How to pitch a freelance story: Find connections, have a surprise

Great stories often have a surprise. Something unexpected. A plot twist you didn’t see coming.

Sometimes it’s just as simple as finding lost treasure beneath a bed.

I saw a post on Facebook a few years ago about a local group that had found old films documenting rural life in Virginia in the 1920s and ‘30s and showing the films. A woman literally found this treasure of old films moldering away underneath a bed. I was intrigued.

I thought it would be a great freelance story. So I did some digging to learn more about the background of the group, who made the films, and other details.

In my research I discovered that the filmmaker, James Wharton, graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1920. “Alumni magazine,” I thought.

I pitched the story to the Johns Hopkins alumni magazine’s editor, playing on the connection of the filmmaker to Johns Hopkins University, the uniqueness of the films, and how meaningful they are to people in the Northern Neck region of Virginia and beyond.

I got a contract to write the story. At the time, I was getting my Master’s in Communications from Purdue University, so a little extra money was nice. But the best part was how much fun I had researching and writing the story, titled “Documenting the Northern Neck.”

Use Short Words. Write simple sentences. Make Short Paragraphs. Repeat.

You talk using short words. You use second-person pronouns. You use lots of contractions. You speak in short sentences.

Then you start writing. You think you need to sound smart and intelligent. You think you need to impress people with your fancy words, like you did when you wrote your college papers.

Next thing you know you’ve got 40-word sentences that makes you look very intelligent.

Or do they?

That intelligent word salad you wrote that has all those 20-dollar, four- and five-syllable words? No one knows what you’re telling them.

That “leveraging” of your “utilization” of the English language for the “cascading messaging” you dropped on them drowned them in a waterfall of meaningless words.

Try this instead. Get in, get out and make things plain and simple. Make sure they know the “why” of what you’re telling them. Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs in the active voice.

Prune your writing for vigor. Less is more. Always, less is more.

White space is your friend. Use it. Ok?

Your reaction is predictable when you come to a web page that’s all text.

It’s negative. You’re overwhelmed. I bet you pass it up.

Big blocks of text are barriers to the reader’s experience. That’s stating the obvious, I know. But making white space your friend when you write text isn’t used enough.

I see it over and over again that people write big blocks of text. Then they wonder why nobody reads what they wrote.

Here’s the simple solution. Break things up.

Think about little chunks. Bit-size morsels. A handful. It’s similar to how you eat, right?

However you want to think about it or put it, do us all a favor. Embrace the white space. Declutter.

I’m also hoping it will help you automatically start writing simpler, cleaner copy. Making it less dense and easier to read and understand.

I believe we call that a win-win.

Your audience wants writing that is easy to read. Make it clear. Simple. Painless. Effortless.

One thing matters the most to your audience. They want to read what you write just once and “get it.”

They don’t want to read something twice to understand it. Especially three or four times.

They don’t want their eyes to glaze over.

Don’t ever forget that. You may feel like a safe play is to repeat the jargon and clunky wording of your client, especially if you work for governments.

You don’t have to use the words “leverage” or “utilize.” Steer clear of writing “cascading messaging” and “value proposition” and “lean in.”

Don’t do it. It’s annoying and unnecessary.

There’s a reason governments are on “plain language” kicks.

The Atlantic magazine even had a March Madness-style playoff of worst corporate buzzwords. Funny stuff … in a sad sort of way.

Don’t try and sound intelligent when you write because chances are you will lose your audience with big words and lots of commas. There’s a reason you like reading “Good Night Moon” or “The Cat in the Hat” to your kids.

You want to help people. You want to make things easy for them.

Short words. Short sentences. Short paragraphs. White space.

Repeat that formula.

5 quick tips on how to write a press release

I have 30 years of press release experience. Most of that was as a newspaper reporter reading them so I know good from bad.

The last eight years I’ve spent as a strategic communications pro writing press releases for clients. Here’s what I know to be true about writing a press release.

These are easy five easy tips to follow and will help you write a high-quality press release that your target audience will read.

1) Make news — Tell me quickly why I should care about your product. How does it help me? How does it help my company?

2) Make it short — Think short and to the point. It’s like getting your coffee in the drive-thru. You want it fast and hassle-free. Quickly give the who, what, why, where, when and how of something. The why is huge, as in why it’s important, why it matters, why you should care. Reporters don’t want to wade through a bunch of words to figure it out. It drove me nuts when I was a reporter. Five-word sentences are totally legit.

3) Make a catchy headline — People do a quick scan to see if they want to read it. Take what Microsoft says in its style guide to heart: “We’re to the point. We write for scanning first, reading second. We make it simple above all.” Make it short and catchy. Make a headline that will make me care.

4) Make a link — Write a blog post with more details about your product and put it on your website. Include a 15-second video and professional photos. Link to it in your press release so the journalist can get more information if that’s what they want.

