Here's what I can do for you
General Approach
I write conversational English, using – as Churchill sought to do – the shortest words possible.
This approach results in what is known as ‘plain English’; it’s free of gobbledegook. The reader understands at once what they’re reading. The topic itself might be complicated, but never the writing.
I specialise in two areas: 1) writing stories, and 2) writing dialogue.
Print Ads – Billboards, Flyers, Newspapers
You can brief me to write anything from four-words to suit a highway billboard to a 2,000-word full-page newspaper ad.
My print-ad writing obeys all the print advertising rules (according – particularly – to David Ogilvy’s matchless book, Ogilvy on Advertising).
A Blog or Newsletter (Content Writing)
These mediums offer your clients the best reading of all. They’re filled with the everyday stories and events that we are hard-wired to enjoy.
To tell your clients more about you, what you offer and how good you are at it, these two regular means of staying in touch offer the most illuminating and enjoyable way of doing just that.
They mightn’t be bedtime reading . . . but they should be damn close to it.
“Of all the regular newsletters I used to receive at work, I would only ever keep one. It was yours . . . I couldn’t resist reading whatever you wrote about.”
Narelle Tredrea – Lawyer – (Former) staff member of Australian Government Solicitor, WA
Your Website
Your website can tell your potential client all they need to know.
The words on its various pages can educate, excite and encourage potential buyers to buy your product or service. In that sense, they share the rules that belong to good advertising copy.
I can write words for your website from day one of its existence to day 4,000.
A Book
More and more people offering goods and services have written a book.
A book, either online or hard copy, from 15,000 to 100,000 words that educate your reader, sets up the perception that you qualify as an expert.
And when you hand a prospect your book, together with your card, you know that they’ll read it because it’s been written to solve their problems.
A professional writer can bring your words to the bound or online pages more easily and more quickly than you can imagine. And they’re your words. The writer will tidy-up what needs to be tidied, but it’ll be your style – your character – that flows through the pages.
Write your book! Don’t worry; I’ll take care of the actual writing.
Proofreading
Proofreading is the final check to make good copy perfect copy.
When you check it over yourself, it’s too easy to miss tiny errors – the word that’s been left out because your mind’s eye inserts it for you.
I feel about proofreading the way I felt about my final checks when I flew the Mirage jet fighter with the RAAF. Even though I had completed my pre-take-off checks, I would, as I lined up on the runway, do three checks one more time (just because), ‘Canopy down and locked! Full and free movement with the control column! Safety pins out of the ejection-seat.’
These three physical checks ensured that, should I suffer an engine-failure on take-off, I could position the aeroplane to ‘bang out’ (eject) safely. (In the ejection sequence, a closed, but unlocked, canopy could be fatal.)
Proofreading is ‘canopy, controls and pins’ for writing.
Speechwriting
Speechwriters in government and corporate employ are – too often – misnamed. They should be more properly identified as essayists.
Why? Because just about all of them write speeches in written language.
When we speak, we use oral or spoken language. They are two very different animals.
I’m a professional speaker and have helped clients convert the ‘essays’ they wanted to read to their conferences into spoken language.
Radio Ads
A solid message to a potential buyer in 80 words or less. I can create a concept and write quickly; it’s possible to have – at very late notice – a new script within 15 minutes. I’ve done it many times – even while the talent is in the recording studio recording another script.
I specialise in character dialogue, and, as a voice-over actor (who has recorded 3,500+ radio and television commercials, you can be sure that the script will be within half a second (plus/minus) of the timing you require.
I specialise in character dialogue*, so if you need two-hander scripts (plus the top & tail) . . . can do!