Category Archives: Writing tips

How to write a good lede.*

Writing a good lede* is one of the most formidable challenges any journalist faces.  You’ve got an instant to catch readers’ attention or lose them forever.  You’ve got to find an organizing idea in a notebook full of information, ideas … Continue reading

Posted in Writing Good Leads, Writing tips | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Keep it simple and strong.

We’re not against long sentences here but too often writers lose their way and don’t understand the story they’re trying to tell the reader, if you get what I mean, hopefully, as scribes pile on the clauses, modifiers, punctuation and … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing tips | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Keep it simple and strong.

Make Jimmy Breslin proud.

The simple period is one of the most powerful weapons in a writer’s arsenal.  Too often, we see run-on sentences that never end.  Writers tend  to just keep adding commas and dashes and semi-colons, almost anything to keep  the sentence … Continue reading

Posted in Writing tips | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Make Jimmy Breslin proud.

The formula for improved writing!

Here’s the basic formula.  READ + REPORT + WRITE + TALK + REPEAT = Improved Writing.  Here’s how I break that down: 1) READ — Read good writing wherever you find it. Newspapers. Blogs. Online. Magazines.  Broadcast. Fiction.  When you … Continue reading

Posted in Writing tips | Tagged | Comments Off on The formula for improved writing!