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ADVICE TO FEATURE WRITERS:A guide to better writing, Love Writing

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Feature and Column Writing ­ MCM 514
VU
LESSON 18
ADVICE TO FEATURE WRITERS
A guide to better writing
Usually, when you're good at something, you don't bother to analyse or think about the mechanics of the
technique. You just do it either because it comes naturally to you or because you've been doing it for so
long that it's become ingrained in you.
Now, are good writers born or taught? This imponderable is probably asked in all professions, especially
ones involving artistic endeavours. It's that old nature versus nurture debate. How much of what you are
as a person is a result of your genes and how much is influenced by your environment? No one really
knows for sure.
But trying to figure this out is not just an academic exercise. As a writer, an editor or a writing coach, one
must know what produces great writing. Is the ability to write well something latent in someone ­ who,
perhaps, was born with the right mix of intelligence, language capabilities and imagination? Or is good
writing something that anyone, with the right amount of determination and training, is capable of
producing?
One can tilt a little bit towards the nature side of things. You can teach someone to be a capable writer,
but the really good ones are born with that special blend of creativity that allows them to rise above the
rest.
So, if you're not a natural born writer, does that mean you can't produce good articles? No! Good writing
is something that can be observed, learnt and repeated.
There is one quality that must be inherent, though, and that is the love of writing. Only with genuine
desire will you have the perseverance and discipline to do all the things you need to do to improve.
At its most fundamental, you'll have to read a whole lot more than the average person. And write
whenever you have the chance. Write, write, and write!
It may be true that great writers are born that way but with hard work and a steady devotion to the craft,
anyone can be made ­ if not a great writer ­ at least a good one.
Tip 1: Love Writing
If you find writing to be a chore; if you grumble each time your editor gives you an extra assignment; if
you'd rather be doing something else other than writing, you should be asking yourself: 'What am I doing
in this profession?' If you don't love writing, give up. You really have no business being a writer because
you won't be very good at it. It's as simple as that.
"Writing a book is like rearing children ­ willpower has very little to do with it. If you have a little baby
crying in the middle of the night, and if you depend only on willpower to get you out of bed to feed the
baby, that baby will starve. You do it out of love. Willpower is a weak idea; love is strong. You don't
have to scourge yourself with cat-o'-nine tails to go to the baby. You got to the baby out of love for that
particular baby. That's the same way you go to your desk... I write because I love writing."
Donald M. Murray, writing coach and Boston Globe columnist.
II: Love Reading
If you don't love reading, you should also be questioning yourself whether being a writer is the right
profession for you. For it's only when you read a lot ­ about your topic of specialisation as well as general
knowledge material ­ that you can become a good writer.
But reading is not just for acquiring knowledge. It also helps you to learn about different writing styles
and ultimately allows you to eventually develop your own writing style.
Be an avid reader.
The more one reads, the more he understands the process of writing, for one does not just read, he also
analyses the different writing styles.
"You should read and read and read. That is your only hope of ever developing a decent individual style."
Steven Koch, Princeton and Columbia writing teacher
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Feature and Column Writing ­ MCM 514
VU
III: Find Role Models
It is said that imitation is the sincerest of flattery. But for those of us trying to become better writers,
imitation is more than flattery; it's a powerful and time-honoured way to master the craft.
Some very important lessons are learnt by writing down turns-of-phrases by other writers. But don't just
copy. Analyse. If a particular phrase or sentence is appealing to you, don't just enjoy the words. Ask
yourself what it is you like about it. Break the sentence down and try to understand why those words
managed to elicit a reaction from you.
In the end, you must use your own words to become the writer you want to be. But you can learn loads by
initially copying and analysing the style of other writers. Through this method, you gain an intimate
understanding of the way good writers construct their sentences.
"Do not fear imitation. Nobody sensible pursues an imitative style as a long-term goal, but all
accomplished writers know that the notion of pure originality is a childish fantasy. Up to a point,
imitation is the path to discovery and essential to growth."
Stephen Koch, Princeton and Columbia writing teacher
IV: Be a Specialist
You won't go very far as a generalist. It's a dog-eat-dog world out in the writing market, with plenty of
competition ready to eat your lunch. To carve a niche for yourself, decide on a topic or area that you will
specialise in. Then,
i) Read prodigiously about the topic
ii) Talk to people in the industry
iii) Devour books and magazines, and constantly comb the web for knowledge.
The best specialist writers constantly read about their area of specialty. As a result, they are well-versed in
the language, issues and events relating to those topics. They are like a sponge, absorbing knowledge all
the time.
But it's not enough to read. You need to be on the ground. You need to be everywhere, from product
launches to press conferences. You need to invest time talking to everyone and anyone that matters in that
particular industry.
