Legal Writing

Bobby Thomson's 'Shot' Reminds Us that the Story Is Never Over

Posted on August 17, 2010
I just heard news that baseball legend Bobby Thomson has died at the age of 86. Thomson was a good player, but no Hall-of-Famer. His big moment came on the afternoon of October 3, 1951, when he hit the most famous home run in baseball history, the one now linked forever with American historical myth as "the shot heard 'round the world...

Bobby Thomson?s ?Shot? Reminds Us that the Story Is Never Over

Posted on August 17, 2010
I just heard news that baseball legend Bobby Thomson has died at the age of 86. Thomson was a good player, but no Hall-of-Famer. His big moment came on the afternoon of October 3, 1951, when he hit the… Read more

Chat Replay: How Do I Find a Structure For My Writing?

Posted on August 16, 2010
In St. Petersburg, Fla., we have a famous landmark and tourist site called The Pier. It’s an oddly shaped building sticking out into Tampa Bay, and it’s about to be demolished. In my single-minded brain, demolition of The Pier… Read more

How Do I Speed Up My Writing Process?

Posted on August 11, 2010
My writing problem? I am so slow.Not all of us can be fast writers, but all of us can be slow. Slow/good is not a problem, and can often benefit the writer and the story. Slow/bad can blow up on you. Some stories or some investigations take time...

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Live Chat: What Are the Best Ways to Give My Story a Strong Beginning?

Posted on July 28, 2010
"Well begun," said Mary Poppins, "is half done."Many experienced writers feel that way about the beginning of a story. Some testify that they might spend half of their time crafting the beginning. The theory is that the well-written lead opens some secret door for the writer, allowing the rest of the story to flow from hands to keyboard to screen...

Chat Replay: What Are the Best Ways to Give My Story a Strong Beginning?

Posted on July 27, 2010
“Well begun,” said Mary Poppins, “is half done.” Many experienced writers feel that way about the beginning of a story. Some testify that they might spend half of their time crafting the beginning. The theory is that the well-written lead… Read more

How Do I Find a Focus For My Writing?

Posted on July 14, 2010
When I think about "focus" as the central act of the writing process, I am using a metaphor drawn from photography. In most cases, the photographer wants the image to be "in focus," as sharp and as clear as it can be. As the photographer tries to focus the visual image through adjustment of the lens, so the writer tries to see the story as clearly as possible...

How Can I Tighten Up My Writing?

Posted on July 07, 2010
In American culture, the word "tight" has several distinctive meanings. If someone calls you a "tight wad," it means you are stingy. But if we have a close relationship, we are "tight." If the jazz trio is playing with perfection, they are "tight." In hip-hop terms, "tight" can mean "outstanding...

How Do I Write to an Appropriate Length?

Posted on June 23, 2010
There are a few standard ways in which reporters and writers are rewarded for their work:PayPlayAnd the freedom to generate more of the stories they want to work on. All three are interrelated, of course, and it's the journalist's job to figure out how to do the best work and reap the most satisfying rewards...

Preserving Language Standards as You Cover a Raunchy Culture

Posted on June 17, 2010
Last Thursday was a big day on commercial television for the C-word, used twice on NBC's "Today" and once as a joke in an episode of "Glee," in which the C-word turned out to be "condom." Journalists, take notice: We will be seeing more of the C-word and will face interesting and controversial decisions about what to do when it appears...

Preserving Language Standards as You Cover a Raunchy Culture

Posted on June 17, 2010
Last Thursday was a big day on commercial television for the C-word, used twice on NBC’s “Today” and once as a joke in an episode of “Glee,” in which the C-word turned out to be “condom.” Journalists, take notice: We… Read more

Creative Mistakes Can Lead to Lively Writing

Posted on June 09, 2010
We all confuse words from time to time, sometimes when we speak them and sometimes when we hear them. We have slips of the lips -- and of the ear. For historical and literary reasons, we call the first a "malapropism" and the second a "mondegreen." Not long ago, I heard a woman at a fundraising dinner speak fervently about the need to wipe out "prostrate" cancer, when she meant "prostate...

Creative Mistakes Can Lead to Lively Writing

Posted on June 08, 2010
We all confuse words from time to time, sometimes when we speak them and sometimes when we hear them. We have slips of the lips — and of the ear. For historical and literary reasons, we call the first a… Read more

Live Chat Today: How Can I Better Organize My Writing Materials?

Posted on June 03, 2010
Except for the most organized among us, all of us have faced this experience as writers: You are in the middle of an important story, and you have found just the right place for that anecdote collected some time ago. It's on point. It reveals both character and an important issue...

What Writers Can Learn From 'Glee'

Posted on May 27, 2010
On the week of the weakest episode in the short history of the TV phenomenon "Glee" -- where the work of Lady GaGa sounded a little like Lady CaCa -- one lesson for writers to remember is that great shows ("The Sopranos," "True Blood") at their worst are way better than the typical show at its best...

What Are the Best Ways to Expand Your Vocabulary?

