novel writing. In the United States alone, perhaps 100,000 novels were being written each year by the century’s end, with perhaps 10 percent of that number being published by publishers large and small. That was the good news; the bad was that the novel, a static medium, was increasingly challenged by more dynamic media, including in turn radio, television, and the Internet. While at mid-century novelists remained major figures in the cultural life of a nation, their latest works were discussed by the entire intellectual world; by the turn of the twenty-first century, novels and novelists had been largely eclipsed by other forms of creative content. Andy while novels still sold in vast numbers, many talented writers had moved on to those other platforms.

Kipling

Mann

Gide

Hardy



London

Dreiser

Hemingway

Faulkner



Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald

Woolf

Forster



Joyce

Proust

Malraux

Sartre



Camus

Solzenitsyn

Lampedusa

Bulgakov



Bellow

Grass

Mafouz

Greene



Marquez

Morrison

Roth

Updike



Kawabata

Abe

Todo

Kafka



Tolkien

Dick





Types of modern novel—In part because of a desire by novelists to escape the heavy shadow of their famous predecessors, and in part because of the opportunity presented by a diverse and universally literate audience, the world of novels in the twentieth century fractured into scores of genres and subgenres And as each found its audience, those genres fractured again. With low-cost publishing, Web-based distribution, and a growing number of MFA and creative writing programs, that process is likely to continue throughout the twenty-first century as well:

Literary

Mystery-Detective

Post-modern

Science Fiction

Fantasy

Historical

Horror

Multimedia

Graphic

Romance

Political

Experimental





Fiction writing careers


Writing fiction isn’t just novels and short stories. Any kind of imaginative writing that isn’t a precise reflection of real events is, to some degree, fiction. Here’s a list of careers that can be characterized as “fiction” writing. We address most of them elsewhere in the book; for our purposes here just recognize the breadth of this type of work—some of which pay very, very well.

Joke writer

Screenwriter

Humorist

Stand-up comic

Romance novelist

Science fiction writer

Novelist

Poet

Monologist

Dramatist playwright





Career: The good


Being a fiction writer is the greatest career imaginable—with the potential for money, fame, respect, and admiration, and a chance at near-immortality.

You get to live your own life, use your imagination to its fullest on a daily basis, and not have to answer to a boss.

When someone asks what you do for a living, even if you are broke and currently living in your car, you get to say, “I’m a novelist.”





Career: The bad


Making a career as a fiction requires considerable talent (though not as much as you may imagine) and a lot of work (a lot more than you imagine).

The various fields are all highly competitive, and your counterparts can be pretty ruthless. Everybody, it seems, wants to be a famous novelist—and there’s probably only a dozen slots available for every million dreamers.

It’s very hard to make a living as a fiction writer. If you make it to the top as a novelist or playwright there are a lot of riches available in the form of royalties, speaking fees, grants, etc. For everybody else, it is a desperate struggle.

In the face of those odds, you will likely give up—and return to the real world of real jobs—disappointed and having lost valuable time.





Turning points


When you are starving and decide you can’t make the good fight anymore and give up.

When you decide to go all in and become a fiction writer no matter what obstacles stand in your way.

When you publish that first novel that gets blistering reviews and you are forced to take stock of your future.

When you are successful and the world moves on, with a younger generation stealing the attention that used to be yours.





The craft of fiction writing


Getting set up: There is a tendency, when a plot or character captures your imagination, to just start writing in a creative fever. Sometimes that can be successful with a short story—but rarely even then. But it is a terrible strategy when writing a novel. A novel is not a sprint, but a marathon. You need to plan ahead and pace yourself. Rush into a novel and you are likely to have to retrace your steps because you run into problems of logic and continuity that must be fixed—and will stop you dead. And even if you do manage to fix those problems on the fly, you are still going to burn out at some point.

Instead, think before you start. You don’t need to outline every step in your plot and every nuance of character and setting, but at least have a good idea of all of those things so there aren’t any big plot holes. You also don’t have to have the perfect ending yet, but at least have an idea of an ending to your novel.

Find your story. Get in the habit of making up plots. Do it all the time in your head. You are a storyteller, this is what you do; so strengthen that muscle. Here’s how: Start with the germ of an idea. Something you’ve read or seen or heard. It might be a news story, an incident from your family’s history, an anecdote someone has told you, and so on.

Extrapolate that idea into a larger story. There is no rule that says you must adhere to the original story. In fact, it is usually better if you don’t. Real life isn’t neat, and events don’t fit into a distinct plot but are embedded into the rest of life. Fiction has a beginning, middle, and end; it has a structure; and it has meaning. This is as true for the literary anecdote as it is for the novel. If you don’t have those things, the story you are devising isn’t complete.

Look for logical holes. Go through your storyline, think about your characters, and examine the world you are creating. Are they real? Are they internally consistent—even fantasy must have an internal logic. Characters are allowed to have contradictions—that’s real life—but their dominant traits must be aligned with the plot. As for the setting: can you imagine yourself living in that world?

Find alternatives and move on. If you do find logical holes, develop some work-arounds. Sometimes these inconsistencies will resolve themselves as you write, but don’t trust that to luck—plan ahead. Try to solve all of your big problems in advance.

Don’t sweat the little stuff. If you’ve solved the big problems with plot, character, and setting, move on. The little things—the color of the protagonist’s hair, the details of the village in which the story takes place—you can resolve when you get to them. Don’t let the little stuff stop you from getting to work—or worse, let it become an excuse for not getting to work.

Be critical of yourself. Try not to fall in love with every story you come up with, but if you do fall in love that may be a good sign to write that one. Even if you have developed the complete narrative of a novel, challenge yourself before you begin. Ask yourself: is this the story I want to spend hundreds of hours over the next six months on? Trust that you will come up with other, maybe better ideas.





Write down a brief plot summary. This summary does not need to be long, just a couple of pages. But set down key turning points before you forget them. If you want to describe key characters or the setting, write that down too. See if the story you’ve just written still looks good on paper. Add to the summary as new ideas come to you. Finally, only use this summary as a reminder; if the demands of the story change as you write it, go with that new trajectory.

Keep notes: Keep a notebook and pen nearby at all times—in your car, on your desk, on your nightstand. When you are inspired, write down any scenes or bits of dialog or story that come to you. Don’t assume that you will remember them—you won’t, and you’ll have to replace them with other writing that never seems as good. And don’t put off writing those notes—even if they pop into your brain at 3 a.m., or at a stoplight, or during dinner—they’ll disappear with the next distraction. As you write the novel, keep those notes nearby, organized in the order of the plot, and don’t forget to regularly refer to them so you don’t overlook them.





The writing process


As has been repeated throughout this textbook, writing is writing; a sentence written for a press release is the same as that written for a book. That said, there are some differences with fiction writing that have to do less with the words than the actual writing process itself. In particular, fiction writing tends to be more intense and focused. That’s not to say that nonfiction writing isn’t that way, but it is usually a lot easier to stop writing, do something else, and then get back to writing. You also tend to go “deeper” creatively with fiction—and once you’re on a roll you don’t want to stop for fear of leaving that imaginative space.

Keeping that in mind, here are some suggestions for making the fiction writing experience easier and healthier [Needless to say, you can use them for other types of writing as well.]

A comfortable seat with back support. Take it from someone who slumped in an old wing chair every day for three years: get a good ergonomic chair that provides lumbar support and reinforces proper posture. Don’t scrimp on price: you are going to be in that chair for much of the next few years.

Proper keyboard and monitor position. As noted earlier, carpal tunnel syndrome is a writer’s worst nightmare. When your wrist is screaming in pain it’s hard to concentrate on your writing. Also as noted, most writers purchase special keyboards (or buy laptops with quality keyboards) that are “positive tactile feedback”—they click when pressed—rather than touch keys. Both will improve your speed and accuracy. Writers, almost uniquely, wear the tops off the keys before they wear out the rest of their computers.

Get up and walk around once per hour. This is for the same reason you get up and walk around on an airplane: circulation, the danger of blood clots, long-term circulatory health. A novel will take you thousands of hours to write—so get up and move around.

Don’t write too much in any given session (unless it’s going easily). This one is tricky. The rule of thumb is to not write more than an hour or two of original content on any given day. If you try to push yourself too much you will burn out or break down—and in the end write fewer total hours. That said, if the words are coming fast and you are afraid to stop, then push on. But the moment you lose that momentum, walk away from the computer. Use the rest of the day for editing. [Note that this disagrees with some famous writers who say you should write all day long. Frankly, I don’t know how they do it. Find your own endurance point.]

Try not to miss a single day, even if you only work for a few minutes. Momentum is everything. If you are working on a work of fiction, don’t stop until you are done. If it is a short story, then try to write it in one sitting. If a short story, in a matter of days. A novel: seven days per week for as long as it takes. There are several reasons for this. First, it enables you to stay on top of the plot; a few days off and you may forget entire twists and subplots. Continuity also helps you stay in close touch with your characters and their motivations. Finally, in the context of your text, you can remember how to navigate around.

Set a baseline standard for a typical day’s session (say, 1000 words). Writing a novella or novel is like writing a nonfiction book: .find your pace, and whatever it is—500 words per day, 1,000 words per day—stick with it day after day. The goal is to finish the book in the same shape as you began. If you can’t hit your daily mark, don’t sweat it—and don’t try to make up the lost ground the next day. If you push too hard you will pay for it later. On the other hand, if you set your pace and then make it a habit over the weeks and months the act of completing your book will be surprisingly painless.

Get a sheet of paper, or whiteboard, or bulletin board and record or stick up all of your notes. Most of the details of plot, character, and setting can be kept in your head with shorter works; but with a novella or novel, there is just too much to keep track of. So, just as with a nonfiction book when you organize your notes in an accessible way, with fiction you’ll want to keep track of your story elements in a manner that’s clear and at hand.

As new ideas come to you, write them down and put them up there too. You’ll never be able to come up with every detail of a book ahead of time. And even if you could, it’s pretty rare for the book you finish to be precisely the book you planned when you started. New, and sometimes better, story directions will come to you as you progress along. These epiphanies can come to you at any time—and if you try to remember them you will be disappointed. So, write them down. Immediately; even if it’s on tissue paper or the money in your wallet. Never assume you will remember later.

Back up everything you write. We discussed this with nonfiction books, and it is just as true here (maybe more): get an app for your computer that will automatically save everything you write, as you write, and from every draft. Your memory storage can be on the computer (worst choice), on a peripheral hard drive (better choice), or on the Cloud (best choice).

Don’t let the writing get stalled by a word or term you are stuck on. Your goal should be to reach your daily quota of words. And sometimes that means powering through any obstacles that writing puts up before you. For example, you may get stuck on a word or fact or name—it’s on the tip of your tongue—and you could probably find it if you put in enough time searching on the Web. But doing so will also break your train of thought and cost you precious minutes or even that day’s work. When that happens, just type in a “TK”—the editing term for “to come”—in the place of the missing word and move on. Come back to it later. It will often come easily then—and won’t interrupt your work.





Narrative


Inhabit the world you are creating: If the place where your story or novel takes place isn’t real in your mind, it won’t be so to your readers either. Before you start writing, imagine it in detail; walk its streets, picture the buildings, landscape, and inhabitants.

Visualize the major characters. Picture them in your mind. What is their appearance? How do they speak? How do they behave in everyday life? How will they act under stress? How do they interact with each other?

Understand the cultural and physical setting. What are the customs of the people in your story? How do they behave toward each other and toward outsiders? What is the climate like—rainy dry, torrid, or frozen? What is the dominant religion? What is the history of the region? The ethnicity of the people?

Remember that the plot must be logical, The laws of physics, causality, and logic are universal in this corner of the universe. So don’t violate them—unless you specifically explain why those violations are taking place. Don’t take causal leaps that are so great that your readers can’t fill in the gaps. If you violate logic you will confuse your readers and risk losing them.





Editing


Don’t let editing get in the way of writing. If you have to, write all the way through, then go back.

That said, try to edit as you create. Reread each sentence or paragraph quickly after you write it. Does it make sense? Read aloud in your head for continuity, transitions, and to check for run-on sentences. But keep writing.

When you’ve completed the piece, put it aside for a week or two, then return to it fresh and with new eyes.

On your first pass at editing, read the work all of the way through, concentrating on continuity, pacing, and flow. Keep an eye out for unexpected changes in the characters and their behavior, plot holes, and contradictions in the surrounding “world.”

For later rounds of editing, set out a block of time to edit. Try to get a sizable chunk of the work done in each session to maintain continuity.

Priorities (in order of importance).

Macro Overall theme—Is it coherent and consistent with the real world?

Overall structure—Is it consistent?

Does the text have a continuous, logical arc?

Is the text complete in resolving all plot elements?

Are the chapters themselves internally logical?

Do the chapters contribute to the overall arc of the narrative?

Are the characters well-defined and consistent all of the way through?

Do they speak distinctly and in the same manner all of the way through?

Do your descriptions of settings and actions contradict themselves?

Does your pivotal event in the plot follow from what comes before?

Do you leave any important narrative threads hanging?





Micro Use a red pen or pencil for visibility

Put check marks on the margin for the location of edits

Circle your edits when possible

Look for noun-verb disagreements

Check capital nouns

Break up long paragraphs and long sentences

Write down separately the spellings of key characters and place names—make sure they are consistent throughout the text

Kill exclamation points (except in quotes) and clichés

Incorporate your edits and quickly read the entire text

Edit as you create. Reread each sentence or paragraph quickly after you write it. Does it make sense? If you do not know a fact—leave a “TK” designation to remind you to search for the answer later. Read aloud in your head for continuity, transitions and to check for run-on sentences

When completed, put it aside if you can. If under a tight deadline, then focus upon the lede, key points, quotes, and spellings of the name. If under a long deadline, put the work aside for a week or two, then return to it fresh and with new eyes

If editing someone else, read the work all of the way through

Set out a block of time to edit, try to get a sizable chunk of the work done in each session to maintain continuity





Other tricks


Develop some simple rituals to get you in the writing mood and shift the side of your brain in use to creative over empirical. Say aloud “fiction”—cognitive scientists have found that it works.

Have a cup of tea or coffee while you think about the day’s writing content.

Shift location: designate a fiction writing place for yourself.





Launch a day’s work by reading what you wrote the day before.

Force yourself to begin, even if you aren’t happy with what you first write. Tell yourself that you can fix it later.

Leave each day’s writing with a clue or start to what you will write the next day.

If for some reason –and it better be a good reason—you miss a few days, or even weeks, read a longer section of what you’ve written to get your momentum back.

Don’t sweat dialog—polish it later. Just get it down quickly, as if you are overhearing it.

If you finish a chapter and haven’t done your word quota for the day, start the next chapter. Or, stop, but put down notes about how to start the new chapter. Never stretch out a chapter ending just to achieve your daily quota.

Don’t spend too much time on description. That’s what amateurs do, and it slows the narrative. Move on with the plot. You can fix descriptions later (and you probably won’t want to).

Keep reading other stuff while you are writing—even if it influences your writing, it’ll probably be for the good.

Don’t write drunk or high. You’ll think you are a genius—but you won’t be. Even famously alcoholic writers only wrote well when they were sober.

Stay healthy—eat well, get enough sleep. The months you spend on a book can be debilitating.

Don’t tell other people you are writing a book. You may abandon it—and your embarrassment will make it harder to write the next book. Worse, your friends may press you to finish a book that you don’t want to continue. Tell everyone (other than your agent and editor) only when you are done.

Celebrate the completion of your book. Have a party, buy yourself a gift, go out for a nice dinner. These moments only come along a few times in a life—enjoy them.

Real writers publish. You don’t get to act like a writer until you are one.





Writing a novel


Finding the plot


The plot is the story—and a story has a beginning, middle, and end—though not always in that order. A great plot forgives almost every other weakness in storytelling.

Do you need the plot before you start? Almost always. You need to know where you are going—even if you never get there. Here’s what you need to do every time you write fiction:

Write out your plot, including the key turning points

Keep it with you as you write

Revise as needed.



The plot defines your narrative pace. Don’t get in its way or get too far ahead.

In practice, the plot is both the spine and the orientation of the work. All fiction must have a direction—it must start somewhere and end somewhere, even if nothing happens. Joseph Heller’s Something Happened is a book in which essentially nothing happens—nevertheless, it has a shape and form and it exhibits momentum. Even the most experimental work has a plot of some kind even if it is not immediately apparent.





Why do we have plots?


It is the nature of fiction to organize and simplify reality; so, in creating fiction we need an organizing principle to do this.

