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shadowkatJust finished typing up my writing sample for that effective business writing course that I have to take at work. We have to take about ten to twelve training courses within the first five years of working at the company.
Regarding the writing class...have learned a few things, nothing I didn't already know but then I've taken a lot of writing courses in my lifetime. If you are serious about writing or rather improving your writing, that is what you tend to do, take writing courses. Until that is, you get fed up, and figure okay I'm either good at this point or I suck. Enuf already.
I'm sort of at that point right now. That said - this what I picked up.
1. STRUCTURING/ORGANIZING YOUR WRITING
Depending on what you are writing - there are three stages - planning, drafting, and reflecting (revising). Most of what I write doesn't require much planning - it is incredibly regulated. My fictional writing does require a little planning. But here is the thing about planning - you probably should put your thoughts on paper at some point. They don't have to be any good. Just jot them down. If you spend too much time outlining, structuring, etc - you won't write anything at all. The planning should not take up more than 20 minutes or an hour or two, depending on what you are writing. In business it really shouldn't take more than 10 minutes.
For fictional writing - I basically figure out an idea or theme, the characters - who they are, and what I want their emotional arcs to be, the plot follows from that. I do not outline - because it tends to confuse and frustrate me. I also do not write down lots of notes or do a lot of research - except to fact check or clarify things. I write from the gut, what I know. If it requires a lot of research, I tend to kick the idea to the curb.
In business - structure is also about time. How much time do you have to spend on this project? And what is the deadline?
The draft stage is actually harder than the planning stage - and why a lot of people use planning to sort of procrastinate writing their thoughts down. The trick is to remember it is just a draft. It does not have to be perfect. You will revise and check it later. No one gets it perfect on the first try.
Reflection is actually the easiest - this is the revision stage or editing. Where you do quality control. Or reflect on what needs to be added or how it can be approved.
2. PDF - Purpos, Detail, Follow-Through.
In a Web2.0 world - where posts are now not just about words but visual content such as hyperlinks, photos, images, etc - this can get muddled. Actually blogging in general doesn't quite fit this format. This may explain why I occassionally get weird responses to my posts - you know, when you think, uhm okay...did the person read the post? Or just two sentences of it? Or were they tuning into another wavelength entirely...like a post I wrote in a parallel universe.
Interesting side note about web2.0 - this is the new term for blogging, coined by the national council of educators or something like that. This group, who according to the instructor governs the English Language (the American version at any rate, not sure if it has any influence whatsoever on UK - which insists their version of the English language is the proper one and Americans are using a bastardized version of it. (they may not be wrong about that). Sigh, yes, even people who speak the same language fight over how it should be spoken. Humans are tribal animals. Mine tribe is right, yours is idiotic! So there!)
Anyhow...web2.0 - the council has decided that it is time they change how essay writing is taught in school - now they need to include blogging techniques and the incorporation of images, hyperlinks, and other web references in students' essays. Also - in blogging, the professor noted, it is important to get to the point quickly. State it briefly. And use images. Because the internet audience has a limited attention span. I found this bit rather amusing and a tad annoying.
Purpose. Detail. FollowThrough - however, does work for business writing and report writing.
You sort of have to make the front sentence copy the back sentence. Depending of course on what you are writing. Meeting minutes - it is not going to matter. A business letter - yes, it does. If you open with please, you end with thank you. If you open aggressively, you end aggressively. In journalistic writing - you start with detail. So that's different too. We had a person in the class who had been a media journalist. She was telling us stories about Janis Joplin's death. Apparently Janis died of a drug overdose in part due to the fact that her lesbian lover hated her male lover and they didn't want to do a threesome with her. Her male lover was Kris Kristofferson, who also wrote Me and Bobbee McGee for Janis, and gave her the drugs. Dick Cavett told the reporter the story, and Dick was apparently in love with Janis. Found this bit to be rather entertaining. Not sure how true any of it is.
3. KNOW THY AUDIENCE
Sigh, easier said than done. In business - I have two or three audiences, all with different needs, that I shuffle between. Tone comes into play with the audience. I've posted on this topic before.
In blogging - it feels impossible to know thy audience. You all want different things from me and half the time I'm not even sure you are reading. I'm not alone in that. I've noticed folks on my flist have the same issues.
* Buffy fans - the people who only care/read if I write about the Buffy show, characters, comics.
*Angel fans - the people who only care/read if I write about the Angel show, characters, comics.
* Personal essay fans - the people who only want to read my personal essays and don't understand why I bother writing anything else and have felt the need to tell me this on more than one occassion. (Uh, because you are in the minority, that's why.)
* TV fans - only care if I post about tv media
*movie review/theater review fans
* work essay fans
* writing fans
*book review fans
*political fans
etc.
Also the audience doesn't agree on anything. I please half of them, piss the other half off.
So when it comes to blogging? I sort of fudge it. I pay attention to the audience to a degree.
(I live journal cut long posts and posts that I think will annoy people, along with anything spoilery.) Also I edit or delete posts that I know will get me defriended and for good reason.
So yes, I do pay attention. And I do try to control tone. But most of the time? I fudge it online.
Offline, in my business and fictional writing - I'm more careful and precise. If you read the offline stuff, you may well wonder if the same person wrote both. See that's the wonderful thing about writing - you can switch styles. You can be more than one person with more than one voice. You can experiment. Writing classes provide you with techniques, processes that aid you in writing better. But they do not tell you how to write or what to write.
