Short for Impact

The best quotes are those that dazzle and enlighten with one sentence. That quick one two punch that leaves you thinking. Quotes wandering along into two, three or more sentences loose their power. You have to read them and think as you’re reading. It spoils the effect.

Condensing your sentences, your whole essay, story, whatever you’re working on, will also give it more power. Short sentences get noticed. Long winding sentences wandering around to make their point tend to blend into the wood work and take longer to be absorbed. See the difference?

When you’re writing an article draw the reader in using content and focus. Content being the subject. Focus is making the subject clear and important or interesting enough to be read. You can get someone to read about bug spray if you write it right. Tell them something new. Don’t muddle the idea. Use short sentences like a trail of bread crumbs. Keep your wordage uncomplicated too. Don’t load them down with dictionary words they’ll have to stop and think about.

Later, when they’re into your subject and you’ve given them questions they want answered, you can bring on the longer sentences and the more detailed information. First the focus and then the heavy duty content. At the end you give them closure of some kind.

Not so different from a quote. Think about that next time you’re writing. What was the last really great quote you read and why did you like it? Maybe your eye was drawn to it because it was one simple sentence. Possibly one word had some personal appeal to you or perked your curiousity, so you read it. When you rewrite see if you can shorten a few sentences, yank their chains and make them stand up and take notice. Check for extra words just hanging around not adding to the focus or the content. If you want to be read think about what gets read.

Spelling Style

Spelling is tricky all on it’s own. When you throw in different languages and cultures it gets down right complicated.

First, consider English and American spelling. Then throw in Canadian spelling, which is some combination of the two. Same for other countries in the commonwealth.

Have you seen words spelt with an s instead of a z? You would if you were English or from South Africa. Do you see words with a u in them or without a u in them? You would see them with added u if you were English or Canadian.

Which is right? How do you know which spelling to use? Will people think you just don’t know how to spell? Possibly.

But the world is a big place, if you were writing locally you would spell for your readers. But, when you are writing on the Internet, your readers come from all over the world. Which spelling should you choose?

First, talk to your publisher or editor. Find out what they use for a standard. They call those style guides. It’s a good idea for publications to have one. Not just for different spelling issues. If you’re more or less on your own as for style, go with what comes naturally to you. It’s hard to remember to spell a different way. Likely you’ll miss a few anyway. You may hear from the odd reader who thinks you don’t know how to spell. But, that just gives you something to chat about in your reply to them.

Is spelling an art or a science? I think I’ll leave that as thought fodder for you.

Writing your Bio/ Profile

Now and then you’ll have to write a biography to go along wth an article, book, or something else you publish. It’s tough to figure out what you want to say about yourself in just a few lines. Of course, you consider what you want to share with the faceless masses as well as what information will show you in the best light. You want to make yourself look like an authority on the subject of your article.

The following is something I almost deleted without re-reading tonight. It’s in the stacks of ancient webmail from the years I wrote a newsletter about ASCII art for a website called WZ.com. The site is long gone and I don’t think anyone will mind sharing the information which was once shared with me. Thanks to Sissi, wherever you are. Hope you’re writing and doing great.

Not only do we want to know who you are, your visitors do, too. They’ll be looking for the person behind their interests. A bio that’s interesting and catchy will help you to develop loyalty and a personal touch with your subscribers.

To help you develop your bio, I’ve included a short list of questions, in interview format, below. Answer the ones you think are appropriate, and make sure you include some info on the different Realms you cover.

Oh, and be sure to compile all of the answers to the questions into one flowing bio rather than submitting nine separate answers to me.