We are chordates and vertebrates, we’re bipeds and we are bilaterally symmetrical—so we see the universe as balanced and meaningful, and as a series of paths to be taken. As intelligent creatures, we also see life as a series of decisions based on limited information. And as conscious animals, we try to approach reality by seeing in a detached, omniscient way. We search for conclusions. And we try to organize and simplify nature in order to learn from it.

Time is linear and it has direction. The world we experience is finite—it has a start, duration, and end.



What constitutes a plot? It is a record of change over time.

Change requires conflict: physical, emotional, and existential. A complete work of fiction requires the resolution of its defining conflict—i.e., “Okay, so what finally happened?”

Traditional construction of a work of fiction:





Rising action


Introduction/setting

Introduce characters

Establish status quo

Introduce defining challenge

Spin out conflict





Climax


Resolution of that conflict

Impact





Closure


Aftermath/anticlimax





Conclusion/continuation


Coda

Postscript





Type of plots


Aristotle, in his Poetics says there are two different “change types” and three different “character types.” Of the change types, there is the tragic plot, which features a movement or change between good and bad fortune. That is, change that begins in good fortune and ends in bad fortune. His description of the second type, the comedy plot, is change that begins in bad fortune and ends in good fortune, has been lost to history, and is typically replaced by status quo—bad luck—good fortune/happy ending.

The three possible “character types” are the characters of “decent” people—people “outstanding in excellence and justice”; “evil people”; and the “in-between man.”

Of the six logically possible outcomes, Aristotle lists only four. Aristotle contends in Poetics 13 that the most desirable plot involves an in-between person who changes from good to bad fortune, due to hamartia, “error.” Ranked from worst to best, by Aristotle, these are the four logical possibilities of pathos, or “appeal to the emotions”:

A pathos is about to occur, with knowledge, but does not occur.

A pathos occurs, with knowledge.

A pathos occurs, in ignorance.

A pathos is about to occur, in ignorance, but does not occur.



Okay, so that’s the classical view. A more modern view is that there are a finite number of story types spun out in an almost infinite number of ways. Here are some of the best-known:

Boy meets girl, boy loses girls, boy regains girl

The low raised up—late: justice served, early: hubris punished

The high brought low—restored and ever wiser, or replaced by the more worthy

A misunderstanding creates conflict

A new arrival threatens the established order: marriage, family, community, group

A person leaves for an adventure, and returns forever changed

A miscommunication or accidental comment tears apart a relationship

A successful person isn’t who he or she seems

A person tries to survive great events

A tiny action or decision destroys everything

An obsession ruins a character’s life, or achieves justice

A bad person is redeemed by a good act



When do you abandon a plot? When you realize that characters wouldn’t do what you’ve planned for them. That’s not an excuse to improvise, but a demand that you rewrite the rest of your plot.





Point of view


What is a point of view?

The position of the narrator in relation to the story, as indicated by the narrator’s outlook from which the events are depicted and by the attitude toward the characters.

The lens through which the author allows the reader to see and hear what’s going on in a created world.

The manner in which a story is narrated or depicted.



Point of view is not the piece’s “style,” nor is it the author’s “voice”—though it may inform the nature of both.

Every work of art has a point of view—writing no less than others.

There are essentially four points of view: inside out, outside, and outside in. We call these first person, third person, and the eye of God. To this we add two states of knowledge: limited and omniscient. Then, we can add two perspectives: objective and subjective. Finally, we can include two modifiers: trustworthy or untrustworthy.

If you know your combinatorics, that gives you 32 different points of view—though God is always omniscient and truthful, so that reduces the number to 30.

So, the question becomes: Which point of view should you select? The answer to that is: Whichever one works best—and by that we mean: which point of view best serves the style, the subject, and most of all, the purpose of your story? Which POV will yield the best aesthetic result?

There is a second, subordinate, but no less important question: Which point of view do you think you can pull off? That’s not an idle question. As an author, can you maintain 250 pages of putting yourself inside the head of an eighteenth century, planter class, white, 14-year-old girl? How about telling the story of a Roman Legionnaire from the perspective of his charming, but sociopathic fellow soldier?

So, in the end you need to conduct a mental calculation—an equation that combines the best POV for the story with your ability to maintain that POV. And sometimes, you just have to make some compromises.

A simple test: when you devised your story, what POV did you take? That’s probably the best one for you. That said, you should at least look at alternative POVs to see if they might be more effective or provide you with a more compelling challenge.

The natural POV most writers take is limited omniscience. Why? It enables you to move the whole story ahead while still maintaining a comparatively narrow perspective. It also keeps the eye steady—you pretty much stay with one person and not jump around into other people’s heads. You also, like the character, are unable to see far into the future—and thus the resolution can come as a surprise.





POV advantages


1st person—really fleshes out the character, adds mystery

Limited omniscience—the natural human storytelling style, because told post facto

Omniscience—you can have fun with different narratives, perspectives, etc.

2nd person—very rare (Bright Lights, Big City). Odd forced quality, disguised first person.





POV disadvantages


1st person—limited view of what’s going on; hard to describe anything

Limited omniscience—everybody does it, author needs to take command

Omniscience—too much distancing from the characters, loss of the randomness of real life

The limited palette—taking away things forces a discipline on the author that can be advantageous.





POV examples


Great 1st person—Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, Raymond Carver novels, most detective and crime novels. Catcher in the Rye.

Great limited omniscience—Don Quixote, Just about every movie you’ve ever seen, most science fiction, most comic novels (Confederacy of Dunces).

Omniscience—giant novels: Dickens, War and Peace, Gravity’s Rainbow.





Setting and Mis en scene


Definition of MISE-EN-SCÈNE:


The arrangement of actors and scenery on a stage for a theatrical production

The physical setting in the real world of an action (as with a narrative or a motion picture)

Context; mileu



What is setting in fiction? The setting is where the narrative takes place. The setting can either serve as a backdrop, or be an active agent in the story.

Setting can take many forms (and these can be mixed and matched):

A natural space—woods, ocean, outer space (The Martian Chronicles)

A constructed space—city, town, classroom (“The Paper Chase”)

A cultural or social space—church, shelter, refugee camp, family, village (“Our Town”)

A historical space—Killer Angels (Gettysburg), Romeo and Juliet (Verona)

A confined space—prison cell, hospital room (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest)

A psychological space—mental illness, hallucinations, Johnny Got His Gun the Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Under the Volcano



Setting changes with the narrative. It does so in two ways:

Externally—the setting can move to a new location.

Internally—the setting can be changed by events in a single location.



Advantages of a confined setting:

It is more like drama.

There is minimal need for description.

It throws characters into a tight close-up,

It provides a narrative focus,

It lends itself to allegory.



Disadvantages of a confined setting:

Starkness,

A loss of the richness of existence in the natural world,

It is hard to move the action along because it is all self-generated by the characters.



Advantages of an expansive setting:

It places the narrative in a real world,

It can draw upon larger themes.

The narrative can be helped along by larger external/cultural/historical events.

It acts as a telescope versus a microscope.

Readers feel like observers, not scientists.



Disadvantages of an expansive setting:

The characters can get lost in the landscape.

It requires the distraction of a whole lot more description.

Big events can seem more important than either the characters or the story.





Creating a setting


They key to a memorable setting for a story is in creating verisimilitude—that is, authenticity and detail that enables the reader to suspend disbelief. How it’s done:

Presence—This is the backdrop. The world in place and time in which the narrative is occurring. Crucial features: Know your readers—What do they already know that you can leave out, what are they likely not to know that you need to provide?

Economy—Pulling back to the long view takes the reader away from the characters and story. So, keep these descriptions as brief as possible.

Metaphor—Here’s the place to use them. Go for something unexpected, but illuminating.





Foreground—What are the precise physical details the reader knows to get a feel for the setting? Location details

Salient details for the narrative





Action—What is going on at this location at this moment in time? A busy street in 1890? A party in Rome in 311? A group of surfers at Maverick’s waiting for waves in 2015? From the characters’ physical location in a story, what can they see going on around them?

Where in this action are the actual events that will unfold in the narrative?





Expertise—How is the action actually occurring? Can you name the precise acts, in sequence? The right tools or instruments? The larger expertise? Can you name the items within this action? Brands? Read Hemingway’s story “Big Two Hearted River,” nothing obvious is going on (fishing), but every action is freighted with psychological meaning.

The critical detail—Can you find that single image/object/action in the setting that puts it all together—that captures the heart of the narrative, or where it is going? Can you find a metaphor that captures the underlying mood of the narrative? Is there one bit of background dialog, or piece of insider knowledge, that makes the story’s setting real in place and time and sets the stage for the story to unfold?





Finding the balance


This is the hardest part of the scene setting. How much should you describe to get the narrative going? How much should you add along the way? There is no easy answer to this. But there are rules of thumb:

Provide enough setting so that the reader sees a 3D world and can suspend his or her natural disbelief.

Imagine your targeted reader and determine how much they already know and need to know about the setting.

Provide enough detail so that the reader understands the physical space in which the action is taking place.

Use the right words to set the mood and reader’s expectations. Search for the perfect image.

Edit, edit, edit. Don’t provide more description and setting than is absolutely necessary.

Use the setting as a stage to introduce your characters.

Every time your narrative changes location, provide new stage‑setting descriptions—but try to provide less with each change.

Use extraneous dialog and action to help provide a feeling for the reality of the setting.

Detail is your friend, always use a precise term or wording or brand name to ground your description in the real world.





Bringing it all together


Writing that creates a setting that itself is freighted, via details, powerful imagery, and an underlying narrative, is one of the most powerful (and celebrated) achievements of the literary arts. Here, are several examples of powerful scene setting, the first two from a famed mystery writer and a third from a legendary prose stylist:

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Ana’s that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.



Red Wind (Raymond Chandler)

“Bunker Hill is old town, lost town, shabby town, crook town. Once, very long ago, it was the choice residential district of the city, and there are still standing a few of the jigsaw Gothic mansions with wide porches and walls covered with round-end shingles and full corner bay windows with spindle turrets. They are all rooming houses now, their parquetry floors are scratched and worn through the once glossy finish and the wide sweeping staircases are dark with time and with cheap varnish laid on over generations of dirt. In the tall rooms haggard landladies bicker with shifty tenants. On the wide cool front porches, reaching their cracked shoes into the sun, and staring at nothing, sit the old men with faces like lost battles.

In and around the old houses there are flyblown restaurants and Italian fruit stands and cheap apartment houses and little candy stores where you can buy even nastier things than their candy. And there are ratty hotels where nobody except people named Smith and Jones sign the register and where the night clerk is half watchdog and half pander.

Out of the apartment houses come women who should be young but have faces like stale beer; men with pulled-down hats and quick eyes that look the street over behind the cupped hand that shields the match flame; worn intellectuals with cigarette coughs and no money in the bank; fly cops with granite faces and unwavering eyes; cookies and coke peddlers; people who look like nothing in particular and know it, and once in a while even men that actually go to work. But they come out early, when the wide cracked sidewalks are empty and still have dew on them”



The High Window (Raymond Chandler)

:In the late summer of that year we lived in a house

in a village that looked across the river and the plain to

the mountains. In the bed of the river there were peb-

bles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the

water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the

channels. Troops went by the house and down the road

and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the

trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the

leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops march-

ing along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred

by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and

afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.

The plain was rich with crops; there were many

orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the moun-

tains were brown and bare. There was fighting in the

mountains and at night we could see the flashes from

the artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning,

but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling

of a storm coming.”



A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)





Characterization


A character is a living figure whose existence or actions in some way affects the plot of a work of fiction. A character can make a contribution to the development of a narrative merely by existing or by advancing the story in almost every scene.





Hierarchy of character types


Protagonist: the leading character, hero, or heroine of a story. Typically, the individual with whom we identify, who changes the most in a positive way by the events of the plot, and who emerges as the victor of the story’s climactic events.

Antagonist: the leading character, villain, or enemy who stands in opposition or contention against the protagonist. Typically, the character we identify as the “bad guy,” the negative force, or—positively—the individual who challenges the protagonist to become better, wiser, smarter, or more experienced. The antagonist is typically the figure who forces the narrative to its climax and is in some way defeated, overcome, or exceeded by the protagonist.

Subsidiary protagonists: characters who operate in the orbit—as allies, confederates, and advisors—of the protagonist. These subsidiary characters typically take several forms:

Inner circle: Family, close friends, or disciples of the protagonist with whom the protagonist can share emotions, fears, and so on, and can give deep trust.

Outer circle: Characters who are generally in support of the protagonist; who can provide aid and comfort, but who otherwise do little to advance the plot. Outer circle characters are generally less trustworthy than inner circle members.

Mentors: Older, wiser, or at least more experienced characters who can provide guidance and advice to the antagonist. These characters are typically used sparingly as they can turn the plot mechanistic. In some stories, the antagonist must break with the mentor and his or her advice in order to progress and succeed.



Subsidiary antagonists: characters who operate in the orbit of the antagonist. They typically take three forms:

Confederates: Those who work as lieutenants, partners, superiors, and so on to the antagonist.

Henchmen: Those who execute the antagonist’s desires.

Spies: Those individuals who, knowingly or unknowingly provide useful information to the antagonists.



Secondary characters: Figures in the story who are neither for nor against the protagonist but who somehow advance the plot. These are often figures of authority: attorneys, judges, doctors, police, bureaucrats, teachers. These individuals may also serve as a synecdoche for larger institutions (the desk sergeant for police authority).

Tertiary characters: Figures who advance the plot as:

Eyewitnesses to events;

Commentators

Aids to plot transitions

Crowds

Vox populi



Rule of thumb: Higher level characters (protagonist, antagonist, inner circle, confederates) require the most complex and precise descriptions. Lower-level characters can be captured in a line or two. Tertiary characters can sometimes not be described at all or with a simple adjective or two.





How to characterize?


Go for the greatest amount of descriptive information in the fewest words

Don’t slow down the text

Present a compact message to create a coherent whole

Come up with that unforgettable mental image



Describe early, typically at the character’s first appearance—otherwise, you create confusion in the reader’s mind as the unresolved question: Who is this person? Should I know them?





Sources of characterization


Visual: hair color, length, and style, shape of face, shape of features, eye color, identifying marks, figure, hand shape, foot size, asymmetries, height, weight, healthfulness (skin pallor), race, ethnicity (haircut, etc.), glasses.

Auditory: voice range, pitch, and color, vocal mannerisms, region accent, sound of movement (scuffle)

Verbalization: vocabulary, grammar, long or short sentences, languid or excited style

Tactile: skin color, hand grip, hair softness, callouses, skin softness, texture of usual clothing, body warmth

Odor: Sweat, perfume, natural skin smell, hair smell, clothing smell, hand smell (denoting type of work), breath

Skeletal: stance, asymmetries, body morphology, paralyzes

Muscular: overall health and strength, muscle size

Locomotion: stride and gait, foot landing, quick-motioned or lethargic and slow, limps and hitches. Nervous tics and repetitive motions (hand-wringing, teeth grinding, etc.)

Nerves: Anxiousness, coolness, jumpiness, rapid involuntary movement, irrationality, paranoia, shyness, boldness.

Decoration: Simple or elaborate, rings, bracelets, piercings, necklaces, and so on.

Clothing: Tasteful or garish, trendy or traditional, fabric types to denote class, modest or designed to draw attention. Coordinated or confused. Branding, slogans. Shoe type. Coat type. Hat type.

Personality: Alpha aggressive, beta easy going, or omega fearful and reticent; talkative or taciturn; well-read or ignorant, opinionated or passive, political or apolitical, strident or accommodating.

History: Veteran, leader, victim, successful, failure, contented or frustrated, traumatized or triumphant, chronic illness.





Rules for characterization


Try to capture the person in as few words as possible

Use all your senses

Try not to judge, but let the details convey the truth

Take extra time on the protagonist, make sure he or she is truly 3D in the mind of the reader, such that the reader can readily predict what the character will do next

Learn to like your characters, good and bad, and give them their due. Remember Flannery O’Connor’s remark that the terrible thing about this world is that everyone has their reasons



“His herringbone suit had a slight benzine odor which showed it was just fresh from the cleaners. He had worn it very little though it was four years old and now it was tight in the waist and shoulders, but not too tight. It was not a bad-looking suit at all and in fact it made him look rather like one of those suburban husbands you often saw in advertising illustrations, a whimsically comical man who peeked naively out of the corners of his eyes at his jolly and amazed little wife who was making a new kind of beaten biscuits.”



