Writing Inrochester

Face it, at some point we are all going to have to do an oral presentation in class for a grade. Anxious? Take a deep breath, don’t panic, and remember you can do it. You may not have a silver tongue, but that doesn’t mean you can’t communicate effectively.

Classroom presentations can be frightening, but think of them as opportunities to share your thoughts about a particular subject with your peers and friends. You already do this informally in the classroom during discussions, study groups, or just with your friends in the dorm. Giving an oral presentation or speech is fundamentally no different than that, except that you get to control the setting and process for delivering your ideas.

The idea of an oral presentation is to determine how well you grasp a specific topic and can communicate it to others. This is not as hard as you might think. Most people get panicky over this because they are scared of the unknown, but the power in a speech is this: you control how you will communicate the topic to others. So stick to what you know and have researched, and remember — if you know it and believe it then others will connect and believe it with you.

First, take some time to brainstorm about your topic. What are the different perspectives relating to it? What about arguments, both pro and con? List these out on paper, and don’t rule anything out just yet.

After your brainstorming session, start organizing your thoughts into a thesis statement and three or four supporting statements, in outline form. Be sure to stick to three or four statements – one of the most common mistakes in public speaking is presenting more information than you need (overselling your ideas) or than the audience cares to hear. By going with three or four supporting statements, we have a basic speech outline ready for some supporting research.

Great, we have an outline. So what do we do now?

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Realize that the following techniques are to be avoided. I have observed presenters that practice all of these no-nos and are never asked back.

Never look anyone in the eye. Scan the room with your gaze somewhere above the heads of audience members. I know that I have read this tip somewhere in the past, but I also know that if you do this, you will never make contact and interact with your audience. Yes, you will avoid seeing some who look bored and others who are dozing off, but you will never give the impression that you are speaking directly to everyone and never feel the encouragement and energy given back by those you look at “eyeball to eyeball” for at least three seconds.

Put your whole presentation on PowerPoint slides. Then, you can read the information right off the slides. You will even be able to copy the slides and use the copies for your handouts. What could be easier? Not much. But it will also be easy for those attending your presentation to take a nap while the room is darkened, glance quickly at the handouts following your session to find any worthwhile tidbits of information and then toss it all in the wastebasket.

Phew! You are ready to close your presentation. You have already gone way over your time limit, but after telling the audience that the end was near, you remembered all sorts of extra facts and points you had forgotten to tell them. You know that you have succeeded at driving them crazy when everyone starts looking at his or her watch — especially the next speaker. If you have reached this part of the article, you realize that I have almost overstated techniques to avoid, and even if none of the previous habits in any way describe you, be sure to take heed of the next no-no. Many a fine presenter makes this mistake at the end of a super presentation.

Rush off the stage/podium before the audience gets a chance to show its appreciation. You have given the best presentation of your career (and each time you present, this should be so), but before the audience gets a chance to applaud with gusto, or even get on their feet for a standing ovation, you are not there anymore to graciously accept their thanks.

Pay attention to the above techniques, so that you can remove them as quickly as possible from your presentations.

Chris King is a professional speaker, storyteller, writer, website creator / designer, free agent, and fitness instructor. Sign up for her eclectic E-newsletter, Portfolio Potpourri, at PowerfulPresentations.net PowerfulPresentations.net You will find her information-packed E-book How to Leave Your Audiences Begging for MORE! at OutrageouslyPowerfulPresenter.com OutrageouslyPowerfulPresenter.com and her business website at CreativeKeys.biz CreativeKeys.biz

Article marketing has been promoted as one of the great ways to build an online business. You write and submit articles, building links to your website and building a reputation for yourself. It’s a pretty nice deal.

But it is not always the right way to go about promoting something, especially on your own website. Your site should always be providing what the visitor wants, and if that’s not information, you don’t want to direct them toward information. They need to be directed toward the product they want.

The goal of article marketing is to build relevant links to selected pages in your site. This helps them to do better in the search engines.

When you do article marketing you need to think about what it is people want from you. If they’re going to buy, a review article may be more appropriate on your website than one on how to use the product. The how to use article may be sufficient, however, for submitting to article websites for the links.

In many cases you want to take a different tactic to your article marketing than you do on your website. Your website should be geared toward getting visitors to make the purchase. Your article marketing should be geared toward getting people to your website and the items the article encourages them to want.

Many site owners take the sloppy route to article marketing. They hack out an article with scarcely a worry for spelling, grammar or useful information. They junk up many an article site, yet other website owners are highly unlikely to republish these articles due to the lack of quality.

