A Plea to readers and writers

You can throw a brick (or perhaps be gentler and employ a sandwich) in Piccadilly Circus and you’ll hit someone who calls himself a writer. And why not? Almost every single one of us can write and we spend an inordinate amount of time texting and emailing if not actually working on the old fashioned business of furrowing our brows and putting pen to paper.

But my thought is this: because we can write – in that we were taught this amazing skill at school – ought we therefore to take responsibility for the creation of all the many words we pour into promoting our businesses. Should we write our own brochures, our own websites, put together our own annual reports and script our own speeches and presentations?

It is my contention after many years of perplexed experience and plenty of research that the vast majority of proud owners of websites advertising their services and wares are also the proud writers of those very websites. And it is for this reason that so much unrepeatable and terrible prose is published abroad. There are literally trillions of words out there smashing and grinding nonsensically together, desperately vying for reader’s attention: lumpen, clanking, duplicating words, a vast medium for the cliché of the moment and the many clichés of yesteryear, for biz-speke, jargon and general nonsense written in the egg-laying and strenuous pursuit of making sales to potential customers.

My plea is for all such writers to stop and for readers to complain. 

Just think how much better informed we would be, how much more inspired and enthusiastic we could be, if all this fantastic verbiage was trimmed, shaped and balanced for easy consumption. Wait for it – by a professional copywriter who has hard-won experience and plenty of skill.

It’s an amazing thing that website designers can create wonderfully customised sites with both subtle and powerful business branding, full of flair and invention – and when they’ve been through all the iterative design stages to achieve this thing of beauty they ask the client for the copy. They then shoehorn this in somewhere – it is little more than a shape on the page to them and usually the less of it the better.

This approach is typical and it has carried on, in my experience, from the ancient days of printed brochures (rather than websites) to the second and third generation online age. Design comes first and the quality of the message is left to look after itself. Clients pay a lot of money ‘for a website’ and then they fill in the words – because words are cheap. This is all so wrong.

The message you are trying to convey is actually your prime purpose, supported by graphic design and layout considerations rather than the reverse. A skilled professional will use words boldly and strikingly, create useful sub-headings and links to signpost people to other layers of information and, above all, write clearly and simply with the ducks in the right order. In this way, you will hook readers and make them want to explore. 

A word of warning

It just goes to show – if you are a professional writer or probably a professional anything– you should never abandon the golden rule that must apply with new clients. Be paid at least 50 per cent of the first agreed project before you start. Having discussed the project and agreed a price, with both parties happy with what is to be done, you must insist on a down payment. Don’t even start your real thinking before the money arrives.  

I have been doing this with new clients for more than 25 years but for some reason I let up my guard, for the first time, only recently.

I was asked to write a brochure and a series of film scripts for a company and everything was needed urgently. I had met the client, looked over the factory, saw the value of the products involved, organised access to relevant information to support the first task, the brochure, and soon came back with a price.

I was about to go on holiday for a week and emailed the client to ask whether the deal was sealed. I received two phone calls and one email saying that the deal was indeed sealed, the price agreed and that they were delighted to have me on board.

I wrote the brochure and sent it to the client. I then wrote eleven, one-minute film scripts and was doubly careful that each one could be spoken, instructively and fluidly by a professional presenter, to be hired for the job.

My instincts should have warned me not to send anything before receiving an initial payment. The first fire alert was the quite unbelievable illiteracy of the owner of the factory, clearly someone who insisted on his signature throughout every aspect of the company. I had already noticed in the notes he gave me concerning the product range that he was all but illiterate. And I’d seen his hand on the company’s website where the English is shocking in almost every respect, including spelling where the simplest of words looked foreign. Even the word ‘seen’ was spelt ‘sean’. How, I should have said to myself, is someone who has so little basic understanding of the written language going to appreciate even straightforward prose let alone something confidently and boldly written by a professional?

Having foolishly submitted my brochure and scripts – all written in time to meet what was apparently an urgent need – I awaited a reply. Nothing came. No acknowledgement of receipt, no thanks. After several attempts to call by landline and mobile, and various emails over about a week and a half, I received a version of my ‘scripts’ edited by said company owner. He had turned something clean and clear, written for a professional presenter – into something utterly unintelligible and he asked me to ‘aprove/edit’ (sic) these abominations. With trepidation in my heart, I attempted about four scripts and sent these back to see if we might end up on the right lines. Weeks went by. No responses to my calls and emails. So I sent him a note saying I must charge him for my work to date and stated the amount. Whereupon less than an hour later I received a rude and belligerent stream of consciousness effectively stating that he was not paying me anything although what he was actually saying took some time to decipher.

