Writing – Page 6 – Patricia J. Parsons

Proofreading: 5 tips to improve the thing you hate the most

Posted on 1 Jun 2021 by Patricia J. Parsons

Maybe you’re one, but I don’t know a single writer who enjoys proofreading their work. It’s that absolute final step that comes hot on the heels of copyediting but is even pickier. And it’s so crucial to the final product.

What is it about proofreading that we all dislike so much? For me, it’ soften because it means that I can’t be writing somethgin new―exercising my imagination. It is true that proofreading isn’t all that creative, don’t you agree? Still, we have to do it.

Some writing gurus seem to think that we shouldn’t even try to edit our own work. While I agree that we do develop blinders, often failing to see a whole swath of errors that look right to us, I still think we have to do much of it ourselves. Of course, when it comes to a project like a book, you’ll need a final copyeditor and proofreader in the end. But what about all that other stuff you write? Book blurbs, your bio, your blog posts, query letters? You need to copyedit them yourself.

There’s hardly a news story, magazine article, blog post (!) or book these days that doesn’t bear at least one typo or punctuation error, and don’t we all hate them when we see them―especially in our own work. So, before you can send anything out to editors or readers, proofreading isn’t an option. And there are a few tips and tricks to make yours better (and maybe even easier) that I’ve learned over my thirty-plus years of writing.

So, proofreading is important no matter whether you write books, business reports, advertising copy, social media content, or magazine stories.

If you have five minutes, I have five tips that might help to improve your proofreading.

5 Tips for Writing Nonfiction Leads

Posted on 18 May 2021 by Patricia J. Parsons

Thirty years ago, I began my career as a nonfiction writer. The first time I pitched the story to the weekend features editor of a local newspaper, I realized that although I’d done a ton of academic writing at that point, had written lots of unpublished essays and had a passion for writing that went back to my pre-teen years, I didn’t know that much about the fine points of magazine writing.

My background was in health science, so what did I know about writing magazine articles?

What I had was a passion for writing, a knowledge base in the content area I had proposed, a willingness to learn, lots of research experience. The first thing I had to learn was how to write a solid lead. Three decades later and that knowledge has had a chance to be practised over and over, and now I’m sharing my five favourite approaches to a lead―a bit of help for nonfiction authors, magazine writers, bloggers and copywriters.

As I reviewed these tips for leads, it also occurred to me that fiction writers might find inspiration here for opening paragraphs for short stories or even book chapters. I’m a great believer in cross-genre learning.

Here’s today’s episode of WRITE. FIX. REPEAT. with the five approaches to leads.

Writing

5 TIPS TO HELP ANSWER THE QUESTION: ARE YOU A WRITER OR A CONTENT CREATOR?

Posted on 11 May 2021 by Patricia J. Parsons

The concept of content creation is a construct of the digital marketing age. I suppose you could say, as Matthew Speiser suggests in his online article, “A (Brief) History of Content Marketing”: “For as long as humans have existed, people have been creating content. One could go so far as to argue that cave paintings were the first attempt at communication through content.”[1] Yes, of course, this is true, but it doesn’t capture the modern definition of content creation or the content creators who produce that content.

Content creation is a buzz-phrase of the social-media-obsessed marketing and public relations people among us. I’m going to suggest that large numbers of people who identify themselves as writers are not―they are content creators. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with being a content creator, but it is disingenuous to suggest you are a writer if you’re not. Let’s begin with some definitions for argument’s sake.

What then is a writer? A writer writes. But you might reasonably argue, a content creator also writes. Although that may be true, that does not make that person a writer.

This week on WRITE. FIX. REPEAT., I’m talking about how we identify ourselves as writers and why it matters. The question we begin with is: How can you figure out if you’re a writer in the true sense of the word or merely a content creator?

Summary

The telltale signs of content creators:

You spend more time blogging, tweeting (or reading tweets), posting to Facebook, contributing to conversations on writers’ groups on LinkedIn etc., than you do on your private writing.
Every time you post on one of those sites mentioned above, you have a goal in mind: get more ‘likes,’ new followers, new friends, clicks through to the material you’d like them to buy/read.
You spend a lot of time thinking about how to find an idea that will ‘sell.’
You spend more time writing online reviews of other people’s books than you do on your writing in the hopes that they’ll someday review yours.
You don’t own a single reference book on the writing process (grammar, style, punctuation, syntax, word choice, editing etc.)

Please don’t tell me you’re a writer―or pretend to be one in a writers’ group―if you’re really a content creator. That’s all.

[1] https://prosandcontent.knotch.com/posts/history-of-content-marketing