One of the best parts about article marketing is the chance to be published on other websites. Such low quality articles miss out on this wonderful opportunity to get their links out in front of people really interested in what they have to offer.

If you’re writing articles with only the search engines on your mind, you aren’t doing article marketing for the right reason. Yes, a widely distributed article can give you tremendous SEO benefits. But poorly written articles make your site look bad, annoy potential visitors and make article marketing a less effective tool for all concerned.

Think before you write. While you can consider the search engines, think about how your writing will make you appear to potential customers. Both matter in the long run to your online business.

Stephanie Foster runs brightarticles.com/ brightarticles.com/ for authors to submit their well written articles for use by others. brightarticles.com/ Submit articles to her site to give your website more exposure.

The Hero’s Journey (Monomyth) is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon. In fact, ALL of the hundreds of Hollywood movies we have deconstructed (see URL below) are based on this 188 stage template.

Understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters. This is the template you must master if you are to succeed in the craft.

[The terminology is most often metaphoric and applies to all successful stories and screenplays, from The Godfather (1972) to Brokeback Mountain (2006) to Annie Hall (1977) to Lord of the Rings (2003) to Drugstore Cowboy (1989) to Thelma and Louise (1991) to Apocaplyse Now (1979)].

THERE IS ONLY ONE STORY

THE HERO′S JOURNEY:

a) Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.

b) Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.

c) Gives you a tangible process for building and releasing dissonance (establishing and achieving catharses, of which there are usually four).

d) Gives you a universal structural template upon which you can superimpose your situational story. This is why stories such as Alien (1979), Gladiator (2000), Midnight Cowboy (1969), American Beauty (1999), The Graduate (1967) and many others (all deconstructed at the URL below) appear to be different but are all constructed, almost sequence by sequence, in the same way.

and more…

*****Atonement with the Father*****

The Atonement with the Father is the confrontation with the Inner Challenge. This stage often contains some mentor / father figure representative. In Straw Dogs (1971), David and Amy are in the church hall, the priest lectures and Amy has flashbacksabout the rape.

*****Crossing the Return Threshold*****

The Crossing the Return Threshold is a dangerous journey and the resulting New Domain that the Hero finds himself in, contains the Antagonism. In Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Clyde steals another car, Moss drives, Moss gets some drinking water from the travelers, Moss takes Bonnie and Clyde to Pop.

Learn more…

WRITE THAT SCREENPLAY!

The Complete 188 stage Hero’s Journey and other story structure templates can be found at clickok.co.uk/ clickok.co.uk/

The Managing Creativity and Innovation MBA dissertation, DIY creativity Audit, Powerpoint presentation and Good Idea generator software can be found at managing-creativity.com/ managing-creativity.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made, the author’s name is retained and the link to our site URL remains active.

Theme is why fiction matters, because it is the quality that gives the story a universal appeal. Some say theme is what the story is about, but that is too ephemeral a definition, which may get confused with the idea or the plot.

Theme enriches and inspires the reader while saying something profound about the human condition. Theme is the abstract concept behind the story forming the story’s heart and soul that the exposition, dialogue, and action reflect every chance they get.

Theme is not the characters or the plot or the original idea that started the story. For example, a writer may begin with the idea of exploring family relationships between women, but as his story progresses, his theme may shape up as forgiveness and understanding between different generations of females.

Theme is implied, sometimes without the writer’s knowing of it at the start; however, more experienced writers usually work on their theme harder than any other part of the story once they catch on to what it is they are writing about.

In non-fiction, the writer is advised to hone in to his theme and begin referring to it right at the first paragraph. In fiction, on the other hand, the theme usually blossoms through the writing as the story progresses.

An experienced and capable author never pronounces what his theme is about inside his story. For a story to be successful, its theme needs to stay invisible but hinted at with subtlety through other devices of fiction.

Theme is most visible in the protagonist’s greatest choice in a story. The easiest way to pinpoint a theme is to put it in question form. Here the question to ask is: what is the protagonist’s biggest emotional decision to resolve the story’s conflict?

For example, if we take Charles Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” the main identifying theme may take the form of this question: Can one sacrifice his life for the one he loves? In the same story, many smaller themes are interwoven as well, like life and death, resurrection, revolution, justice and revenge, war and peace, and power or abuse of power, since many works of fiction carry several supporting themes that wrap around the main theme.

If the theme envelopes an emotion, its power becomes universal. When the writer creates and dramatizes his theme through an emotion, his expression of the truth leaves an unforgettable impact on the reader. Thus an ambitious writer may choose an emotion as the major part of his theme.

