How to Write Well, Write Quickly, and Write for Money

How to Write Well, Write Quickly, and Write for Money

A Chapter by Joe Wisinski
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In this chapter you will learn: How to write with an angle How to write with a purpose How to write using the inverted pyramid How and why to write like news writers do

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Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, said, "Don't write merely to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood."

Some say that first century A.D. philosopher Epictetus first said those words, but no matter. Either way, it's great advice.

To write so you can't possibly be misunderstood, it's imperative that you write with an angle. A story angle refers to the way your story is focused. It's looking at your topic in one particular way, to the exclusion of all others.

For example, say you land a freelance writing assignment from your local weekly newspaper. The circus is coming to town and the editor wants you to write a story about it. Presumably, the editor would give you some guidance on what she wants you to write about. But what if she doesn't? You have to come up with some way to focus your story; clearly you can't write everything there is to know about the circus, including its history, the variety of acts, its performers, admission prices, and show times, all in one story.

So you have to narrow down, or focus, your story on just one aspect of the circus. In this case your angle is probably pretty obvious - if the editor wants a story about the circus coming to town she's probably looking at what acts will be in the show, show times, and admission prices. However, that's only one aspect of the circus. You could approach your story in many ways, such as writing about the unusual background of one of the performers, the history of this particular circus, an accident that occurred at a previous show, or even protests against the circus, because some animal rights groups believe animals are being abused. All of these ways of approaching your story are angles. And no doubt there are many more angles you could take.

So how do you come up with an angle? How do you take this giant step from "There are many dimensions to the circus" to "I'm going to take this particular angle"?

Here is a system for easily developing angles. Once you understand this concept, you'll never have a hard time coming up with an angle. Later we'll use this same system in greater detail to compose an outline, including main points and subpoints, so you can write an entire book.

Many "learn to write" books teach the importance of a workable angle, but don't tell you how to develop the angle. This chapter will show you how.

I'm going to teach you some concepts that you've probably never heard before. Don't let this new material throw you. Work through it and you'll soon understand these new ideas.

If you remember nothing else from this chapter, remember this: choosing the right angle is the most critical matter in writing a story. Without an effective angle, you cannot write an effective story.

Characteristics of an effective angle

In order to know if you have chosen a good angle, you must know what characteristics of an effective angle. There are three characteristics of an effective angle. The first is that an effective angle is not too broad.

An example of an angle that is too broad would be the circus. How can you possibly say everything there is to say about the circus in one story? It would take a book to write about the history of the circus, its performers, its detractors, and so on. Even if you wrote a book, however, you probably couldn't do a thorough job of saying everything there is to say about the circus. So you have to narrow your subject down.

But you don't want to narrow your subject down too far, so the second characteristic of an effective angle is that an effective angle is not too narrow.

Although the mistake many writers make is to choose too broad an angle, we must not err in the opposite direction and choose too narrow an angle. To stay with our example of the circus, an angle that would be too narrow would be the show times in your town. You could list those times in just a few lines; that doesn't require a story. Indeed, trying to write a complete story with that angle isn't wise.

The third characteristic of an effective angle is that an effective angle takes the interests of your reader into consideration.

A common mistake writers make is to overlook the needs of their readers. Some writers think that because a certain angle is of interest to them, other people will also find that angle interesting. That's not necessarily so.

Think back to the example of the circus coming to town. One angle I mentioned might be an accident that occurred at a previous show. That certainly could be a workable angle. But remember the needs of your potential readers. If the circus is coming to town and readers might want to go, what they need to know is what acts will perform, admission prices, show times, and parking. That's the most obvious, and probably the most effective, angle. The angle of a previous accident may not reach your readers' needs as much as the nuts and bolts of the circus' appearance.

So, how can you determine what your readers' needs are? One way is through a concept called news values. Think of news values this way " each day trillions of events occur. The vast majority, of course, never make any newscast or newspaper. For example, about 27,000 or so commercial flights take place daily in the U.S. Those flights don't make the news. But just about everyone agrees that if a plane with 200 passengers on board goes down today, that's news. Why? It meets a number of news values. So, the definition we'll work with is "news values determine what makes events into news."