I shared this email with my partner who told me in no uncertain terms that I was completely mad not to have made sure this particular ‘bottom feeder’ had paid me in advance. She is of course right. I won’t make the same mistake again. I’m now sharing my sense of shame and loss with my blog in the hope that anyone else out there who writes professionally abides by at least one basic rule with all new clients.  Be paid first! And do please pay heed to your gut feelings.

A word of warning

It just goes to show – if you are a professional writer or probably a professional anything– you should never abandon the golden rule that must apply with new clients. Be paid at least 50 per cent of the first agreed project before you start. Having discussed the project and agreed a price, with both parties happy with what is to be done, you must insist on a down payment. Don’t even start your real thinking before the money arrives.  

I have been doing this with new clients for more than 25 years but for some reason I let up my guard, for the first time, only recently.

I was asked to write a brochure and a series of film scripts for a company and everything was needed urgently. I had met the client, looked over the factory, saw the value of the products involved, organised access to relevant information to support the first task, the brochure, and soon came back with a price.

I was about to go on holiday for a week and emailed the client to ask whether the deal was sealed. I received two phone calls and one email saying that the deal was indeed sealed, the price agreed and that they were delighted to have me on board.

I wrote the brochure and sent it to the client. I then wrote eleven, one-minute film scripts and was doubly careful that each one could be spoken, instructively and fluidly by a professional presenter, to be hired for the job.

My instincts should have warned me not to send anything before receiving an initial payment. The first fire alert was the quite unbelievable illiteracy of the owner of the factory, clearly someone who insisted on his signature throughout every aspect of the company. I had already noticed in the notes he gave me concerning the product range that he was all but illiterate. And I’d seen his hand on the company’s website where the English is shocking in almost every respect, including spelling where the simplest of words looked foreign. Even the word ‘seen’ was spelt ‘sean’. How, I should have said to myself, is someone who has so little basic understanding of the written language going to appreciate even straightforward prose let alone something confidently and boldly written by a professional?

Having foolishly submitted my brochure and scripts – all written in time to meet what was apparently an urgent need – I awaited a reply. Nothing came. No acknowledgement of receipt, no thanks. After several attempts to call by landline and mobile, and various emails over about a week and a half, I received a version of my ‘scripts’ edited by said company owner. He had turned something clean and clear, written for a professional presenter – into something utterly unintelligible and he asked me to ‘aprove/edit’ (sic) these abominations. With trepidation in my heart, I attempted about four scripts and sent these back to see if we might end up on the right lines. Weeks went by. No responses to my calls and emails. So I sent him a note saying I must charge him for my work to date and stated the amount. Whereupon less than an hour later I received a rude and belligerent stream of consciousness effectively stating that he was not paying me anything although what he was actually saying took some time to decipher.

I shared this email with my partner who told me in no uncertain terms that I was completely mad not to have made sure this particular ‘bottom feeder’ had paid me in advance. She is of course right. I won’t make the same mistake again. I’m now sharing my sense of shame and loss with my blog in the hope that anyone else out there who writes professionally abides by at least one basic rule with all new clients.  Be paid first! And do please pay heed to your gut feelings.

A thought about consistency...

Hobgoblins and hobby horses

Here’s a thought: if as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds adored by little statesmen, philosophers and divines” then how do we measure “foolish” and when does one step over the line into little-mindedness?

I’ve often argued that consistency in grammar, punctuation, capitalisation, spelling and so on makes writing of any kind more readable. (Content helps too, of course.) I think this is partly because I’ve slaved for years attempting to dig out a clear message or two from business prose too often lacking in any consistent element except cliché.

I favour consistency in all writing, not just in texts aimed at readers but for words written for speakers too. Take away consistent punctuation, clarity of thought, balance in sentence length, a bit of rhythm to allow ideas to make links and breaths to be taken, and you’ll find the speech is unreadable, unspeakable and generally insufferable. Hough! Hough! Clipperty clop! I’m now a little statesman on his hobbyhorse.

Am I being little-minded by advocating consistency in these ways? Perhaps. But in mild self-defence I believe that Emerson is referring to consistency as a kind of beast which inhibits exploration, change, creative or even coruscating thoughts and ideas, rather than referring to an element of style. Whereas I am offering consistency as the useful and possibly dutiful cousin of style.

But I’m still a bit piqued by the notion of being a bit of a pedantic prat. And, even when I’m trying to put together some kind of consistent narrative flow or style, I like the idea of busting out occasionally – if I can get away with it. It’s like the clown on skis. He knows his art so well that he can do astonishing acrobatics while looking completely out of control.

My contention is that we should truly know our art as writers too – we must learn and apply the rules before we break them successfully.

Actually most writing, particularly in my hobgoblin sphere of work, is not so much devoid of consistency making it unreadable but of content making it unpalatable. Hough, puff, clopperty clip.

