Newspaper Writing Tips - Elements to Become a Successful Reporter

1. Clarity. Bear in mind that news writing is very much different from academic writing. As you're main goal is to educate your readers, you need to make sure that they will not have a hard time understanding your story when they're reading your copies. Help them out by simply using terms that they're very familiar with. As much as possible, keep your sentences and your paragraphs short. Also, write without using fillers or words that are not necessary in getting your message across. Ensure that your audience will get the clear picture of what you're telling them the first time they read your articles.

2. Accuracy. Integrity and good reputation are very important to succeed in this field. You need to be very careful when putting information on your articles as you don't want to put your name on the line. Remember, as a news writer, you have the power to influence decisions and you play a big role in forming public opinions. So, be a responsible writer. Take all the time that you need in verifying the data that you've gathered. Don't include them in your articles unless you're absolutely sure that they're based on facts.

3. Completeness. You don't want your readers to check out other articles just to get a clear picture of your story, right? So, give them all the information that they need to know on your articles. This will require extensive research. Interview all those people that have something to say about the issue and if needed, check out relevant resources. The more information you gather, the better. Just make sure that you communicate them using as few words as possible.

Memor Writing - Start by Writing Stories That Are Familiar and Important to You

There are several categories of stories that new writers seem to gravitate towards. These stories need the least work to recall and so are good starting points.

Some of these stories are the family stories you have often told and shared. These are the stories you can write about first--because they are the easiest to write. As you write, the process may seem spontaneous, the prose slips from your pen or appears magically on the computer screen! You may even wonder how you can write so easily, you who may not think of yourself as a writer and have put off writing all this while!

This may be what has happened: over the years, you have rehearsed these stories in your mind. As you thought of them, you have pared these narratives down to their essential components and reshaped them for dramatic effect. Over time, as you told these stories, it was obvious that you got better reactions from your listeners if you mentioned a certain detail first and then built up to another detail with specific transitions, etc. Is it any wonder that you are writing these stories now with relative ease? Most of the prep work was done ages ago, and the stories are now highly polished!

These pieces may even prove to be the best writing you produce for a while. Enjoy the appreciation you receive from those with whom you share these "new" stories.

But beware. Pieces you write later may disappoint you by being much less polished than these first attempts. Remember that you will have spent only a few hours, rather than years, preparing to write the subsequent stories. Eventually, as you develop the craft of writing through repeated practice, you will write better stories earlier on in the writing process.

A less happy group of stories are the ones that may lie just beneath the surface waiting to jump out at us. Your first attempts at writing may also reveal memories you need to clarify or integrate into your life. Often, the memories we have not resolved lie on the surface of our consciousness waiting for us to deal with them. When you sit down to write, these memories may jump out at you and insist you write about them rather than about something else.

Do you know people who tend to cry easily when they see something sad on TV? I don't think it's so much because they are more sensitive than others (although that may be true). It's more likely because they harbor unresolved memories of their own past sorrows. Sad stories are opportunities for them to mourn something in themselves they may not be fully aware of.

Lifewriting can be a healthy way to allow memories you have avoided to come to the surface. Committing them to paper may be a way to free yourself of their burdensome weight in your life.

Good luck writing your memoir.

Memoir Writing Units - Vignettes, Scenes, and Dialogues

Vignettes, scenes, and dialogues are at the core of any memoir. Here are some ideas for writing them more quickly and elegantly.

1. Don't stop to figure out how these snippets may eventually fit together into a story. These bits and pieces will accumulate as you recall more and more and continue to write them down. Giving yourself permission to write in small, separate segments (vignettes, scenes, dialogues, etc.) is a great way to start writing. Because there will always be your memory list of things to write about, you will never experience "writer's block!" Fitting these pieces together to craft a polished story will come later, in the rewriting stage. Right now, it's important to get text-any text-down on paper.

2. If you start by writing on paper, here is a suggestion to make this early stage easier: write on the backs of scrap paper cut into half sheets--this will help free you from any obligation you may feel to fill whole blank pages! Feeling obligated to write can quickly make a drudgery of what ought to be pleasurable.

Put these half pages of vignettes, scenes, and dialogue in any order that makes sense to you at the moment. Don't belabor making sense of things at this stage. Write more vignettes, scenes, or dialogue as they occur to you.

3. When it feels appropriate, go through your individual stories and create an order for them as seems best. As you re-read them, note where you need to fill in gaps in your emerging memoir or make transitions ("...and because Uncle Boris came to America, my mother was able to..."). These transitions will connect the separate components to each other. What were disparate vignettes, scenes, and jottings at first (and perhaps for a long time even as you continued to write) will add up to readable, informative stories when you add fillers and transitions. (Eventually many of these stories will take their places in the chapters of your memoir.)

4. After you have many pages of text, the time will come for you to decide that this is better than that, to expand on this piece that now seems too short or to make more concise what had once already seemed economical prose. This is editorial work, and it has its proper place in lifewriting-but you are not yet at that stage of writing! Right now, you are priming the pump with first drafts. Let first drafts be first drafts.

Good luck writing your memoirs.