He gave me a bunch of web sites, but everybody already knows them. Grammericon.com was one and dictionary.com was another.
Regarding the writing class...have learned a few things, nothing I didn't already know but then I've taken a lot of writing courses in my lifetime. If you are serious about writing or rather improving your writing, that is what you tend to do, take writing courses. Until that is, you get fed up, and figure okay I'm either good at this point or I suck. Enuf already.
I'm sort of at that point right now. That said - this what I picked up.
1. STRUCTURING/ORGANIZING YOUR WRITING
Depending on what you are writing - there are three stages - planning, drafting, and reflecting (revising). Most of what I write doesn't require much planning - it is incredibly regulated. My fictional writing does require a little planning. But here is the thing about planning - you probably should put your thoughts on paper at some point. They don't have to be any good. Just jot them down. If you spend too much time outlining, structuring, etc - you won't write anything at all. The planning should not take up more than 20 minutes or an hour or two, depending on what you are writing. In business it really shouldn't take more than 10 minutes.
For fictional writing - I basically figure out an idea or theme, the characters - who they are, and what I want their emotional arcs to be, the plot follows from that. I do not outline - because it tends to confuse and frustrate me. I also do not write down lots of notes or do a lot of research - except to fact check or clarify things. I write from the gut, what I know. If it requires a lot of research, I tend to kick the idea to the curb.
In business - structure is also about time. How much time do you have to spend on this project? And what is the deadline?
The draft stage is actually harder than the planning stage - and why a lot of people use planning to sort of procrastinate writing their thoughts down. The trick is to remember it is just a draft. It does not have to be perfect. You will revise and check it later. No one gets it perfect on the first try.
Reflection is actually the easiest - this is the revision stage or editing. Where you do quality control. Or reflect on what needs to be added or how it can be approved.
2. PDF - Purpos, Detail, Follow-Through.
In a Web2.0 world - where posts are now not just about words but visual content such as hyperlinks, photos, images, etc - this can get muddled. Actually blogging in general doesn't quite fit this format. This may explain why I occassionally get weird responses to my posts - you know, when you think, uhm okay...did the person read the post? Or just two sentences of it? Or were they tuning into another wavelength entirely...like a post I wrote in a parallel universe.
Interesting side note about web2.0 - this is the new term for blogging, coined by the national council of educators or something like that. This group, who according to the instructor governs the English Language (the American version at any rate, not sure if it has any influence whatsoever on UK - which insists their version of the English language is the proper one and Americans are using a bastardized version of it. (they may not be wrong about that). Sigh, yes, even people who speak the same language fight over how it should be spoken. Humans are tribal animals. Mine tribe is right, yours is idiotic! So there!)
Anyhow...web2.0 - the council has decided that it is time they change how essay writing is taught in school - now they need to include blogging techniques and the incorporation of images, hyperlinks, and other web references in students' essays. Also - in blogging, the professor noted, it is important to get to the point quickly. State it briefly. And use images. Because the internet audience has a limited attention span. I found this bit rather amusing and a tad annoying.
Purpose. Detail. FollowThrough - however, does work for business writing and report writing.
You sort of have to make the front sentence copy the back sentence. Depending of course on what you are writing. Meeting minutes - it is not going to matter. A business letter - yes, it does. If you open with please, you end with thank you. If you open aggressively, you end aggressively. In journalistic writing - you start with detail. So that's different too. We had a person in the class who had been a media journalist. She was telling us stories about Janis Joplin's death. Apparently Janis died of a drug overdose in part due to the fact that her lesbian lover hated her male lover and they didn't want to do a threesome with her. Her male lover was Kris Kristofferson, who also wrote Me and Bobbee McGee for Janis, and gave her the drugs. Dick Cavett told the reporter the story, and Dick was apparently in love with Janis. Found this bit to be rather entertaining. Not sure how true any of it is.
3. KNOW THY AUDIENCE
Sigh, easier said than done. In business - I have two or three audiences, all with different needs, that I shuffle between. Tone comes into play with the audience. I've posted on this topic before.
In blogging - it feels impossible to know thy audience. You all want different things from me and half the time I'm not even sure you are reading. I'm not alone in that. I've noticed folks on my flist have the same issues.
* Buffy fans - the people who only care/read if I write about the Buffy show, characters, comics.
*Angel fans - the people who only care/read if I write about the Angel show, characters, comics.
* Personal essay fans - the people who only want to read my personal essays and don't understand why I bother writing anything else and have felt the need to tell me this on more than one occassion. (Uh, because you are in the minority, that's why.)
* TV fans - only care if I post about tv media
*movie review/theater review fans
* work essay fans
* writing fans
*book review fans
*political fans
etc.
Also the audience doesn't agree on anything. I please half of them, piss the other half off.
So when it comes to blogging? I sort of fudge it. I pay attention to the audience to a degree.
(I live journal cut long posts and posts that I think will annoy people, along with anything spoilery.) Also I edit or delete posts that I know will get me defriended and for good reason.
So yes, I do pay attention. And I do try to control tone. But most of the time? I fudge it online.
Offline, in my business and fictional writing - I'm more careful and precise. If you read the offline stuff, you may well wonder if the same person wrote both. See that's the wonderful thing about writing - you can switch styles. You can be more than one person with more than one voice. You can experiment. Writing classes provide you with techniques, processes that aid you in writing better. But they do not tell you how to write or what to write.
He gave me a bunch of web sites, but everybody already knows them. Grammericon.com was one and dictionary.com was another.