There are probably just about as many designations of news values as there are journalists. I've developed my own list of six news values - timeliness, human interest, effect/affect, importance, unusualness, and closeness. If an event meets the criteria of at least some of these news values, it may be newsworthy. In the example of the airplane crash, it's timely, has a lot of human interest, affects many people, is important, is unusual, and, depending on where it happened, it might be close by. So no doubt it's newsworthy.

I recommend that you apply the above news values to any topic you're considering writing about. Is your topic, and the angle you've chosen, timely? Does it have human interest? Does your potential angle affect a lot of people? Is it important to your readers? Is it unusual? Finally, is the subject of your story or book geographically close to potential readers? If your topic meets one or more, preferably several, news values, then it may meet the needs of your readers and would be a good topic to write about.

Now that we've seen the characteristics of an effective angle, let's learn how to develop a good angle.

How to develop an effective angle

To develop an effective angle, take any subject and divide it up into its parts. Refine it. Narrow it. Qualify it. Break the subject down into its characteristics, components, elements, factors, or qualities. What you're looking for is the ideas that are integral to a subject - what the subject consists of.

You saw how this works earlier with the circus. What I did when I wrote about possible angles was simply listed off the top of my head a number of aspects of the circus - its history, performers, acts, admission prices, and show times. The key is that thinking about the components, parts, elements, or factors of the circus gave me effective topics to work with.

Try one yourself. Say you wanted to write about dogs. That's clearly too broad a subject to write about in one story, or even one book. So think about everything you know about dogs. You know from your general knowledge that some breeds of dogs make better pets than others, so your angle could be "what dogs make the best pets," or "what dogs make the worst pets." You know, again, from your general knowledge, that man and dogs have lived and worked together for thousands of years, so an angle could be "how man and dogs work together."

Once you practice narrowing down subjects this way, you'll find it's easy to develop an angle for your story or book. Appendix II and III contain a list of more than 500 verbs and nouns that will help you to quickly and easily develop angles. By applying these words to any subject, you'll effortlessly develop an angle from that subject.

Here's an example of how to develop an angle using the list of nouns from Appendix III. Let's take the subject of war, which is obviously far too broad to cover in one story or book. Looking at the list of nouns, I see causes, consequences, and weapons. Using these nouns, I can quickly develop angles of the causes of war, the consequences of war, or the weapons of war.

But you probably realize that these angles are still too broad to write about in a story, or even a book. No problem. We'll simply use the same process to further refine one of the angles to a narrower one. And although the verbs in Appendix II and the nouns in Appendix III are useful, we don't even have to use them. We can just narrow our angle from our general knowledge. Let's say we decide to write about the weapons of war. Simply ask yourself, "What are some weapons used in war?" You know that airplanes are used. So are guns. Again, you are narrowing down your topic until you get an angle that's narrow enough to work with and write about. If you want to narrow your angle down still further, you could write about airplanes used in World War I or guns of the Civil War.

Don't be concerned if this seems confusing. I'll give much more instruction and many more examples later when we'll see how to use this same system to develop an outline.

Meanwhile, just know that developing an angle in this way can be done with any subject - watermelon, stars, marriage, or any other entity. Try it yourself and see.

Once you develop your angle, you might ask, "Haven't many people already written on that topic? Isn't there a lot of competition? Of course there is. That fact is actually a positive for you, because you know if many people have already written about your topic there must be a lot of interest in it. There truly is nothing new under the sun, so don't try to develop an angle that no one else has written about before.

You may also wonder, "How do I know my angle isn't now too narrow? Or maybe it's still too broad?" The breadth of your angle will depend on your purpose for writing and on how long your story will be. For now, just use your common sense to decide how far to narrow your angle down. What you're looking for is an angle you can conveniently work with.

