The power of "Having ears and eyes open"
Hi,
I have a few friends who make their living through their writing skills. One of them is a film script writer, the other a copywriter with an ad company and the third a freelancing writer (primarily short stories and poems).
The common thing about all of them is they have read and still read. One of them said this to me - "My aim in life is to earn enough to buy the books of my choice". I know the way they work. I should say they had been kind enough to reveal their "trade secrets" to me. These secrets vary for each style of writer. In the following sections, I present an insider's view of their minds.
The mind of the copywriter:
My friend's job is to generate copy that changes minds, inspires, changes behavior - in essence, make readers perform an expected action.
As a brief arrives, she sits with the people concerned - the Client and the servicing manager. She listens and asks questions - mainly dumb ones (the dumber, the better - her words), and completely understands the message that needs to be communicated. She takes elobrate notes.
She sits alone with her notes and makes her imagination fly. When it flies, she says there are no boundaries. She has to "become" the experiences she had had - the stuff she had read, the stuff she had heard and the stuff she had seen. She brings back all her memories to toe a single line. As memories are lined-up, she picks a few of them that would suit the brief on hand.
The brief, according to her, is merely the starting point. Her tentacles start from that point. The length of her tentacles are directly proportional to her experiences (both personal and surrogate, cutting across several medium). She had once developed a brilliant message from a casual phrase she heard one of her friends had uttered when she was a kid.
On the softer side, she says the job involves child like memory and the willingness to give the best for a brief.
I do not know I much I understood what she said. But, when she narrated all this, it was late in the evening. She appeared very fresh and I asked her if she had just arrived from home. She said she had been working since morning. When she said you have to work like a child, I would have to believe her as I saw a child's curiosity in her eyes.
I will provide the ring-side view of my other friends' writing styles in the days to come.
Vijay
I have a few friends who make their living through their writing skills. One of them is a film script writer, the other a copywriter with an ad company and the third a freelancing writer (primarily short stories and poems).
The common thing about all of them is they have read and still read. One of them said this to me - "My aim in life is to earn enough to buy the books of my choice". I know the way they work. I should say they had been kind enough to reveal their "trade secrets" to me. These secrets vary for each style of writer. In the following sections, I present an insider's view of their minds.
The mind of the copywriter:
My friend's job is to generate copy that changes minds, inspires, changes behavior - in essence, make readers perform an expected action.
As a brief arrives, she sits with the people concerned - the Client and the servicing manager. She listens and asks questions - mainly dumb ones (the dumber, the better - her words), and completely understands the message that needs to be communicated. She takes elobrate notes.
She sits alone with her notes and makes her imagination fly. When it flies, she says there are no boundaries. She has to "become" the experiences she had had - the stuff she had read, the stuff she had heard and the stuff she had seen. She brings back all her memories to toe a single line. As memories are lined-up, she picks a few of them that would suit the brief on hand.
The brief, according to her, is merely the starting point. Her tentacles start from that point. The length of her tentacles are directly proportional to her experiences (both personal and surrogate, cutting across several medium). She had once developed a brilliant message from a casual phrase she heard one of her friends had uttered when she was a kid.
On the softer side, she says the job involves child like memory and the willingness to give the best for a brief.
I do not know I much I understood what she said. But, when she narrated all this, it was late in the evening. She appeared very fresh and I asked her if she had just arrived from home. She said she had been working since morning. When she said you have to work like a child, I would have to believe her as I saw a child's curiosity in her eyes.
I will provide the ring-side view of my other friends' writing styles in the days to come.
Vijay
posted by Vijay at 11:02 PM
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