Be a Freelance Writer

Conducting and Writing Interviews

2008-05-17T17:23:00.002+08:00

I have had much feedback on the interview questions that I suggested in a previous post and have heeded your requests for more on this topic. Interviews can be a tough assignment. They require telephone and e-mail chasing to set up appointments; they demand the arts of persuasion to gain agreement; they necessitate time hunched over keyboards with your earphones at their most sensitive settings to transcribe conversations -- all of this and I haven't even touched on writing them in an informative, engagingly entertaining manner. And yet...these are the assignments that linger with you forever. You meet someone; you get to know them in a very accelerated manner with your probing questions. On a very human level, you establish a relationship that may or may not endure beyond the assignment. Whether it does or not (and more on that later), you HAVE met someone of note, been a witness to their life and chronicled an aspect of it -- very personal business indeed.

Good news for novices: interviews are the easiest way for you to break into the world of journalism and sell your article. EVERY newspaper and magazine publishes interviews: on the scale of supply and demand, well-written interviews tip the weights in your favour.

However, first you must get the appointment. To do this, you cannot be bashful or shy. You are asking very busy and often powerful people, whether politicians, television, film or sports celebrities, business tycoons or academics, to give you their personal time and attention. Sometimes you will have to reach them through their agents, secretaries or personal assistants. At others, a mutual friend may make the introduction or you just 'cold call' the subject. Whichever avenue you employ, you MUST inspire confidence from the very start and you must take command. Look in the mirror and tell yourself: "No, I will not be intimidated. This person has a family and eats, sleeps, wakes and even dreams. " You must take command and establish your ground rules.

The first is how much time you will need. Don't get greedy. If your assignment is for 500 to 1,000 words, then 30 minutes should suffice; 1,000 to 2,000 will need an hour; under 500 words can be accomplished by 15 minutes of conversation.

Tell the interviewee where and when the interview will likely be published and the type of information you are seeking. This will give your interviewee time to recall names, facts and figures before you meet and perhaps to recollect an appropriate anecdote to reinforce the subject. Do NOT volunteer a list of questions; if you are asked, by all means draw up some to keep them happy (no more than 10) but assert that the list is to give a 'general indication of the avenue of conversation'. You do not want to kill spontaneity and you also should leave yourself the opportunity to pursue an unexpected response to a question more deeply. However, you DO want your interviewee to feel comfortable so that they will open up to you. No matter who they are, there is always a level of fear when meeting the press. Your confidence and firmness will inspire trust. They do not wish to be embarassed by not having the 'right' answers and may have a team who will 'coach' them on their responses. Keep that in mind when devising your questions and when choosing the ones you will share in advance.

Do your homework. You should have learned pertinent biographical and business data before devising your path of questioning so don't waste valuable time on the innocuous. If you cannot find the information at the library or on the internet, ask the secretary/agent for a brief bio and/or company presskit.

Try to make the meeting on your subject's 'home turf' for two reasons: he will be more comfortable and you will be able to see the pictures on his walls, the paperback books by his easy chair, the awards that give him pride and more that will help you paint a picture of him for your reader. Of course, this cannot always occur as they may be travelling to your city or may request to meet over a meal, etc. At those times, keep your eyes open for the personal gestures: do they pick at their food nervously or eat with gusto; do they slip their feet out of the stilettos or primly cross their legs.

Show up for your interview five minutes early; not breathless and sweaty but cool, calm and collected with your notebook in which you've penned brief biographical data alongside your questions. Also, bring a tape recorder. (Be sure to test the recorder first; also pack an extra set of batteries and another tape should the unexpected happen...). No matter how well you appear to get along with your interviewee, stick to the scheduled time and no more, unless you are invited to stay.