Miscellaneous points about angles

You may find it useful to alter the form of the topic you are developing into an angle. For example, if the topic is writing, you could change its form to writers. Then think of the characteristics, components, elements, parts, or factors of writers just as you did with writing. Doing this will enable you to develop many more angles from the topic.

Angles should be limited to one item, not compound items. Don't, for example, write about television programs and television personalities. Write about one or the other.

This is an important point: once you decide on an angle, you must not deviate from it in your story. Every sentence you write must relate to the angle. Otherwise, your story will be poorly organized, disjointed, and difficult to read. Because of the importance of this point I'll write more about it later.

Angles should be in the form of a phrase, not a sentence. For example, use violence on television as an angle, not television is violent. If you state your angle as a sentence, you don't leave it open to development. But stating the angle as a phrase leaves it open for you to develop into a story.

Remember that developing the right angle is the essential starting point to good writing. You cannot write a good story unless you have an effective angle. On the other hand, once you have an effective angle, the rest of your work is much easier.

You've seen how important it is to know what you're writing about, that is, what your angle is. But it's just as important to know why you're writing, which is our next topic.

Writing with a purpose

Most every activity that we engage in is done for a reason. For example:

We watch TV to be entertained, or perhaps to learn

We exercise to keep ourselves in good physical condition

We work to earn money, or for personal satisfaction

Writing shouldn't be any different. When we write, we should write for a specific purpose. Writing without a clear purpose is like driving your car without knowing where you're going - you never know where you'll end up.

The needs of the reader determine the purpose or purposes you'll write for, and from the reader's standpoint, there are just four reasons for you to write any story or book. They form an acronym: PIER

To Persuade

To Inform

To Entertain

To Remind

Any item you'll write will be written for one of these reasons, a combination of two or three, or all four. For example, if you write an editorial for your local newspaper, you're writing to mainly to persuade, but also to inform.

If you write a review of a vacation spot for a travel magazine, you're writing to inform.

If you write a humor book, you're writing to entertain.

And if you write a soft drink commercial to be shown during a televised football game, you're writing to remind. You don't expect your viewers to immediately jump off the couch and run to the store for your brand of soft drink. You're writing to keep your product's name in their minds so the next time they're at the store they'll buy your brand instead of the competition's.

As you gain experience as a writer, you can substitute synonyms for the PIER acronym. For example, you may prefer to write "to teach" instead of "to inform." For now, though, I suggest you stick with the easy-to-remember PIER.

Parts of an effective purpose

In addition to there being four possible purposes for writing, there are three parts to an effective purpose. The first is a verb, which will always be one of the four verbs above - persuade, inform, entertain or remind.

The second part of an effective purpose is a description of the reader. You'll remember when we looked at the characteristics of effective angles you thought about who your reader will be. Sometimes all you need to write is "the reader." Other times you'll need to be more specific, such as readers of Golfers Today magazine or potential buyers of my freelance stories.

The third part of an effective purpose is what I call the action phrase. I call it the action phrase because often, although not always, you want the reader to take action after reading your story.

The action phrase is the same as your angle, or a slight variation in the wording of your angle. So, for example, your angle may be golf courses in south Florida. You're going to take that angle and combine it with the description of your reader and your purpose for writing. When you put all three parts together you'll have something like this: "I am writing to inform readers of Golfers Today magazine about golf courses in South Florida."

Notice how crystal clear your purpose is. You now know exactly why you are writing.

But having a crystal clear purpose for writing is only half the battle. It's great to have a clear purpose for writing, but that may do you little good if you depart from your purpose, So, this is a critical point: You must not deviate from your purpose at any time. Everything you write must relate, in this case, to informing readers of Golfers Today magazine about golf courses in South Florida. You can't introduce any information that does not contribute to this purpose. You can't write about how to find the best airfares to south Florida. You can't write about how your readers can improve their putting. You can't even write about golf courses in North Florida. If you introduce any of those other topics you're going to confuse your readers.