Point of No Return, J. P. Marquand





Dialog and the fictional voice


What is Dialog?—For our purposes, there are two definitions:

The conversation between characters in a novel, drama, etc.—These conversations are embedded within a larger narrative and help to move it along.

A work of fiction composed entirely of conversation—The conversations are the narrative, that is, the Dialogs of Socrates. Variant: Epistletory stories and novels (Pamela) in which letters replace spoken words.



Crucial point: Dialog in fiction is necessarily synthetic. It is designed to mimic real conversation, yet should not copy it. Fictional dialog should more resemble poetry—that is, all of the superfluous content needs to be cut out. The lesson they teach screenwriters: Dialog should have the swing of everyday talk, but content well above normal.





What makes great dialog?


Distinction—Everyone is different, and so everyone should speak differently. Even men and women of very similar backgrounds speak differently in terms of emphasis, verb forms, references, and so on.

Expertise—The use of certain technical terms establishes a character in a certain profession or with a particular skill set.

Location—Every word a character says should locate them in place and time—accent, colloquialisms, jargon, fad phrases, regionalisms, personality, and so on.

Brevity—In real life, some people talk forever. We call them boors. Don’t let your characters be boorish—unless it is intentional, and even then you need to maintain control.

Amplification—Every word your character speaks, especially in a play or short story, should either drive the narrative forward or tell the reader something more about that character. It’s not a bad rule for novels.

History—Dialog should provide insight into the history of the speakers, their experiences, especially with each other.

Absence—What is left unsaid. If you have already presented a matter or conflict between two people, not mentioning that conflict in a subsequent dialog can increase tension.

Misapprehension—Showing two people in a dialog not understanding the other can be a good launchpad for future conflict.

Encoding—Not addressing a conflict, but replacing it with an alternative less conflict can enhance the plot.

Explanation and summation—A quick way to make sure your reader is keeping on track is to have a character summarize the events to that point, or explain to another character what is going on.

Confession and Expiation (Atonement)—Dialog is the best way to bring an unresolved conflict to the surface: “I’ve always loved you,” “I’ve never forgiven you,” “I despise myself for what I did,” “I confess to the murder,” and so on. Often used as the climax of a story.





Tricks to good dialog


Put yourself in each character’s shoes as they speak. Think like them. Know them.

After you write it, read it out loud. Does it sound real?

Plot it out—where are the stresses? Is there a rhythm? A regional music?

Stay away from awkward, colloquial spellings.

Tighten, tighten, tighten. Brevity is your friend.

Cut out superfluities—again, if it doesn’t characterize or advance the plot, cut it out.

Devote twice as much time to editing dialog as you do the rest of the narrative.

Occasionally use your characters’ dialog to help readers keep up.

Never write it if you can get your characters to say it.

“Dialog only has to be true to the world of your narrative” (Calvin and Hobbes).

Lay off exclamations as much as possible.





Examples:


Raymond Chandler (again)

“She laughed suddenly and sharply and went halfway through the door, then turned her head to say coolly”: “You’re as cold-blooded a beast as I ever met, Marlowe. Or can I call you Phil?”

“Sure.”

“You can call me Vivian.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Regan.”

“Oh go to hell, Marlowe.” She went on out and didn’t look back.

JD Salinger:

“Hey, Selena ”

“What?” asked Selena, who was busy feeling the floor of the cab with her hand. “I can’t find the cover to my racket!” she moaned.

Despite the warm May weather, both girls were wearing topcoats over their shorts.

“You put it in your pocket,” Ginnie said. “Hey, listen—”

“Oh, God! You saved my life!”

“Listen,” said Ginnie, who wanted no part of Selena’s gratitude.

“What?”

Ginnie decided to come right out with it. The cab was nearly at Selena’s street. “I don’t feel like getting stuck with the whole cab fare again today,” she said. “I’m no millionaire, ya know.”

William Shakespeare:

HAMLET

How came he mad?

First Clown

Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET

How strangely?

First Clown

Faith, e’en with losing his wits.

HAMLET

Upon what ground?

First Clown

Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

HAMLET

How long will a man lie i’ the earth ere he rot?

First Clown

I’ faith, if he be not rotten before he die—as we have many pocky corpses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in—he will last you some eight year or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.

HAMLET

Why he more than another?

First Clown

Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.

Here’s a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years.

HAMLET

Whose was it?

First Clown

A whoreson mad fellow’s it was: whose do you think it was?

HAMLET

Nay, I know not.

First Clown

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a’ poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the king’s jester.

HAMLET

This?

First Clown

E’en that.

HAMLET

Let me see.

Takes the skull

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow

of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath

borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how

abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at

it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know

not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your

gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,

that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one

now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let

her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must

come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell

me one thing.

HORATIO

What’s that, my lord?

HAMLET

Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’

the earth?

HORATIO

E’en so.

HAMLET

And smelt so? pah!

Puts down the skull

HORATIO

E’en so, my lord.

HAMLET

To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may

not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,

till he find it stopping a bung-hole?





Execution: Finding the balance


How long should a work of fiction be? Two answers: As long as it needs to be to get its story across

As long as it maintains the reader’s attention and interest





Let’s look at each in turn:

As long as it needs to be: In other words, how long does it take to tell the complete story? Defined by:

The complexity of the story Number of twists and turns to the main story

Duration of the story

The larger context—Les Miserables, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Life and Fate (Grossman)

Number of sub-narratives





The level of detail required—Gravity’s Rainbow, JR (Gaddis), Moby Dick.

Amount of dialog—Pamela.



As long as it maintains the reader’s attention: How long can you keep the reader delighted or focused or in rapt anticipation?

Interesting characters

Complex plot

Gathering threat or comic release.



How should you balance the plots of a work of fiction? — 50 percent or more should be the main story

— 20 percent or less should be each of the secondary stories (Telamachus, Dumbledore and Snape, Starbuck and Ahab)

— Usually no more than two secondary plots, and never overlapping





Balance of scene, description, action, and dialog a.What drives the story—large events? Then mis en scene plays a major part. —Main character’s behavior? Then action

—Main character’s personality or character? Then dialog

—The story? Then plot

—The mood? Then description





The easiest way to do this is to exert discipline on all of the nondominant parts—that is, edit heavily on description and secondary plot, but lighter on dialog or action in the main plot.

A story is like a song, a novel is like a symphony. The story has a single melody, two verses, a bridge, and big close (i.e., rising action, counterpoint or change in viewpoint or style, then climax). A novel has an overall theme and direction, but can also have multiple movements, counterpoint, multiple tones and different instrumentation, varied tempo, overtures, intermezzos, and a closing coda. A good novelist takes advantage of many of these, a great novelist uses all of them.

Again, human beings are wired to respond to another person’s voice, so if you see three or more pages of narrative description or action, find an excuse to insert some dialog, or at least an internal monologue.

Control the reader by controlling the pace: use dialog and quick cut action to speed up the narrative, use description and detailed action to slow it down. If possible, alternate these forms at ever‑greater frequency as you move through the plot.

Give characters complexity: even contradiction, at the beginning of the narrative, but simplicity and purity of action at the end.

Presage the end at the beginning through simple symbols or bits of dialog. But don’t be heavy-handed or give the conclusion away.





Chapter breaks


Good—by length

Better—by plot turns

Best—by the demands of narrative velocity



Chapter titles—Not necessary. But if you use them, be elliptical or witty. Don’t give away the chapter ahead of time.

Story title—Use it to make the sale to the reader.

Novel title—Use it to either name the overall theme or the main character. Okay to have one when you start, but assume it will have changed by the time you finish. Trust others to help you with the final title.

Feel free to change character names, but search and replace all variants—then go through the text to make sure there are no orphans.





CHAPTER 16 Academic Writing


Until now we have largely been discussing writing careers in the commercial world. In this chapter, we’ll take a break from that thread and look at an alternative writing career—one that may not carry the same potential for fame but can actually be more financially rewarding, stable, and fulfilling than what we think of as “professional writing”: academic writing.

Like many writers, the author (without really knowing it) reached a decision point in his writing career in the months before his undergraduate college graduation. In one direction stretched toward the commercial world; in the other, graduate school and a life in academia.

I barely gave it a thought: I wanted to be a writer, not a professor. And so, I went to work in corporate public relations; then after four years, became a newspaperman. I never looked back until decades later, when I finally did become an adjunct professor (and decades after that, a graduate student again). And it was only then, as I looked at the life of a college professor up close—and even more when I finally identified the sophisticated parallel universe of academic publishing—that I began to wonder if I had made a terrible mistake all of those years before.

The author will try to present this other world as objectively as possible—though you may notice a bit of bias—a combination of envy and amusement—creeping in.





Definition of the academic track


This is the pathway by which writers establish a career by positioning themselves within academia and building a reputation—and earning awards—by writing for audiences and publishers largely within the academic world. The biggest difference between commercial writing and academic writing is that the former is typically the career itself, while the latter is a valuable sidelight to the primary work of teaching.





The academic pathway


If a commercial writing career can best be described as the zig-zagging pursuit of ever-greater opportunity, an academic writing career is much more of a straight, predetermined path where the only thing in doubt is when (and if) the next promotion will occur. The standard path, pretty much set in stone two centuries ago, goes like this. (Note for the senior positions we also show alternative, nonteaching, career paths inside and outside academia.)

Undergraduate degree—A bachelor of arts in English, creative writing, or communications; or another major with a minor or sidelight in writing.

Graduate degree—A masters in fine arts in creative writing or another major with a strong sidelight in writing. This two- to three-year degree is actually more popular for budding writers who want to become novelists and short story writers; but some future academics will choose the MFA path initially with hopes of a commercial career, then change their minds and make the lateral move toward teaching.

PhD—In English, literature, creative writing, journalism, communications. Today, a doctorate is almost the only pre-requisite that matters for most academic careers. This wasn’t always the case, but when College Guidebooks began to rank colleges and universities by the ratio of their faculties with PhDs, hiring patterns shifted, and the presence of non-PhD faculty members became increasingly rare.

To non-academics, the earning of a doctorate—after as much as a half-dozen years of graduate school—seems like the final step before a lucrative and highly respected teaching career. The reality often is very different: in fact, in many cases it is just the beginning of a long apprenticeship. (Note that earning a PhD basically locks you into the academic track, as that degree holds little value in the commercial writing world—and, if your goal is the latter, those years would be better spent learning your craft.)

Adjunct Lecturer or Instructor—The author jokingly tells his students that “adjunct” is Greek for “slave.” Unfortunately, it is not entirely a joke. Traditionally, becoming an adjunct was typically one’s first foot into an academic career. It was considered a training period, a high-level paid internship in which one learned how to teach, network, resume build, and live the life of an academic.

The modern reality is much different: as universities cut back on overhead costs (usually to hire more administrators), more and more of the actual work of teaching is performed by adjuncts—even as attrition thins the rolls of tenured professors. In most U.S. universities today, adjuncts teach a majority of classes—and nearly all of the lower-division ones. Yet few are allowed to teach more than a handful of classes at any one university and are paid per class only a fraction of that paid to their tenured counterparts.

As a result, adjuncts are often reduced to a transient existence: racing back and forth between two or more universities, cobbling together classes, struggling to cover their living expenses, and all but living in their cars—all with the hope of eventually getting hired as a full-time instructor or, better yet, a tenure-tracked associate professor. Meanwhile, their old classmates who earned MBAs or became lawyers are already making big salaries and buying homes. It is the worst time in an academic’s life, and it can last well past his or her thirtieth birthday. But at least their students called them “Professor.”

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer—This position may seem to the outsider as just a glorified adjunct, but it is in fact a worthy career goal. Lecturers are faculty members who have either been hired or have chosen to not follow the tenure path. What makes lecturers better off than adjuncts is that it is a real full-time job with a single institution. You are also free to move on to other instructor jobs at other colleges and universities if you so please, even dip into an industry career. Stick around long enough as a lecturer, and you may get promoted to senior lecturer—a job that has even more security and a higher salary. And, as a lecturer, you are not likely to be stuck taking on management jobs, such as department head, or sit on endless governance committees.

Assistant Professor (lecturer in the UK)—This is the entry-level position on the tenure track. As such, you have a title and a good salary, but you still have to prove yourself—and that means publishing many papers, perhaps even publishing your first book. Alternatives: Section editor at a literary magazine.

Associate Professor (Senior lecturer or principal lecturer in the UK)—The middle position on the tenure track. The life of an associate professor is essentially one of a full professor who is still waiting for tenure. Associate professors are the workhorses of campus life, as they sit on most of the boards, committees, and task forces. Because they are still proving their value, associate professors often still carry heavy class loads, as well as produce endless papers, monographs, and populate academic conferences and associations. Job security is very high, though not guaranteed. Alternatives: Editor at a literary magazine or academic publishing house.

Professor (Reader)—This job is the dream of most academics. It means more money and a reduced teaching load, in theory replaced by a greater emphasis on research, writing, editing, global conferences, and all of the other trappings of a life of the mind. Bet yet, this work can be pursued without fear of being fired or laid off—tenure, which is at the heart of professorship, guarantees employment for the rest of your working career. No more censuring your opinions, or swallowing your pride in order to get along with the administration. Who wouldn’t want such a career? Well, as we’ll see below, there are some good reasons why some academics don’t want this life. And, if you do manage to achieve tenure, enjoy it while it lasts: there is a growing backlash against tenure, especially by state governments, about funding public universities that carry unproductive, controversial, and expensive faculty members. Alternatives: Senior editor or editor-in-chief at a literary magazine or publishing house.

Department head or dean—In the business world, promotion to a title like this is a major achievement. In the academic world, it can sometimes seem like punishment, as you have to deal with endless meetings, reports, and unmanageable professors. Most people go into academia because they aren’t interested in such skills as management, HR, budgeting, and marketing. Being a department head—and even more, a dean of a college—means assuming all of those tasks and more. Luckily, most universities have a minority of faculty members who do have an interest in—or at least an aptitude for—those activities. Smaller departments (and unfortunately for writers, this includes many English departments) often don’t have such individuals, so they typically rotate the assignment, convincing one of their professors to take on the job for a couple of years. The results are usually mixed. The trade-off is a lighter class load and sometimes more pay—though many of these temporary department heads would happily get back to teaching instead. Alternatives: CEO of the publishing house or international conference organizer/host.





Jobs


Teaching courses to groups of college students in a classroom isn’t the only work available to academics with writing skills. In fact, as the list of alternative careers above hints, there are a lot of other ways to put those talents to use—in most cases as a source of additional income, but in others as a full-time career. Here are some examples:

Tutor—Writing is at the heart of higher education and thanks to modern elementary and secondary schooling, a lot of college students are terrible writers. Many of them (or, more accurately, their parents) are willing to pay to get help.

Editor (academic papers)—A lot of professors are lousy writers, too. This is especially the case with faculty members not in the humanities—such as engineering, the natural sciences, and even business. They need editing help and can afford to pay for it. Note, however, that the writing in academic isn’t real writing (just try reading some), so a talented writer may find this kind of work hard sledding.

Editor (literary journals)—Literary magazines (both independent and university-based) often hire academics to edit particular contributions (poems, stories, creative nonfiction) at piece rate—or to actually serve as the nominal editor-in-chief of the entire publication on a salary. This can be interesting, though not particularly lucrative work—though the job can sometimes reduce course load.

Editor (books)—Academics have considerable involvement with the book industry. New graduates with advanced degrees in the humanities get hired as line editors; while professors are sometimes hired to be content editors in their area of expertise (though this usually involves professors in business and science, not writing). Veteran academics are often hired by publishing houses to assemble collections of papers, essays, or tributes (for memorial editions) and provide their own introduction, and sometimes a contribution to the text. This work not only pays well but also is a superb platform for enhancing the editor/professor’s reputation.

Book reviewer—Many academics, at all levels, make added income and help their reputations by reviewing new books for newspapers, magazines, and websites. Typically, they write about their areas of expertise. For English and creative writing professors, this usually means novels. As noted in the chapter on criticism, this kind of work usually doesn’t pay very well but can do a lot for a reputation—not least because it establishes the reviewer as both an expert and an arbiter of the field. It is also a way to get a lot of free books.

Arts critic—Art criticism is its own world, with the opportunity to write reviews, essays, monographs, and books—even to curate shows. A fine arts professor who can write, or conversely a writing professor who knows art, can develop a very rewarding second career in this genre.