During the interview, make eye contact. Take only the occasional note. Do glance at your recorder to ensure it is still working but do not lean over your notebook showing only the top of your head to the interviewee. Ask an easy question or two to relax the subject before you get to the meat of the interview. Do not chatter yourself; no nervous giggles, twittering, etc. If the subject needs time to respond to a question, let the silence hang in the air while they think: do not rush to fill it. This shows both your sincerity in desiring THEIR OPINION, their response, and YOUR INTENT on getting it. Be a good listener. This is far harder than it sounds...

No Detours

2008-04-27T17:51:00.002+08:00

Read points one and two of this post and then close your eyes for a few minutes and THINK.

1) Come up with a magazine article idea.
Open your ears and listen to what people are talking about. Surf the online forums for the latest buzz. People want to find out how to be more beautiful, healthy, affluent, intelligent and/or better-liked. They want to read about their heroes, their sports teams or their cinema idols. They want to save the planet -- or at least their marriage. They want to laugh, to have great sex, to eat well, to go to heaven.
You can flip your calendar ahead by four or five months for inspiration as to what editors will be planning for in an upcoming issue since editors ALWAYS work ahead. It will be time to go back to university in many parts of the world. Formula 1 will get underway in Singapore; in Australia the 'footy' Grand Finals will be looming in the final week with playoffs underway. Grandparents Day is September 7; the first day of Autumn in the northern hemisphere is September 22. Think of what will be desired in the world of fashion at that time; what will be in season at the supermarket; what will be released at movie theatres. Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino will be starring in Righteous Kill as policemen chasing a serial killer; Jennifer Aniston, Steve Zahn and Woody Harrelson star in Management telling the tale of a traveling saleswoman who sells cheap art to small companies and motels. She has a fling with an aimless, underachieving assistant motel manager at one of her stops and he pursues her all over the U.S. In Nothing but the Truth, Kate Beckinsale stars with Matt Dillon as a Washington D.C female newspaper reporter who outs a CIA agent and is imprisoned for refusing to reveal her source. In South of the Border, Salma Hayek and Andy Garcia feature in a tale of a pampered Beverly Hills chihuahua, accustomed to riding in a purse, that gets lost in Mexico while her owner is on a spa vacation and is forced to find her way back home.
2) Fix on one idea and distill it to a coverline. Yes, focus. What's your slant? From what angle will you approach it? What makes this unique?

Now OPEN YOUR EYES. Sit down at your work station.
3) Do your research. Get exactly the information you need. You do not need to become an expert, so don't overdo it (you will also lose your enthusiasm for the idea if you work it until you are stale -- and no one wants to read a stale piece). Don't circle around the subject -- zero in. Talk to the people you NEED to speak with. If you can, reach for the BIG NAME. Use only what is quotable and sticks to your subject.

4) START WRITING

In Conversation

2008-04-20T14:12:00.002+08:00

Another year, another round of brand visits at the Swiss watch fairs: I've just returned from Basel and Geneva after two weeks of viewing some spectacular, new horological creations. Keep your eyes out for the new De Grisogono Meccanico, a limited edition watch that is purely mechanical but relays time in a digital fashion.

The new Harry Winston Opus 8 does the same thing, but I find Frederic Garinaud's creation less sophisticated than De Grisogono's. Frederic, Harry Winston's guest watchmaker for this year -- each year they have a guest designer create an Opus -- reveals time in a manner similar to those toys that show your hand print by pressing blunt steel pins with your palm from the back. With his watch, you must pull a lever at the right side of the case. This, in turn, lifts a plate inside the watch that will push the appropriate pins to reveal the time. So, a mechanical watch it may be, but it takes this human intercession to read the time.

De Grisogono's watch reveals the time using a twist on binary language -- a clever idea that I think rings more sympathetically with the concept of 'digital'. His watchmaker uses rods that are coloured white on one side. Like the old binary computer language, the combination of rods to white or black forms the numerals of the hour and minute, mechanically.

