Author Archives: MacAllister Stone

Owner and Editor-in-chief of AbsoluteWrite and CoyoteWild.

Writing Web Copy

Copywriting for the Web for a wide audience

by James Guill

More and more freelance writing opportunities occur in the digital realm, as more print publications seem to be closing their doors every year.

Providing copy for an online resource is obviously not as simple as it seems. If it were, there would be many more writers on the Web making a living. Many writers tend to be very focused in the specific topics they cover, and as such tend to have difficulty finding and retaining work. So let’s talk a bit about writing Web copy for a wide audience.

When writing Web copy, your writing needs to reflect that you have in-depth knowledge of the subject and you understand current trends in the area you are covering. For example, up until around 2007 anyone that wrote copy for poker sites could get away with just being knowledgeable in Texas Hold’em and the popular players of that game.

However, trends changed around that time and other poker games began to make a comeback. It was no longer enough for a Hold’em specialist to write content on Hold’em. Readers would begin to go elsewhere and look for content on Stud, Omaha, and other games. As such, those that have a broad range of knowledge and kept on top of the pulse of the industry were the ones that prospered.

Web copywriters need to get away from the notion that frequent posting and quantity is what matters. Going back again to the poker industry, several sites have proven that quality reporting and informative articles will draw just as well as regular updates.

Subject: Poker was a website that gained a large following after the events of April 15th of last year when the major online sites were indicted. Their objective was to bring hard hitting and informative reporting regarding the issues surrounding what was known as the Black Friday poker indictments.

There were periods of time where the site did not update for days or even weeks at a time. However, when they did update, their content was among the best in the industry and they quickly became the main source of news and legal information surrounding online poker in the United States.

While I don’t recommend going for a week or more at a time without posting, there is no need to update numerous times a day with every little piece of fluff news or information. After a while, viewers get tired of having to sort through the fluff and will go elsewhere. Remember: quality over quantity.

Every Website has its own approach when it comes to web content writing. Some Websites do things better than others. However, those that keep their fingers on the pulse of their industry and provide quality content are the ones that tend to survive over the long term.

James Guill is an online content writer who writes almost everything under the sun. He publishes numerous articles for travel, food and gaming sites as a freelance writer. As a freelance reporter, James has covered the poker world for the past five years.

Filed under: Freelancing, Miscellany, Online Writing, The Business of Writing, Writing for the Web

Creative Frustration?

If you’re new to writing, you might not know this yet—and even if you’ve been writing for a while, it never hurts to stop and remember:

You know that feeling you get when the words you write just aren’t as compelling as the story in your mind? That’s normal.

Ira Glass says one of the smartest things I’ve ever heard anyone say about the creative process, and even though this link has been kicking around for a while, it seemed like a good reminder for an April Monday.

What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this.

There is a gap that we spend our entire creative lives working to close. And that’s as it should be.

For more detail, here’s the Ira Glass interview on storytelling.

Filed under: Miscellany

Win Two Tickets to Seminar from Backspace Writers Conference!

SEMINAR is the provocative new comedy from Pulitzer Prize nominee THERESA REBECK (Mauritius), directed by Obie Award winner SAM GOLD (Circle Mirror Transformation).

See JEFF GOLDBLUM (Pillow Man, Jurassic Park, Independence Day) star in Broadway’s smash-hit comedy SEMINAR beginning April 3.

Joining him are JUSTIN LONG (He’s Just Not That Into You, Going the Distance) in his Broadway debut, ZOE LISTER-JONES (NBC’s “Whitney,” The Little Dog Laughed), JERRY O’CONNELL (Jerry Maguire, Stand By Me) and HETTIENNE PARK (Tony Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide).

In SEMINAR, four aspiring young novelists sign up for private writing classes with Leonard (Jeff Goldblum), an international literary figure. Under his recklessly brilliant and unorthodox instruction, some thrive and others flounder, alliances are made and broken, sex is used as a weapon and hearts are unmoored. The wordplay is not the only thing that turns vicious as innocence collides with experience in this biting new comedy.