Opinion-Editorial writer—Universities regularly hold seminars and send out emails trying to convince faculty members to write editorials for local and national newspapers to help get the school more publicity. Some even subsidize this activity. Writing op-eds is nice work for professors; you get a soapbox for your views, you position yourself as an expert, and you make a little money on the side. That said, editorial writing requires finding a news hook, really thinking about the topic, developing a strong argument, and then presenting it with sufficient economy to fit the 500–1,000 word standard length requirement. Skill comes with practice and learning from the brutal editing your early attempts will experience. It may look easy when you read an editorial, but it is quite difficult in practice. You also need a thick hide—because you will likely draw letters to the editor excoriating you for not knowing what you are talking about. That said, a great editorial can actually change government policy—one of the last ways an academic can do that.

Columnist—Columns are a superset of editorials. They have the same structure but don’t have quite the requirement of being immediately topical to the latest news. That said, column opportunities are rare—as most columns are written by full-time columnists. Still, many publications welcome one-off guest editorials on a particular topic. Many like to have those columns written by credentialed experts. A second kind of column—one that can sometimes turn into a regular part-time job—is the cultural column. These can cover art, literature, movies, television, and so on and are a perfect opportunity for academics with expertise in one or more of those fields.

Feature writer—Feature writing is one of the few writing fields open to everybody, including amateurs. While most established publications have staff feature writers, most also supplement those staffers with freelance work. The bad news is that being a professor doesn’t give you an intrinsic advantage over other freelancers in the eyes of editors. That said, editors also respect expertise which academics, by definition, have in spades. Pitch a story on something you teach, or are an acknowledged expert, and your odds of getting the assignment are high.

Poet, short story writer, essayist (for literary magazines)—We describe this more in depth in the next section, but academia operates in its own literary world of magazines and book publishers. In this world, professors who write fiction or essays have a distinct advantage. These publications usually don’t pay, but they have considerable reputation value in the academic world. Given that there are scores of academic literary magazines out there, professors who write (and even more, professors of writing) have a greater chance of being published than their non-academic counterparts. And while some of this writing is world-class, much of it is inferior, which further improves the odds of your writing finding a home.

Author (fiction and nonfiction)—The author mentioned at the beginning of this chapter that, decades into his writing career, he began to wonder if he hadn’t made a mistake by dismissing the academic track to pursue a career in the commercial world. Here’s why. For years, I had noticed catalogs for books by academic publishers—including such famous houses as Oxford University Press and the Yale University Press—but I had never given them much attention. The titles were obscure, and I almost never noticed those books on the best-seller charts. It was only after I became a professor myself did I take a closer look. And I was amazed: what I discovered was an alternative publishing universe, one that had its own best-sellers, popular authors, and awards. Many of these university presses have catalogs just as long as the big name commercial publishers.

The difference is the business model. For example, only a few of these publishers give advances to authors—and those that do give are comparatively small ones. The criteria for publishing books are also different: whereas commercial publishers look for books that offer either the potential for profits or prestige (e.g., top-notch writing), academic publishers look for contribution to (often niche) knowledge, particularly original research. The two camps even have their distinct awards, with only a little overlap (the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize). And whereas commercial publishers give priority to professional writers, university presses give the same priority to academics.

Thus, I have my second thoughts on my career choice. What you need to know is that if you want to be a writer, if you want to be a published poet, short story writer, essayist, nonfiction book author, or novelist, pursuing an academic career not only doesn’t preclude that but in some important ways makes it easier. Yes, you may never write that big best-seller that gets turned into a hit movie, but you’ll also never have to live on ramen noodles while struggling to sell your book. Plan your academic career right, and you can have a nice paying job with (eventually) permanent job security and a shelf full of your books. Not a bad deal.

Advisor—The simple truth is that people trust academics to come up with good ideas, not make good decisions. This is not the place to argue that point, only to acknowledge its reality. But what this means is that there is always an opportunity for an ambitious academic to attach himself or herself to a powerful business executive or politician as an expert personal advisor or task force committee member. Indeed, this is almost the only way these days that an academic can wield real influence and power outside the academy. And it certainly makes for an interesting life.

Event/Conference organizer/host—What do academics do during the summer? Go to conferences, often in the nicest and most exotic places in the world—and just as often on the university’s money or your taxes. It’s a nice deal. But even nicer, if you have the right personality, is to organize and/or host one of these annual events. Then you can make a lot of money too, as well as further burnish your reputation. Another version of this, especially for writing and art history professors, is to set up in Florence, Rome, the Berkshires, or some other pleasant place, and hold seminars on writing or history for intellectual tourists with deep pockets. It’s nice work if you can get it—and as a professor, you can.

Expert (law, patents)—Attorneys regularly have the need for “experts” to give testimony in their intellectual property cases. Though this opportunity doesn’t happen often for English, communications, and creative writing professors, it’s usually for engineering professors; there are still occasional cases involving plagiarism, art valuation, or the use of language in contracts where a one-time job is available. Not only does this work pay very well per diem, but if you can get known as a reliable expert, it can be a lucrative side activity.





Career: The good


As long as you recognize that your primary career is teaching, then the life of a writing professor can be very rewarding in every way. Here, for a writer, are some of the best things about taking the academic track:

Even unintelligible bad writing gets published—As a professional writer, you should never compromise the quality of your work. But because university and academic publishers have editorial policies that give primacy to original research and experimental writing, and because they are often short on content and line editors, an awful lot of all but unreadable articles and books get published (some great books too). That makes the odds of getting published—and added promotion—much more likely when you show up with a well-written manuscript and few credentials. The danger, of course, is that you can get complacent. But that can be overcome simply by sending your best work to commercial publishers and competing in that much more challenging arena.

Once you get tenure, you’re set for life—In our modern gig-based economy, having one job for your entire career may seem limiting to a young writer. But ask a middle-aged writer what they think of having a guaranteed paycheck every month for the rest of their working lives. And better yet, to be able to write what you please without fear of getting fired or becoming a pariah. (Again, be warned, tenure may not be around forever.)

All the money you make writing is on top of a good-paying steady gig—Don’t feel like writing this week? No problem: you are still going to get a paycheck. Want to take a couple of years for research and write a book that will be read by only a couple hundred people who share your interests? No problem; you are still going to be paid. That’s the kind of freedom that commercial writers dream of, and that only the most successful mainstream writers ever experience (if even they do).

Travel the world and go to conferences on other people’s money—As already noted, it can be a very pleasant life. Like business conferences, there is no shortage of tours, cocktail parties, and extracurricular fun; unlike business conferences, you aren’t expected to be particularly productive even when you are “working.”

Enough awards and recognitions to go around for everybody—Whereas the commercial publishing world is pretty tight when it comes to honoring writers, the academic world gives out honors and awards like jelly beans. To test that, just look up the biography of a mid-range commercial author and then compare it to a comparable academic author. The latter will be lucky to have one or two awards from a second-tier competition; while the latter can fill a page with honors. So, if you want to fill your book covers and office walls with “best book” awards, compete in the academic world.

Get to be called “doctor” or “professor” for the rest of your life—It sounds immodest, but there’s a lot to be said for being called by an impressive title. It is an instant advantage in almost any social setting; it saves the time of having to prove or justify yourself; and, frankly, it can keep you going on a bad day. Just don’t take it seriously yourself.

Free summers, and even the work is pretty easy—Professors will tell you that teaching is hard work. And it is. But lecturing a room full of sleepy 20-year-olds is a whole lot easier than running a combat platoon in a war zone, or working a 12-hour shift as an emergency room doctor, or managing a product division in a Fortune 500 corporation. Besides, you only have to work nine months out of the year—and get paid extra for teaching summer school (and even do that on vacation with Zoom).





Career: The bad


So, if the academic track is so good, why do people regularly quit and jump to the commercial world? Why do some academics choose not to accept tenure when it appears to offer the dream career? Here’s why:

A nasty apprenticeship (PhD) and journeyman (Adjunct) process—While your peers in the business world are working their way up the organization, enjoying the perquisites of corporate life, making good money, and living in the real world, you get to spend your twenties broke, spending your evenings grading, and teaching an exhausting course load. During this decade you will ask yourself many times, “Is this worth it?”—especially when you realize that with your talent and intelligence, you could be doing very, very well in business or government. And one day, the answer to your question may be: “No, it’s not.”

No one outside of academia really takes you seriously—Look at old newsreels and you’ll see with what respect professors were once held, and what authority they wielded in society. Times have changed—in large part due to professors themselves. As a result, despite your title and years of acquired knowledge, other than the occasional reporter, no one (besides adolescents) really cares what you know, or what you have to say.

Only your students really respect you, and they don’t really either—Your students are far more engaged in the world than you are, and they know how the outside world sees you. So, even though you may develop a terrific mentor relationship with one or two students each year, the rest will only treat you respectfully because you have control over their grades, and they want to ask for a recommendation letter to graduate school.

Faculty politics can be crazy—It was Henry Kissinger, America’s chief diplomat in his role as Secretary of State, who said that “Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” As a former Harvard professor, he would know. One of the refreshing things about careers in business or government is that you move around a lot, change jobs, and deal with different fellow workers. There, the secret to career success is devising win-win solutions. None of those things characterize a university department.

You’ll be well off, but you’ll never get really rich—Professors’ salaries vary with the location of the school and its rankings; but whatever the location of the university you will enjoy a very nice standard of living. But unless you manage to sell that one textbook that goes into eight editions, or that novel turns into a movie, you are never going to be rich. Not business executive rich; and definitely not successful tech entrepreneur rich. If that matters to you, you are going to be disappointed.

It all may come crashing down, soon—If you follow the news, you know that universities, especially in the United States, are under considerable stress. Angry adjuncts are forming unions. Tuition inflation (thanks largely to investments in fancy new facilities, not adjuncts’ salaries) is pricing students out of the better universities—or forcing them to take out vast amounts of student loans. Meanwhile, online college courseware is nipping away at classes that used to only take place on campus. And, many states, weary of the cost of maintaining colleges that produce graduates with unemployable degrees, are looking at getting rid of tenure altogether. How much of all of this will ultimately challenge the future of the academic track? Only time will tell.





Turning points


For most of the careers described in this book, the turning points come near the end of one’s career. In academia, the biggest one comes at the beginning: whether to follow the academic track at all. Still, there are others:

Can’t get a job, no hope of tenure—There are two important jumps on the academic track. The first is making the leap from adjunct to a real position as an assistant professor. This can be surprisingly difficult—and as noted, you may get weary of the struggle and leave the chase. The second takes place a decade or two later, when you have put in your time, paid your dues, and are up for tenure. Failing to make this jump can be emotionally devastating: these are your peers, your friends, people you’ve worked with for years, and now they’ve concluded that you are unworthy. You may choose to swallow your pride, or start over on the long path to tenure at another university, or you may just decide that this is the moment to change your career.

You want to get taken seriously—As noted, professors no longer enjoy the prestige they used to—and less than you think you may deserve. That wouldn’t be the case outside the campus walls in a career in business, nonprofits, or government. And that difference may be enough to send your career along a different path.

You want to be actually heard—This is a corollary to the one above. Academics mostly talk to students (who don’t really care) and their fellow academics (who also don’t really care). Even if you are a writer, if your work is still only reaching other academics, you are still in the same box and ignored by the general public and people with real power. You may decide that academia is not enough to leave the mark you want to make on the world.

You want to get rich and famous—You realize that, as an academic, you are only going to go so far in either category. And you want—and think you have earned—much more.

You get tired of the campus hothouse environment—As rewarding as the academic life can be, it also means—especially with tenure—spending your entire career on the same campus, in the same office, dealing with the same people—many of whom you’ve learned to despise. From that perspective, the beautiful oasis of campus life can look a whole lot like a minimum security prison. You cannot predict how you will react to this scenario beforehand. You can only live it and see what happens.





Writing an academic paper


Writing for a commercial publication is not really different for an academic as for a commercial writer.

However, there is one type of writing done by academics that is little understood by other professional writers and would flummox even the most veteran and successful mainstream writers: scholarly papers.

The chances are, if you are not an academic professional or a graduate student, you may have never read a scholarly paper—though may have read a commercial article derived from one—much less tried to write one. But in the academic world, especially in the humanities, but also in law, the sciences, and the more technical corners of the business world, scholarly papers are the lingua franca of those professions. Professors, especially those on the tenure track, are expected to regularly write such papers and publish them in academic journals (which, by the way, is why there are so many obscure academic journals).

There are several advantages to writing academic journals. First, their consistency in style and focus enables them to be read by everyone in the world trained in that particular field. Second, the continuity of their style enables scholarly papers from hundreds of years ago to be read as if they are contemporary. And finally, because this style is akin to learning a foreign language, it keeps access to this week largely to discipline insiders and away from the hoi polloi.

A large part of the syncretic nature of scholarly paper is due to three factors, all of them developed over the course of centuries, and all of them rigorously enforced by the Pharisees of the discipline.

[Note: the author does not claim to be an expert scholarly writer himself. My return to graduate school (in American History) and the subsequent frustration of my professors taught me that more than four decades as professional writer ill-prepared me, technically and emotionally (I’m too much of a maverick), to write in the academic style. But I have learned the rules—and if you are comfortable in this style, a hat tip to you.]

Here are the rules:

Format—The particular academic journal you are targeting for your paper will have published its requirements for submission via print or online. Typically they are:

Title Page: Including the paper’s title and subtitle, author’s name, title, and contact information, institutional affiliation, date.

Synopsis/Summary: A one-paragraph description of the claim made by the paper.

Paper layout: Times New Roman, single space, 12pt. Not boldface or underline, italics for book titles, page numbers in upper right-hand corner.

Narrative rules: No contractions, no numbered lists, no colloquialisms or jargon, and footnotes at the bottom of each page. Bibliography at end of the paper. No passive verbs.

Overall format: All footnoting, bibliographical entries, citations, and so on must meet the requirements of the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.

Length and topic: Study the available academic journals in your field and determine, by past issues, how well your paper’s topic fits. Most have different length requirements for papers and reviews. Match those requirements—don’t go for special treatment. Most journals require a pitch letter, but some prefer to see the actual paper—again, do as they request. Note that some will have special theme issues—aim for one of those if your theme fits.

Time: Unlike, say, newspapers and magazines, where lead times are measured in hours, days, or weeks, acceptance of your paper by an intellectual journal can stretch into months or years, especially if they have a heavy peer review process. Moreover, most are published quarterly, or even annually. Don’t wait for publication; get on with your next paper and start creating a queue of papers to be published.



That’s just the beginning. Not to put too fine a point on it, but style-wise scholarly papers are expected to contravene almost every rule presented so far in this book. The biggest one is that a scholarly paper is not supposed to be entertaining. Indeed, it is by definition supposed to be dry and boring—but also informative (if indeed, you can get through). Clever prose is anathema—though you may get away with an occasional clever turn of phrase.

There is a reason, indeed a noble one, for this: academic writing is supposed to be informative, and it is supposed to convey well-researched information without compromising the integrity of that information by using stylistic rhetoric, clever turns of phrase, loaded adjectives and adverbs, and other tricks commercial writers use to make their prose more readable and influential.

That philosophy is admirable, especially in the name of intellectual truth and rigor, but it certainly doesn’t make scholarly papers fun to read. In fact, most are excruciatingly boring and a chore for civilians to slog through. And, it should be noted that academics themselves regularly try to break the rules in order to be more widely read or to sneak in their political biases. The cleverest academics often take their scholarly writing—especially PhD dissertations—rewrite them into entertaining prose and sell them as well-researched books to mainstream publishers.

A word on footnotes. Mainstream writers of nonfiction books are expected to provide footnotes to their books. Some do, and some (usually slumming academics) are enthusiastic about doing so. Others either try not to footnote, or treat footnotes as the bad medicine part of book writing and do the minimum. This author has written books with just a few dozen footnotes and others with hundreds. It is never a fun experience. Academics, on the other hand, love footnoting: it shows their erudition and hard work, it brings together the various points of knowledge on the subject and can add as much to the field as the paper itself, and it offers additional pathways of study to enthusiastic readers.

What this means is that if you hate footnoting and are indifferent to footnotes in other publications, academic writing is probably not for you—and entering a lifelong career in academia could be a bad choice. If, on the other hand, you love footnotes and footnoting, academia might be a good career choice and if you love teaching as well, you just might have a brilliant career.

In the meantime, when you do at last receive your published copy of your latest paper, celebrate. Make sure the powers that be in your department and college know about it. And comfort yourself in the knowledge that great figures in your field will read your work centuries hence.





