writing

Being an honest ghostwriter

This entry was posted in Writer ethics Writing and tagged ethics ghostwriting writing on by

It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
(Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5)

When you aren’t writing under your own name, the boundaries of honesty aren’t quite the same. You aren’t being hired to say what you believe, but to put someone else’s ideas into words. It isn’t dishonest as such to say things which you don’t personally believe are true, but you don’t have a license to lie. Where’s the boundary you can’t cross without becoming dishonest?

Advocacy vs. deception

The slope is slippery, so I stay well back from the brink. I’m willing to present a case for a conclusion which isn’t clearly false, even if I have doubts about it. For instance, I see no ethical problem with writing an article that says cloud-based VoIP is best on one day, then an article the next day saying an on-premises IP PBX is better. Both are true under some circumstances. However, I won’t write an article claiming an IP PBX is illegal — at least, not until I learn that some government has actually outlawed it.
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Finishing what you start 3

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged writer's block writing on by

For some courses of action, the first step is the hardest. Joining the Army. Making a dental appointment. Talking to someone you find attractive. For writing, it’s getting to the finish that’s usually hardest. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, getting an idea and writing a few sentences isn’t hard. But somewhere along the way, you’ll often get stuck.

In my case, writing factual pieces, it isn’t writer’s block in the normal sense. It’s usually that there’s something I don’t understand well enough. A lot of times, I write about something that I generally understand but I’m not an expert on. I have to pick up a more complete sense of the topic. What I’ve researched fits together, yet there’s something left unsaid that I need to figure out in order to create a satisfactory article. Sometimes it’s actually an unimportant detail, and eventually I decide I’m just obsessing over it. But usually it’s something central to the topic, and if I don’t understand it, I could be basing my whole article on a false premise.
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What writers should know about HTML

This entry was posted in Techniques Writing and tagged HTML writing on by

When you’re writing for the Web, usually your material will end up as HTML. With modern online editors, you may never have to write it directly, but you still need to understand it. The formatting of your writing has a close relationship to the final HTML, however it’s dressed up.

Properly using HTML tags helps a page’s accessibility. Browsers may present the content as spoken text, with enhancements for readability, or otherwise modified. Mobile browsers will present it differently from full-sized ones. Good markup will let all representations of the page work better.

HTML markup should focus on the semantics of a document. The site will use CSS to make it look however the webmaster wants. Tags shouldn’t determine how an element looks, but what role it plays. There are several common mistakes, and they cause problems in the final page.
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Which English are you writing in?

This entry was posted in Techniques and tagged usage writing on by

My writing work goes to several countries. Just in the past couple of days I’ve written for American, English, and Australian customers. Keeping the customer happy requires writing in the kind of English they want. You can’t always assume it from the country they’re in; I have a regular customer in the UK that wants American English.

Spelling

Spelling is the easiest part to adjust. Britain tends to use “-ise” where Americans use “-ize,” “-our” where we use “-or,” and “-re” where we use “-er.” Australia and New Zealand generally follow Britain. Canada does sometimes, but not always.
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