A piece about a piece

Giles Emerson on Wwword 201212

Having spent many years interviewing other people I found myself at the ‘receiving end’, just the other day. Someone actually wanted to interview me about my work as a – wait for it – “writer of anything!”

The night before this extraordinary experience, arriving home at a little before the dear little sparrows awoke, I’d returned from Scotland, via a nine-hour-in-one-go drive from the Western Highlands. And that morning I’d waved my talented photographer-brother, Charles Emerson, away so that he could rejoin his family in Bristol. The Scottish, short weekend, had involved two days of driving and one-day of hard work and a lot of jabber from me – but then I don’t get out much.

I was absolutely blathered with tiredness and somewhat annoyed to boot because my Broadband had failed big-time, courtesy of that corporation of Britishness that underpins much of the UK’s telecoms.

So I snuck to a neighbour’s house with my laptop and gratefully set up in their kitchen for said interview.

Once the extremely attractive woman in New York, Lucy Sisman, and I were up and communicating (grainily but in lickerty spit audio), I suddenly found myself the gamekeeper turned poacher.

I was being full-on interrogated by a very sharp mind. I felt myself dither and pother away in the way people who should really be in bed or sucking out the contents of a bottle of wine, sometimes do just smoffle along. Yap, yap, yap.

Here I was talking about my work as a professional communicator for government and business and a self-styled ‘hired pen’ (what unutterable plonkerishness – you can see the likeness between me and Clint Eastwood on www.wwword.com); and all I could muster were near-fatal banalities. But the blessed Lucy is sharp enough to catch the thread of a story. And she makes it all sound quite interesting. Honestly.

This said, I wished I could have said something like…er…The great thing about writing is that it is very difficult indeed. The marvellous thing about words is that one placed in an appropriate sentence can change the world, suddenly, in the eye of a beholding reader….Or…

You see I really didn’t want to be the subject; I wanted the subject to be words. But then, with joyful hindsight, what I have learned is that here is a website that does nothing but celebrate words. And it’s very moreish. Visit wwword.com and learn about a planet of possibilities.

 

How to cope with major communications problems

Giles Emerson 121212

I’m offline at the moment and have been in that strangely isolating state for about 24 hours. I’m writing to you from this island of non-connection to the outside world and wondering whether I am being liberated from the usual mesh and mash of online technology, or just screwed by the system.

The truth is very much the latter. I’m being screwed, despite or perhaps because of a little over five hours on the phone, blessedly still connected, with fully pregnant waits between calls, to the mighty and over-systematised British Telecom. Hail thee provider of all my daily services, bringer of bread to the mouth of my babes; hail thee great one, to whom I am grateful for the continuance of the lifeblood of my business and thereunto for the untold small and large joys of my life deriving from the drops of credit and creditability that flow through the thy powerful portals of communication. Yea! Etc.

Here am I, very little I, unable to conduct normal business because so much of it depends on sending messages and finished pieces of work down the line to my beloved clients. Yet here, oddly am I also, an emerging moth perhaps discovering freedom and the light wing of aloneness (coyly discounting the fact that I can, of course, use my mobile to check emails if worst comes to worst).

On the one hand, you see, I have to count to ten every time I try to make another call, ineluctably dodging and weaving through the various menus offered by BT’s electronic gatekeepers of Business Customer Support; inevitably listening to the repeated recorded message telling me how valuable my call is to BT and that lines are very busy; quizzically listening to the message bobbing and re-bobbing in the silent flow that says “if you have a problem with broadband, why not try our online service at bt.com.slash.repair” – that little slash word so suggestive of the nearby bathroom cupboard; inscrutably awaiting that surprising moment, often after more than 20 minutes on hold (provided I’ve not simply been cut dead after the same amount of time and have had to start the whole process again) when someone real answers.

Then I stutter into an explanation of why I, little I, long way off I, one of millions I, many ‘I’s doing the same thing, am trying to talk to you, real human you in your chair, with your earphones cuddling your furrowed and concerned brow. How easy then, with all the initial frustration tampered down, just to say, “I wanted to wish you merry Christmas” rather than to start again on the whole long, immensely boring telephonic saga of what has gone wrong, and to recount, again, the numbers and even first names of the previous customer support operatives I have spoken to and what I said and what they promised to do about it; and how many times just this morning, over a three-hour period I have been told that a manager will get back to me. But he hasn’t, once.