CHAPTER 17 Miscellaneous Writing


This chapter looks at the many kinds of occasional writing that you, as a professional writer, may be asked to do. It is a varied list, but the writing remains the same—economical writing, strong phrasing, action verbs, factual accuracy, and careful editing. Good writing is still good writing, even if it is for a neighborhood brochure.

Some of this writing will be for nonprofits, others for profit-making clients, and still others for small businesses with very limited budgets. Again, as a professional, you should never write for free (“No Man, but a Blockhead ever Wrote, except for Money”—Samuel Johnson), the exception being for a nonprofit organization. But with very small businesses you may want to modify your fee to match their budget—balanced by whatever goodwill you may obtain (e.g., if you are asked by your favorite coffee joint to help it write a neighborhood flyer, you may want to take your payment in free drinks).

It is also not recommended that you charge an hourly rate. People can look at a work of art—and because they can’t draw themselves, it seems like magic, and thus valuable. But everybody can write—though most can’t do it very well—and so when they see your completed work they have a tendency to believe they could have done it by themselves, that it wasn’t that difficult, and as such they undervalue your work. Also, different writers work at different speeds, and many bad writers work much more slowly than good writers. So why charge by the hour? And why try to negotiate a fee after delivery?

Instead, charge by the project and agree upon the price up-front. If possible, also get paid half up-front as well. Then, if your client decides that his teenaged daughter could have written that copy as well as you and refuses to pay for the finished writing, you at least have the equivalent of a kill fee in your pocket.

As for working with nonprofits, good for you for being an exemplary neighbor and citizen. That said, nonprofits are in the business of getting good people with special skills to donate as much of their time as possible, and one of the skills they need most is writing. So, while there are many good reasons to donate your writing skills, it is also a good policy not to leave that commitment open-ended. Rather, you need to set a limit to the scope of your work at the beginning, and the magnitude of that commitment should be balanced against your need to earn a living. Don’t worry about the folks at the nonprofit being disappointed; they will be grateful for the work you do and soon will be back asking you to do more.





Types of miscellaneous writing


Cover letters—These are letters that are typically written as an introduction to a report, packet of materials, gift, and so on. The key is to write short (you should try to never exceed a single page), clearly, and in the voice of the sender. Most of all, you must know enough about the attached content to be able to make a good case for the reader to look at it. If you don’t have those materials on hand for reference, then you need to interview your client—and then confirm with them your understanding. The good news is that, as a professional, cover letters are usually quick work. The bad news is that your client will see it as “only a letter” and will want to pay you accordingly—no matter how effective it is. You won’t win that argument. Think of the job as extra money, and as opening the door for some future speechwriting work.

Recommendation letters—You will do this work for free, because it will either be for friends or the children of friends. And, you will soon discover that the requests for these letters pile up twice per year—when young people are applying for college, or trying to land their first internship or first job. That’s the nature of the work, so get used to it because you will be unable to say no. That said, being able to help a young person, sometimes someone you’ve known since they were a baby, in launching the next phase of his or her life can be immensely satisfying, especially if they get that job offer or college acceptance letter. And rather than think of it as a burden, look upon it as a compliment: that person (or his or her parents) looks upon you as having sufficient reputation or influence to impress an acceptance committee or potential employer.

The trick to a good recommendation letter is to be short, but knowing. You don’t need to write more than a page. Focus on details of the subject’s life, particularly those in which you participated and can speak authoritatively about the subject’s personality and skills; that is, “I helped with Billy’s Eagle Scout service project and was deeply impressed by his organizational skills, leadership, and commitment to serve his community.” Always include that you think the subject will be an asset to the target of the letter. And don’t stint on noting your own credentials and qualifications to judge the subject—either in the body of the letter or in the job title line below your signature. If you are an alumnus or former employee of the targeted institution, note that fact as well.

Try to write the recommendation letter immediately after you receive the request, or you’ll keep putting it off. Find out the deadline, just in case. Once you’ve finished the letter—unless otherwise stipulated—send it to the subject for a fact check. Don’t mail the letter to the targeted institution if there is a format for emailing it; otherwise, again, you’ll put it off.

If your rec letter is being sent to multiple targets (it usually is for colleges and universities) write a basic letter and then add personalized modifications (usually no more than a sentence or two) for each school.

If your subject gets the job or the acceptance letter, congratulate him or her and say that they did it all on their own. They will believe you.

Brochures and booklets—Beware: these kinds of publications may look simple, but they can be endless, thankless jobs. In terms of word count, they don’t take a lot of writing and can be drafted quickly. However, gathering the information and understanding that you need to do the writing can take a lot of time. But even that can seem minor compared to the approval process, which can go on forever and require numerous edits—even full rewrites—before every stakeholder in the organization is heard from.

On the other hand, if this is a corporate job, you can usually charge a lot for this kind of work, as it has already been budgeted (find out the amount if you can) as part of a larger product roll-out. So, the trick is not to find yourself being punished, not for doing a poor job, but for the bureaucratic dysfunctionality of your client. One way to do that is to narrow the scope of the clearance process: stipulate that you will deal with only one representative of your client—let them work out the edits among themselves and have that person present the final decisions to you. You can also set a deadline for the project—both for your delivery of the draft and for the delivery of their edits to you. With luck, the latter will force them to make a decision. Finally, if possible, see the layout—including photos and graphs—before you write, so you don’t have to make major cuts to your draft.

If you are donating this work to a nonprofit, set a precise end-point—otherwise the process really will go on forever. Better yet, agree to write the first draft only; they’ll be grateful to get that (and will likely ultimately print that draft verbatim—so you likely are doing them a favor).

Ad copy—Freelance ad copywriting is very good work, if you can get it. It pays well and doesn’t require a lot of writing. Still, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take a lot of time and effort. You will likely be required to take several meetings, including brainstorming sessions (though you will probably be spared client meetings), and while your copy will be necessarily short, it will need to be polished to a high sheen (often going through multiple rewrites) and pass muster with the client.

The key to contract ad copywriting is flexibility. Remember, you are not writing for yourself but for your client—the ad agency or department—and through them, their client—and through them, their current and potential customers. That’s a lot of different constituencies, so the chance of your ideas or words making it through all of these filters intact is essentially zero. So never fall in love with your words; instead, take satisfaction in getting to final sign off.

One good thing about ad copy work is that it tends to be cumulative. Ad agencies and departments tend to be in a state of perpetual frenzy, which means they don’t have time to recruit new contractor talent but will stick to people on their contact list. If you are on that list, you will get job after job—unless you completely screw up, then there may not be a second chance. So, never “dial-in” your work with these folks.

As for billing, your fee will probably be set in advance for the job, though if the job looks like it will require a lot of rework, try to bill that part by the hour. Invoice immediately on approval of the job; agencies can sometimes string out payables to 30, 60, or 90 days.

Press releases—PR work often requires the creation of more content than most other miscellaneous writing jobs. But, because most contractors have no real understanding of how PR works or what a good press release looks like, you are likely to be spared amateur writers messing with your copy.

The key to writing a successful press release for a client is to not be creative. Gather the necessary quotes, product specifications, boilerplate information, and so on, make sure you get the names and titles right or the rest of your will be suspect—and then write it in the standard release template. Don’t show the client a rough draft; even if he or she wants to see one, it will only worry them. Only show them a polished version.

In the worst case, you may find that your job is as much education as it is writing—teaching your client how PR works, not allowing them to hurt their odds of being successful by making overblown claims in the copy, not letting them disparage competitors in the release, and so forth. That said, if they insist on still making one or more of those mistakes, there’s nothing you can do—except decide if you want to work with them again.

Poster copy—This is simple, fun work. It’s usually just a few words, and there’s no money (or very little) involved, but the takeaway—a poster you can save or even frame—often makes it all worthwhile. The key, of course, is whittling the copy down to the fewest number of words with the maximum impact, while keeping a laser-like focus on the poster’s message.

Newsletters—This one is tricky, because writing the copy for a newsletter not only is a major job, but it can be an ongoing one. It’s hard to argue with that kind of gig. But here’s the downside: unless you are an employee and making an employee’s salary, this could be a bad deal. Why? Because writing multiple articles on a deadline, especially with all of the reporting required, can be as time-consuming as a full-time job—for a lot less money. It’s not very interesting content either, and no amount of good writing will make much difference.

So, seen as miscellaneous writing work, rather than as a full-time job, newsletter writing is not particularly appealing unless you are just starting out, need the work and experience, and don’t stick around too long. For newsletter writing for a nonprofit: as a professional writer, don’t do it. It is too much time that you otherwise need to make a living; it is too open-ended; and the writing itself is second rate. Leave it to the amateurs.

Public service announcements—This work is exclusively for nonprofits and consists of either audio tracks or videos (typically 30 seconds or less) designed to promote the organization on local media. The fact is that, in terms of making a charitable contribution of his or her talents, this is one of the best things a professional writer can do. The work required is tiny, and the impact can be immense. The trick is to write tight—very, very tight—copy, stuffing the maximum amount of information into no more than a few sentences.

If you are doing a public service video, this is the ultimate case of letting the imagery do most of the work. Make key points (such as contact information) as captions. If radio, choose no more than three key points, take out adjectives and adverbs, and hit the message hard.

Family histories—This is writing that you will probably want to do, because you are likely the best writer in your family. Genealogy usually isn’t of much interest to young people. But by age 40, many of those same individuals become almost obsessed with the subject. Online family history research sites also have made the experience much more productive than in the past, when searchers often had to spend years looking through old church records. Now family histories are crowd-sourced by its members, sharing a vast cache of photos, stories, and records and saving it in the Cloud. If you find this material interesting, you probably owe it to your relatives, to your ancestors, and most of all to your descendants, to turn those records into readable, entertaining stories.

Having done just that with a book, the author can tell you two things. First, it is easy to get obsessed. This is your family after all, and you may find your ancestors’ successes and failures deeply interesting—and often very moving. Second, prepare yourself, because many of your family’s stories are wrong, having changed with the telling over the years. Meanwhile, you may well uncover events in the past that will shock you. In my case, it was a murder of one of my ancestors in which another was involved.

Skits and plays—Everybody knows you are a writer, so you no doubt would love to write a skit for the camp talent show or the corporate offsite meeting. And, hey, won’t you write a historic play for your town’s centennial or one of your kids’ schools? Nonprofessionals are often of the opinion that if you write for a living you are both able to write successfully in any genre and you can whip these things out in a day.

Whether you want to donate your services to do this work is up to you. But you should be honest with the people asking for your help. If you don’t know how to write comedy, tell them, and have them find someone who does to help you. Or just buy a book of skits and modify one to fit the occasion—no one will care where you got it as long as it works. And if you have no experience writing a play, just beg off: it is hard to write a good play on your first shot. That said, consider the audience: a group of nine-year-olds is hardly a discerning audience. They just want to have fun. If you are up for it, give it to them—don’t worry about quality, just entertain them.

Foreword and jacket quotes—If you are successful in your career, particularly as a book writer or novelist, you may be asked to write content for another writer’s book. It is quite an honor, so think twice before you refuse. That said, as a writer and not a businessperson or celebrity, you are expected to actually read the book. If you hate it, politely beg off because you are too busy, or some other excuse. If you like the book, agree to do it.

Jacket quotes are easy. Just come up with a couple of sentences lauding the contents of the book and/or the way it’s written, and saying good things about the author. If you don’t know the style or tone of a jacket quote, pull out some books and study the writings of other jackets “quotesters” and imitate it.

Foreword are much more demanding, but they are also a much greater honor—even more so if your name is mentioned on the cover (“With an introduction by ___”). You’ve no doubt read many forewords, so the style should be familiar to you. It is essentially an introduction to the book, a glimpse for the reader of the experience to come. Talk about what makes the book a good read, the new information it contains, and how it answers a current need. You can also talk about how you experienced the book and what you will take away from it. Finally, you can talk about the author and how he or she is the perfect person to write this book. Also, if you have any particular expertise in the book’s subject, use it to point out important facts or ideas in the book that nonexpert readers might not notice otherwise.





Signage


Writing copy for signs sounds simple, but it is in fact quite complicated. Here we’re not talking about regular signage that gives directions or identifies a place. Rather, we’re talking about historic markers, museum display information signs, lists of rules, and so on. This kind of writing is the ultimate in fine editing. Your task is to be complete in terms of information, yet limited by the physical size and font size of the sign. For example, if you are writing a sign for an exhibit of stuffed grizzly bears in a museum exhibit, you need to figure out how to cram in the name and classification of the bears, their habitat, size, diet, and behavior—all in a few dozen words on a small sign.

The trick is to gather the information you need for your sign, then write a first draft that contains all salient information. Next, start editing the copy down, throwing out any superfluous words or facts. This will get you most of the way there; then go through what’s left and try to figure out how to say the most with the least number of words. If you are still too long, start cutting out bone: prioritize the facts by their importance, then start chopping off those facts in reverse order.





Captions


Captions take two forms: one-offs and hundreds. The one-offs—say, to accompany a photograph in a newspaper or magazine—are usually to accompany a story you or another author wrote. The copy is usually short and factual (“Harvey Martin, left, was arraigned today in Federal Court”). This type of captioning is usually part of your job—and unless that job is to write all captions for a publication—you will be doing this work gratis.

On the other hand, if the publisher of a book that features hundreds of photographs approaches you to write their captions, this is serious, time-consuming work that requires an unusual amount of expertise—and you should bill commensurately.

Writing scores or hundreds of captions is an art form. Here’s how it’s done:

Gather the necessary information. What this means is that you are going to need to get the requisite facts on each photograph from the photographer (or photographers if it is a compilation). This is not always an easy process, because artists often are lousy writers. So it may take a long sit-down, in which you go over each photo with its creator and record their comments. Don’t just ask objective questions, but get personal about their feelings and experiences at the shoot.

Get into the groove. Take a few of the images and write a sample caption for them. An adequate caption just presents data on the image: subject, names, location, and photographer (“Toledo’s Mary-Lou Martin and her cat, Phil. Photo by Allen Tomkins”). A good caption puts some editorializing into the words to make them more sympathetic. (“Deaf six-year-old Mary-Lou Martin of Toledo uses sign language with Phil, her rescue cat. Photo: Allen Tompkins.”) A great caption adds a witty tagline (“A Sign of Love”—Deaf six-year-old Mary-Lou Martin tells her rescue cat, Phil, that she loves him. Photo: Allen Tompkins”). All three captions enhance the photos in the book, but the last two, especially the third, make them unforgettable.

Write en masse. What this means is that once you’ve found your voice and your style, start writing captions until you’ve got through them all, or you just run out of gas. Don’t stop for more than a few moments of rest. Why? Because, once you’ve got the touch you need to take full advantage of it, it might not be there tomorrow. And though it is very compressed, high-quality writing, it is not a whole lot of words: one hundred captions of 25 words each is just 2,500 total words—about the same as a medium-length feature. It’ll be exhausting, but you’ll soon find that the clever titles are just pouring out of your brain, and the rest of the copy is just bookkeeping.

Go over your work with the photographer. Chances are that he or she will have some corrections but will make very few changes in your writing: they will be as magical to them as their work is to you.

Bill by the job, not by the number of captions (though in recognition of the magnitude of the project). And don’t lowball because it is merely captions: done well and those captions will have a material impact on the value of the book. This is real writing at the highest level.





Social media


I put this last, despite it being the largest writing platform in human history, because it should be the lowest priority for a professional writer. The simple fact is that social media was devised to use the Internet to lure you into creating content for free, while at the same time capturing and monetizing your personal data. In other words, as a professional writer, anything you put on a social network is not only you giving away your work, but ultimately paying for it.

What this means is that any writing you give to a social network—from LinkedIn to Facebook to X/Twitter—is work that could have been used to earn a living. So, why do it? There are several reasons:

Reputation development: If your clever comments get you thousands of followers on Twitter, and you can convert them to buyers of your professional work, then more power to you. But keep in mind that if you live by the sword, you can die by it too: one ill-considered or drunken 3 a.m. Tweet cannot only wreck your professional career, but your private one, too—and there is no shortage of examples. Read everything before you post—and even better, wait until the next morning.

Backstop: Say you’ve written a piece that you are exceptionally proud of, but despite repeated attempts you have not found a buyer. Then why not put it out there for free on your Web page, blog, LinkedIn page, or a site like Medium? Then you may be able to proliferate it out into the world by sending links to it to other websites. Just make sure you haven’t written something stupid, or you will also get picked up by those other sites, especially aggregators for all of the wrong reasons.