Quite often, specialty writers know their stuff so well that their industry contacts sometimes turn to them
to find out the latest industry news and gossip. When you've reached that level, you would have carved a
niche for yourself.
V: Be Versatile
Being a specialist doesn't mean being rigid and unable to write about any other topic or in any other style
other than the niche you've carved for yourself?
As a professional writer, you have to specialise in something but be versatile enough to do a broad range
of stories. There is, of course, a limit to how diverse a person can be as a writer. But as a general rule, it's
a good idea to expose yourself to a handful of genres.
"If you have any talent as a writer, you have to be versatile. I can write a long story. I can write a short
story, I can write a feature, I can write a hard news story. You have to be able to do that as a reporter. If
you tend to write the same kind of story all the time, you're not really growing as a writer."
Russell Eshleman Jr, The Philadelphia Inquirer
VI: Be Your Own Harshest Critic
Good writers are rarely satisfied. They write a word, then tap the delete key and start all over again.
Multiple times. They're always trying to find a more compelling lead to draw in the reader, a stronger
angle, and more colourful quotes to spice up the story, a snappier conclusion leaves a lasting impression
on the reader.
To be a good writer, you must constantly review your work. Once you've finished writing an article, take
a short breather, walk around the house, have a coffee, and then read your story from start to end. When
doing so, role-play the reader. Pretend you're reading the story for the first time.
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Feature and Column Writing ­ MCM 514
VU
Does the lead make you want to keep reading? Does it take you too long to learn what the story is about
and why it's important to you? What questions do you have about the story? Are they answered in the
order you would logically ask them? Was the conclusion memorable enough? Be your own harshest
critic.
Do this until you are sufficiently satisfied with what you've got (as a good writer, you should NEVER be
fully satisfied).
VII: Be a Stickler for Accuracy
Of course, everyone makes mistakes, no one is perfect, but writers must take great care to get their facts
right. Otherwise they lose their greatest asset: Credibility. If you're known to regularly get the small
things wrong, your ability to get the big picture right will be questioned by your readers.
Three rules of thumb to avoid making mistakes:
1. Get it right the first time around. During an interview, take the necessary time and care to read back the
spelling of the source's name and other names they mention. As for all the details you need right there
and then. Don't fact-check after the fact. Do it during the reporting process.
2. Don't rely on memory and never assume. During the writing, constantly refer to your notes and other
materials you have gathered while reporting the story. Also, do not make assumptions. If the facts, details
or quotes you need are not in your notes, do a follow up interview (by phone if necessary) to get them
straight from the horses' mouths.
3. Verify that you've got it right. After you're done writing, it's never a bad thing to read back the relevant
portions of your story to the people you've interviewed. This is particularly important when you are
writing about something complex. For example, if you're describing a complicated financial transaction or
an unusual medical procedure, there's nothing wrong with asking the people you've interviewed to listen
to what you've written. Ask them: "Have I described it correctly?" They will tell you.
VIII: Be Smart with Numbers
Dealing with numbers is always a tricky thing. When you write a feature story that involves lots of
numbers, make sure you tell the story in a way that allows people to understand the significance of those
numbers.
Relativity
Remember that number, in of themselves, have little significance to readers. Their value to your story
comes from their relative values, not their absolute values. So, when you must refer to numbers in a story,
make a point to compare them to something else. Here's an example:
"The Bakun Dam would flood 69,640 hectares of forest."
That sentence above means nothing to the average reader who would have no clue how big 69,640
hectares is. Now, let's have a look at this next sentence.
"The Bakun Dam would flood 69,640 hectares of forest, an area roughly the size
of Singapore."
Now, it's easy for anyone visualize just how big Bakun Dam is. Get it?
Rounding Off
Unless you are writing a financial article or report, you don't need to use precise figures. Rounding off is a
good practice that makes your story flow better. So, it's okay to say "nearly doubled" or "about three
times as much as" and remain both accurate and understandable.
For example, if 32.56 per cent of students flunked the final exam, it'd be perfectly fine to say that "about
one in three students failed to make the grade".
Similarly, if someone has been working his trade for 29 years and six months, it's fine to say, "Mr. Lee
has been selling his famous assam laksa for nearly three decades.'
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Feature and Column Writing ­ MCM 514
VU
IX: Write Tightly
When you write, remember to write tightly. One of the main reasons writers like to write long articles is
because it's much easier to write loosely. But that's a lousy practice.
Writing tightly requires you to cut out all kinds of stuff from your precious article. And nobody likes to
do that. But being a professional writer means having the discipline to murder your darlings.