Another common technique is hinting at the theme in the dialogue, but the risk here is in becoming too obvious. Although this may be done successfully by an experienced author, the beginning writer should try to stay away from blurting the theme out through the dialogue.

A much used way to demonstrate a theme is through the actions of the protagonist and the antagonist, with the antagonist showing the dark side of the theme and the protagonist the positive side.

Communicating both sides of the argument equally, sometimes through both the antagonist and the protagonist, may define the theme with more impact. In Les Misérables, our softer side may stick with Jean Valjean, but we also see the righteousness in Inspector Javert.

One other way to emphasize the theme is through all the characters in a story, with each character representing an aspect of the theme, as in Godfather stories when the theme of power is presented with each character representing another facet of power.

Referring to the theme in recurring images, props, colors, settings, and situations may also be used in the presentation of the theme. The color red in the movie American Beauty gives an important tip-off in presenting the main theme of the story as it plays to the viewer’s emotions each time it is shown.

Even when the plot is about something out of the writer’s imagination that may not emotionally involve us, the story becomes unforgettable if the theme makes itself known. We may not care for Luke Skywalker’s intergalactic triumph as much as we care about good winning over evil. Theme is very important to the overall success of any piece of fiction. When handled deftly, it will become a faithful servant to any writer.

Joy Cagil is an author on Writing.Com/ Writing.Com
which is a site for

On any given day, how many people, events, problems, projects, family issues, things to remember and appointments are running through your mind? A LOT, right? If you’re writing a book, you have to add on top of that a whole other world of characters, events, settings, plots, (if you’re writing fiction) or stories, bullet points, theories and rhetoric (if you’re writing non-fiction). How do you keep track of it all?

Keeping a journal for your book can be a great tool. In it you can keep your outline, character details, plotting charts and anything else that serves as a guide for helping you stay on track. The following is a simple outline of headings for setting up your daily journal pages to help you with the day-to-day writing of your book.

Word Goal

At the top of your page start out with the date of the writing session and set a goal for how many words you will write for the day. Make the number big enough to challenge you, but not too big that you feel overwhelmed if you consistently miss it. You can also keep the word goal in line with what you’re working on that day. If you are re-writing a chapter instead of creating a new one, then your word count for the day will be significantly smaller. (And that’s okay!)

Today’s Work Will Focus On…

Under this heading you will plan out what you want to handle in the session. Are you writing a dialogue where your main character learns someone’s innermost secrets? Are you doing a scene setter that places the reader in the heart of your book? Are you writing a how-to chapter to explain how the reader can put to use the new strategies you’ve given them on how to be a better networker? Doing this also makes the word goal less intimidating because you immediately see what you’re going to do with all those words!

What Problems Might I Encounter?

There WILL be problems–no big deal. Note what they may be so you won’t get tangled up in the problem as you’re sitting in front of the computer screen. Write down each one. Some examples: “How do I get my character to go from living at home to a place nearer to where all the action is happening?” “How do I introduce the character to the guy who will ruin her life?” “How do I shrink my program down to 5 simple steps that people can remember?” Acknowledging problems really helps to lessen their power over your writing. You aren’t scared away from a problem so easily when you know you can come up with a solution.

Possible Solutions Include…

This is where you′ll do a quick brainstorming of how you can solve the problem. You can try out one of the solutions in your writing session. If that doesn’t work, you′ll have a list of things you can try the next day. What’s great about this is that you′re starting to train your mind to look for answers. You′ll find that when you′re writing consistently, you′ll be thinking about ideas and solutions all the time–in your car, in the shower, while you′re taking a walk. This is really where the magic happens. I truly believe that the bulk of books can be worked out in your head–then you have to sit down and get it onto some paper!

Today’s Result and Where It Will Take Me Tomorrow…

At the end of your writing for the day you′ll want to take note of what you accomplished. Maybe the dialogue you wrote today has opened up another avenue you′d like to explore with your character. Or perhaps you′ve noticed a big hole in the research you′ve done for the biography you′re writing and you realize you need to make a few more calls. I like to print out the pages I’ve written so I can really see and feel what I’ve done for the day. It makes me excited to do more. The idea here is to reward yourself for your work and also see that you have more to do. You′re less likely to get writer’s block if you see that you still have plenty more to say for your next session. But if you do happen to get stuck anyway, go to…

Your Fun Page

This is the page where you just dawdle and dream when the writing isn’t quite happening. I had a page with “Acknowledgments” written at the top. Whenever I didn’t feel like writing, I would go to this page and think about who I wanted to thank when the book was finished! It was fun to add names or cross them out depending on my mood! Having such a page helped me stay connected to my vision of being a published author. Your page could have the list of cities for your book tour, or notes on the introduction you would give before your readings. Keep it light, keep it fun. This way, getting to the end of your book will be a pleasure, not a struggle. Isn’t that the way you want it to be?