Impact: Opinion and editorial pages are diminishing as their parent publications disappear. Thus, the market for thoughtful opinion pieces is getting ever-smaller. So, if you have such a piece that can’t find a home, why not use the same technique described in “backstop” and become your own syndicator, sending the editorial out from your own blog or Web page?

 Again, keep in mind that giving your writing away to a social network is just you making someone else rich in your talent. So do so judiciously, and only when it is to your advantage or as a last resort. And stay away from the last trendy youth sites (these days it is TikTok). You are an adult and a professional; no good can come from wading in those swamps.





-20





Part Four

The Work of Professional Writing



Being a professional writer means not just being a writer but behaving as a professional. In other words, the writing is necessary but it isn’t sufficient. You must also be a businessperson as well—and if you intend to freelance, you must go still further and become an entrepreneur.

But even if you have a stable job as a writer at a large media corporation, such as a television network, you still need to keep records of your expenses, pay your taxes, stay updated on your tools, and market yourself to potential future employers. If you choose to be self-employed you need to understand that you are running a business, with all that entails, including licensing, bookkeeping, employee tax withholding—and most of all, billing. Fail at this work and it won’t matter how good a writer you are.

In this final section, we look at the details of the work of a professional writer, from the “finishing” work of editing, to the business work of pitching and invoicing, and finally to the life’s work of creating a happy and successful career.





CHAPTER 18 Pitching


If there is one message that you should remember from this book, it is that professional writing is a business. It is a craft, a career. Your job is to get the work done in a professional manner—and, with talent and luck, the art will follow.

As with any business, the actual content is only a fraction of the work. You also must deal with bookkeeping, taxes, marketing, promotion, and sales. It is the last—the writing version of sales called pitching—that is the subject of this chapter. And just as with sales in other industries, the process includes qualification, contact, selling, negotiating, and closing.

Small businesses understand this. If they don’t, they go out of business quickly. But freelance writers, like other professionals in the arts, often seem to have the attitude that because they pursued creative careers to escape the rules of business, the rules of business won’t pursue them.

No such luck. If you don’t treat your writing career—especially freelancing—as a business, you will soon discover that there is a personal version of corporate Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And suitably humbled, you’ll then have to go in search of a real job—one that, ironically, will also require you to perform some other version of pitching, negotiating, and billing.

The good news is that being a good writer and being a good businessperson can be easy. It just takes practice, to the point that the basic business work of writing becomes second nature. Until then, just console yourself with the knowledge that you really have no alternative—at least not if you want this career.

It’s important to understand that pitching a story to a publication, website, or television series (we’ll look at book pitching later) is not just a matter of sending an email or letter suggesting that they buy your idea. It is in fact a multistage process—one akin to military planning or preparation for an athletic competition. Let’s look at each step in turn.





Preparation


This step is about improving your odds of acceptance by giving editors at your target publication exactly what they desire. You accomplish this by learning as much as possible about the publication, its editorial style, and congruence (but not overlap) between recent stories and the one you propose. It is also useful, if possible, to identify the particular editor who is likely to read your proposal and assign you the story.

Study the publication, site, or program. Learn its editorial style, attitude and philosophy, its interests, and its readership profile.

Read or watch the most recent issues, entries, or episodes. Never, ever, pitch a story similar to one that just ran. This proves that you haven’t done your research—and that will insult the editors. Never put yourself in that position.

Do a web search to see if any of their reporters or editors have written in the past on similar topics to your idea. If it is an editor, pitch your story idea to that person—and reference their past story in a complementary way. If it is a reporter, note that person in your pitch to an editor and show how your approach will be different. This is important to let the editor know that you know—and make it harder for him or her to just give your idea to that reporter. It will also make it easier for that editor to explain to the reporter why you, and not the staff reporter, should do the story.

Study the masthead and bios for the editor who appears to have both the right interests and the power to accept your pitch. If there is a story or assignments editor, pitch to that person. The next best target is the managing editor. The editor-in-chief is a long shot; pitch to that person only as a last resort.

Determine if you know anyone else who has written for this venue. If you are not a threat, contact that person and see if he or she can give you any tips—about how to pitch, who to pitch, and even how to invoice and get paid on time. Once you are established, do the same for other writers in the future.





Contact


This is where the rubber hits the road. You’ve studied the publication and its editors. You’ve narrowed your story idea to the best fit for the publication or website. Now comes the moment in which you put all of that knowledge to work. Pitching isn’t difficult if you don’t let it become so. Amateurs and neophytes tend to overthink a pitch—rewriting it multiple times, hesitating to send it out, second-guessing their story idea, and so on. Their hesitation shows through in the pitch letter. Veterans know that a pitch is all in the big themes, not in the small details, and they get the pitch out fast in order to get a quick response—so they can either get to work or send the pitch to someone else. Their confidence shows through in the pitch letter. Try to be that cool and confident veteran from the start.

Unless you hear otherwise, use an email.

Keep your pitch short, but be sure to include the following: Set-up: “I’m a regular reader” (you should be after your Web search).

Opening: “I have a story that I think will be of great interest to your readers.”

Pitch: Your story idea (two or three paragraphs—if you can’t summarize your pitch that succinctly, then don’t pitch it all).

Biography: Why you think you’re uniquely suited to write this story (your knowledge of the subject, contacts in the field of the story subject, access to either experts or the story’s main subject, your past writings related to the subject or the style of the piece, Q&A, profile, etc.).

Offer: What you think would be appropriate for this story, but that you can write to whatever length the editor needs and can deliver it whenever they need it.

Payment: Do not discuss this in a pitch letter.





Delivery


It may seem obvious that you must meet your agreed-upon delivery, but you’d be amazed to learn how many writers regularly miss their deadlines. Neophytes often do so because they either underestimate the amount of time a story will take to report and write, or because they are afraid to submit a finished piece as they aren’t sure it is good enough. They will keep writing ad infinitum until whatever gains were made by the rewrites is lost to the growing anger of the editor. Veteran writers miss deadlines because they either take on too much work and they can’t finish it all in time or they get jaded and assume their reputation and the quality of their work will get their tardiness forgiven. Not always. The answer for the former is to take pride in your work; be decisive; and trust your writing to get fair treatment from the publisher. For the latter, it is to stay professional and respect their employer/contractor, not get complacent, and honor their craft by meeting their contractual obligations.

Meet your deadline. If you can’t, warn the client as early as possible, give an honest explanation (editors are genius BS detectors, but they also understand the foibles of reporters), and keep that client constantly updated on your current status and your new estimated delivery date.

Meet the length requested. Always. You can be off by no more than about 10 percent to allow for editing. If you find yourself writing a longer story, discuss it with your editor as you go—never deliver it with the wrong length. Even worse: don’t deliver a piece that is too short unless you have an excellent reason, have prepared your editor beforehand, and have helped come up with a solution (sidebar, graphics, chart, etc.). Copy that is too short puts an extra burden on your client because it has to come up with something to fill the empty slot—which may mean another story assignment or ad, both of which can wreck layouts and print dates.

Know ahead of time how the client wants the copy delivered. If email, make sure they have received it (ask for a confirmation email in return). If hard copy, send it registered and leave enough time for your deadline. If you use a specialty site, such as DropBox, make sure your software is compatible, and check to make sure your file has been picked up.





Follow-up


There is a tendency, even among veteran writers, to treat all freelance work as completed. But, again, writing is a profession—a business. And follow-up is part of any successful business. Why? Because it is what you are. And, even though you don’t plan to, you may well work with that client again—and you want to have left a good impression. But most of all, you want to get paid.

Drop a note to the client. Make it crisp and short. Thank the editor for the chance to write for them, compliment them on being a good outfit to work for (even if that’s not entirely true), and pass along any compliments on the piece you’ve got from readers and acquaintances. Leave the door open to work with them again.

Invoice immediately. It is best to invoice with the copy when you deliver it. Short of that—especially if you’d made an agreement with the client to be paid upon acceptance—invoice then. If the payment is to be made on publication, don’t wait until then to invoice. Do it on acceptance as well.

Find out who writes the checks. It is usually a bookkeeper (with the publisher signing the check). Get to know that person. Use the excuse for calling them to confirm that your invoice has all of the necessary information. Write a quick note to inform that person you got the check—and thank him or her for being so helpful. All of this may seem unnecessary, but someday, when your mortgage payment is due or the debt collectors are calling, getting that bookkeeper to write your check now, instead of at the end of the month, may be the only thing that saves you. Just think of your note as a “thank you” in advance for that day.

Dialing for dollars/driving for dollars. If the day comes when you need that check immediately (or if the check never comes) and you’ve developed that relationship with the bookkeeper, don’t hesitate to call and see if a check can be cut immediately. And don’t trust the old “the check is in the mail” dodge. Offer to pay for a delivery service (or at least ask for the routing number). If nearby, tell that person you’ll be right over. Then get in your car and go. You may anger some people—even kill your chance of ever writing for that client again—so you must decide beforehand just how much you need that check.



Here’s a sample template for an invoice. Note that it contains all of the requisite information an accounts payable department or bookkeeper will need to pay you (by wire—a PayPal or other format will require different money transfer data. The “net” item is your attempt to get your money as soon as possible—don’t be surprised if the vendor ignores it and takes 30–90 days. But it’s worth a shot.)

Invoice

 XYZ Publishing



 From: Michael S. Malone

 August 1, 2024

 Invoice No. 2024-5

ZZZ Magazine article, “8 Ways to ask for a Raise”…………………….…$10,000.00

Total: $10,000.00

Net: 15 days

Please remit:

Michael S. Malone

1234 Main Street

Chrystal City, California

USA 10000

S.S.# XXX-XX-XXXX



Bank Wire Info: Money Bank, N.A.

Chrystal City Branch

5555 Washington St.

Chrystal City, CA 10000

1-800-555-1212



[If you are mailing in a printed invoice, be sure to sign it.]





CHAPTER 19 Editing


What is editing?


Editing is the improvement—for reasons of space, accuracy, and/or quality—of existing written, audio, or video content. Editing is an open-ended process: it can be continued forever. So, there is also a time factor in the editing process.

Editing work is both a feature of writing and a career (part-time and full-time) in itself. There is little career training available; rather, editing as a profession typically draws people with a love of language and an aptitude for grammatical precision. As a writing feature, it is treated as a skill that is part of the professional writer’s toolkit and is learned on the job.

Generally speaking, editing takes two forms:

Rough (or content) editing—This work focuses upon the overall narrative in terms of logic, clarity, and continuity. A content editor will regularly change the structure—and even the location—of chapters, remove large chunks of superfluous text, and call upon the author to create new material to be added to the copy. Rough editing almost always takes precedence over fine copyediting. Rough editing is sometimes done, at least in part, by the publisher in order to shape the text into the most saleable form.

Fine (or line) editing—Once the manuscript has been pounded into shape by the rough editor, the task of polishing the text is given to the line editor. That person’s task is, as the term suggests, to look at the individual sentences—lines—in the manuscript and make sure they meet the highest standards for grammar and rhetoric. The line editor will also check for factual accuracy and agreement between all appearances of a given term. The typical line editor is a contractor with a strong background in English or other languages—a graduate student or PhD candidate, for example.





Why edit?


Because even the finest work can still be improved. Perfection is endlessly elusive. And even a small mistake that survives the production process and reaches the end reader can raise doubts about the accuracy of the work or the author’s writing skills. Particularly egregious errors can lead to everything from bad reviews to lawsuits. In heavily empirical works—textbooks, operating and repair manuals, reference books—errors can multiply, even become catastrophic.

It is also important for new writing to pass by more than one set of eyes. Authors typically have trouble seeing their own mistakes; while a dedicated line editor can ignore content and just focus upon the words. By the same token, writers can also fall in love with their creations, and it takes a content editor (especially a publisher who can enforce their choices) to take an axe to large sections of unnecessary text.

Finally, no writing is above editing. T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland is generally considered one of the greatest poems of the twentieth century. But sometime take a look at Eliot’s draft of the poem and then the final version of the same poem after it was edited by another famous poet, Ezra Pound. There is no comparison: in cutting Eliot’s poem nearly in half, Pound took an impressive, but indulgent work and turn it into a masterpiece. If one of the greatest of all poems needed a serious, even harsh, editing; then no other writer can ever claim his or her work is beyond editing. And, in fact, writers who have tried to build careers off first drafts—such as Sherwood Anderson—manage to produce some good work, but it always falls below their potential.

In the author’s career as both a magazine (content) editor and a book (content and line) editor, he has worked with many of the world’s finest authors and essayists. In his experience, the most successful of these writers not only let their work be edited, but actually embraced the process—to the point of trusting their editor’s judgment on key matters of style and content as highly as their own. They know that a good editor is to be treasured—and used again and again.





What kind of writing should be edited?


Every kind of writing—from novels and poems to emails, tweets, business correspondence, legal documents, and even signage—needs to be edited. Speaking from experience, not editing can have some nasty consequences: just misspell a common word while typing an important note or memo and accidentally turn it into an obscene, racist, or sexist word and you will carefully edit your copy ever after. So why not do it before you ruin your reputation or wreck your career?

For most things, including tattoos, editing should take place before the final act of creation: having ink injected into your skin, sending off a manuscript to your publisher, writing a love note, firing off a memo to your boss, and so on—you can’t take those back. Happily, in the digital age, a few things, such as blogs, can be retroactively edited (but there still endures a trace of the original).

If you want a reputation as a professional writer, you should get into the habit of editing everything you write, every time. In time, it will become second nature and can be accomplished in just a matter of seconds. Along the way, you will be amazed (and a little appalled) by just how often you write incoherent, ungrammatical or incomplete sentences or misspell or substitute the wrong words. And you’ll wonder how many times you sent off similarly damaged copy in the past without knowing it.





How to edit?


Edit as you create. Reread each sentence or paragraph quickly after you write it. Does it make sense? Do you not know a fact—leave a “TK.” Read aloud in your head for continuity, transitions, and to check for run-on sentences. Do this quickly: don’t let it impede the flow of creativity.

When the text is completed, put it aside (if you can) for long enough that you can read the work with fresh eyes. That may not be possible if you are under a tight deadline. If that’s the case, then focus upon the lede, key points, quotes, and the spellings of names—the first two for logic and content, the latter two for accuracy. If instead you are under a long deadline, put the work aside for a week or two, then return to it with new eyes. Don’t skip over copy just because it is familiar and you assume you know it—that’s where you’ll make your worst mistakes. The author of this book long ago discovered, from painful experience, that whenever he assumed he was knowledgeable about a topic, the spelling of a name, a job title, that was when he was at the greatest risk of being wrong—and he would have to make a public or private correction and apology. Learn from my failures. In the era of Google and Wikipedia, there is no excuse for not looking something up.

If editing someone else, read the work all of the way through first. This is less important with line editing, but if you are content editing it is a near-necessity. Otherwise, you will add content that the author in fact adds a few pages later, draw incorrect conclusions, and ask questions that will soon be answered. Furthermore, you need to read the work first to understand its style, tone, and pace—so that you can match or maintain those features in your edits.

Set out a block of time to edit. By the same token, try to get a block of work done in a single session. The obvious block of work is to edit an entire chapter—or multiple complete chapters—at a time. Short of that, edit distinct sections within a chapter, or a single topic in, say, an instruction manual. On the other hand, don’t burn yourself out by trying to take on too much editing work at one time: just as with writing, the quality of your editing will deteriorate.

Priorities. Good editing is best pursued by following a hierarchy of attention. In fact, there are two such sets of priorities—one that looks at the big picture (typically used with content editing) and at the process of editing (typically used with line editing):

Macro—Attack the narrative by asking the following questions: What is the overall theme? Does the work stick with that theme or does it drift off into tangents?

What is the overall structure of the work? Does the narrative stay within that structure? Are the chapters (or sections) of similar length? Is the formatting of the chapters/section maintained?

Does the text have a continuous, logical arc? Is the logic maintained through the work? Are there any contradictions? Do each of the chapters sequentially contribute to that arc?

Does the text support its underlying claims? Is that support reliable and fully documented?

Are the goals of the book stated at the beginning?

Is the text complete in achieving its goals? Does it achieve all of its goals, or just most of them? What is needed to achieve the missing goals—or should they be removed from the text? Are the chapters themselves internally logical?

Are the key points fully supported by facts? Are there footnotes you can examine?

Are all of the individuals described or quoted in the text done so accurately?

Are the footnotes (if used) both complete and sufficient?





