Session 6 Donna Talarico, Hippocampus Magazine

1. Words. Words.
Words.
Donna Talarico
Independent content writer and social
media/storytelling consultant
Founder/publisher of Hippocampus
Magazine

2. Words.
• Starters
• Storytelling
• Sizzle
• Self-editing
• Send-off

3. Starters.
T
O
W
N

4. Starters.
MAN_____________________
BOARD
you just me
_________
feet feet
feet feet
feet feet

5. Starters.
• Bob
• Mom
• Radar
• Racecar
• Never odd nor even
• Some men interpret nine memos

6. Words.
Words are fun.
Words are
your friend(s).

7. Storytelling.
What makes
a good
story?

8. Storytelling.
• Characters
• Plot
• Setting
• Point of view
• Inciting incident
• Rising action
• Resolution
• Emotion
• Call to action
• Memorable

9. Storytelling.

10. Sizzle.
• Stronger word choice – thesaurus!
• Active voice
• Clarity
• Brevity
• Literary devices (imagery,
metaphor, simile,
alliteration/assonance, analogy)
• Wordplay

11. Sizzle.
Keeping your writing to a
shorter length really
benefits the reader, so why
don’t you perhaps try to
use fewer words in your
next blog post or other
type of content…

12. Sizzle.
…or,
Be brief.

13. Sizzle.
• Is there a word for what you
are describing?
– How many there are = quantity
• Are you using unnecessary
phrases?
– The fact of the matter is, it’s
cold = It’s cold.
• Is there a more succinct way
to say it?
– I took all of her jewelry from
her jewelry box = I emptied
her jewelry box

14. Sizzle.
Alliteration is
absolutely
effective!

15. Words.
• “Bennett warmed to the
idea of an ambitious Arctic
adventure.”
• From Hampton Sides’ In the
Kingdom of Ice

16. Sizzle.
• By way of a tale of a famous
newspaper stunt, we meet
an eccentric publishing
tycoon, James Gordon
Bennett Jr. We learn that
this man heralds the kinds
of stories the public wants
to hear, but not without
critics.
– From my review of In the
Kingdom of Ice

17. Sizzle.
• Repetition can be effective.
– He came. He saw. He conquered.
• And sometimes redundancy it can be blah, such
as overuse of a name or particular term. Instead,
change up your words and name references:
– Donna Talarico is speaking at BlogCon. She’s doing a
session about words. The Lancaster-native is glad to
be here. A former journalist, she really love words.
“It’s true,” said the word nerd.
– Banana boxes later becomes Chiquita crates
Anaphora in action

18. Sizzle.
• Part — OK, most — of the allure of Iceland is its
landscape of geological wonders. Volcanoes included.
So I was both nervous and excited when, a week before
my September 2014 trip to the little island country, a
lava-filled mountain started to spew. Bardarbunga’s
eruption closed some far-off roads and made for some
pretty photos and videos, but its activity didn’t cause
any air travel woes, unlike the 2010 explosion of
Eyjafjallajökull, which sent miles of ash into the air and
grounded flights to and from Europe for days.
– From my article “Land of Fire and … Elves” (TheBlot.com)

19. Sizzle.
Passive
• The ball was shot by him. A
score was made.
• A cake was baked.
• Clapping was heard in the
theater.
• A fun time was had by all.
• A baby was born.
• Oops! Something went
wrong.
Active
• He shoots! He scores!
• Mom baked a cake.
• The audience erupted in
applause.
• Everyone had fun.
• We had a baby!
• Oops! You did something
wrong.
Sometimes passive is OK. Like when you don’t want to blame
someone(as in my example in green), the person acting is irrelevant,
you want to emphasize the subject or you need to be vague.

20. Self-edit.
• Let simmer
• Read aloud
• Print out a hard copy
• Share
• Proof vs. edit

21. Self-edit.
• Spelling
• Grammar
• Editing-induced errors
– You know the one: the ‘ol sentence rearranging and accidental
leave behind of a word
• Weak words
• Redundancy
• Unnecessary or “fluff” words
• Flow
• Fact-checking

22. Send-off.
• Tools
– A real thesaurus
– Grammarly or similar
– Word puzzles (Games)
• Resources
– Copyblogger
– Austin Kleon (Steal Like an Artist)
– Paul Smith(Lead with a Story)
– Not your usual reading material

23. Any questions?
Web: http://www.donnatalarico.com
Twitter: @donnatalarico
Email: donnatalarico@gmail.com

24. SESSION SPONSORED BY: