Your writing

[tory]

Do you ever think of the influences of your writing style?

As I now teach English Language, I am beginning to see a little influence in how my students write. It is a fascinating thing to see develop over the course of a year or so.  A little change here and there; the addition of specific words elsewhere. They absorb what  I say rather than write in some instances and I see it a week or so later.

I can't remember any specific influence at all on me - but I guess my teachers and what I have read over the years has had an impact. 

[sloopjohnc]

Zoomboogity wrote that I was BCB's Dave Barry the way I wrote about home life, my kids and such. I like, not love, Dave Barry, but he was a really popular columnist. I do try and be conversational in my writing on here.

I do lots of writing in my job. I've written manuals, tons of marketing materials, including catalog copy, ads, press releases, direct marketing copy, you name it.

The good thing about marketing writing nowadays is you can be more conversational, but always to the point, because almost everything is digital.

One of the things I really watch for in my writing, and I think lots of writers, even good writers do this, is they bury the lede.

That comes, in my experience, from thinking and writing through a topic and coming to some intellectual conclusion. Sometimes you have to put that conclusion front and center because that's the meat or gist of the topic.

In marketing writing, that conclusion must often come first because most people only read a headline and if they get beyond that, the first couple of sentences.