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E v e r y b o d y ' s a w r i te r ! ! !
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by Ghandy of Darkage^Gods^Hugi
You demand diskmags should be full of good articles ? Not only the quantity
you want to see in the menu, also the topics should be enjoyable and the
reports nice to read ? You are right and you are not. It's correct to
demand such things from people that claim to bring out a good diskmag but
it's not correct only to spot what's going on like a TV spectator! If you
dislike what you get served, become active and write yourself. It ain't
THAT hard to do!!! This article was written to convice those people that
have doubts about their own abilities. Did you think the first article of
Fishwave, Rokdazone or The Ripper was as cool as the rest? Knock, knock!!
Wake up, it's more than obvious that you never got hold of their first
steps as they didn't want to show them to anyone, simply because they were
ashamed of it, hehe. They could not be proud of it, just as you will maybe
have a bit problems with your first try but if you examine it a bit, it
won't be really a problem after all.
The English language as a barrier?
Yes, understandable, especially for Polish Sceners as they don't learn
this language so well in the school. To my surprise also the kids in Italy
& France aren't forced to learn the world language no. 1 as well as they
should do as European inhabitants!! If you run around in a smaller Italian
town and ask some younger looking Italians how to reach your target, most
of them won't understand your question or they will only uderstand but not
speak themselves. And this is sadly also true for people who have visited
highschool. But if you know a bit about the grammar, the rest is not hard
to do. Fishwave's trick was that when he was writing an article, if he
didn't know a special word, no matter if adjective, verb or noun he wrote
it down in German and translated it later. This way he was able to write
fluently, he didn't lose what he wanted to write while looking up the
English expression in the dictionary. So he was able to finish the
complete article first and then finally he used the dictionary to fix the
German words.
You'll never be as good as Wade, Mop & Co.?
Well, they didn't have to learn anything except their writing style as
English is their native language. And style is also something you can
learn, you especially learn a lot while reading other people`s articles.
Normally it`s really simple: A goodarticle has an introducing part, a main
part about the topic you wanted to deal with and a closing part. You can
heat up the readers' expectations in the first words or you write down
some statements from other Sceners. Or you start with a quote out of a
book or poem, there are one hundred thousand possibilities. It also helps
if you have the whole structure of the article in your mind. Not that you
must know every sentence that you want to write, but it`s better if you
have a plan where your article will go. You can follow this path or leave
it, just as you like. But roughly knowing what you want to talk about
makes it easier. If if it`s better for you, write down your thoughts on a
piece of paper first. Even a good writer isn`t able to write his sentences
once and have the finished product in his hands. Everybody, really
everybody has to go back, check what he wrote, make corrections or hange
things if you have an idea how it could sound better. Maybe it helps you
to print it out or even to read it loud for yourself. Another good idea is
it to give it someone else to check it. He or she has maybe good ideas or
can remove the one or other grammar mistake etc.
Topics - what topics?? What to write about?
Also, this shouldn`t be anything that could knock you out! The easiest
articles are interviews. Just ask your partners what comes in your mind,
you can correct your spelling errors later after the interview or you do
it via email. This gives the interviewed person more time to think about
his answers but you lose his spontaneous reactions you would earn in the
irc. Writing stuff for diskmags give you the possibility to let everybody
hear what your opinion is about this and that. To be an editor is a great
thing, but you also have to be reasonable. It doesn`t make sense only to
try to convince the readers of your opinions. And if you don`t write
anything else, it becomes very boring and people will soon think you`re
selfish. But really, being an editor is something with much
responsibility. You cannot change the whole Scene by publishing one
article, but with time you can give the people many aspects how they judge
about things. It`s up to you if people tend to give up and leave the Scene
or if you are able to motivate them to keep on track. Normally the job of
an editor is something that could not be better! You have only little
work, not so much as, for example, a coder has but there`s no way to gain
fame in shorter time!! Think about how hard it is to establish yourself as
a coder and how easy it is to become known as article writer! It`s not
correct, but that`s how things go. Not enough, everybody wants you in
their group and they fight with each other to get YOU into the editors crew
of their diskmag. The reason is simple and shortly told: There are not
many people who contribute to mags and that`s why your value is THAT high!
Crazy but true!
But back to hints what to write: You could write about your visits at
parties or computer fairs, reviews of group or person homepages, you could
write down the complete story of a group and judge all productions they
have ever done. But, this isn`t so easy.
What else? You could reply to other people`s thoughts, you could start a
campaign or a survey, ask the same question to many different Sceners and
print their answers afterwards, Making Of`s are also always welcome..
argh! There are SO many possibilities waiting for you! You must only do
it.
Help wanted?
The clique of writers is a friendly guild: You could get support & help
from any body you ask. Send somebody an article and ask him what he`s
thinking about it, how you could find an end or what you could do better
etc. etc. and he`ll help you for sure! Compared to the coders, there`s no
reason not to share knowledge. We don`t have to work hours after hours for
a good effect whose source we don`t want to give away to others to learn
how it works.
It`s all public, you can read the output everywhere, there are no secrets
possible for editors. And normally the majority of readers should stop
treating editors as magic people, we do something which is easy to do.
Even lazy guys like me are able to be wellknown and my output during the
past years as more than poor to be honest! Ever thought why swappers tend
to start a bright career as an editor after they have retired? For them
it`s the easiest and most clever way to get famous, not to forget that
except some training you need nearly zero talent to become it. Examples?
What about Darkhawk, who never retired as a swapper, Mop, Astro, Cesium,
Kaosmaster, Fishwave, Ghandy, dunno how many other editors or former
writers I forgot to mention. It`s not important to be perfect, it`s
important to start to do something!!! Perfection comes along with time!
And for non-commercial journalists that on`t get a single buck there`s
absolutly no perfection needed. Nobody will dare to pay you for your
efforts and so why should your stuff be as good as that from wellpaid
journalists, eh?? Got the point? Surely it`s easier to condemn other
people`s product instead of starting your own projects. I hear those guys
again and again: "This sucks and that sucks, this is worse and this could
have done better." Stop screaming you scummy mates, do it yourself and
we`ll see if it really will be better!! So you see - it`s not so hard to
write articles and writing has a lot of advantages. What you`re waiting
for? Start your texteditor and send your results to Ghandy@Scenet.de!!
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