For more information, visit the page for the Backspace Writer’s Conference Logline Contest.

Filed under: Miscellany

In Search of Great American Writers

Happy Tuesday, AWers! This press release just arrived in my inbox, and I thought some of you might be interested:

Saturday Evening Post logo

THE SATURDAY EVENING POST LAUNCHES

FICTION CONTEST IN SEARCH OF

NEXT GREAT AMERICAN WRITERS

Indianapolis (February 6, 2012) — On the eve of the 110th birthday of John Steinbeck, a contributor to The Saturday Evening Post and the acclaimed author of classic novels including The Grapes of Wrath—the Post announces its first ever “Great American Fiction Contest.” The competition offers aspiring novelists the opportunity to join the ranks of other renowned Post contributors including F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Louis L’Amour, Sinclair Lewis, Jack London and Edgar Allan Poe.

“Good writers help us understand who we are. And The Saturday Evening Post believes that supporting and encouraging writing is all the more vital in a universe where media is evolving so rapidly,” said Editorial Director Steven Slon.

Sponsored by the nonprofit the Saturday Evening Post Society, the contest is designed to promote fiction and creative writing, while seeking America’s next great, unpublished voices. The winning story will be published in the January/February 2013 issue of The Saturday Evening Post and on the magazine’s website. The winner will also be awarded $500, while five runners-up will receive $100 each and have their stories published on the Post’s website.

Entries must be character- or plot-driven stories in any genre of fiction that falls within the Post’s broad range of interests. Entrants must be previously unpublished authors (excluding personal websites and blogs) and stories must be 1,500-5,000 words in length. All submissions should be made electronically in Microsoft Word format with the author’s name, address, telephone number and email address on the first page. The Saturday Evening Post editorial staff in consultation with the magazine’s fiction advisory board will judge the stories. There is a $10 entry fee and all entries must be postmarked by July 1, 2012.

For more information, or to submit a story, please visit saturdayeveningpost.com/fiction-contest.

Remember: Write hard. Write true. And write on!

Filed under: Fiction, Miscellany, PSA, Writing

Copyright

Hey there AWers, don’t miss a good basic introduction to copyright and what it is, from an attorney specializing in literary law, guest-posted at WritersFunZone.com:

As a policy matter, circulating ideas is considered more important than encouraging creative expression, so if there is a risk that an idea will be suppressed because the only way to explain it is copyrighted, the courts will find that the explanation can’t be copyrighted.

(Via Brainstorms & Bylines, another terrific site for aspiring and practicing freelance writers.)

Filed under: Miscellany

Odyssey!

Odyssey banner ad

About Odyssey (from their press release):

ODYSSEY WRITING WORKSHOP
ANNOUNCES ITS 17th SUMMER SESSION

About Odyssey
Since its founding in 1996, Odyssey has become one of the most respected workshops in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing community. Odyssey is for developing writers whose work is approaching publication quality and for published writers who want to improve their work. The six-week workshop combines advanced lectures, exercises, extensive writing, and in-depth feedback on student manuscripts. Top authors, editors, and agents have served as guest lecturers, including George R. R. Martin, Harlan Ellison, Jane Yolen, Terry Brooks, Robert J. Sawyer, Ben Bova, Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Hand, Jeff VanderMeer, Donald Maass, Sheila Williams, Shawna McCarthy, Carrie Vaughn, and Dan Simmons. Fifty-six percent of Odyssey graduates go on to professional publication.

The program is held every summer on Saint Anselm College’s beautiful campus in Manchester, NH. Saint Anselm is one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the country, dedicated to excellence in education, and its campus provides a peaceful setting and state-of-the-art facilities for Odyssey students. College credit is available upon request.

