Writing. It is the most important professional skill for public relations and marketing communications practitioners. Employers complain that job candidates canât write adequately. Teachers fret that todayâs students donât write as well as their predecessors. In moments of candor, many students admit they are unsure about their writing skill. On the other hand, some are overly confident because their 7th-grade teacher told them they could write well but they never progressed beyond that level.
Throughout your academic career, you have been faced with many ideas about writing. Perhaps you have become aware of some mixed messages. If you have, thatâs to be expected, because there certainly are a lot of different thoughts about writingâwhat it is, how we learn to write well, how we can use writing personally and professionally, and whether we are any good at it.
This chapter will help you begin to sort through what you have learned about writing and what you have experienced through writing. It will help you identify your own relationship with writing. Weâll start with freewriting, then look at the creative and functional aspects of writing and end with a discussion of how to become a better writer and your personal commitment to this outcome.
Eventually, these writing basics will lead you to apply your writing skills to the many and varied opportunities available to public relations writers. Some of these will be associated with traditional print and broadcast media. Others are associated with new and emerging media.
Before we proceed, you need to learn a writing technique that you will be using a lot in this programâfreewriting. As prescriptions for better writing go, this one is pretty painless when taken in moderation. Freewriting is a kind of stream-of-consciousness writing for a period of time without stopping and without self-editing. Its purpose is to get your initial thoughts on paper. Freewriting is a simple and effective procedure that can help you in several ways:
How do you freewrite? Take pen in hand, or fingers to keyboard, or mouth to microphone for speech-recognition software. Simply start writing. Keep writing for a certain period of time; five minutes is a good length. Much longer and freewriting becomes drafting, and then youâre not freewriting anymore.
The method is simple: Force yourself to keep writing throughout the five minutes. Donât pause to ponder. Donât edit. Donât correct spelling or grammatical errors. Freewriting is very informal, and itâs usually not meant for anyone else to read. Rather, it can serve as the basis for a very rough first draft. Here is one of the authorâs freewrites that helped set the stage for this chapter:
Begin by talking about the fun of writing, and the fear. I can do it. Thatâs what the reader should take home. How to get to that point? Probably by talking about ideas like why to write, how to get in the mood, what writing can accomplish. Things like purpose. Motivation. Fun. Challenge. Motivation is a major goal of the opening chapter. Too often we think we canât when really we could if only we know how. Just a matter of learning something new, or a better way of doing it. Focus on motivation. I want my students to begin this course with the thought, belief, that they can become better writers. Through it all, a course like this should be fun. Challenging, but fun too.
So, what do you think about writing? Like so much about the art of writing, this question has no right or wrong answers. Merely by considering the question you can begin to arrive at your own conclusions. Or perhaps you can simply become more comfortable in your ambiguity.
But, as you consider your own perspectives on writing, you are already in the process of becoming a better writer.
The 12th-century Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi urged his students to practice self-examination every day: âIf you find faults, correct them. When you find none, try even harder.â Good advice! As you seek to become a better writer, take time to poke around the wrinkles of your mind. Probe your attitudes about writing. Consider your comfort level as a wordsmith.
Think about what you think about writing, especially your own. Have you been told, for example, that you are a good writer? If so, has the affirmation come from somebody who knows what he or she is talking about (that is, from a good writer, a knowledgeable teacher, or a competent editor)? Or was it your grandmother who praised your Valentine poem? Praise from family and friends is important for our emotional well-being, but you canât necessarily build on it professionally.
On the other hand, do you think of yourself as an inadequate writer? Itâs unlikely that strangers on the street or little children in the park have pointed this out to you, so where did you get the negative notion? What have you done to dismiss it as perhaps the exaggeration of your overly self-conscious ego, or perhaps to embrace it as a worthy opponent to be bested?
The point is, the more self-aware you are of yourself as a writer, the better writer you can become.
EXERCISE 1.1
Freewriting on Writing
Part 1. Freewrite for five minutes on one or a few of the following topics: What do I think of writing? Do I like to write? Do I find it easy? Do I write just for the fun of it, or only when I have to? Do I think I am a good writer? Why do I want to improve as a writer? How might I improve?
Part 2. Take a few minutes to review what you wrote in Part 1. Go back and underline what you think is the most important or most insightful.
Writing: Creative or Functional
Self-examination is the first step toward excellence. You have already begun to become a better writer just by completing the first exercise. Now letâs tighten the margins a bit and look at two relationships within writing that are important to us as public relations writers: creative writing and functional writing.
Sometimes, students in public relations writing classes have said they are more comfortable with creative writing but are unsure of themselves with the functional writing they expect to find in public relations. Thatâs understandable.
The formats we use for various public relations purposesânews releases, organizational reports and proposals, persuasive appeals and so onâoften have a number of ârulesâ to follow. It can feel like a paint-by-numbers approach to writing. Whereâs the creativity? Whereâs the fun? At what point does skill become talent?
Creative Writing
All writing is creative and artistic. Creative writing emphasizes imaginative, artistic and sometimes innovative style. It is the result of creating an idea and sharing it with someone else. The idea may take various formsâa science-fiction adventure, a carefully researched historical novel, lyrical poetry, a corporate report, an informative news release, a compelling sales letter and so on. Writing is creative when we use it to shape a thoughtâmolding it, wrapping it in a particular writing format, and ultimately sharing it with another person.
Creative writing is not solely a product of the imagination, although it may begin there. But it could just as well begin in an interview or through painstaking research. What fills writing with creativity is the insight and ownership a writer brings to the ideas and facts. A public relations writer will adopt the task at hand and, however fleetingly, will possess the ideas and thoughts surrounding the writing project. A good writer will caress a thought, coupling facts and ideas, giving birth to vignettes and parables, gaining insight and making observations.
But you say: All this to promote a supermarket opening? Ah, but thatâs where the art takes shape, as the writer weaves words and phrases, facts and ideas, putting them before the reader in a way that serves the original purpose. We write creatively when we take a thought, wherever it originated, and artfully share it with others.
Functional Writing
Functional wr...