I began my writing career writing advertising copy, press releases, and short stories. After a couple of years, I added radio plays to my repertoire. After a further five or six years, I started writing opinion pieces for a couple … Continue reading
As a friend of mine is wont to remind me from time to time: whether you are seeking to inform or persuade, it’s not what the writer puts in; it’s what the reader takes out. More years ago than I … Continue reading
‘Please be advised.’ Those were the first three words of an email that greeted me when I sat down at my desk with my first coffee of the day on a recent sunny morning. What came next, I almost didn’t … Continue reading
Is there anything that business executives can learn from professional writers, people who write for their living? I think there is. Professional writers know that unless their writing is engaging, a lot of the people who read the first paragraph … Continue reading
Like many sailors, I learned to sail in a small one-sailed dinghy. I say that ‘I learned to sail’ rather than ‘I was taught to sail’ because the chap who I thought was going to teach me to sail simply … Continue reading
Our client was perplexed. His organisation had pitched to seven prospects, and only one prospect had said yes. The contracts for which our client had been pitching were not insignificant. The smallest (by value) would have been worth well over … Continue reading
I think it was the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz who suggested that ‘nobody in his right mind tries to cross a broad ditch in two steps.’ If one is going to get from one side to … Continue reading
‘That’s not a word!’ ‘Well, actually it is. The writer wrote it – and, as far as we can tell, a good portion of her readers understood what she meant in using it. So, for all practical purposes, it’s a … Continue reading
When I first started writing for a living, one of the senior sub-editors took me to one side and gave me his ‘new boy chat’. ‘Most people’s writing is heavily influenced by their reading,’ he said. ‘So read widely, but … Continue reading
Young writers, inexperienced writers, often ask: How can I know what my readers will want to read? It’s a question I used to ask myself. What will hook my readers? What will keep them reading? What will send them away … Continue reading