How to Improve Your Writing
By Standing On Your Head

You may not have thought about it, but newspapers provide the best examples of clear, concise, dense (factual) writing you can find anywhere. Otherwise people wouldn't read them.

Journalists not only write superbly well, they do so extremely rapidly. When a news event occurs, they don't have the luxury of spending several days to put together their text. At best, they have a few hours.

Learning how journalists work their "daily miracles" can help you write better at your much more leisurely pace.

Here is an article from an international newspaper.

Britain yesterday has once again called for the United Nations to mount a peacekeeping operation in the violence-torn Darfur region of Sudan in response to increasing complaints from aid agencies on site that international efforts to help Darfur's desperate, displaced population are woefully inadequate.

At the same time, Her Majesty's Government is joining with other European Union countries to threaten sanctions against Sudan unless its government energetically moves to end the "ethnic cleansing" against black villagers in Darfur by the mainly Arab Janjawid militias. UN officials report that the conflict has already claimed from 30,000 - 50,000 lives and about 1.2 million people have been displaced, with about 200,000 taking refuge in neighbouring Chad.

(And the story continues)

In the first paragraph, we learn that:
1. The British Government is concerned about the situation in Darfur.
2. Darfur is a violence-torn region of Sudan.
3. Britain believes a peacekeeping force is urgently needed.
4. It is pressing the United Nations to supply this peacekeeping force.
5. This is not the first time that it has urged the UN to supply peacekeeping force.
6. The population of Darfur has been displaced.
7. Aid agencies in Darfur say that international assistance to these distressed people is inadequate.

In the second paragraph, we learn that:
1. The trouble in Darfur is a race war.
2. Arab militias are attacking black villagers.
3. Britain and other EU countries believe the Sudanese Government is not doing enough to stop the war.
4. They threaten sanctions against Sudan if its government does not quickly take action to end the attacks.
5. To date, between 30,000 - 50,000 people have been killed.
6. About 1.2 million have been displaced.
7. About 200,000 have fled across the border into the neighbouring country of Chad.
8. These figures come from the United Nations, which is a reliable source.

Imagine that you had known absolutely nothing about Darfur before reading this text. Within two paragraphs you have learned virtually everything you need to know about this tragic situation.

This is certainly clear, concise, dense writing at its very finest. Unfortunately, it is seldom recognised as such. According to the adage: Today a newspaper may be the most valuable thing in the world; tomorrow it is good only for wrapping fish.

Now that you appreciate how remarkable qualities of newspaper writing, the question is: How does it happen? And how can you apply its lessons to your type of writing?

Turning things on their head

Journalist use an ingenious technique called the "inverted pyramid". Before seeing how it works, it would be useful to see where it came from.

A couple of centuries ago, poor literacy and primitive printing techniques meant that newspapers had few readers, few pages, and were published infrequently (once a week or even once a month). As literacy and printing techniques improved, the number of readers increased, the number of pages increased. And so did frequency. Most newspapers were published at least once a week, some 2 - 3 times a week. Many even became dailies.

This accelerating pace of production created a serious technical problem. In more leisurely days, if a story was too long for the space assigned to it, there was always plenty of time to either rewrite it or redesign the page. However, when newspapers became dailies, this was no longer possible.

What newspapers needed were stories that they could cut off from the bottom. In this way, instead of labouring to revise a story at the last minute, they could simply remove the last few sentences or paragraphs, and the job was done.

In order to do this, stories had to be written in a very special way. It is of no value simply to cut from the bottom if the lost information is crucial for the reader to understand what the story is all about.

Consequently, stories had to be written "top down". All key information had to be concentrated at the beginning and all secondary information presented in declining order of importance. In this way text could be deleted from the bottom and no one would know that it had ever been there.

This story structure became known as the inverted pyramid. It worked extremely well because it not only solved the mechanical problem of overly long texts, it also turned out to be how people prefer to get their information, particularly when they are in a hurry.

With today's computer technology, the mechanical problem that gave rise to the inverted pyramid is no longer relevant. However, because it constitutes the very basis of good expository writing, the inverted pyramid is still held in high esteem.

The inverted pyramid looks like this:

The top, where all the key information is concentrated, is called the "lead". The second part, which contains the secondary information (details), is called the "body".

• How to construct the lead

The beginning of the story ("lead") must be concise. This may be a single sentence or several sentences, whatever is necessary to give the reader a clear overview of what it contains.

Journalists often say that they spend about 50% of their time writing the lead of a story; writing the rest of the story also takes about 50%. Why? Because this is usually how long it requires them to determine the key information to put into the lead, and then to package it in a clear, concise manner. After that, the rest of the story almost writes itself.

Determining this key information is not a matter of intuition. There is a method. Before journalists start to write, they ask themselves a series of questions known as the 5Ws & H

1. Who? Who are the person or persons involved in the story?
2. What? What happened?
3. When? When did it happen?
4. Where? Where did it happen?
5. Why? Why did it happen?
6. How? How did it happen?

Not all these questions will be relevant all the time, but they provide a good test. After writing the lead, check to see how many of the questions have been answered. If any answers are missing, there are two possible reasons:

• The question isn't relevant, so do nothing.
• The question is relevant but was neglected, so rewrite

Another way to evaluate the lead is the Stop Reading Test.

Remember, you are generally writing for busy people. They generally do not want-and often do not need-to read the entire text. So ask yourself: At what point could someone stop reading and still get a clear, sharp picture of what the text is all about? If they would need most or all of the text, you must do some serious rewriting.

• TO PART TWO

Philip Yaffe has degrees in physics and mathematics and is the co-founder of AIM, an innovative company pioneering cost-effective marketing applications in the new interactive electronic media. He has worked as a reporter/feature writer at the Wall Street Journal and as a marketing consultant has designed major advertising campaigns and promotions for leading companies and organizations around the world. He currently teaches a course in good writing and public speaking in Bruseels Belgium.

This article is based on Mr Yaffe's excellent book: In the 'I' of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing and Speaking (Almost) like a Professional. It is available either in print or electronic version from Story Publishers of Ghent, Belgium or Amazon.com. For further information, email: phil.yaffe@yahoo.com