© 2005 Sophfronia Scott

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you send me a copy and/or link to the issue and include this blurb with the story: Author and Writing Coach Sophfronia Scott is “The Book Sistah” TM. Get her FREE REPORT, “The 5 Big Mistakes Most Writers Make When Trying to Get Published” and her FREE online writing and publishing tips at TheBookSistah.com/ www.TheBookSistah.com

Sophfronia Scott, “The Book Sistah,” is author of the bestselling novel, All I Need to Get By.
If you liked today’s issue, stay tuned for more because The Book Sistah also offers FREE audio classes, FREE articles, workshops, and other resources to help aspiring authors get published and market their books successfully.

The Book Sistah, 230 South Main St. Ste. 319, Newtown, CT 06470
203-426-2036, mailto:Info@TheBookSistah.com Info@TheBookSistah.com

Good web page and article content is very important to a successful Internet Marketing Campaign. It’s what brings search engine traffic to your website, keeps your visitor there and spurs on repeat visits. Fresh content, interesting topics, clear and concise writing and a conversational tone will hook your readers. The following Tips on Article Writing will help you realize your goals.

Your Internet strategy should contain all the basics discussed below. These basics will assist in creating fresh content that is readable by humans and all the while remaining search engine friendly. This is important as there is a delicate balance between optimizing keywords for search engine traffic and allowing readable content for the human.

People use keyword strings that make very little grammatical sense when conducting a search. But the frequency with which they do it will require you to become very creative in sentence structure. For instance, “Article Writing How To” in my title is a little squirrelly, grammatically it should read “How to Write an Article”, but the keyword research results tell me to act otherwise. You will understand this issue after reviewing the results of your first keyword analysis. So, if you’re looking for high ranking in search engine results and increased revenue through affiliate marketing and/or Adsense ads, then these tips are critical. It is however true that, variations of the same keywords will end up with high rankings in search results.

Article Keyword Research:
There are several free tools available for Keyword Research. Remember that these tools are very limited because they are free. The point is that they can and will get you started. When you do your research on a keyword, several variations of your main keyword will be in the final results. Next, find the related keyword combinations that best fit the intent of your site and use each one for a web page and/or article topic. Your decision to choose particular keyword combinations will be based on the actual search volume versus the competition’s placement of that keyword on competitive internet web pages.

Now you should be ready to begin writing your web page or article content!

Article Keyword Placement and Keyword Density:
The Article Title should have the primary keyword placed at the beginning, and then appear again within the first few sentences of your Article Introduction. Of course you will then need to strategically place your primary keyword and related keywords throughout the article or page content. Keyword Density is next, and comprises of a ratio between how many times your keyword appears in the document compared to the overall word count. This calculation is the next factor in the potential success of your article. Generally it is believed that 1% - 5% keyword density is optimal. Too much is considered spamming, while too little will result in low search engine rankings. There’s a slew of free Keyword Density Tools available on the Internet that will provide this analysis.

Paragraph Length:
Paragraph Length and the next tip for Article Length are my major challenges. Once I get to writing, the thoughts just keep flowing and unless my reader is diligent, this can be a huge problem for the volume of internet content. It is a fast paced society and the internet is the epitome of it. People order something online and expect it to be delivered yesterday. As you know, this whole mindset has flowed into our everyday lives. Just remember that shorter paragraphs will assist in breaking up the page, thus providing easier reading, flow and visual scanning.

Article Length:
For Article Submissions to ezines, the range can be between about 250 to 4000 or so words. My recommendation is to keep them around 450 to a maximum of 1100. More than that results in the distinct possibility you could have written two separate articles, or caused too much content to consume quickly.

For a benchmark, use 650 as an average or optimal word count. This is not a fixed and fast rule, but a general guideline. You want the reader to glean the information you are providing and then follow your links in the Resource Box. To help you on this point, most Word Processing programs carry a word count tool in the Tools Menu. Use it frequently whilst writing to gauge your progress.

Article Writing — Are You Properly Applying Keywords and Marketing Your Articles? Get answers to this and additional Article Writing Information at bestarticlewriting.com Article Writing How To by visiting bestarticlewriting.com, a popular article writing site that provides tips, advice, and resources to include information on article writing, keywordbound.com article writing keyword analysis, article marketing and bestarticlewriting.com/Article-Writing-Keywords.html Article Keyword Analysis and Application for the experienced and novice.