American Independent Writers Audioconference on Writing Skills
What: Writing for Dollars: the Skill and the Craft
Who: Veteran freelancer, journalist and teacher Robert Knight; moderated by AIW Past President Michael Causey
When: 12 p.m. ET, Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Where: Your telephone, wherever it is.
Why: Because even professional writers forget the bedrock skills sometimes, and those bedrock skills are great things a novice pro can bring to the project.
About the Program Stick a scalpel into the soul of a professional writer and you will extract not so much art as craft. A writer might aspire to be a literary sculptor, but the writing pro had better possess the skills of a cabinetmaker. In the United States, the bedrock skills of writing come mainly from the craft developed by journalists. (At least half of the U.S. Nobel Laureates for Literature were trained as journalists.)
The independent professional writer shares the journalist’s burden of facing a deadline, and the angst that deadlines imply. And that angst is responsible for much of the sloppy, unprofessional writing we see and hear each day.
The chief antidote to writing angst is a solid set of skills that ensure you write it right the first time. It might need some fine-tune editing, but you can be confident that what you’ve written is worth editing. That confidence derives from an emphasis on:
- A strong, enticing introduction that helps the writer organize the rest of the job.
- Word economy.
- Word precision.
- Action verbs.
- Active voice.
- More strong nouns and verbs; fewer adjectives and adverbs.
- A love of the English language.
Robert Knight is a veteran journalist and freelance writer and teacher. His career has taken him from United Press International to newspapers and broadcast, to freelancing for more than 40 publications and news services. He has taught journalism at several colleges, mainly at Northwestern University and Gettysburg College. A member of the AIW Board of Directors, Knight is the author of a book to be published next spring by the Marion Street Press, The Journalistic Writer: Building the Skill, Honing the Craft.
AIW Member cost is $49; non-member $79. Advance reservations required. Sign up online at the AIW Web site, www.aiwriters.org, send an e-mail to rsvp@aiwriters.org or call the AIW at (202) 775-5150. Please mention the event and your membership status.
{ 0 comments… add one now }