Posted on May 19, 2010
I know so many writers who begin to question themselves when they encounter another writer who seems to have a much richer vocabulary. I know I do. When I read my first book by the late David Foster Wallace, I was astonished by how many powerful and interesting words were available to him -- and seemingly unavailable to me...

Making Sense of Storytelling in Changing Times

Posted on May 12, 2010
Last week, I checked in throughout a Poynter seminar, led by Kelly McBride, about the so-called Fifth Estate -- that group of former journalists, activists, bloggers, citizen journalists and entrepreneurs who are helping in their own way to inform the public and enrich civic discourse...

Live Chat Today: How Do I Decide When I'm Done With My Reporting and Research?

Posted on May 06, 2010
One of the hardest things to do is to figure out when it's time to stop reporting and start writing. While it's true that reporting and writing are parts of the same process, it's also true that reporters spend much more time on their research than on other important tasks such as story planning, drafting and revision...

Need a Story Idea? Check Lost and Found

Posted on April 29, 2010
My shrink once told me that the most profound crisis of middle life is "loss." The archetypal story of  loss belongs to the Biblical Job, a good man who lost everything. John Milton named his great epic poem "Paradise Lost." The most famous Christian hymn testifies "I once was lost, but now I'm found...

Know Your Purpose When Speaking in First Person

Posted on April 21, 2010
I begin this essay with what may be an apocryphal story told to me by my great friend and writing teacher the late Donald Murray. I have never believed it, but he swore it was true. Don claimed that his editors at an old-time Boston newspaper had the capital letter "I" filed off of the typewriter keys of reporters...

Change in the Meaning of Words Demands Care in the Use of Language

Posted on April 14, 2010
We know that words change all the time and over time, a process language experts describe as "semantic shift," semantics being the field of language concerned with meaning. Even if we may not recognize it, such change in meaning is all around us, influenced by social, political, religious, economic and technological forces...

Live Chat: How Do I Find New & Interesting Story Ideas?

Posted on April 07, 2010
Do you find yourself getting writing assignments from your boss while all the other writers get to do their own thing? Are you the one who gets stuck with the routine stories about the first day of spring, high school graduation and the changes in the new phone book, while your peers are encouraged to do enterprise? Has your beat beaten you down? Is that what's bothering you, Bunky? Then it's time to move from the land of totally dry to the brave new world of all juiced up...

When Words Are Worth a Thousand Pictures

Posted on March 31, 2010
In 1935 Italian Fascists invaded Ethiopia, a military attack that did not go unanswered by His Highness Haile Selassie. From the city of Addis Ababa, the great emperor issued this Conscription Act:"All men able to carry a spear go to Addis Ababa."Every married man will bring his wife to cook and wash for him...

Writing Chats Schedule

Posted on March 25, 2010
Join us for biweekly chats about writing, hosted by Poynter's Roy Peter Clark. You can visit this page to participate in the first writing chat, and you can sign up for reminders for individual chats by clicking on the links below.<a href="http://www...

What Are the Best Ways to Overcome Writers' Block?

Posted on March 24, 2010
Even the most prolific writers find themselves, on occasion, blocked. Remember the character played by Jack Nicholson in "The Shining"? OK, so it may be an exaggeration to say that writer's block turns authors into ax murderers. But it's easy to see how the writer's frustration can turn into metaphors of "exsanguination" -- as they say on "CSI...

Make Words Stick With Coherence and Cohesion

Posted on March 17, 2010
I've learned two words that have helped me organize my writing. One is "coherence." The other is "cohesion."The writer achieves, and the reader is meant to experience, coherence when the big parts of a piece of writing fit nicely -- like a beautiful handmade piece of furniture...

How Humor Can Help Make Your Writing More Powerful

Posted on March 10, 2010
In my book "Writing Tools" I make the argument that a writer should know "when to back off and when to show off." The more serious the topic, I argued, the more the writer should soft-pedal the language. The less serious the topic, the more the writer can twist and shout...

X-Ray Shows How Narrative Approach Sets This Crime Story Apart

Posted on March 04, 2010
When I like a newspaper story, I really like it. And when I like it, I want other people to like it as much as I do. So I'll enshrine it in my personal story hall of fame. Because my job is to encourage aspiring writers, I share the stories I like with hundreds, sometimes thousands of others...

How Writers Can Learn From Documented Cases of Revision

Posted on February 24, 2010
Perhaps my favorite book is called "Authors at Work." Published by Grolier in 1957, it contains 71 photos of original manuscript pages by famous authors. You can see, for example, where poet Percy Bysshe Shelley crosses out the middle word of "To the Skylark" and revises it to "To a Skylark...

Suicide Note from Austin Pilot Reveals Language without Soul

Posted on February 19, 2010
I am not a psychotherapist or a forensic linguist capable of detecting clues in the rambling text of a suicidal man intent on murder. But I've read the so-called suicide manifesto of Andrew Joseph Stack III, the man who flew a small plane into a government building in Austin, Texas, on Thursday...

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