Pay special attention to question #9 —

1. You’re about to be interviewed by Charlie Rose. In ten seconds or less, how does he introduce you?

2. When did you get interested in your topic? How long ago, how old were you?

3. Was there something going on that led you to it, or were you naturally attracted to it for some reason?

4. What about it grabbed you? What do you find most interesting or appealing about it?

5. What’s your favorite story about your hobby or interest?

6. What unusual things have you done in pursuit of it?

7. How have these things led to your becoming an expert in your area of interest?

8. How has it affected your life, or the lives of others?

9. How will being a WZ-ard help you share this with others? How do you hope to affect the lives of your subscribers?

Sissi concluded by telling everyone not to forget to add links to their newsletters. You should do the same, include any relevant URLs you’d like to promote to your readers.

Using Catchy Phrases

Hitting their sweet spots has never been more important than for someone writing on the Net. What is a sweet spot? To take it out of writing context, think of yourself driving over a bumpy train track but steering your car to the side, to a spot where it’s not bumpy. That, sweet spot, is the easy on your car and yourself.

In writing the sweet spot, as I think of it, is hitting just the right word or phrase. Something that your reader is looking for and has a personal ‘thing’ for. For instance, to appeal to women you can use words like ‘diva, goddess, grrl’. Phrases like ‘adventure living, backpacking, Earthy’ appeal to nature lovers. There are better choices but those are the current pickings of my brain. Hope you get the idea.

Anyway, those catchy phrases and words are even more important online because people will be searching for them. Your article will be picked over by search spiders and those catchy, sweet spots will be caught in their web and added to a mind boggling list. You may not be first on the search list but you will appear somewhere. That’s why those sweet spots should be considered, not just in titles, subtitles and descriptions but throughout the article or essay. Don’t go crazy over it. Too much is not a good thing. But keep them in mind and don’t think it’s too cliché to use the odd cliché if it’s an effective sweet spot.

Consider some of your own sweet spot words and phrases. Which appeal to you especially? Why?

One way to find sweet spots for a certain group of people is to join one of their online discussions, chats or boards and keep track of what comes up frequently. Let me know if you come up with more sneaky ideas.

Mistaken Words

What are your words? The ones you always have to look up and check spelling or meanings? Looking at a book with “the most common mistakes in English usage” I found a couple of my own.

Accept and except.

These even sound about the same. Do you know which is which? When do you accept and when do you except?

Lay and lie.

For me it’s really the word lay. A chicken lays eggs. Do people lay down or lie down?

Then, there are common mistakes I see myself. Not my own mistakes but those of others.

They’re and there.

They’re going to the park on the way there.

Your and you’re.

You’re going too fast your speed is too high.

Where and were.

Where were you?

A lot and alot.

Alot is not a word. It should always be a lot.

Do you know which is the principle and which is the Principal?

When is it better to further your efforts to go farther?

No doubt those aren’t glowing examples of grammar but sometimes knowing how words fit in helps you remember which one you need at the time.

Other confused words are anything with double “0’s”. Choose chose, too to, loose lose and so on.

But my personal worst mistake is its and it’s. I still can not keep them straight. Sometimes I get lazy and just type ‘its’ regardless of correctness.

I can stick up for my laziness by saying that’s how language is built, it evolves from laziness and a need for better understanding in communication. But, I know in the case of ‘its’ I’m just being lazy when I should, or at least could, be checking my handy dandy dictionary.

Cutesy Words

I do not like cutsey words. “Peeps” “sumpin” and “wassup” make me cringe. Perhaps I’m just showing my age, or being too particular and unbending. Whatever the case, I don’t like them and I can’t see myself changing on this.

It’s interesting to think, the way the English language evolves, some of these so called words could become standard English, over time. Hopefully a lot of time so that I’ll be into my next life and never see it happen.

What do you think about the use of cutsey words? Is it acceptable to use them in an article? I guess it really depends on the editor who will be choosing to pay for the article or not. Of course, a big guideline to language is the publication itself. What do the other writers write like?

Still you have to think of the readers when you submit an article. It’s the readers and the advertisers who make the style guides in the end. These days the advertisers probably have more sway than the readers even.

Anyway, you can be sure that if I ever type something cutsey like sumpin, I will have been taken over by aliens or something even worse.