The trick is not becoming a writer.
The trick is staying a writer.
- Harlan Ellison, in the movie Dreams with Sharp Teeth.
I spotted that quote in this superb review of the movie.
Sam Farrow from Pellacor.com explores the limits of written language. It’s entertaining, and it’s also got a point! I’m not sure what it is, but it definitely seems to make sense … after a while.
Tags: writing, expression
According to Jason Fried, founder of 37Signals, it’s bad copywriting.
ReadWriteWeb’s Sean Ammirati reports on his blog from the SXSW Interactive festival happening right now in Austin, Texas:
Lesson 6: Read your Product
Given the firm’s background, this was a lesson I found particularly interesting. Jason claimed that the “Biggest sin on the internet right now is bad copywriting … paying too much attention to pixels and not enough attention to words.” Beyond this he pointed out that words are actually less expensive to correct and improved copy will make doing the design second result in a stronger design.
I couldn’t agree more.
See the other 15 lessons learned at this successful internet startup here.
(thanks to Fanboy30 for the creative photo!)
Last time I wrote about the craft of writing. This time I’m going to focus on one of the most important components of writing.
User-generated-content is revolutionising business models as companies wake up to the inherent possibilities of crowdsourcing.
This doesn’t mean, however, that anything goes, any more than “anything” has ever “gone”. The only thing that’s changed is who judges.
In the old days (until about 5 years ago), creative product was intermediated through managers, agents and publishers. Now, with platforms like blogging and online video, the voice of the people can be more clearly heard.
To be sure, there’s some amazing talent out there (like this, this and this) but what’s missing is the crucial skill of storytelling, specifically the element of sustained suspense.
Sure, you wonder what song the guy could be singing backwards, but once he’s started playing his backwards song backwards (making it go forwards) the punch line is over. And with a “normal day” there’s no sense of danger, of the risk that these two guys could ever fail. Once you’ve seen the first trick, you’ve seen them all.
These videos gather a whole lot of views, but do they gather relationships? Relationships are all that matter today. And relationships start with stories. To oversimplify, stories have suspense. Suspense means you’re willing to come back. Coming back means you become a part of someone’s life, and they become part of yours.
(It’s that same principle of “coming back” that explains the friendships I’ve made on Twitter)
Does this only apply to the entertainment industry? Heck no.
In the last two weeks I’ve seen references to storytelling in product design, web design and also these killer quotes from Tom Peters on storytelling in marketing and sales:
“Work incessantly on your story – most economic value springs from a good story (think Perrier!)”
“Risk assessment and risk management is more about stories than advanced math – ie brilliant scenario construction.”
“A key – perhaps the key – to leadership is the effective communication of a story” – Howard Gardner, Leading Minds
(Thanks to artolog for the fantastic, suspenseful photo!)
Related links: Stories bring the future to life, Journalistic Storytelling
A belated happy new year to you. We’ve been back at work since early January, building some systems to make 2008 run smoothly for our clients.
Peter Day’s broadcast on craft in business caught my attention during the break. In an age of automation, efficiency and scalability, writing is a bespoke, hand crafted thing. We can design our processes to produce customised, high quality writing as efficiently as possible, but it is ultimately the quality that counts most.
In some industries, such as publishing and entertainment, this is an established truth (although the recent Hollywood Writers’ strike shows the constant danger of undervalued writing).
In other industries, such as web development, it’s either taken for granted, or an afterthought.
That’s why the strategy we’re pursuing this year is relationships. Writing is often not valued until you see what things look like without it. (Here’s an extreme example.)
On the other side of the coin, good writing can make the difference between good and great communication.
Next week, we’ll talk about the magic of storytelling, and how it makes the difference in anything from a casual conversation to an instruction manual.
(Photo courtesy of cimonoregal)
Air travel still excites me.
I love the rush along the runway, the sudden awareness there’s no ground beneath, the sense that you’re going somewhere…
I don’t enjoy the safety briefing. It’s not only boring, it’s, well, non-human.
For some reason, when organisations have to speak to everyone, they adopt a particularly pernicious form of officialese. Maybe they think they’re being accessible and inoffensive. But really they’re being obtuse.
Not Virgin America, though. Their safety video is entertaining and well-thought-through. It’s a fantastic example of taking an everyday message one step further, and creating a genuine brand experience.
The design and animation is outstanding, and so is the writing. They’ve checked all the appropriate message delivery boxes, but shown that it can be done in a thoroughly human way.
Enjoy your trip!
Call me a heartless mongrel, but I’m enjoying the Hollywood writers’ strike.
Not because the entire film and TV industry in Hollywood has ground to a halt, and not because writers are striking instead of doing the work they love…
…but because they’re communicating their message in such entertaining ways.
Picketing doesn’t make much of a difference. Until the Producers get transparent and tell the same story to writers as to their shareholders, there’s no way forward. Without trust, further negotiations are pointless.
But in the meantime, at least there’s some entertaining viewing on hand.
Online video is burgeoning, fuelled by giants like YouTube and being helped along by feisty startups like Seesmic.com
I managed to score an invite to Seesmic, and recorded a video about why online video only makes what we do so much more important. Here it is:
This post is brought to you by the letters W G and A. Power to the writers!
Update: Shel Israel is thinking along the same lines.
There’s a new best place to be if you’re a writer: the (imaginatively named) SimonYoungWriters social network!
It’s primarily for subcontractor writers to SimonYoungWriters, but also open to any experienced or aspiring writers. The idea is to make a place where writers can learn from each other – and sometimes we learn the most when we teach others. Already we have a search engine optimisationiser, a journalist, an ad creative and a religious entrepreneur! Sound like fun? It’s going to be!
…this is a test to see if the podcasting system is working.