Every time I write an article, I still have to force myself to cut out some of my favourite bits from the
story. It's always a struggle but I eventually do what's necessary. What survive my scalpel are the
absolutely essential bits.
Three rules of thumb for writing tightly:
1. Never write a paragraph where a sentence will do; and never use a long word where a short one will do
2. If it's possible to cut a word out, cut it out
3. Stick religiously to assigned word length. This will force you to cut out non-essential information and
avoid detours that might be interesting to you but will detract from the focus of your story.
Keep your copy tight, you should start by distilling your raw notes and quotes before you even begin
writing. The danger of not doing so is that everything ends up being used. Then what you get is a jumbled
mess, not a story.
Remember, in composing your story, you only want the most illustrative anecdotes, the most essential
details and the most memorable quotes. So, be merciless in cutting out everything else.
The next time you find yourself thinking "I shouldn't be wasting this quote" remember the "iceberg
effect". When you see an iceberg, all you are seeing is the tip. A huge chunk of it is hidden away beneath
the surface of the water. Similarly, every good story is derived from a whole bunch of interviews, data
and research material that don't necessarily make it to the final story. Their roles are to help you gain a
better understanding of the topic you are writing about.
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no
unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a
machine no unnecessary parts."
William Strunk Jr, author of The Elements of Style
"If you used every quote you got, your stories would go on forever... So you use your quotes to bolster
the main points of your stories, and then cut it off..."
Russell Eshleman, Jr, The Philadelphia Inquirer
A common response I get from writers when I ask them to cut out stuff from their stories is "But, I don't
want to waste anything". That's a wrong attitude to have. Just because some information doesn't get used
doesn't mean it's wasted.
"The main rule of a writer is never to pity your manuscript. If you see something is no good, throw it
away and begin again. A lot of writers have failed because they have too much pity. They have already
worked so much; they cannot just throw it away. But I say that the wastepaper basket is a writer's best
friend. My wastepaper basket is on a steady diet."
Isaac Bashevis Singer, winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature
X: Add Colour
It doesn't mean your story should read like an SMS.
I always remind non-fiction writers that even though we write about real world people and events,
ultimately, we are still storytellers. The qualities that make up a good story still need to be in our articles.
That's why it's important for you to add colour to your stories.
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Feature and Column Writing ­ MCM 514
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An effective way to add colour is to use vivid details where appropriate. When you describe something or
someone, make a point to provide a sense of place, a sense of the personalities involved and a sense of
time, so that the readers feel like they are actually there.
Below are some comments by journalists from various publications on how they use detail to add colour
to their stories:
"In a good story, a paranoid schizophrenic doesn't just hear imaginary voices, he hears them say, `Go kill
a policeman.'"
David Finkel, The Washington Post
"You ask the questions: What was it like? What did it feel like? Take the reader where he cannot go.
What is it like in those woods? What is it like on that island? What is it like in that person's dreams? And
you do that by accumulating every bit of meaningful detail and using it where it seems appropriate. It's
what you leave out sometimes that is as important as what you put in."
Carol McCabe, The Providence Journal
"When I sit down to write a story, I want people to see the story, I want people to feel what I feel, hear
what I hear, taste what I taste, and smell what I smell. So those are kind of the basic Writing 101 things
that I'm using. The colours, the smell, the marked-up pages of his Bible... Oftentimes, when I'm in these
situations interviewing people, I have a finite amount of time. As they're speaking and the tape recorder is
rolling, I'm writing down these details all the time. It's like, what am I struck by? Her kitchen is perfectly
clean. It's black and white. A little girl sitting in her high chair, but she's not eating her Cheerios, all the
things that are happening around me..."
DeNeen L. Brown, The Washington Post
XI: Write the Way You Speak
When Don Murray showed up for his first day as the Boston Globe's writing coach more than 25 years
ago, he claimed he could tell straight away who the top three writers at the Globe were.
He looked around the room and pointed out a man and two women who indeed turned out to the best
writers in the newsroom.
How did he do it? Did he have some magical insight? No, actually it was something more down to earth.
According to Murray, he could tell who the best writers were because "their lips move when they write."
More often than not, good writers actually read out their stories, to themselves, to hear whether what they
wrote sounds right. I've long used that technique even before I had heard about Murray's anecdote. And I
can vouch that it really works to improve your writing.
If a sentence doesn't sound right when you read it ­ for example, it doesn't flow so smoothly or is
awkward in some way ­ then you know you'd better rewrite that sentence.
"Effective writing has the illusion of speech without its bad habits," Murray says. "The reader hears a
writer speaking to a reader. The writing should flow with grace, pace, and clarity ­ not the way we speak
but, better than that, the way we should speak."
When you compose your article, write as if you were speaking to someone. That's the best way to get
your message across because it makes your articles simple to understand.