It's not that there's anything wrong with writing about any of those topics. It's just that they are all outside your stated purpose. Later on I'll tell you about a good way to handle information that is interesting, but doesn't quite fit in your purpose for writing. But for now, remember that every sentence you write must relate to your stated purpose. Deciding on a purpose for writing and sticking to that purpose will keep your stories and books on the straight and narrow.

Here is another example of an effective purpose. Let's use a topic of a career as a freelance writer.

Angle: a career as a freelance writer

Purpose: to persuade, (which is the verb) my writing students (which is the description of the reader) to consider a career as a freelance writer (which is the action phrase).

Notice a couple of points about this example. The first point is that I stated the angle and the purpose formally. But this formality is only for your own use, not for the reader's consumption. You would probably not say anywhere in the story "I'm writing to persuade you to consider a career as a freelance writer." But you must keep your purpose firmly in mind as you write, and don't write anything that does not relate to that purpose.

The second point is that you'll notice I had to add a couple of words to the purpose to make the phrase make sense. In the example of golf courses in south Florida I added the word about. In the example of a career as a freelance writer I added the words to consider. Adding additional words to the purpose is fine - just don't remove any words from the purpose.

Let's summarize this section about writing with a purpose.

Remember that each purpose must contain three parts - a verb, a description of the reader, and the action phrase.

For now, it's best to formally state both your angle and your purpose for writing. Before long, as your writing skills increase, you'll no longer have to explicitly write down your topic and purpose.

Most of all, remember that you cannot include any information in your story that does not relate to your purpose. If your purpose is "I am writing to inform parents about the amount of violence on television," every sentence you write must relate to how much violence there is on television.

So far, we've seen that we can write clearly by writing with an angle and writing with a purpose. Another way to write clearly is by using a device that's been around for as long as there have been news writers, called the inverted pyramid.

Using the inverted pyramid

Another way to ensure that your writing is clear is to use the inverted pyramid. As its name implies, the inverted pyramid style of writing puts the most important information first, and less important information farther down.

Many inverted pyramid stories start with the who, what, and when, and then move on to the where, why, and how, just like in this example. But sometimes the where might be closer to the top of the story and the when moved down. Or the how might be closer to the top. There's no hard and fast rule; it just depends on the story content and the writer's wishes. Similarly, you may not necessarily put the background information and details in the same order as I did. Those two elements are interchangeable, again depending on content.

Here's a short example of a story in the inverted pyramid style, with the explanations in parentheses:

Largo commissioners (who) voted unanimously (what) Tuesday night (when) to build a new city hall on the corner of Second and Orange Streets (where).

Commissioners said the current building is no longer adequate and the new structure will allow the city to better serve the community. (why)

Commissioners increased property taxes by two mills last month to raise the money for the new building, (how) which will cost about $1 million. (details) Mayor Andy Martin said he hopes construction will start in March and be completed by the following January. (more details)

The vote capped what had been more than a year-long search for suitable land for the new city hall. (Background information)

The warehouse which formerly sat on the site of the new building was razed last year. (Filler)

The inverted pyramid style is less popular than it used to be. This is because the style was originally used when news stories were pasted on to a layout sheet. If a story a reporter submitted ran too long, the editor could simply chop off the end of the story, which was the less important information. Now, with all layout work being done on computer, editors can easily remove text wherever necessary.

So writers today sometimes use a style called the alternate lead. In this style a snappy, human interest angle is placed first, followed by the inverted pyramid, or just a loosely written recital of the facts. Here's an example:

Mabel Smith won't have to move after all.

The 88-year-old lifetime Largo resident feared that the city was going to buy her property to build a new city hall. But those apprehensions were erased Tuesday night when commissioners voted instead to buy a site formerly occupied by a warehouse. The city plans to construct the new building there, and mayor Andy Martin hopes groundbreaking will take place in March.

Note that relatively unimportant details now take a prominent spot in the story, while the most important fact, which is that city commissioners voted to build a new city hall, isn't mentioned until the fourth sentence.