And on the other hand, how tempting it is to leave it all behind and walk off into the dark but even-saddled night of isolation, two obliquely-parted fingers lifting to the breeze. No regrets, just a slow walk to Christmas, all obligations shorn from the otherwise heavy burden of guilt and anxiety that surrounds this season, courtesy of rush and bustle coupled with the pre-empted hope of diving toward sweet evening tide with its cosiness of friends and laughter. Ah yes, isn’t this more tempting than the need to send this piece of work, this article, this report, this letter, this urgent list of names, this addendum to the accounts, this response to you and them and to the world, all slipping over themselves as priorities change and the door to connectivity remains barred. Tempting…

But to stay out of the battle, not to play the cross-man, be the cross-man on the phone demanding rights and repairs, is only possible for a flicker of time and space; perhaps for just long enough to splurge this homage to you, world, my old friend and the things that belong to you, and all the good things that we are and could be were it not for the puddle-strewn, systemically auto-jammed, fat-glistened oesophagus of communications that we little men do peep myopically along in search of the pill we feel we have swallowed already, far too many times. 

Language is confusing

By Giles Emerson 24/11/12

About 20 years ago a revered client in a government scientific laboratory up in East Kilbride told me about two scientists keenly discussing a project. Talking in the language of their discipline they inevitably used shorthand in the form of acronyms and mutually understood jargon to make themselves clear, one to the other.

We have all slipped into acronyms and tribal or cultural jargon in our language: from ‘radar’ to ‘posh’, from ‘OMG’ and ‘ROFL’,  from ‘value creating propositions’ (sic) to ‘delivering deliverables’. As technology struggles in vain to slow down to meet the current ‘temporal mass’ of the human psyche’s ability to cope with flying words (the point where it has some commercial or other application, however temporary), far too often these terms are confusing, even between scientists having a banter.

According to my client, “one of the scientists referred to MAP, meaning Manufacturing Automated Protocol but the other took this to mean MAP, or Microprocessor Applications Program.” I was then told that the mistake was an easy enough one to make at the time but the confusion compounded when, in the course of the conversation each scientist all but simultaneously realised his own mistake and, out of courtesy, adopted the other’s MAP reference.

When I heard this story, particularly given the nice idea of the loss of map references in communication, I was triggered to write an article called ‘Trapped in the Word Jungle’, which was published in The Times. I subsequently wrote several articles on the subject for The Times and The Independent. Most of them were tongue in cheek, but some of them were quite angry.

In the mid-90s one section of an article I wrote for The Independent’s ‘Glossary’ section (when holiday-sitting for journalist/broadcaster Thomas Sutcliffe) went thus: ”How did we get to the state in which we no longer flinch at expressions such as ‘natural wastage’? There must be a kinder and more grateful way of referring to people who are retiring early or leaving a job for other reasons. Natural wastage is probably as welcome a term to the naturally wasted, as ‘ethnic cleansing’ is to the ethnically cleansed. Let us murder, kill, rid ourselves of, but let us not ethnically cleanse.” That was written in about 1996. Ouch!

Looking at what’s happening today, you will forgive me for not trying to evaluate the numbers of confusions that abound in all parts of our life – inevitably, therefore in business and government attempts at good communication. There’s just too much mess of words and poverty of expression around and it is richly compounded by laziness and a dependence on emails; all of which is mounted from the rear by the weakest of all e-animals, otherwise known as ‘social media’, a source of confusion that is already muddling itself up with a plethora of activities loosely embraced in ‘digital communications’.

Thankfully, the monuments of our age that I feel sure descendent historians will keenly examine as representatives of our strange period of history, will be the things that actually remain: some buildings in the mud, some books in casks.  It’s an interesting subject to chew on or to dally about in a hangover debate.

I wonder whether anything of a digital kind will remain, however cleverly we store it for future reference. ‘Ether’ and online communications, and the servers that support their distribution and storage, are as ephemeral as a sneeze in terms of the passing of time. And they have a way of getting up our nose only to block it until the next sneeze occurs.

To return to the slippery present, I am of an age myself where I am angry enough to write about things in a way which might, hideously, be called ‘passionate’. Yet I’m young enough to be truly hungry for the next paid work and have a longish way to go before I can retire sufficient to enjoy a few things that are genuinely left to enjoy in the retirement sense. What’s age got to do with this, you might ask?

Well, when I think of my continued gibbering at the stupidity of things, I wonder at how so many old people manage as well as they do. Perhaps they live on adrenalin fired by anger. If not, how do they sustain themselves, intellectually and otherwise on the poor fare that is served up to them in the form of modern (or relevant and accessible modern) communications?

Just as I revere my long-since otherwise employed former client, I hope that old people can just about get by revering their memories, giving and unwritten two fingers to the world at large. Fortunately for us all, we do have some contact with old people who still have the energy and optimism to be angry out loud. These prize exhibits will usually find the chance to tell us things about the past that have shaped and liberated all of us: free as we are to wander into our own wimpish and unnecessary fires.

But how many of us less-wrinklies truly listen, or have time to listen, or to ‘do’ the imagination that goes with good listening when the email in-tray is, once again, “tipping its bucket into the maelstrom”.

Having said all of which, thank God for weblogs!

Copyright: Giles Emerson 20^th November 2012/also The Times (dtbd)