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What’s your story?. Jeanne Acton, ILPC Director. Columns. Personal experience – shows the reader a story with a clear, definite message. Can be humorous, serious, sad, light-hearted, life-changing experience Should connect to the reader at an emotional level
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What’s your story? Jeanne Acton, ILPC Director
Columns • Personal experience – shows the reader a story with a clear, definite message. • Can be humorous, serious, sad, light-hearted, life-changing experience • Should connect to the reader at an emotional level • Filled with description and detail • Focuses on the writer’s personal experience – anecdotal
Columns • Personal opinion • Express opinion about an event or issue • Often connected to a news story in school, local or national news • Looks similar to an editorial
Sports columns • Commentary about an event, incident, an athlete, an issue • Strive to have sports columns about YOUR school
What is the purpose? • To help the reader think, act or see things in a new way • To entertain • To inform • To move
Column characteristics • Often, informal • Usually written in first person • Focused with a point • Reflects the personality of the writer • Expresses a viewpoint • About a subject that appeals to the reader
What makes a good column writer? • Research (if issue-driven) • Interviewing (if issue-driven) • Knowing the subject • Finding a voice • Seeing the world in a different way • Creativity • Having something unique to say
From The Radical Write … • Voice is difficult to define, but it’s easy to recognize • The best writing is not soggy or bloated. It’s raw and lean and real. • Raw and lean and real doesn’t mean it can’t be profound and sophisticated. • Great writers use all of the tools are their disposal.
Why columns fail … the writer • isn’t ready to expose him/herself • has nothing to say • preaches to the audience • chit-chats with the audience • rambles • fills the column with facts, rather than stories and opinions • chooses a topic that doesn’t interest the audience • fails to edit and rewrite