Micro Use a red pen or red pencil for visibility and distinguish the edits from the surrounding text. If you are editing your own work, many writers prefer a pencil with a good, soft, dark lead. The Blackwing pencil, legendary among writers for generations, happily is back in production—but beware, it is expensive. Any soft-lead pencil will do.

Alternately—this is rapidly becoming the tool of choice among editors and a necessity when working on digital files—use the editing feature on your word processing software, setting it to “track changes” and showing all of your work. This tool is fast, it fully captures all of the edits you’ve made, allows you to make comments, and, ultimately, let’s you hide those edits when you want to see a clean copy of just the result. (It also spares you from having to learn all of those traditional editing marks and symbols.)

Place check marks on the margin alongside sentences that contain your edits (so they won’t be overlooked).

Circle your edits whenever possible. This too keeps small edits (such as commas) from being missed. Also, if you add words nearby or in the margin, both circle that addition and draw an arrow precisely to the spot where it belongs.

Place a “TK” for information that is currently not available but needs to be found and inserted.

Look for noun-verb disagreements, typically singular versus plural. This is a common error, especially in long sentences with lots of clauses. It is also often found when describing a grouping of human beings. Thus, “the team is having a good year,” but “the members of the team are having a good year.”

Check capital nouns. Many words—brand names (“Ford”) and technical terms (“The Scientific Method”) in particular—are capitalized. On the other hand, you’ll find—especially if you are in public relations—that people regularly, and improperly, capitalize job titles (“Assistant Deputy Marketing Manager for Consumer Goods”) in order to inflate their image. Fight that trend: otherwise your press releases will look like eighteenth-century novels and will be almost unreadable to modern eyes.

Break up long paragraphs and long sentences—There is a tendency when writing sentences and paragraphs to keep writing them, piling on more and more content. There is nothing wrong with that if it makes composition easier. But don’t let them survive the editing process. For long sentences use the breath test: read the sentence aloud and if you run out of breath it is too long. Break it up—the easiest way is to just repeat the subject: “The car has inferior brakes. It also has lousy steering.” For long paragraphs use the commitment test: Look at the paragraph on the page—if you hesitate to tackle such a huge block of text, chop it up and put some white space on the page. Make the breaks where there is even the slightest shift in the narrative flow.

Write down the spellings of key terms and names. Just hand write them on a pad of paper or a digital tablet for easy reference. That way you can make sure the author (including you) remains consistent throughout the text—you’ll be amazed how the spelling of a name, especially in fact, will slowly change over the course of the narrative. Using spellchecker software may seem easier and more efficient—but the reality is that if a misspelling is sufficiently inaccurate you may never find it.

Kill exclamation points and clichés. The only time you should ever use an exclamation point is when you are quoting someone who is shouting or exclaiming (hence the term). Using an exclamation point in a regular text is essentially demanding that the reader exhibit an emotion he or she may not feel is deserved. For that reason, it is insulting—something you never want to do to a reader. As for clichés, we tend to use them in our speech because they are a simple shorthand for complex concepts. But in writing, clichés are the mark of author laziness and suggests to the reader that the author has an unoriginal mind. Worse yet is to treat a cliché as if it is an original creation: “As I always say, ‘a stitch in time saves nine.’” That makes you look like an idiot—not the best impression to make on someone you want to take you seriously. Clichés are pretty easy to spot in the writing of others—but much harder to find when editing your own work. The only answer is to develop a powerful cliché detector—it takes time—and then ruthlessly edit them out of your writing.

Run your editing results past the author. Make sure he or she understands your editing marks and can decipher your comments or written additions. If you are also expected to insert your edits, using editing software in the “track changes” mode. If you are the author and have performed a handwritten edit, insert your changes—or if you are using editing software, accept the changes then read the entire text to make sure the edits are clean and that you haven’t missed anything.





Editing jobs


The term “editor” covers a lot of different careers, many of them requiring only a tiny amount of time with a red pencil in your hand. We deal in depth with those “other” editing jobs—most of them management positions with publications or publishing houses—elsewhere in this book. Here, we will address those positions only as they relate to copyediting.

As with many other writing professions, editing work takes two forms—full-time work and freelancing—though in the case of editing, the preponderance of work is probably freelance and contract work.

Freelance editor—There are thousands of these jobs, ranging from occasional work to nearly full-time, and for every type of publication from small town newspaper to presidential memoirs to Nobel prize-winning scientific papers to novels and screenplays. They can pay nothing (if it is a side responsibility to another job) to the equivalent of a professional salary (assuming several book-length jobs per year). As with all freelancing, this type of work is also a business, requiring bookkeeping, marketing, and all of the other duties of being a sole proprietor. Though there are a few agencies and brokers out there who will manage this work for a fee, they are comparatively rare, and you need to determine if the added work is worth the cost.

Copyeditor—Copyediting work, especially part-time or contract work, can be found at almost every level of publishing, from local newspapers to national magazines to book publishing houses. Only blogs and newsletters, because of their small operating budgets, and e-books, because they are self-published, typically go without the services of independent editors and require the authors to do their own editing work. Otherwise, all other publishing operations either contract editors by the job (if small) or employ full-time copyeditors (if large). Large book publishing houses typically employ “editors” in management positions who serve as the content editors of the books they purchase and also hire freelance line editors for each book.

Line editor—Book editors typically employ a line editor to clean up a book’s text in detail after they have finished with the rough editing work. Because most book editors have several books in queue at one time, they often maintain a stable of line editors they can contract to work in parallel. These contract editors are typically recent graduates of top universities—with skills either in language and grammar or in a particular field of expertise, or better yet, both. Others are older versions of the same individuals currently at home raising families or between jobs or otherwise looking for an added source of income.

Section editor—Magazines, newspapers, and Web ‘zines are usually of sufficient size that they are divided into sections, each dedicated to a different topic (sports, business, news, arts and entertainment, etc.). Each of those sections is usually managed by an editor, often with a copyeditor in a secondary role. Section editor is normally the first step into a publication’s senior management and combines the managing of reporters, the assignment of stories, and rough editing of the finished result. This editing work is done quickly and focuses only on the lede and story organization. The rest of the work is done by the section copyeditor.

News and assignment editor—The next step up from the section editor, the news and assignment editor is in charge of the “front” of the publication—that is, the news (local, regional, national, world) sections. This job also entails managing a crew of senior copyeditors who handle the editing of the actual stories, often under a tight deadline and with little room for error. Detailed editing by the news and assignment editor is minimal and focuses primarily on the lede stories of the day and headlines.

Managing editor—The various section (including news) editors report to the managing editor, who directs the day-to-day operations of the publication. As the equivalent of a corporate chief operating officer, managing editors do little actual “editing”—not surprising, given their considerable management duties. But they will sometimes play the role of editor on major stories, investigative series, special sections, and so on—given the importance (and potential for lawsuits) of those stories.

Executive editor/editor-in-chief—As the CEO of a publication or publishing house (the publisher is the chairman of the board), the executive editor/editor-in-chief does almost no line editing. But he or she may perform some content editing at the highest level—especially if the author is either a celebrity or has been paid an enormous advance (and thus the reputation of the entire enterprise is at stake). Even then, the majority of the editing will still be assigned to others down the chain of command. The primary role of the executive editor/editor-in-chief is to establish the editorial orientation of the publication, choose issue themes, maintain editorial standards, and manage the hiring of staff.





Career: The good


It is professional. Content and line editors don’t get a lot of attention, much less glory, but smart writers know enough to value them. Leaving aside management-type editors, who enjoy all of the perquisites of power and position, even freelance editors are treated as valued professionals, and as experts in their fields. Great line editors are never short of work; great content editors have almost unlimited opportunities in management.

It is for perfectionists. Perfectionism is a pre‑requisite for line editors. Your job is to fix the content and/or grammatical errors of authors—not to overlook or add to them. In this work there is no margin for error. That said, if you are a natural perfectionist, and worry over every detail, this is one professional where your personality will put you at a distinct advantage.

You deal with important people. The better your reputation as an editor becomes, the more influential the authors you will deal with. At the highest levels, you will work with—and contribute to—the work of the world’s finest authors, writers, and journalists, as well as heads of state, entertainment stars, and captains of industry. And, more than likely, you will help turn a problematic work into an award-winner or best-seller.

You are considered irreplaceable—Smart writers, when they find a good content editor—even a great line editor—will stick with them indefinitely. Full-time copyeditors at publications are especially esteemed, and often experience an esteem equal to executives.

It is a steady, very long career—Great editors, at every level, enjoy almost unmatched job security. At some publications that especially value quality editing—such as The New Yorker—they can stay on the job for decades, more esteemed by the year and enjoying enormous power.

There are management opportunities—Though it is not true in Hollywood, in print, Web, and television, being an editor is the standard pathway to junior, middle, and senior management. That said, to climb that career ladder you must be willing to increasingly delegate actual editing and focus your time and energy on management, strategic planning, and leadership and supporting more junior editors.





Career: The bad


A career in the details—If you work in line editing, you may find over time that you get tired of seeing the trees and never the woods—that is, the job requires laser-like focus on individual words and sentences and you almost never get the chance to actually read (and enjoy) the entire work. One potential solution is to take on content editing work—even if you need to work at a discount to get the job.

It can be drudge work—Most people, in fact, find editing—particularly line editing—to be the ultimate boring, detailed work. That includes most writers; which is why they hire you. And even if you enjoy editing, there may come the day (as it does with most jobs) when you grow tired of it; when the fine detail and slow pace becomes excruciating. Once again, the solution may be to make a lateral move into content editing.

You’ll encounter unappreciative writers—The writing profession contains its share of jerks. And for a profession that requires a certain level of intelligence, they can be pretty stupid, too—and never more so than when they don’t appreciate the value of their editors. Some writers treat everyone like servants, not least editors. When this happens, no matter how famous the client, quit—no job is worth being treated like a slave. Find a client who appreciates your skill.

There’s no recognition—Inside your publication, or with your book editor at the publishing house, your work may earn you respect—and, over time, even veneration. But to the outside world, even if you are listed in a book’s acknowledgments, you are invisible. That will not change, ever—unless you become a content editor and work your way up through management. If you can live with anonymity and don’t crave personal fame, then you will be fine; but if you begin to envy the success of people you edit, then you may struggle with your career.





Turning points


Compared to most careers related to writing, a life in editing usually doesn’t have a lot of turning points. That’s because the career is largely self-selecting: since there are no college degrees in editing, this is work that you enter into consciously and stay in by choice. Still, there are moments when you will find yourself re-evaluating your career choice.

The move to management: If you are a successful editor, even as a freelancer, you will likely be given an opportunity to take on an entry-level management position. This is the moment when you have to decide whether to stay as a line editor or move up the organization chart.

The editing pigeon hole: The first opportunity to enter management usually comes early in your career. If you are not interested, that is one thing—simply turn it down. But if you are interested, and the offer doesn’t come, you may well find yourself trapped as a line editor for the rest of your career. If that happens, you need to signal your boss of your interest. It may be as simple as asking. Or you may want to take courses or get a training certificate in management. If you want to go all the way to the top, look into night MBA programs at nearby universities.

Holding the cloak: Some people go into editing as a way to enter the world of journalism or authorship; as a placeholder until they find that writing job or sell that novel. Then, when those events don’t occur quickly enough, those folks find themselves locked into a prosperous, but ultimately frustrating, editing career. There is no obvious solution to this, other than to not give up: do your creative work on the side and try to build a new career. You may even be able to use your unique contacts as an editor to make submissions. The author has never known anyone who stuck with writing, even in the face of rejections, who didn’t eventually become an author. In the meantime, don’t give up your day job.





CHAPTER 20 Rejection


Every human being knows the definition of rejection in his or her life. “Rejection” in the context of professional writing is the experience of having a proposal or a completed piece of writing turned down by a targeted publication or other media venue.

Like other forms of rejection, literary rejection can be a deeply painful experience, particularly when you take that rejection as a judgment on your writing skills or worse, your value as a human being. The key is to put that rejection in proper perspective and develop strategies for turning it into acceptance. In this chapter, we’ll look at those strategies in detail. (For simplicity, we use “publication” to represent all media.)





Basic rules


We start with some simple (but not necessarily easy) rules for responding to a rejection letter or email from a publication.

Learn to deal with rejection. It’s part of being a writer, as much as it is acting, dancing, and other arts. Want to know about real rejection? Have a career as an actor: endless casting calls and try-outs, almost always ending in rejection, sometimes on the most personal terms. Compared to that, having your writing rejected is easy. Just tell yourself up-front that rejection goes with being a writer—even famous writers sometimes fail to sell a piece—and that you need to incorporate that experience into your working life.

Get over it. Having an article or story or book rejected is usually not an evaluation of you as a person, or even of your talent, but simply a bad fit between what you wrote and what the publication needs. Given that, why take it personally? Instead, find the publication or publisher where your work is a good fit.

Get back to work. Get angry. Get over it. And get on to the next project or pitch. Don’t dwell on rejection; it’ll break your spirit and make you hesitate to pitch the next time. Great writing is built on confidence.

Learn from it. The tendency when you get rejected is to hide. Don’t do that. Instead, ask the editor what was wrong with the piece. Be professional with your inquiry, not churlish, and try to glean as much useful information as possible to make your piece more saleable—and make that publisher more receptive to your next pitch.

Resell. There is more than one venue for every writing job. Take what you’ve learned, quickly modify the piece, and get it out there again. If you can get a kill fee for the rejection, that too is revenue from your writing. And remember: four or five kill fees usually are worth more than one sold piece.

Develop relationships. You are more likely to have your work bought, even if it needs a lot of modification, if you have developed a personal relationship with the editor or have a history with the publication. Don’t just communicate with that editor or publication when you are pitching the story. If you sell the piece, write and thank them when the article appears. Over time, as you become more a part of the “family,” you will find that pitching, acceptance, editing, and payment become much easier.

Give it away. In the age of the blogosphere, any piece you can’t sell still can be placed on the Web for free and used as personal promotion. Nothing you write should ever be wasted. All can be added to your reputation.





Not all rejections are the same


Neophyte and amateur writers have a tendency to assume that rejection is just that: a complete turndown. Professionals understand that there are many different forms of rejection. And further, they can learn from rejection—often even more than from an acceptance.

Rejection takes several forms. Use this taxonomy to determine how to respond:

Pitch rejection—This occurs when a pitch letter or an email to a publication is responded to with the statement that the publication is not interested in the story idea being proposed. This type of rejection can take three forms. a.Unconditional—The publication simply rejects the idea with no further comment. Your response: Quickly pitch it elsewhere. Don’t try to pitch this story, in any form or modification, to this publication again.

b.Conditional—The publication rejects the idea but leaves the door open for further modifications to make that idea acceptable, without guarantees (i.e., they will only look at the replacement pitch on spec). Your response: Determine what your odds are of getting it right the second try, versus pitching elsewhere. Make your decision and respond rapidly.

c.Alternative—The publication rejects the idea but suggests another story idea, again on spec. Your response: pitch the current story idea elsewhere, quickly. Determine your odds of selling the new idea to the original publication. If you like those odds, take the job. If you don’t like those odds, thank the publication for their consideration and leave the door open for future pitches.





Pitch partially rejected—This occurs when the pitch letter is answered with the suggestion to modify the original idea in some major way. This type of rejection takes two forms: a.On spec—The publication wants you to revise your pitch, with no promise of giving you the assignment. Your response: decide if it is worth your trouble. Determine if you have the skills and contacts to do the alternative version.

b.On acceptance—The publication wants you to revise your pitch, with the promise to give you the assignment. Your response: Determine if you have the skills, interest, and contacts to do that alternative version. If so, take the gig.





Story rejection—You have already got the assignment and have written and submitted the finished story. Now you have been informed by the publisher that the story has been rejected outright. Your response: Go somewhere else, immediately. Don’t try to convince an editor; it is a done deal. Ask for a kill fee—after all, your idea was accepted and you did the work. Better yet, have already asked for a kill fee in your original negotiations.

Story rewrite—The publication likes your story but now wants you to take it in a new direction, or it wants you to do additional reporting, add a thousand-word sidebar, and so on. Your response: if a new direction—take the gig; a sale is a sale. If a major addition, ask for more money.

Assigned story rejection—A publication asks you to write a story. You complete the job only to have your assigned story killed because of content, space limitations, or another reason. Your response: Demand a kill fee and the right to sell the story elsewhere, including the publication’s competition. If the latter is refused, demand the full fee and negotiate down. If the story is rejected for non-content and non-quality reasons (such as a change of theme of the issue), immediately ask for another assignment. They owe you one.

