Archives
Category Archives: Writing Secrets
Secrets to Top Speed Writing
If you’re the kind of person who usually spends 45 minutes to write 3 sentences, you’re not alone! I am constantly surrounded by people who keep asking me, “How do you write so fast so much?” Erm….taking the mistakes and simple spelling errors into account?
Well, here’s the thing. You don’t really need REAL talent to write fast and I am telling you how over here.
STEP ONE
Write a skeleton. Yes, the skeleton is one of the most important parts of your article or whatever it is that you’re writing. The skeleton will be your guide. Even if you decide not to follow the skeleton later on, it doesn’t matter, you’ll have a structure there that you can change and edit as you see fit as you write on.
STEP TWO
Write. This is where the speed comes in. This is where most people get stuck. I have friends who produce all of 1 word per minute. The problem is that they ponder over the minute details too long too soon! This is not the time to go over the grammatical errors and simple mistakes. The second stage of writing is pretty much like talking. Yes, write the way you talk….we’ll deal with the details later on! The reason why some people spend days writing an article is because they’re dwelling on the details too soon!
If you want to get ahead, think and write. Or better still, TALK and write. This way, you’re actually writing the way you think and write.
STEP THREE
Checking for grammatical errors. This is the boring-est stage of the writing process. After putting all your thoughts into words, you’re going in for the details now. Not sooner and not later. Check for spelling errors (MS Word usually does a pretty good job at covering that unless you’re the kind of person who likes to write on the fly) and also grammatical errors. Rewrite some sentences and rearrange the structure of the article too if you have to.
STEP FOUR
Proofreading. If you think step three is bad, this is the pits! I hate proofreading (and if the job is an unpaid one….such as this article), I might decide to skip this step if my mood is blacker than my wok. But if it’s a job for a client, I’ll go through the mill and do the running, anyway. Although this part is as mundane as it gets, and yet if you want a professional feel to the article, this step is unavoidable.
There you have it, your ARTICLE!
Speech Writing Secrets Of President Bill Clinton
Speaking in public can be a powerful way to build a business. It can help raise the profile of your business, generate new leads and create greater profits. But speaking in public can be nervewracking and seriously stressful for first timers. Writing a speech can be a major challenge, especially for technical writers.
We can all learn from watching professional speakers.
I have achieved a long held ambition to hear Bill Clinton – in Perth on Saturday February 23, 2002. It was a fantastic event!
My motivation? Anyone who earns $300,000 for a 50 minute keynote presentation must be good. As a professional speaker, I wanted to see Clinton in action. I didn’t want to only hear what he said, but how he said it.
Here’s my analysis of what I learnt from hearing Bill Clinton in person and noting how he was presented. You should be able to adapt at least some of these points to fit your own circumstances.
1. The marketing strategy
In previous years a big advertising blitz brought audiences to see speakers such as former Soviet leader Gorbachov and others. Their marketing approach was very commercially focused with a massive advertising budget. The Clinton event had a more humanitarian angle with funds being raised for a good cause, namely sick kids through The Princess Margaret Hospital for Children Foundation. This was a better match with Clinton’s core values of building community and having an empathy with the concerns of ordinary people. The marketing campaign relied heavily on positive media coverage to create awareness of the event.
2. A memorable entry
Clinton’s entry to the ballroom was brilliantly stage-managed. Everyone was asked to stand and then he walked into the room to his US Presidential election theme song ‘Happy Days are here again’. The emotion in the room was electric and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up!
3. Personal presentation
His dress and presentation was absolutely immaculate. (Maybe the $500 haircuts help.) Many women at my table commented that Clinton was far better looking in the flesh than on TV.
4. The Power of Presence
There was a buzz about being in the same room as President Clinton. His body language, smile and confident hand shake exuded charisma. His considerable charm reminded me of that high school science experiment when you tip iron filings onto
a white sheet of paper covering a strong magnet. People were attracted to Clinton like metal filings to a powerful magnetic field.
5. Warm-up
Alan Jones was MC and the warm-up included a short film taking a light hearted look at Clinton’s last days in office. Scenes included Clinton washing the Presidential car, clipping the hedges and playing switchboard operator in the Oval Room. A great scene from a press conference showed Clinton waking a single sleeping journalist.
6. Introduction
A well constructed introduction helped build empathy and highlighted that Clinton’s life had not all been plain sailing. The fact that his father died when he was young, his mother was a nursing assistant and he was born in Hope, a town of 10,000 people, helped put his success and achievements in context.