For more information on these, check out the insider's site (http://journal.hautehorlogerie.org/) from the Foundation of Haute Horology (http://www.hautehorlogerie.org/). Of course, you could always wait until July, when the watch fair issue of TIMEcraft magazine comes out...

Jaeger-LeCoultre marks its 175th anniversary this year and among the masterpieces it unveiled were three new Atmos clocks. Those of you into timekeepers know the Atmos as a piece of genius that runs for nearly a thousand years without the need for a battery, electricity or even manual winding. A perpetual motion clock, it literally runs on air, with the minuscule changes in temperature driving the clock's mechanism. It doesn't get more environmentally-friendly than that, dear friends, when it comes to energy usage!

One of the new Atmos clocks has been designed by Australian artist Marc Newson, who puts it in an approximately one-foot square Baccarat crystal cube. Very sleek and modern. The second Atmos reveals a more nostalgic look: marquetry using precious woods and gold leaf forms a replica of Gustav Klimt's masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch. An artistic treasure showing superb craftsmanship! The third Atmos crosses the artistic/scientific divide by reproducing a map of the heavens on its glass case: specifically the constellations of the Northern Hemisphere a la the 17th century star-charts of Andreas Cellarius. The clock's movement also reveals the "Equation of Time", a complication that discerns the difference between sundial time and clock time (they differ at certain times of the year owing to the Earth's orbit and tilt) -- a measurement that appeals to the most left-brain dominant of you out there.

Speaking of which...you rational logicians will also love the new "Mayu" from H. Moser as it now features the double hairspring that was first showcased in the "Henry" last year using the Straumann double hairspring escapement. Big deal, you say? Well, tourbillon watches flood the market, and why? This twirling orb was developed over 200 years ago by Breguet for pocket watches because they became inaccurate when resting in a prolonged vertical position in someone's pocket and gravity's tug took its toll. Now, you see tourbillons on wristwatches in all price categories -- and today's wristwatches do not sit in the same position as pocket watches (unless you are a couch potato of the first magnitude). People just like to see these little 'whirlwinds' spin on their watches (tourbillon is French for 'whirlwind'). So, get a life! If you want something that treats the cause rather than the symptom, go for the Straumann double hairspring escapement in your watch to ensure its even running and accuracy. (The escapement controls the speed and regularity of the watch's balance wheel, or a clock's pendulum: it regulates the power from the balance wheel to the gears -- you want them to run neither too fast nor too slow, but as in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, just riiiiigght.)

If you don't care that your watch is off by a few seconds, then make your own statement. Meistersinger still features its single-hand watches as do a few other watchmakers this year for those not driven to calculating time down to nanoseconds on their schedules. You glance at one of these watches and say: "Hmm, it's nearly half past two," and that's close enough for you.

Of course, I lust after the bling that you can find in the Breguet Reine de Naples newbies as well as the new line of women's watches from Perrelet. Niiiiiiice ice!

Now -- back to writing tips. What I have done here today is show how you can write on complex topics in a conversational manner. Why have you read this entry until this point? Maybe you are into watches, but language plays a strong role in holding interest.

Interview Questions

2008-03-25T07:31:00.006+08:00

As many of you discerned when you tried to visit this site over the Easter weekend, Blogger had some problems with a robot spyder software system that was supposed to find spam sites (those filled with random words) and remove them -- it instead removed many legitimate sites such as this one. The chatroom at Blogger is filled with the sad tales of people scrambling to get their sites back up. We were lucky as it took less than a day to get this one reloaded after I wrote to them. So, back to some tips.
I had planned on a longer posting over the holidays, but I am now writing early in the morning (just after sunrise, which was a stunning medley of pinks and purples off my balcony) before going to work, so I will keep this one brief.
You all should be in some stage of research on your chosen article after reading the past posts. One of the tools of research is conducting interviews. I will discuss the interview process in greater depth later, but here is a suggested interview question template to get you thinking.

Keep in mind, the actual questions should be modified to address the person, his company, his industry, his accomplishments and the mission of your article.

