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On The Sideline Column

Discussion in 'Writers' Workshop' started by sportsnut, Feb 11, 2008.

  1. sportsnut

    sportsnut Member

    Your right, I was not at Media Day and that was my point. Could you please explain what you mean with done differently?

    Tom:
    my point is to stay focused. writing columns is a totally different beast than gamers or features. keep your head up, stay focused and don't give up on writing columns.

    Thank you for those kind words and your right trying to write a column is a brand new beat that I have to worry about.

    I wrote this column for a website not for newspaper. SPMSportspage.com
     
  2. spnited

    spnited Active Member

    Here's the problem, sportsnut. You're 24, you're wirting for a website (most likely with no guidance) and you have very little experience... probably none with column writing.

    Why are you writing a column about an event you did not attend and have never had an personal experience with?

    What basis or background do you have for writing this?

    How can you write this:

    According to the NFL, 116 different media outlets got credentials for the event, but the funny part of it all was of all that the media thought it was better to finish eating the breakfast buffet put out then to actually do some real work and go interview the players.

    without having been there?
     
  3. earlyentry

    earlyentry Member

    I blame Mariotti....and Lupica.
     
  4. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Columns aren't just rants. Unfortunately, Around the Horn has led many budding writers to assume they are.
     
  5. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    a rookie attempting a rant is just plain messy.

    noobs should pop their cherry's by selling a single point, not ripping one apart.


    edited for civility -- jgmacg
     
  6. dawgpounddiehard

    dawgpounddiehard Active Member

    Columns intimidate the hell out of me. Of course, any chance I get I try and write one for my publication, I do. They are a heck of a challenge. Someone has to get started somewhere and I assume this Web site is where you've gotten your start. Thanks for posting it but yes, it needs much work.

    I'm by no means an expert on writing columns, but what I can tell you is your writing needs work. Read some of the better writers out there, like those at SI or Best American Sports Writing (from any year). You won't see phrases like "to start things off" or "before I go too much off topic." Also, the writing is much tighter.

    Learning to either rid yourself of bad habits or continue your good ones, it lays down a foundation of becoming a good writer. That foundation needs to be established before you can attempt solid columns.

    Finally, I see that you probably have a sense of humor but it is simply not coming across in this piece. Maybe it wasn't working here or maybe you need to reassess how you want to write columns. Perhaps humor isn't your thing. That's OK, to be a good writer/columnist you don't need to be funny.

    As always, keep reading and keep writing and keep striving to get better. Those are things every writer — young or old — needs to live by.
     
  7. verbalkint

    verbalkint Member

    I'm discouraged by some of the negativity here. I can't remember where I heard it, but I remember Ira Glass (great host of NPR's This American Life) talking about how awful he was when he first started. Just crushed himself. Then says it took him a long time to figure out how to do it right.

    I think that if writing columns is what you want to do, you should go for it. If -- after giving it some time to develop -- your talent doesn't hold up, you'll find out. But give it a shot. I guess my main advice is to report more: as a columnist you want to come in loaded with information on the subject, you want to know too much about it, and it feels like you didn't do that this time.

    Until then, read the great columnists, see what they do. (How Rick Reilly used to only report columns, without offering much of an opinion, letting the reporting make its own point; how he now can't resist choking the shit out of his columns with only jokes. Sally Jenkins' perfect hatchet jobs on Kobe Bryant last year and Dan Snyder this year.)

    And when or if you make it as a columnist you can come back and read this and go, "Man, I stunk."
     
  8. sportsnut

    sportsnut Member

    Thank you for all the advice in regards to my column and how I can improve it. The thing is this website gave me a shot at writing a column and I took them up on it. So again thank you for the critic if it was bad or if it was good. I know I am not a great column writer, but if I did not give it a shot, I would never know and or learn.
     
  9. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    I let this thread go to see where it might take us. Like Verbal, above, I'm a little discouraged by the tone. I like to think we hew to a higher standard on this side of the board, so I'll remind everyone that civility and fastidiousness of expression are what we prize here when conveying our comments and criticisms.

    That said, however, some criticisms are most effective when accompanied by a bracing faceful of reality. I think everything said here was honest and fair.

    In an age when anyone anywhere can write and publish anything worldwide, what standards are we to hold for the quality of our own writing?

    It seems to me that simply having an opinion and expressing it is insufficient. Rather ask yourself, what new idea, what new observation about the state of things, what new turn of phrase do you bring with you to the worldwide Tower of Babel?

    There are two central problems with this piece. The first is craft. Mechanics. That sportsnut came here and posted indicates that he/she wants to learn to be better. That's a simple enough thing. By reading a great deal more and writing a great deal more, 'nut will get better. By mastering a million little things like your/you're, 'nut will get better.

    The second problem is another old chestnut for every workshop: Write what you know. (This is a much more complex statement than it sounds, and has hardened into cliche, but is fantastically important when it comes to 1) your reporting and 2) formulating your new ideas.) This is an opinion piece in which the writer - not having attended the event being written about - has little right to an opinion. That's not a moral or ethical position, either - it's another craft issue. This piece feels hollow because there's nothing at it's core but opinion. No observation, no evidence, no support for any argument. And ultimately all opinion is argument.

    Everyone's entitled to an opinion. But as a writer - especially a columnist - you earn respect for your opinion by the quality of the argument you make on its behalf.
     
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