Five Writing Tips from 10,000 Words

Add these to your list of tips to improve your writing. These come from 10,000 Words, one of my favorite journalism sites.

In addition to improving your writing, Mark Luckie presents these ideas to capitalize on concentration:

1. Eliminate distractions
2. Write down ideas when you have them
3. Use a better spellchecker
4. Tame the Web
5. Use natural remedies

I plead guilty to allowing myself to be too easily distracted by the overload of interesting stuff on the Web. So that's my focus in the days ahead - Get it done, then it's OK to sneak a peak at Twitter, Facebook and e-mail...

Also see:

• Advice from a master blogger
• Make stories better with personal connections
• Still more tips for bloggers

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p.s. Forgetting good ideas that arrive in the shower is not an issue for me, I worry more about forgetting to spray away the cream rinse...

New Term Focuses on Feature Stories

With the start of a new term this week at Linn-Benton Community College came working with a talented group of aspiring feature writers. Two dozen students are enrolled in Feature Writing (JN217).

As they embark upon their reporting and writing quest, they would welcome story ideas from around campus and around the community. Several of the students are interested in pursuing stories on the college's new "pay to print" process, baby boomers coming back to school, parking challenges and campus construction. If you have ideas for additional stories, please leave a comment.

(Today students launched their own blogs, many of which can be viewed below in the column to the right.)

I'm looking forward to working with the students this term and seeing their work published in The Commuter, LBCC's student newspaper and online site.

Stories Soar Through Personal Connections

As I work with young reporters in the journalism program at Linn-Benton Community College, one of the things I stress is honing the ability to tell a good story. I find among the best news and feature stories are ones that not only focus on a compelling person or topic, but also engage us because the writer has a personal connection to the subject.

From the first words of "How a Professor Taught Me to Consult My Stomach," I was captivated by Barbara Bradley Hagarty's admiration for her college professor, Dr. Stocking:

I remember sitting in Shakespeare class, basking in my good luck. The wait list was nearly 100 people, but here I was, a new student at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., watching the legendary Fred Stocking in action. In 1979, Dr. Stocking was a year shy of retirement, an icon to four decades of students in this small college in the Berkshires. He was lean and meticulous, with a bow tie and thick white hair, and he lived Shakespeare — doting on Puck, thundering through Hamlet, and lifting our gaze from the crass pursuit of A's to the beauty of weathered truths.

He encouraged me to make writing my career, and then unwittingly shaped that career. ...

What a wonderful picture Hagarty creates. Of course, this being the age of new media, this NPR story online is accompanied by a portrait of the professor and the audio version features him speaking as well as singing.

Yes, I'm a softy for features like this one, and the ending doesn't disappoint. You might want to grab a Kleenex.

Some of my students have achieved similar success weaving their personal connections to their subject into their writing. One student wrote about an experience at a drug rehab center for teens, while another regular writes about family, faith, politics and other topics on his blog.

Their writing succeeds because they didn't settle for sharing "just the facts." Instead we get to spend a few moments in their shoes, experiencing life through somebody else's senses.

As a new term approaches, I'm looking forward to working among another group of students with a lifetime of stories to begin sharing.

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On Stephen King's "On Writing"

As part of the Feature Writing class this term, we're starting to read "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" by Stephen King. Yes, that Stephen King, author of "Cujo," "Carrie" and other assorted tales of horror and woe.

While not necessarily a huge King fan, I enjoy this foray into the writer's craft immensely. If nothing else, it makes me laugh out loud every couple pages.

It has several things to offer young writers: Inspiration that they too might make a living someday by exercising their creativity and adhering to Strunk and White's "Elements of Style," and that like anything else you don't become expert at your trade without practice, practice, practice. But that comes later in the book.

Our first assignment was to read pages 1-50.

Here's my favorite inspirational moment from this section (it's on page 37 of my edition):

"Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up."

One of the hardest things for young reporters is recognizing the good feature story right in front of them. Or they choose a topic that's way too broad when answering one compelling question will more than propel them to a good clip containing their byline.

In the first few pages King also addresses the mystery of inspiration: "We are writers, and we never ask another where we get our ideas; we know we don't know."

I've suggested my students share some favorite passages from "On Writing" in their newly created blogs. I'm looking forward to reading what they discover.

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Photo credit: "Creepy!" by Midnight-digital, courtesy of Flickr.com

Journalism 2.0: New Term, New Blogs

My LBCC journalism students concluded the first week of the new term in Feature Writing (JN217) and Photojournalism (JN134) by creating their own blogs.

Throughout the term they will post their assignments, from feature story ideas, commentary and profiles, to their news and feature photography and photo essays.

Blogging is new territory for many of the students, and it will be interesting to see how they apply their creativity to their blogs.

Follow their progress by way of the blog rolls at right...

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Photo credit: "Entropy ≥ Memory . Creativity ²" by jef safi, courtesy of Flickr.com.

Why We're Teaching Students to Blog

At LBCC we're jumping into blogging with both feet. We're primarily doing it because it is one of the skills that the next generation of journalists will have to master, especially as the media gravitates more toward the Internet and all the various platforms (i.e. blogs, social networks, Twitter).

Alfred Hermida of Reportr.net lays out the case for colleges to teach blogging in this post on MediaShift. As he notes:

"The blog has emerged as a powerful platform for journalists to provide context, analysis and interpretation, often including behind-the-scenes information that does not fit into the structure of a traditional news story. It has also provided journalists with a way to communicate with readers in a more conversational and informal tone, rather than in an abstract voice of authority."

We started blogging last term in the News Reporting class. The results were mixed, with some students picking up on the assignment while others struggled to get into the routine. Some of the results can still be seen in the "Student Blogs" section of this blog.

Winter Term we'll be expanding blogging to both the Feature Writing and Photojournalism classes. In Feature Writing the students will choose particular topic areas on which to focus throughout the term, while the Photojournalism students will use the blog as sort of an ongoing portfolio of their work, including background about their various photo projects.

I'm looking forward to both these term-long workshops.

(Photo credit: "What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging" by andyp uk, courtesy of Flickr.com)
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