'I am a camera': blogging and the power of human metaphor Graeme Archer, introduced by Ben Locker of the Professional Copywriters' Network ABOUT THE CONFERENCE The first Professional Copywriters' Network Conference was held on 11 October 2013 at Haberdashers' Hall, London. Over 150 writers and marketers attended to hear four high-profile speakers, attend breakout training sessions and network. The headline speakers were Dave Trott, Andy Maslen, Dee Blick and Graeme Archer (all featured in separate videos). To learn more or join the PCN, please visit http://www.procopywriters.co.uk ABOUT GRAEME ARCHER Have you ever thought why so much political writing turns off the reader? Could it be something to do with treating the topic like a football match? Daily Telegraph columnist and blogger Graeme argues that metaphor is a more powerful a way to make a point than the use of statistics to 'prove' an assertion -- whether you're writing about politics, people, products or services. Whatever your field, bullet points of 'evidence' make for uncompelling writing. Instead, Graeme argues that writers are more convincing if they are more passive -- more like a camera than a philosopher-salesman. Graeme has been writing a column in the Daily Telegraph since May 2011, as well as contributing to its rolling blog. Prior to that he wrote for ConservativeHome. In 2011, Graeme won the Orwell Prize for Political Blogging. In his 'other' life, he has a PhD in Statistics and works as a statistician in pharmaceutical R&D.

1. I am a camera
Graeme Archer
Professional Copywriters’ Network
Smithfield
Friday 11 October 2013

2. I am not a camera

3. I am not a writer

5. What I hate about writing

8. Now there can be no two opinions as to what a
highbrow is. He is the man or woman of
thoroughbred intelligence who rides his mind at a
gallop across country in pursuit of an idea. That is
why I have always been so proud to be called
highbrow

9. These lowbrows are waiting, after the
day’s work, in the rain, sometimes for
hours, to get into the cheap seats and sit in
hot theatres in order to see what their lives
look like.

10. You don’t need a room

14. Landscape

27. Glasgow 5 March 1971
With a ragged diamond
of shattered plate-glass
a young man and his girl
are falling backwards into a shop-window.
The young man's face
is bristling with fragments of glass
and the girl's leg has caught
on the broken window
and spurts arterial blood
over her wet-look white coat.
Their arms are starfished out
braced for impact,
their faces show surprise, shock,
and the beginning of pain.
The two youths who have pushed them
are about to complete the operation
reaching into the window
to loot what they can smartly.
Their faces show no expression.
It is a sharp clear night
in Sauchiehall Street.
In the background two drivers
keep their eyes on the road.
Edwin Morgan
http://edwinmorgan.scottishpoet
rylibrary.org.uk/poems/glasgow
_5_march_1971.html

29. With the power and breadth of curiosity which is one of
the clearest signs of their genius, both [Henry] James
and Jane Austen feel their way into radically different
kinds of consciousness, the good as well as the clever,
the simple and instinctive as well as the vital and
knowledgeable.
John Bayley, The Characters of Love: A Study in the Literature of Personality (London: Constable, 1960), pp. 214215.

30. Click. I’m on a bus to Labour’s conference hall in Brighton.
Click. In the hall Ed Miliband will prance and pout, flanked by
two huge video-versions of him. Click. On the bus a sad neatly
dressed lady in her fifties is telling a bearded, T-shirted fellow
with a belly that her hoped-for romance is not going well, “he
has my number but he hasn’t texted”, and that the supermarket
called her in early for extra till-duty — “and I had to bolt down
my breakfast because I like to be reliable” — and then had no
work for her after all
Matthew Parris, The Times. 9 October 2013

31. Exhibit One: The Hipster Loses His Girl
I see his heavy eyelids flutter (in the words of the song). He’s
desperate to impress the girl sat across from him, so nervous to create
the right cool-as-fuck impression that his fingers are fumbling over the
pathetic roll-up he’s trying to make. Shreds of tobacco float away on
the warm summer air.
- So like there’s no way I’d vote Tory man? The sense he intended was
“I wouldn’t vote Tory, man” but his meaning is still clear.
- No, no way man, she agrees with him, but absentmindedly, flicking
her long hair about and looking across the road to the park. She’s very,
very bored. Then she goes:
- Oh look, there’s Gary! and her face is transformed, lit up.
Me  ConservativeHome, 28 May 2010

32. You need landscape and eyes and permission

39. Text
As true of writing as it is of any other endeavour