So, the next time you want to know if your article reads well, read the damn thing ­ aloud! If it doesn't
sound good to you, you can be certain it won't sound good to others.
XII: Assume they don't know and don't Care
There are two assumptions I always make before I attempt to write on, whether it's a straight news piece,
a feature story or a commentary. They are:
The reader doesn't know anything about the topic I'm about to write on
The reader doesn't care either
The first assumption forces me to put in the necessary background information to make the story
understandable even to someone who has no clue about the topic.
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Feature and Column Writing ­ MCM 514
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The second assumption forces me to make the story interesting. It shouldn't just appeal to the hardcore
who care deeply about the issue. Even those who don't care should find the article so compelling, they'd
want to read the whole thing through.
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Table of Contents:
  1. IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE:Feature writing, Explanation of the definition
  2. SOURCES OF MATERIAL:Commemorations, Science and Technology
  3. INTERNET USAGE IN FEATURE WRITING:Be very careful, Website checklist
  4. WHAT MAKES A GOOD FEATURE?:Meeting demands of readers
  5. DEMANDS OF A FEATURE:Entertainment and Interest, Both sides of picture
  6. CONDUCTING AND WRITING OF INTERVIEWS:Kinds of interviews
  7. WRITING NOVELTY INTROS:Punch or astonisher intros, Direct quotation intros
  8. STRUCTURE OF FEATURES:Intro or Lead, Transition, Body
  9. SELECTION OF PICTURES, ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS:Sources
  10. FEATURES AND EDITORIAL POLICY:Slanting or angling feature
  11. HUMAN INTEREST AND FEATURE WRITING:Obtaining facts, Knowing how to write
  12. NEWSPAPER FEATURE STORY:The Business Story, The Medical Story
  13. THE NEWSPAPER FEATURE STORY IDEA:Conflict, Human interest
  14. MAGAZINE FEATURE VERSUS DAILIES:Feature versus Editorial, An overview
  15. WRITING THE SPECIALISED FEATURE STORY:The Deadline Feature Sidebar
  16. MODERN FEATURE AND ITS TREATMENT:Readers’ constraints
  17. MODERN FEATURE WRITING TECHNIQUE:The Blundell Technique
  18. ADVICE TO FEATURE WRITERS:A guide to better writing, Love Writing
  19. COLUMN WRITING:Definition, Various definitions, Why most powerful?
  20. COLUMN WRITING IN MODERN AGE:Diversity of thought, Individuality
  21. ENGLISH AND URDU COLUMNISTS:More of anecdotal, Letting readers know
  22. TYPES OF COLUMNS:Reporting-in-Depth Columns, Gossip Columns
  23. OBJECTIVES AND IMPORTANCE OF COLUMNS:Friendly atmosphere, Analysis
  24. WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIALS AND BASIC POINTS THAT GO IN TO THE FORMING OF A COLUMN?
  25. STYLE:General and a specialised writing, How can a columnist improve it?
  26. GENERAL STYLE OF THE COLUMN:Unified Style, Anecdotal Style, Departmental Style
  27. STRUCTURE OF A COLUMN:Intro or lead, Main body, Conclusion
  28. COLUMN WRITING TIPS:Write with conviction, Purpose, Content
  29. SELECTION OF A TOPIC:Close to your heart, Things keeping in Queue
  30. QUALITIES OF A COLUMN WRITER:Personal, Professional, Highly Educated
  31. WHAT MUST BE PRACTISED BY A COLUMNIST?:Pleasantness, Fluency
  32. SOURCES OF MATERIAL OF COLUMNS:Constant factors, Interview
  33. USEFUL WRITING DEVICES:Be specific, Use Characterisation, Describe scenes
  34. COMMON WRITING PROBLEMS:Eliminate clichés, Don’t misuse words
  35. WRITING THE COLUMN:Certain thumb rules, After writing the column
  36. ARTICLE WRITING:Introduction, Definition, Contents, Main Segments, Main body
  37. HOW TO WRITE AN ARTICLE?:It is more efficient, It is more believable
  38. TYPES AND SUBJECTS OF ARTICLE:Interview articles, Utility articles
  39. FIVE COMMANDMENTS, NO PROFESSIONAL FORGETS:Use Key Words
  40. ARTICLES WRITING MISTAKES:Plagiarising or 'buying articles, Rambling
  41. WRITING THE ARTICLE:Various parts of article, The topic sentence
  42. What to do when you have written the article?:Writing the first draft
  43. TEN STANDARD ARTICLE FORMATS:The informative articles
  44. LEGAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR WRITERS:Libel, Doctoring Quotes
  45. REVISION:Importance of language, Feature writing, Sources of material