Assigned story partial rejection—Your story is accepted, but the publication tells you it needs a major rewrite. Your response: Agree. It’s a sale. But you’ve wasted a lot of time, so ask for partial payment to get you through.



Ultimately, the most important thing about getting a story rejected is to learn why it happened in order to become a better writer. Again, don’t take the rejection personally. It is very possible that your piece was rejected for reasons far outside your control. For example, you send a poem to a literary magazine and it is rejected. It may be because the editor didn’t like its subject matter. Or he or she was putting the latest issue to bed and had already laid out the content for printing. Or he or she has already accepted a poem with exactly the same subject.

In other words, there can be a hundred different reasons why your poem was rejected that have exactly nothing to do with the quality of the poem or your talent as a poet. If you let this rejection stop you from submitting your poem elsewhere, you will be doing yourself and your potential readers a disservice. By the same token, don’t let an acceptance convince you that you are a genius: your poem may have been accepted solely because another poet pulled his or her piece from that issue and your piece arrived at just the right moment and is of the right length to fill the newly created editorial hole. So, don’t let that acceptance letter give you a big head (well, maybe a little bigger) and lead you to assume that your next pitch to the publication will have the same happy result.

Just stay focused. Do your best work always and treat rejection (and acceptance) with the same skepticism—and as a goad to try even harder. Professionals don’t let one setback or one win change their career plans.





CHAPTER 21 A Writer's Life


Until now, this book has been about professional writing careers. We close with a look at the life of a professional writer.





The fundamental question


How should a writer live his or her life and conduct a career in order to achieve the greatest contribution, satisfaction, and happiness? At the beginning of your working life, this may not seem like a big deal; you’re too busy just trying to start your career, not worrying about how to finish it. But trust the author: there will come a time in your life when you ask yourself whether it was all worth it, and what will be your legacy? The sooner you start asking yourself those questions, the better the odds that you will find (or more accurately, create) satisfying answers.

The following is the career wisdom of this author, acquired over the course of nearly 50 years as a professional writer. It is incomplete and, in some cases, perhaps even wrong—or at least a poor fit for your life. So, take it as you will and keep searching for answers from every other professional writer you meet.





Recognize that you will change


Appreciate from the start that the person you are at 20 is not the person you will be at 40 or 60 or 80. Not only will your skills change, but also your interests and your dreams. Don’t get stuck trying to live out fantasies that are no longer valid to your life—that is, just because at 20 you wanted to be a novelist, and told everybody so, doesn’t mean at 50 you are still obliged to write that novel. No one cares. If something else inspires you instead, go after it—don’t linger on the past.





Recognize that the world’s perception of you changes as well


As you conduct your career, you will gain a reputation. Find out what that reputation is: don’t delude yourself that you are seen as someone you are not. If your reputation is the one you want, then figure out how to cultivate and grow it. If it is not the one you want, then develop a strategy to change that reputation. And don’t just sit where you are, trying to maintain the status quo, because your reputation will deteriorate if you don’t tend to it.





Don’t look back


Your past mistakes will only haunt you, while your past successes may depress you about the present. Save your nostalgia for retirement.





Learn from your biggest mistakes


The author once had a television series in which he interviewed the biggest names in high tech. What he learned was that while most people try to forget, or bury, their biggest screw-ups, really successful people regularly revisit them. They constantly pull them out, like talismans, and study them for what they can learn. They dedicate themselves to never making the same mistake again. Don’t fear past failures; use them to educate yourself. Erase their sting, keep them always at hand, and promise yourself never to do them again.





Take risks when you’re young


The early years of your career are the time to roll the dice. Devote time to a long-shot idea, move to another city or country, quit a job on principle, go broke, write that novel. You can still do those things later in life, but it will be a whole lot harder when you have a mortgage and a family as hostages to fate.





Always have multiple irons in the fire


Never trust an impending project—even “sure things”—not to fail. And never bet your future on a single gig. Always have several other ideas in the works. It is all but guaranteed that all but one or two will fall away. And on the rare occasion when more than two projects suddenly pan out, suck it up, put in the added time, and do them all. Use the extra income to reward yourself or to buy something you’ve been putting off.





Hit your deadlines, and deliver what you have been asked for


Don’t get a reputation for being chronically late, or needing a lot of rework. Leave yourself enough time to polish your writing to a professional sheen. Put in all headings, subheads, footnotes, and so on when you deliver the copy. If you are going to be late, have a very good reason—and notify your editor ahead of time. Never surprise an editor.





Cultivate your superiors, and take care of your subordinates


This goes for almost any career, not least professional writing. It doesn’t mean being a suck-up to your boss. But it does mean getting to know your boss, being a reliable subordinate, working to your mutual advantage, taking on the most challenging jobs, and in every way positioning yourself for promotion. By the same token, when you are placed in a management role, your job is to help your employees have the best possible career. This includes protecting them from unfair treatment and challenging them to do their best work, and this can be the most difficult of all—helping them advance in the organization. Too many bosses see their subordinates as a potential threat—and actively sabotage their careers. Don’t be that boss.





Respect your elders and listen to their advice


Old timers may talk your ear off, and they can be wrong in some of their arguments, but their opinions are hard-earned from experience. Listen to them, then try to escape their mistakes and build upon their successes. Someday you’ll be that old veteran writer—and if there is any justice, you will be treated the way you treated your predecessors.





Celebrate your successes and learn from your errors


Life is short, enjoy it. Sell an article, buy a nice lunch. Sell a book, have an expensive dinner. Early in his career, the author used to celebrate a book sale with a new fountain pen (these days he just pays the mortgage). True successes don’t come along very often, so set those moments aside and honor them. By the same token, don’t sweat your mistakes. Well, a little—at least enough that you learn from those mistakes, remember them, and don’t make them again.





Enjoy the work you’re doing while you’re doing it


We all have a tendency to look beyond what we’re doing now to the Next Big Thing. And while it’s good to have a long-term strategy, and to keep your eye on the distant prize, it can also keep you from appreciating the here and now. A life spent thinking only of the future is a life of eternal dissatisfaction with the present. And what if you never do reach your goal, was your life then a waste of time? Learn to enjoy what you are doing at any moment. Find satisfaction in the small, the quotidian, and the as-yet unfinished.





Family and friends come first


The good news for writers in our mobile digital age is that you can do your work on a beach while on vacation. The bad news is that you will do your work on a beach while on vacation. Being a writer can be 24/7/365 if you let it. Don’t let it. The work will consume your life—and will become a vicious spiral, in which, as you become more alienated from the rest of your life, you justify that alienation by working even harder. You get to see yourself as a martyr, and not the selfish person you really are. It is a cliché, but nevertheless tragically true that nobody ever lies on their deathbed regretting they didn’t spend more time at the office even if that office is just down the hallway in your house. Your close personal relationships—family and friends—are the most important things in your life. Never forget that, no matter what the demands of work. And don’t fool yourself either. Take it from me: walking around behind the bleachers talking on a business call while your children play on their sports team is not being a good parent. You are only there in body, not in spirit. Turn off the phone and go cheer your kids.





Cover your core


Determine your basic cost of living per month and do whatever it takes to guarantee that income. After that, focus on the projects you want to do. Remember Wilkins Micawber’s famous line from Oliver Twist: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.” There is a lot of wisdom in Dicken’s words—especially so if you intend to pursue a career as a freelance writer. You need to have a very precise idea of what is your monthly expense “nut”—rent, car payments, food, your children’s orthodontist. You must cover that cost in any way you can—even if it means writing press releases under contract or taking a part-time non-writing job. If you don’t, you will suffer—worse, your family will suffer.

Then, once you cover your core expenses you are free to either take on safe writing work that will pad your income, or (especially if you aren’t married) tackle some speculative ventures—such as writing a novel—in hopes that you can supercharge your career or get rich.





Always go bigger


Don’t stand pat. Never stop fighting for a larger audience, a higher-profile creation, a national platform, and a bigger publisher’s advance. The truth of the writing business is that there is a ratchet effect: while it is very difficult to get to the next level in your work, once you are there it is almost as difficult, if you keep working hard, to fall back down. It may take you 20 years to become a writer at the national level—but once you’ve arrived, your resume, your reputation, and your connections will likely keep you at the level for as long as you want to be there.





Be multimedia


In the twenty-first century, it is not enough to be a good writer. You also need to know how to write in different styles and for different venues. Even more, you have to know audio and visual technologies to survive. You can’t learn how to do this by reading a book; rather you need to spend time behind a camera, in front of a microphone, and sitting in an editing suite. One of the best ways to do this is while you are still in college—take courses in broadcasting. It gets harder later: some of these skills you can learn on the job (assuming you work in the right place) or by taking night classes at a local community college. But either way, get those skills; don’t assume that you will live by writing alone in the decades to come.





Learn to speak publicly


Surveys have found that the average person puts public speaking second, just behind dying, as their greatest fear. And the reality is that some people are quite comfortable speaking in front of any sized crowd—and don’t understand what the big deal is for others; and vice versa. The fact is, you do not have to be an accomplished public speaker to have a successful professional writer career but it sure helps.

In the corporate world, a talent for public speaking—at corporate events, trade shows, conferences, and so on—is a pre-requisite for advancement to the vice-presidential or director level. As a television or radio reporter, part of your job description will be to emcee community events. And as a book author or novelist, you will be expected to do television and radio interviews, as well as speak at book signings and other promotional events. In almost every field of professional writing, public speaking will enhance your reputation, capture new readers, and could contribute a major fraction of your income.

But if you do want to pursue public speaking, but are nervous about it, there are a number of ways to overcome your fears. First, start with small groups of people you know (though confident speakers will tell you that small audiences, whose faces you can see, can be tougher than giant audiences of anonymous faces); prepare a “stump” speech that you can all but memorize; and practice, practice, practice.

As for television and radio interviews, you can prepare for those with a friend and a video recorder. Watch your mannerisms and get rid of any eccentricities. Dress simply and plainly. Don’t look at the camera. And give succinct answers.





Pro bono work


Remember Johnson’s line about working for free. You are a professional, don’t ever write again for nothing—with one exception: your skill can be very valuable to nonprofit institutions, your kids’ school, your favorite political candidate, and so on. So, be a good person and a good citizen and donate your skills to your community. But never donate those skills to a for-profit institution ever again.





You are a business, not an art form


We have said this again and again: treat your writing career as a profession, not a calling. Manufacture your product—words—but also take care of the rest of the business, including marketing, promotion, finance and billing, and taxes. The better you run your business, the more money you will make and the more time you have to do the writing you want. Run your business poorly—or worse, ignore it—and you will eventually find yourself taking on work you don’t want to do, at the expense of the work you do. If you can’t do the business side of your profession (and don’t kid yourself, you can) hire a bookkeeper. But to save costs, just go out and buy some bookkeeping and tax preparation software.

Meanwhile, learn to negotiate the highest fee or advance. Invoice immediately. Keep track of your income and expenses. As your business grows, hire a good tax accountant.





Manage your money


If you have a full-time writing job, carefully budgeting your paychecks can buy you some time to do the writing you want, or attend a writers’ conference. If you are a freelancer, you’ll discover that payments for your writing—especially books—usually come in large lump sums. You need to learn to string that money out over time until the next payment. Train your creditors, bank, landlord, and so forth to expect tardy payments combined with multiple payments.





Marry Well


No, this is not advice on who to marry—only that it helps to have a patient spouse who can manage money well. Writers can be difficult people to live with, not least because they have to swing back and forth from creative to promotional modes every few months. And, of course, there are the reviews. That said, too many writers like to excuse their boorish or selfish behavior because they are creative people. That is garbage. There is no excuse for treating badly the people in your life—or taking advantage of them by living off their wages while not working hard yourself. And shame on you if you try to teach the people in your life otherwise.





You’ve only got to be great once


Back when the author had an interview series on American public television, he had the opportunity to interview the novelist William Styron. We were talking about another novelist, Ralph Ellison, when I noted that it was tragic that Ellison had written the great novel Invisible Man—and never published another book in his lifetime. No, Styron replied, not tragic at all; you only have to write one masterpiece to make your reputation forever. Everything else will be forgotten anyway.

As I grow older, the more I’m convinced Styron was correct. Your fans may be disappointed, but your professional peers know that if you can write that one great story or book your reputation is set. The problem is, how do you know which book you start will end up being that big one? You don’t. And that means that whenever you get the chance, you should take your very best shot—in baseball parlance, you should always swing for the fences. Every writing job should be your shot at immortality.





Grow old gracefully


There’s nothing sadder, or more pathetic, than an aged person trying to be young. First of all, it can’t be done. Second, it ultimately is a denial of who you really are—that is, you are living a lie. Finally, as a writer, it leads you to write about things you don’t know instead of things that you do. So, don’t try to stay hip. That’s not to say you shouldn’t stay informed of what is going on in the world around you; just don’t try to live in a reality that isn’t yours.

Finally, don’t try to compete with younger writers, but rather carve out a safe place where they can’t compete with you. And that place is the world and the experiences of your own generation.





Apply for awards and honors


Why? Because everybody else is—though most won’t admit it. Instead, they’ll act as if they are above all of the “glittering prizes.” They aren’t and they will win the awards that rightly belong to you.

Still, aren’t literary awards just about writers’ egos? Yes and no. Keep in mind that for people outside your profession, literary awards are a kind of shorthand for them to get a sense of how your peers see the quality of your work. It is also how future generations will likely first approach your work—and, in the case of the really big awards (Nobel, Booker, Pulitzer, National Book Award), it is a near-guarantee that your best work will stay in print.

That said, it is crucial that, even as you submit your work for these awards, you understand that they are crap—less an absolute measure of quality than the product of bias by judges, politics, and sheer dumb luck. Never forget that or let awards go to your head; they never help future works but can only hurt them.





Don’t take on any bad vices


Never buy into the myth that drunks are great writers or that heroin makes you a better artist. Your art is created despite your vices. Of course, being sober and judicious isn’t very romantic—not like being a Malcolm Lowry or William Faulkner spinning out masterpieces while blind drunk. But the reality is that nobody writes well—at least not for long—when they are drunk or high. You just think you’re writing well. And you can be certain those great drunken writers did their best work between benders.

There is also the matter of life expectancy. It is romantic to outsiders to read about writers who “lived fast, died young, and left a beautiful corpse,” but not only is that last clause almost always false, but the whole idea of an early death for artists is incredibly wasteful. Most writers (along with most painters) only get better with time. Imagine the great work that Rimbaud or Mary Shelley or Rilke might have created if they had lived until their eighties. Their loss is tragic, not thrilling.

No, as a professional writer your goal should be to create the best work you can do. And that will only be accomplished if you stay healthy, live a long life, and do the best work you possibly can every step of the way. Then go off into that long night proud of what you have accomplished.





Don’t be a jerk


I use a much stronger word when I’m speaking to my classes. But the meaning is the same: don’t be a jerk—a bad boss, a bad employee, a company hatchet man, or someone who is known for stabbing others in the back. You are better than that.

If that argument isn’t enough to convince you, then let’s try the pragmatic one: you may think that being a jerk is good for your career—and sometimes it will be for a while. But then you will hit the wall. No one likes the corporate assassin—especially not the executive who hired and used him—and you will be fired. Your bad reputation will follow you wherever you go—especially in the Facebook era. Your fellow employees will go out their way to keep your reputation destroyed.

And if even that isn’t enough to convince you to be an ethical human being, consider your legacy: being a jerk will be the only thing most people will remember about you. And if you do manage to be successful, your jerkiness and rotten behavior will be recorded forever in your biography. All those people you screwed over will get the last word.

Instead, treat other people decently and with respect. Be ambitious and aggressive, but don’t cheat and don’t stab others in the back. Let your work speak for itself—and let your integrity, along with a powerful body of work, be your true legacy. Does that sound idealistic? You’ll discover that idealism is just pragmatism maintained over decades.





Pass it along


Professional writing often seems like a solitary activity, but it is an ancient and honorable craft guild. And as with any guild, it is your duty to share your acquired wisdom with newcomers to the profession, just as your elders shared theirs with you (one of the reasons for this book). It is also your duty in the years ahead to leave the craft stronger than you found it. The technology revolution—and Moore’s Law at its heart—is transforming not just the platforms of communication in our culture, but also language itself, at a mind-boggling pace. It will be your challenge not just to keep up with these changes, but to establish new standards of professional writing for those writers who will follow you.

Good luck and have a great career.