Jeanne Cavelos, Odyssey’s director and primary instructor, is a best-selling author and a former senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing, where she won the World Fantasy Award for her work. As an editor, Cavelos gained a reputation for discovering and nurturing new writers. She provides students with detailed, concrete, constructive critiques of their work. Cavelos said, “I’ve worked with many different writers, and I know that each writer thinks and works differently. We limit attendance at Odyssey to sixteen, so I can become deeply familiar with the work of each student and provide assessments of strengths and weaknesses. I work individually with each student, helping each one to find the best writing process for him, suggesting specific tools to target weaknesses, and charting progress over the six weeks,” Cavelos said. Her typewritten critiques average over 1,200 words, and her handwritten line edits on manuscripts are extensive.

Odyssey class time is split between workshopping sessions and lectures. An advanced, comprehensive curriculum covers the elements of fiction writing in depth. While feedback reveals the weaknesses in students’ manuscripts, lectures teach the tools and techniques necessary to strengthen them.

The workshop runs from June 11 to July 20, 2012. Class meets for four hours in the morning, five days a week. Students spend about eight hours more per day writing and critiquing each other’s work. Prospective students, aged eighteen and up, apply from all over the world. The early admission application deadline is JANUARY 31, and the regular admission deadline is APRIL 7. Tuition is $1920, and housing is $790 for a double room in a campus apartment and $1580 for a single room.

Meet Our 2012 Writer-in-Residence
Odyssey’s 2012 writer-in-residence, Jeanne Kalogridis, is the New York Times best-selling author of more than thirty books ranging from historical novels to dark fantasy to novelizations. She has written in many different genres, and has even written several nonfiction titles. Her novels are renowned for their detail and evocativeness. Her The Diaries of the Family Dracul trilogy was described as “authentically arresting” by the New York Times and “terrifying” by Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho. Kalogridis is also an amazing teacher and mentor, who has taught at the American University in Washington, D.C.

Other Guest Lecturers
Lecturers for the 2012 workshop include some of the best teachers in the field: acclaimed authors Paul Park, Elaine Isaak, Barbara Ashford, and Craig Shaw Gardner; and top agent Jennifer Jackson.

Odyssey Graduates
Graduates of the Odyssey Writing Workshop have been published in the top fiction magazines and by the top book publishers in the field. Their stories have appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Analog, Asimov’s, Weird Tales, Lightspeed, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, and Fantasy Magazine. Some of the recent novels published by Odyssey graduates are Kitty’s Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn, published by Tor Books; Spellcast by Barbara Ashford, published by DAW; Jane and the Raven King by Stephen Chambers, published by Sourcebooks; and Sword of Fire and Sea, by Erin Hoffman, published by Pyr Books.

Martin Larsson, from the class of 2011, had this to say about his Odyssey experience: “The six weeks of Odyssey were a roller-coaster ride of inspiration, inadequacy issues, laughter, tears, learning and despair. Somehow, with Jeanne at the helm, we navigated through all this and came out the other side, forever changed into better writers and better people. I came away from Odyssey with knowledge I didn’t know existed and inspiration I’ve never felt before. Apply. Apply now.”

Comments from the Class of 2011
“I have a bachelor’s in Spanish literature, an M.F.A. in writing, and a Ph.D. in linguistics, but nobody has ever taught me about writing the way I’ve been taught at Odyssey.” –Donna Glee Williams

“The Odyssey course is amazing! What a privilege to be able to experience this level of teaching! The incredible amount of progress that each participant made during this course speaks for itself. Fantastic, inspiring teaching in a supportive and encouraging environment!” –K. V. Lavers

Other Odyssey Resources and Services
The Odyssey Web site, www.odysseyworkshop.org, offers many resources for writers, including online classes, a critique service, free podcasts, writing and publishing tips, and a monthly LiveJournal, as well as more information about how to apply. Those interested in applying to the workshop should visit the Web site, phone (603) 673-6234, or e-mail jcavelos@sff.net.

Filed under: Miscellany