Reading summaries

Readings from On Writing Well:

Chapter 8 – Unity

Choose a pronoun.
stick with it.Pick first or third person and continue w/ it for the entirety of your piece.
tone is important to convey meaning. but don’t mix two or three types
- Humorous, formal, optimistic, informal, pessimistic, ominous, playful, curious, etc.

Chapter 9 – The Lead and the Ending

A lead can hook someone within the first few sentences. Ideally, the first sentence.
Use humor, surprise, paradoxes, etc to accomplish this faster.
Each paragraph should amplify the one that proceeds it.
The last sentence of each paragraph is a crucial stepping stone to the following one
The example of lead & hook on page 57 really caught me. The facts were so surprising, a relatively unknown fact too, that I was immediately intrigued.
Collect more material than you will use. If you have a surplus of information, you get to pick and choose what you want to use instead of only being able to use the small bits you collected.
Knowing when to end an article is crucial. Use statements or questions towards the end that can assist your audience in understanding you’re about to summarize what you’ve just written about.
“Something I often do in my writing is to bring the story full circle – to strike at the end an echo of a note that was sounded at the beginning. it gratifies my sense of symmetry, and it also pleases the reader, completing with its resonance the journey we set out on together.” p.65
“What usually works best is a quotation. Go back through your notes to find some remark that has a sense of finality, or that’s funny, or that adds an unexpected closing detail. Sometimes it will jump out at you during the interview or during the process of writing.” p.65-66

Content is King, But Context is God

Respect the platform and audience
1. Each audience member will have different thought processes on different apps
2. Each audience member has their own personality and interests, catering to those rather than to your own.
Don’t interrupt the experience
1. Don’t force them to read/watch something they’re not interested in before getting to the content they initially searched for.
Be consistent and self-aware
1. Every single piece of content you publish becomes part of your brand.
2. “Does this reflect my brand goals?”

Justifies story by telling readers why they should care and its timeliness
Provides transition from the lead and explains the lead and its connection to the rest of the article
Contains supporting material that assists in the value of the story
| Ken Wells, a writer and editor at The Wall Street Journal, described the nut graf as “a paragraph that says what this whole story is about and why you should read it. It’s a flag to the reader, high up in the story: “You can decide to proceed or not, but if you read no farther, you know what that story’s about.”
Usually just one paragraph long
Anticipate the audience’s reaction every step of the way
This article has a section layout briefly explaining what’s going on in each.

Chapter 20

Adverbs are unnecessary most of the time. Especially if you’re using a verb that means the same thing.
Same thing goes for adjectives. Writers will put them into their sentences without thinking about the noun that already conveys the same meaning as the additional adjective.
Little qualifiers like ‘a bit,’ ‘sort of,’ very, too, pretty much, etc., dilute your style and persuasiveness. Don’t say you’re somewhat annoyed, be annoyed. “Good writing is lean and confident.” p.70