7. Building on the sense of destiny
A strong personal brand is built on stories. The story of Clinton meeting President Kennedy when on a youth leadership camp was used to great effect. Not only was it mentioned in the introduction but that famous photo of Clinton shaking JFK’s hand was also used in the marketing materials. Other brand building shots included an intimate moment with Hilary, a shot of him playing the saxophone, a jogging photo, one with Chelsea and one featuring Clinton lined up with 3 past Presidents. They all helped to define Clinton the man.
8. Customising the message
Clinton’s speech in Perth was customised to include stories relevant to a Perth market, including his memories of Perth switching on its lights at night for a US space mission re-entry and comments on a former US President’s career as a mining engineer in Kalgoorlie.
9. Using humour
Clinton had some great lines about how he could have helped previous Presidents in dealing with the media in tricky situations.
10. Memorable one liners using opposites
This can be very effective. When talking about possible solutions to the war against terrorism, Clinton said “most of the big things in life are simple”.
11. Repetition
Clinton used this proven speechwriting technique to great effect.
12. Using metaphors
Clinton used the metaphor of the gap between the invention of the club and the shield to describe the present situation in the war against terrorism. He said “this gap needs to closed”. Metaphors can give intangible concepts more impact with an audience.
13. Develop empathy with the audience
Clinton told the story of how he was in Australia at Port Douglas on September 11th and how his daughter Chelsea was in downtown New York. He connected with every parent in the room when he talked about his feelings when he couldn’t contact his daughter for three hours on that day.
14. A call to action
The aim of the event was to raise money for a Children’s hospital. Clinton’s final words were “I want you to help”. Simple, direct and powerful.
I hope you have enjoyed this analysis. I certainly learnt a lot by seeing one of the world’s great communicators in action.
Whatever your personal views on Clinton are … his personal warmth, ability to connect with an audience and presentation skills are outstanding.
Secrets to Improve Your Sales Letter Writing
Success comes to those who persevere. And that is what you need to do if you want to improve your sales letter writing. Whether it is for your website or your direct mail campaign, writing sales pages or letters is still the key to marketing success and to high income. Because unlike a face-to-face salesmanship, you often do not meet in person with your target customer. What that customer gets into contact with is your sales letter. Now it is how well you have written your sales letter that will make the customer to buy, sign up to your newsletter or completely turn away quickly. You certainly do not want that last thing to happen.
That is why it is important that you will be able to create a convincing and effective sales copy. You need one that will actually result to a high conversion percentage and not just to inform your customer about your service or product. Because if your letter does the latter, then it is not a sales copy but more of a typical advertisement. And that is the difference between an ad and a sales letter. A sales copy always has a call to action and it should focus more on the benefits and not just on the features of the product.
But there is more to sales letter writing that has been mentioned already. The following are some tips that you can follow to help improve your writing skills.
Learn good grammar.
Sadly, a lot of internet marketers who are doing their own writing for their sales letters do not even care whether they are constructing well written sentences. For them, as long as they are using big and exciting words and that they are able to flaunt the features of their products and services, to them they are already doing a great job. This is a completely false thinking. Just like with anything that is written, it should follow the rules of grammar. People can easily get thrown off when all they are reading on your sales page or letter are poorly constructed paragraphs.
Follow the experts.
Back in the old days, when someone wants to learn the craft of bread making, he seeks out a good baker and apprentices himself under him. This is still how it should works with anything that we want to master in. You should look for a great sales copy writer and learn under him. Or if a direct teacher-to-student relationship is not possible, at least study his works and read everything he publishes about the subject of copy writing.
Work with sales copy or letter templates.
Writing is not for everyone and it does not come naturally to many people. That is why there are certain shortcuts that you can follow to make sales letter writing much easier on your part. One of these is by using sales letter templates. It cuts down the time you would normally need to format your sales letter and to think about the right words to give it a boost and credibility. Usually when the sales letter template matches perfectly with your requirements, it becomes just a matter of fill in the blanks. But of course you still need to do some editing and proofreading to make sure that every sentences and paragraphs flow smoothly.
Sports Article Writing – 4 Reliable Secrets to Write Informative Sports Articles
Just like when writing any type of article, it’s important that you know what you’re writing about when writing a particular sports. Your readers will most likely to pay attention if you can show them that you do understand the sports that you’re covering.
Here’s how you can write informative sports articles:
1. Get first-hand experience. You’ll most likely to write better, more informative articles if you witness the game that you’re covering compare to hearing it from a third party. While watching it, make sure that you keep a pen and notepad handy. It will also work if you have a tape recorder. List down all the highlights of the game that you may want to include in your articles later on.
2. Organize your thoughts. Before you start writing, figure out the best angles to target to make your articles more eye-catching. For example, instead of telling your readers that a particular team lost, you can tell them that injuries of the major players contributed to the loss of the team. Then, list down all the important details that you would like to cover. Arrange them in a logical manner.