1. What is so good about/the star attraction of/main benefit of _____?

2. Can you give us a little bit of background about how you got involved with/in______ and what led you to become such an expert/icon/leader?

3. What sort of success/income/profit/satisfaction could someone expect to earn? Can the average person make money (gain advantage/achieve goals/reach expertise) using ____?

4. What are the top three things that someone should know in order to be a success in your field? Where/from whom did you learn them?

5. What's the best way to get started and how much money/what resources would a person need?

6. How long does it take to see the upside/make money/get established?

7. Will _____ work in any area/for anyone? Describe specifics please.

8. How much experience/training does a person need?

9. Can you provide some real life examples?

10. If you had one piece of advice, what would it be?

11. What are some of the common problems experienced?

12. Some people might think this sounds too good to be true. Is there a catch?

13. What sort of things can someone do to stay on top/maintain their achievement or product performance?

14. Where can people find more information on _____?

15. How can people contact you/your company/your distributor/buy your product?

16. What is your background/experience in this field?

17. What makes your present company/product/service stand out?

18. What led you to this approach/direction/development?

19. How long has it taken you/been in development/in the works?

20. Who contributed to/influenced/inspired this?

21. What would you point to as your (or your company's) greatest achievement?

22. What has been your (or your company's) greatest mistake/challenge? The lesson from it?

Sometimes an interview is one hour; sometimes you get only five minutes with someone. Your questions need to be trimmed to fit your time slot and to get to your key question before time is up. Do save interview time by seeking a copy of the person's biodata/CV beforehand. It may also help you to rephrase some of these questions or pursue a certain line of questioning you might have left unexplored.

Reference Books

2008-03-16T09:04:00.003+08:00

As you can see, I spent last weekend giving this blog some additional features as I especially wanted to share some superb resource books. I've had my copy of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style by my side since my university days and it has proven its value to me over the past 30+ years, now careworn though it is. I have kept the Oxford dictionary as my vocabulary bible since my move to Asia, where the Queen's English still prevails, and am lucky that it is also loaded on my Treo mobile phone for constant and instant reference (for example, I just consulted it to see if 'careworn' had a hyphen or not...). Our copy (this one is shared with my spouse as we both refer to it frequently with pleasure) of Larousse Gastronomique (we have the hardcover edition) is another resource constantly consulted both for writing assignments and to settle issues of discussion and curiosity. Decades ago, a food writer (later managing editor) in Hawaii, John Heckathorn of Honolulu magazine, highly recommended the Larousse Gastronomique and we've never forgotten: thank you, John.
You will see that the recommended books also include several that relate to the writing of fiction. There are three reasons for this: one, even a non-fiction article has to have a bit of 'storytelling' to engage the reader or it will present like a clipping from an encyclopedia (I'm talking feature article, not news reportage here); two, there are lessons to be learned from character development that can be applied to your presentation of an interview subject; and three, many of you have asked me to extend my writing tips to the realms of fiction and beyond, which I will attempt to satisfy in coming months.
Perhaps noticeably absent from my list is the recent best seller, Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. Although I found it very entertaining, with some funny examples of poor punctuation, the book should NOT be a grammatical reference as it suffers from very poor editing. Read The New Yorker's review of it by Louis Menand at (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/06/28/040628crbo_books1) to understand what I mean. As with any endeavour, credibility is lost when you do not 'walk the talk' and 'practice what you preach'. The book ends up sending a confused message.
However, what this all underscores is the importance of reading, reading, reading. Learn from both the successes and failures of others.

