Wordifying

Writing is an essential skill for all creative professionals. Writing, and clear communication in general, is important regardless of specialization.

This is especially true for professions where written or verbal narrative is central. For filmmakers, writing, rewriting and editing screenplays is vital. And, of course, writing novels, short stories, essays and poetry requires its own set of word-crafting skills.

For fiction, essays and poetry, pitfalls like writer’s block and lack of inspiration can be problematic. A good resource for these, and many other creative writing-related problems, is Writer’s Digest magazine. It gives information about publishing, upcoming creative writing contests, and tips to get around writer’s block.

Even if you aren’t a writer or don’t like writing, you should still be comfortable writing if you want to be a creative professional. You may have to write formal proposals asking for grants or other funding for an artistic undertaking. Or perhaps you will need to write an Artist’s Statement for a gallery opening. If you are starting your own creative business, you will need to write a mission statement and a business plan.

Before you start writing, acquaint yourself with the conventions of the genre. Figure out the essential elements. Is the style formal or informal? What tense is used, past, present or future?

Often, you will have to consider your audience when writing. This is especially true of proposals or advertisement copy, where you are trying to persuade those reading your work to spend money. Do they want lots of detail or just a general overview? Should you define technical terms? Use jargon or industry terminology?

Show your work to someone before you release or submit it to make sure the tone is appropriate and it clearly conveys the information you want to convey. If you have a friend who is proficient at writing, ask them to proofread your work to catch any grammatical or spelling errors. Spell check and web dictionaries are also invaluable with this.