Rolando Gomez's Blog - Posts Tagged "writer"

Here’s a repost from the question, “What are the best tips for a writer ever? on Quora." I answer questions on Quora on photography, relationships and writing. Visit my answers here.

My first tip is to avoid ambiguity as displayed in this question; the answers will vary based on the type or style of writing. For example, technical writing is different than an author writing his memoirs and writing for blogs relies on good search engine optimization, or SEO, writing techniques. Writing as a journalist in most publications is totally different than writing a book-length novel. That said, here are a few of my personal tips as a published photojournalist, writer, and non-fiction author.

Journalism, Newspaper and Magazine

First you must have an angle, like “great tips for writers,” or “the crazy life of a photojournalist.”

Keep your paragraphs simple, usually one to three sentences. Most newspapers and magazines are written between the six and eighth grade level of education for various reasons, including the reading ease of the editorial content.

Editors are notorious for conveying to new writers, “write tight.” Keep it concise, use less adjectives and more action verbs. Keep it active not passive. “The sky was blue today,” is passive and wrong whereas “The sky blared blue today,” is more active. This is part of the old saying, “show; don’t tell.”

When in doubt, use The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, normally called the AP Stylebook in the journalism world; it’s your bible. It will teach you about the correct use of punctuation, the appropriate military titles, the proper abbreviations for states when writing and everything from the differences in affect and effect, to and too, worse and worst, lie and lay, and it’s and its, etc. Every writer should possess an AP Stylebook and use it too.

There is always a first draft, then an edit, then a second draft, then an edit, then a third draft, then an edit as a minimum. Gone are the typewriter days, so don’t just edit on your computer screen. Write your draft, then print it and walk away to some place away from where you write, a place with no distractions, then take that red pen out and edit. Red-pen it and use AP Stylebook proofreader marks.

Start with a captivating lead that will filter into the body of your story and form a conclusion or tieback; tieback is my favorite writing technique when it comes to journalism, which also defines my writing style.

According to my first journalism instructor, “Practically every feature story for publication should have supporting quotes and don’t forget to give attribution.”

Access is everything, you can’t write about an event if you can’t gain access, so do your research to get the appropriate credentials.

Research is important, get your facts straight before you submit something for publication.

Avoid “to be” and various forms of it unless you’re quoting Shakespeare.

Book Author Tips

As noted in my introduction, while I’ve written some non-fiction, I have not published it; hence my tips here will focus more on non-fiction plus narrative non-fiction experiences.

“The first draft of everything is shit.” — Ernest Hemingway

First, the majority of the writer tips for journalist apply here too, so I will not repeat them, though there are some minor differences. One of the main differences it’s ok to use adjectives, especially when describing scenes, people, and places and when you want to illustrate with words emotions and actions. The other minor difference is that you can have longer or even shorter paragraphs than what you find in journalistic articles. The idea is the writing style, which includes paragraphs and their structure that help establish your voice to the reader.

Editors and literary agents will tell you, “show, don’t tell.”

In narrative non-fiction, especially in memoirs, you will have a protagonist and an antagonist. Normally the protagonist is you in a memoir, while the antagonist is another character, however, an antagonist can take the shape of a situation, group of characters, institution or concept that opposes the protagonist.

Everyone from Stephen King on down will tell you that you must read other books if you plan to write. I don’t read books as much as I should, but its great advice. Most instructors on writing stress this so you can learn from other writers, my only caveat, don’t copy, be original, nobody likes copycats.

Write what you know, just write it down, edit later.

Prepare yourself for rejection, every writer experiences that more than once, even the great writers, just learn to get use to it and don’t let it bring you down. That doesn’t mean write sloppy, it just means you’ll have to revise and edit.

In Closing

These are just some of the tips I try to live by and if you look at my older writings, whether in books or as a photojournalist, you’ll catch my mistakes, mistakes is how you learn. You can never succeed at writing without first writing and writing often, just do your best to avoid ambiguity as you gain your experience.