Now to Start

2008-03-02T18:22:00.005+08:00

Sorry for the absence from posting. After a trip down to Australia for Christmas, I came back and had to get some magazines out on newsstands. Then, my spouse and I took a special trip to celebrate our anniversary by going to the Australian Open in Melbourne for the Grand Finals. What a tournament!! I was sorry to see Federer out of the match but both Tsonga and Djokovich put up stellar fights to reach the finals and each played to win, evidenced by the tie-breakers. It was absolutely thrilling to watch. The weather cooperated by not blasting us with heat and the Rod Laver Arena is such a friendly place -- it seems so large on television but only holds around 15,000 people making the seating, especially on the lower level where we were, so close to the court. When you shout a cheer or encouragement, everyone definitely hears you! The players also realise this and bond with the audience by communicating audibly, and sometimes humorously.

So, back to making a living from writing... Now that you have found a special nest from which to write, I suggest getting started. Yes, I could (and will) give you writing tips, but it's best not to procrastinate and instead get the fingers flying. We will clean up your mistakes later.

Don't worry about producing the perfect title and clean copy at the beginning. Rather, focus on what you want to communicate. I suggest that if you are a beginner, don't write in the first person (first person narrative tells the story in your voice. For example, this blog is first person. "I did this, I think that, etc.) Instead try using second person (You will benefit from these ideas...), especially if you are writing a 'how to' or encouraging your reader to visit a certain place, act a certain way, believe a certain credo or buy a specific product. Alternatively write in third person (It is good to let a reader discover the facts, the emotion, the rationale.), the style you used in school for your report writing. Most editors, including myself, toss stories in the first person from a beginning writer, as amateurs don't usually have the 'expert voice' to make themselves credible in the first person (Readers Digest is perhaps the exception -- it seeks tales of personal experience). The writing is too self-centred.

You must start writing now, forget the query letters to editors, as no one is going to give a freelance assignment to someone without experience. After you get a few pieces published, building your portfolio, then an editor will ask you for a specific story. You must earn their trust first by showing that you can produce quality work. When you do, and an editor needs a specific person interviewed or event covered, the editor may then turn to you.

The easiest stories to sell as a beginner arise from your own interests. If you are a 'foodie', then pen a review of the three best places to relish ___fill in the blank (oysters, noodles, omelets) __. Choose your favourite and remember to give details. All chefs claim to 'use the freshest ingredients', so PLEASE don't cite that as your recommendation. Tell us what they do with the ingredients. If oysters, tell the reader the varieties on offer such as Belon, Bluepoint, Mad River, the flavours of each, the average size, origins and how often they are stocked. If you choose noodles, discover if they are made on the premises, explain the different types of noodle by both shape and ingredients, how they are cooked including how long and with what sauce. Don't take a level of knowledge for granted. Give a reader the details.

Alternatively, you could write on the best bars for a martini or for networking, the best spas for that perfect manicure, pedicure or detoxing treatment, the most child-friendly resorts, three great sets of wheels that will save the environment and more. Note that I suggest you write about three places. If you are new to an editor, writing about one place could sound like advertising and your motives could be doubted. Top five, 10 or 100 places are just too many for your first piece. Focus.

My above suggestions mostly centre on places, but you could write about people (top three university football coaches, private investigators, image consultants, etc), places or things. Choose your storyline, list your three items and start researching.

Getting Started 3

2007-12-02T13:23:00.000+08:00

Wow! December already...the past week has been consumed with getting my December issue magazines to the printers, my full-time job, so now at last I have a few moments to speak with you. Hopefully you have fitted out a corner of your home for writing. Now to the task.

The first thing you must do is determine your audience. A writer does not use the same language and tone for children as for adults, neither does he write the same for specialist media as for mass market. The more you know about your audience, the better you will be able to connect with them.

Determine, if you can, the following: age, educational level, nationality, sex, cultural orientation and special interests. This will help you to choose vocabulary your readers will understand; select idioms, similes and metaphors they will grasp; present situations and characterisations they will find believable and engaging; establish the credibility of your 'voice' and avoid references that could be offensive.