5) Make a good quote — Don’t say blah, blah, blah that no one ever says in conversation. Tell me something amazing about your product and why it’s so valuable. Give me the WHY! In words I understand, please.

Need some help writing and editing your press release?

I’m at jmatthewsabo | at | gmail.com

The reporter's life: A wildfire, an exploding juniper tree, and a life-saving sprint

Behind me, down a dirt road snaking into an eastern Oregon desert canyon, flames feasted on tinder-dry sagebrush and juniper.

Ahead of me, a cowboy tumbled off a flatbed truck when a big juniper full of berries exploded like a Roman candle.

To my right, a steep canyon wall in the Oregon desert. No way I could climb up that.

To my left, a descent into a wildfire creeping up the canyon.

Maybe this is what hell feels like, I thought.

How exactly, I wondered, did I get here?

My editors at the daily newspaper I was writing for in Oregon had sent me out in the morning on what I considered a plum assignment: Cover a wildfire in remote rangeland.

I had a camera, a notebook, and a pen. I wore Air Jordans, faded denim Levis the color of the sky, a t-shirt and flannel shirt and a ball cap.

Thought I would blend in covering a heroic bid by a determined group of ranchers and cowboys to halt a wildfire racing across the dry grass, sagebrush, and juniper they grazed their cattle on.

I was miles off the nearest highway, traversing dirt roads through canyons and hills. I followed the smoke and terse directions from a rancher’s wife to the canyon where I found a smattering of pickups parked at the top.

I walked down the road until I came to the crowd of “firefighters.” The ranchers and cowboys lit backfires on one side of the dirt road in hopes that the fire climbing up the canyon wouldn’t jump the road and keep heading east uphill.

I knew I had amazing photos of the rancher on the back of the flatbed spraying down the backfires to keep them from flaming up. He looked like an Old West gunfighter, but with a hose squirting water connected to a water tank with hundreds of gallons of water in it.

The thing about junipers is that those berries are full of alcohol. It’s how you make gin. Thousands of berries in big clumps hung on the huge juniper in front of us.

Alcohol and fire … not a good mix.

Especially on a roasting hot day in a canyon surrounded by brush and grass sucked dry of any moisture.

The juniper tree exploded in flames. Behind me, flames. Ahead of me, a flaming juniper tree. To my left, a burning canyon. To my right, a canyon wall.

My only option was to sprint ahead, hug the canyon wall, and hope I didn’t go up in flames with the tree.

I made it, to state the obvious. Probably never sprinted that fast in my life. My sprint came with with painful light burns to my exposed skin on my left arm where I tried to shield my face and the left side of my face.

I remember driving the hour or so back to the newspaper office, my arm and face throbbing.

When I walked into the office, my fellow reporters and editors looked at my beet red arm and face and asked, “What happened to you?”

This was back in the pre-digital age. I handed the film from my camera to a photographer for him to process. “It’s all right there,” I said.

Then I plopped down and started writing, telling the story.

The Question That Told Me Everything About A Writing Job Candidate

The answer to my question told us everything we needed to know about our job candidate.

We were hiring for a writer and this person was a referral. The company leadership really wanted to hire this person.

A person for a demanding writing job in our company with no professional writing or editing experience. Didn’t major in journalism, communication, writing, or English in college.

The writing examples the person sent us were college papers. Not very good ones at that. Who doesn’t have college papers to send for writing samples?

But the candidate was a “good culture fit” in the words of company leadership. I liked this person. I could see the person is thoughtful, works hard, and is someone I would say is a high-achiever.

Does all that make them a writer? Let alone a good writer?

No.

In the interview, I asked the candidate if they have a blog, have freelance writing gigs, or do their own writing. Maybe a journal or something like that.

Nope. Nothing. Doesn’t do any writing.

That’s all I needed to know

If you want to be a writer, then write. Read good writers. Learn about the craft.

Write to develop your voice and style.

Blog. Journal. Seek out freelance opportunities for local magazines or other publications.

Find out if you really love writing.

Because that’s what the candidate’s answer really revealed to me.

Why hire someone for a position if it wasn’t something they enjoyed doing on their own?

I have to write. It’s a big part of who I am. It’s why I have two personal blogs and regularly write freelance articles for magazines.

I need to write. Want to write. Love to write.

What’s writing to you?

Tell a good story. Write simply. Connect with audiences.

The goal of writing isn’t to sound smart. Don’t try and impress people with big words and fancy sentences.

Tell a story. Make it simple. Write like you talk.

The goal is connecting. You want people to read what you write.

Maybe you entertain them, or inform them and persuade them through humor or a tender story or tap into another emotion.

I learned about these things as a journalist when I developed my own brand of writing. Writing with style or flair. My editor called it “Matt Sabo style” and would ask me to write a “Sabo style” article.

I’ll give you an example. This is a story I wrote about a raid on a motorcycle repair shop in a rural Virginia community that got, well, interesting. I took an ordinary story and had fun with it.

A Virginia moonshine operation

Take the ordinary and give it your own style.