3. Use the inverted pyramid technique. Your readers want information and they want it ASAP. So, tell them everything they need to know on your first paragraph. Tell them who won, why they won, and some highlights of the game. You can then offer supporting data on your succeeding paragraphs.
4. Let your opinion known. It’s okay to give out your opinions and your analysis. Tell your readers what you think went wrong on a particular game and what they can expect from the next games.
Article Writing Secrets – Rapid Article Writing to Quickly Increase Your Article Volume
Article marketing is a numbers game. The more articles you have out there working for you on the internet the greater all of your other numbers will.
So you want to be able to write fast so you can write a lot of articles. This is called rapid article writing.
Rapid article writing
There are many ways to rapidly write your articles. Here’s just one:
Make a list of 50 tips for your niche. If you can’t get to 50 then get as many as you can. If you go past 50 then that is really good too.
When you come up with 50 tips you can easily get 7 or more articles with just a few lines about each tip. Then you can write an article about each one of the 50 tips and there are 50 more articles.
This is a great way to write lots of great quality articles in less time than you ever thought possible.
The greater your article volume
Here’s something I’ve found in the years I’ve been doing this. The greater your article volume, the greater all your other numbers will be: traffic to your website, visitors, subscribers, members, customers, profits.
Now I tell you the following not to impress you but to impress upon you the power and importance of rapid article writing and increasing your article volume. I don’t hope I can increase all those numbers, I don’t think I can increase all those numbers, I know I can increase all those numbers – traffic, visitors, new subscribers, new students, new members, new customers, and new profits – by adding articles, by writing more articles and putting them out on the article directories.
Journal Writing Secrets – 8 Ways to Use a Journal to Defeat Writer’s Block
Writer’s block is an annoying and often persistent condition that impacts all writers: and that means everyone, because everyone is a writer!
A writer’s block episode is a temporary situation, but we prolong the agony when we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by it rather than meeting, managing, and mastering this challenge.
You may know all too well that feeling of being shut down, not knowing what to write about or how to write it. But it’s actually an opportunity to get out of our over-thinking heads, return to our bodies, and get in touch with our natural selves: our emotionality, spirituality, and physicality.
Rather than playing mind games, beating yourself up, and/or running away, grab your journal and put it to work for you on this writer’s block challenge. It’s an opportunity requiring action!
1. Just do It. Write.
Get out your journal notebook and drain the swamp as fast as you can. Writer’s block has a real problem with things creative, so simply write, write, and write some more. Set a timer and see how many pages you do in 10, 20, or 30 minutes. Keep writing, even if it’s nonsense. And keep the water bottle, or teapot, or whatever motivator/relaxing potion of your preference at the ready.
2. Start from Where You Are
You have no idea what to write. That doesn’t matter! You can scribble your name; say, “I can’t think of what to write;” or list what you had for breakfast. Trust the physical act of writing itself to work you gently away from your stuck-ness.
Sometimes emotional issues or other thoughts cause blockage, whether you know it consciously or not. Let your pen drift and allow these issues to surface. Once you’ve aired the underlying irritation or worry, you’ll be able to open up to other impulses.
3. Burn the Baggage
Consider creating a series of journals, with each one labeled in a certain category. For instance, name a series about your emotional swings: one notebook for Anger, one for resentment, others for envy, loss, and tough times. Or do a series on your experiences: work, Friday nights, family, play, self-improvement. Make a pact with yourself to write in at least one of these journals every day for a month.
4. Face the Music
Pick out some music, sing with it, dance to it, play with it. Maybe some lyrics will prompt you to journal; maybe your feelings will get you going to the page.
5. Poetry in Motion
Have you ever written a poem before? Practicing writing in a different genre than the one to which you’re accustomed can be incredibly inspiring.
Just start putting words on a page any way you want and then connect them. Or paste in a picture and write down the words that you see, hear, smell, touch, and taste from it.
6. Multitask and Make it Last
Add in a little meditation with your journaling. Pose a question like, “How do I get over this writer’s block episode?” Bring the question into the meditation for four or five minutes and then write your thoughts in your journal.
7. Interview with the Vampire
Fantasize that you’re a superhero – Batman, maybe, or Wonder Woman, and use your powers to find out what Mr. or Ms. Writer’s Block story is. Conduct an interview with the monster in your journal.
8. Take a Hike
Try out an online writing class. Many online sites have all kinds of different writing classes, from the basics to in-depth specialties.
There are so many ways you can deal with writer’s block, instead of letting it have its way. Journaling is a quick and always handy cure.