I recall one time, while I was living in Hong Kong, editing an article in which the writer tried to use idioms with which she herself was unfamiliar. When she tried to convey that a certain woman had someone 'twisted around her little finger' (meaning that the woman had someone under her total influence), she wrote that she had someone "running around her ring finger". It took me awhile to try to figure out what she meant to say (were we talking wedding proposals or what?). The phrase "twisted around her little finger" is an American idiom. If your audience comes from elsewhere, they may not understand such idioms. Some people may call English "the universal language", but this language has many variations and contributions from the areas in which it is spoken. For example, many areas of Asia were taught British English. As a writer and editor, I have had to adapt my spelling and usage from my native American to British formats for my audiences here. When I am in Australia, I have to tweak it again, perhaps inserting "He's as popular as a blowie at a butcher's picnic" to indicate a person who is most unwelcome (a 'blowie' is one of those huge, slow flies that you sometimes see buzzing around people's faces in outdoor summer television coverage Down Under inspiring those wide-brimmed hats with dangling corks so especially enamored by today's tourists!). Important point: when using an expression not in your own common usage, double-check it for accurate application!

If you wish to write for a global audience, then you will have to avoid idiomatic expressions except for use when establishing a character -- and then remember that you will somehow have to weave an explanation of the idiom into your text for your readers.

Getting Started 2

2007-11-25T11:16:00.000+08:00

You've seen writers in movies spinning their craft in all manner of ways: speaking into a tape recorder on the go, dictating to a proficient assistant, writing longhand by the dim light of a nearly spent candle, two-finger typing on an old Remington, scribbling into a notebook under bed sheets by flashlight, leaning against a park's tree balancing a laptop on your thighs. Yes, these all work as I will attest from experience -- even, on more than one occasion, I have written an entire article on my Treo handphone (thank goodness for its qwerty keyboard!).

However, to set yourself on the road to writing professionally, you need to find a base from which to operate, someplace you can call your 'office'. If you are reading this, you have access to a computer. Great! If it's yours, so much the better. If you are at a library, yes, that can work too, as can a neighborhood Internet cafe or a club. However, if you are reading this from your workplace or someone else's home, it's time for you to exercise a little of your nesting instinct.

Set aside some space in your own home as your writing place. It may be an elaborate home office or it may be a fold-away table in a corner of one room (if the latter, keep the fold-away in sight, not hidden in a closet -- your place has to beckon you). If you are surrounded by family, I strongly urge an investment in noise-cancelling earphones and an MP3 player (sometimes listening to music through your computer slows down your machine's speed to an aggravating level). You want to insulate yourself from interruption. I share a study room with my spouse. We each have our own desks and sit back to back to minimise visual disruption. We also have our own Aiwa noise-cancelling headsets -- mine are currently playing Keola and Kapono Beamer (I love writing to Hawaiian music!). I suggest if you are putting your writing table in your bedroom, also place it so that your back is to the bed. You don't want to be enticed to lay down and day-dream. Heavy zzz's could result. A corner in a kitchen also works, except at meal times.

Once you have your space, outfit it with your tools. Keep them to a minimum: computer, printer, headphones, dictionary, thesaurus, book of quotations, voice recorder, paper, writing instruments and a lamp. Online dictionaries and other references are useful but I prefer to use a separate digital dictionary and thesaurus as well as a paperback book of quotations so that my writing stays in front of me on my computer screen. I am also a big list writer, so the paper and pencils/pens come in handy constantly both for noting ideas and research points that require checking. Aside from the computer and lamp, the rest of these items can be kept in a basket at your feet.

Now you are ready to start -- almost.

Getting Started

2007-11-24T17:51:00.000+08:00

So, you want to be a writer. Easy enough: if you can read, you can write. OK, wait a minute. You want SOMEONE ELSE to read your writing. That changes the whole ballgame. How do you write engaging text that draws a reader's attention? How do you establish credibility so that your writing is believable?

What's more: how do you get paid for your writing?

I intend to explore each of these subjects and much more on this blog. "Watch this space."