There's some controversy about alternative leads. Some people don't like them because the reader must wait to get to the most important information. Others believe it cheapens the story by calling attention to the writer's cleverness rather than the facts of the story.

My advice is to stick with the inverted pyramid, especially if you're a beginning writer. There's a good reason why the style has been used for scores of years " it works.

Writing like news people

Another concept that has worked for many years is news writing, and having basic knowledge about news writing will serve you well no matter what you write. There are many, many different forms of writing. I teach at the university level, and in my Media Writing course we learn about 15 different types of writing, including print news, web news, media criticism, press releases, and many more. Although all writing follows certain conventions, each type of writing we study is different from all the others. I start my students, however, with news writing. Why? News stories are writing at its most basic. They simply tell the facts, without embellishment or even an attempt to entertain. Once my students learn to write for news, we can go on to more difficult writing.

How, then, can you learn about news writing? If you enjoy reading, and most good writers do, start by reading books about news writing. This book is a good start; another I'd recommend is Media Writing by W. Richard Whitaker, Janet Ramsey, and Ronald D. Smith. This is the textbook I use in my university's Media Writing class, and it's excellent.

Another way to gain basic knowledge about news writing is to read or listen to news stories. There's an old saying among writers, "The only way to learn how to write is to write." I disagree. I believe you can learn how to write in other ways, such as by reading, listening to, or watching good news stories.

There's a caveat, however. One would think that news professionals would know the basics of news writing. That is not necessarily the case. I worked in television news for nine years. I didn't begin my news career in television. I started in newspapers, first as a reporter and later as an editor, then went to radio news. After working at newspapers and in radio for about 12 years I moved to TV news. Moving to television news was a shock because I learned that many television news people actually know little about good news writing.

I dealt on a regular basis with producers, who write much of the content of the newscast and also edit reporters' stories. You would think that producers would know and understand basic news terms and concepts. That, however, was not the case. As an example, once when I was passing on what a source had told me to a producer, I mentioned that the information was on background. For those who may not be aware, on background means the reporter can only name the organization the source is speaking on behalf of, and not name the source herself. The producer's response was a blank look and a question " "What does that mean?" Now, one fact I teach university students is what on background means. So, quite literally, my students know more, in this case at least, than this producer did.

My contention is that anyone who doesn't know basic news terminology doesn't know news writing. This is not to discourage you from reading, listening to, or watching news. Just do so in an intelligent, questioning manner, knowing that the news writer may not know as much about writing as she should, even though she's a professional journalist.

Showing, not telling

The next way to write clearly is by showing, not telling. "Show, don't tell," is a long-held adage among writers. What that means is that good writing doesn't draw a conclusion for the reader. Good writing just lays out the facts and lets readers draw their own conclusion.

Scottish veterinarian James Herriot was a master of this technique. In one story he told about the untimely death of a young man. Shocked by the tragedy, Herriot visited the man's landlord, and wrote about the landlord's face being pale and her eyes red. He never told his readers she was traumatized or had been crying. He didn't have to, because he showed them.

Similarly, say you're covering a city council meeting and a commissioner becomes livid. Don't write, "Commissioner Bill Jones became angry." Instead, write, "Commissioner Bill Jones pounded his desk and raised his voice." Let your readers decide if that means Jones was angry.

Practice your writing skills

The last way to learn to write clearly is to practice. Although I disagree with the "The only way to learn how to write is to write" adage, it's true that the more you write the more your writing will improve. It's the same as any other skill; the more you do it the better you'll be. Want to be a good pool player? Play pool. Want to be a good pianist? Play the piano. Want to learn to write? Write!



© 2015 Joe Wisinski


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Added on May 17, 2015
Last Updated on May 17, 2015
Tags: writing well, how to write, learn to write, writing


Author

Joe Wisinski
Joe Wisinski

About
Joe Wisinski worked in journalism for more than two decades, including stints at newspapers, radio stations, and a 24-hour TV news station. He holds a masters degree in mass communications from the Un.. more..

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