I know why more of you don't write Guide Entries.

You're intimidated by what you think is an enormous amount of work.

That's because you look at some of the Entries written by our more prolific and prolix authors, and you think you can't possibly keep up. You think, 'Life is too short for this.'

My friend, you are right.

I'll let that sink in, and then I'll tell you why and how you are supposed to be writing Guide Entries, and why h2g2 needs YOU.

Wait! What was that word 'prolix'?

Yeah, I'm notorious for picking up words like 'prolix'. And I know I should leave them where I found them, but hey. I'm incurable. Prolix is a ten-dollar word for 'wordy'. 'Tediously wordy', in fact. I hope I'm not prolix. Like Dogberry, who wished all his tediousness on Leonato, some writers are, not to put to fine a point on it, prolix.

And if you're gonna be so prolix, at least write in 'inverted pyramid' style.

What's an inverted pyramid when it's at home?

Full disclosure: I never studied journalism formally. Nor did I study English, writing, or such, as such. I switched from Biology to German, and the Chemistry Department threw a party. (They felt so much safer now.) Never mind. I did, however, hang around the university newspaper office and help edit, and I wrote a few adventurous feature articles. They'd send me out to act like I had any business talking to Real People – like grown-ups with PhDs and Nobel Prizes and such – and then write about it. So I picked up a few tricks in the Olden Days – you know, the ones where we used blue pencils and manual typewriters and X-acto knives. I also edited an undergraduate journal, so I wielded a pretty mean X-acto knife myself.

Anyhow. The first day I showed up at the student newspaper office, they had a looming deadline and were ready to take on volunteers. The editor thrust a piece of AP wire copy at me. Taking the cigar out of his mouth, he said, 'See what you can do with this.'

I'm not kidding. The editor of the student newspaper was chewing on a cigar. He had an eyeshade, too. He seemed to think he was Perry White of the Daily Planet rather than the student editor of the Pitt News. (He's now an award-winning journalist with an international reputation, so don't knock undergraduate fantasies.)

I sat down for a bit and typed out an article based on the wire feed. A kind journalism major explained to me the use of the -30- symbol, and I was done.

The editor read it and nodded sagely. 'You say you're not a journalism student?'

I shook my head.

'This is exactly right. Where did you learn how to write in inverted pyramid style?' I shrugged.

The answer, of course, was osmosis. Reading newspapers. I just copied. Monkey see, and all that. But what's an inverted pyramid? I asked the editor. It's nice that I did it, but I wanted to learn, so he explained this clever idea.

In a news story or blog, readers may not have time to stick around to the last paragraph. They may be on a commuter train. Or reading/listening/websurfing while on a coffee break. So you put the major facts – who, what, where, when, why and how – right upfront. You let people know what the take-home message is in the first couple of paragraphs. Then you get into the interesting background and detail, or, alternatively, all the tediousness in your anoraky, trainspotting brain. That way, readers can get what they need and drop out. This skill was particularly useful back in the days when newsprint was the medium of choice: most of the time, the article was only partly on the leading page, while the rest of it (the tedium/background part) was on an inside page next to the lingerie ads. See?

So, if you're going to write longish, try writing an inverted pyramid.

Oh, and NEVER 'bury the lead'. That's writing like Charlotte Yonge or James Malcolm Rymer, author of Varney the Vampyre. Rymer would burn down a whole building in the middle of a paragraph, just like it was unimportant.

And yet I show unto you a more excellent way…

As the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians.

Try writing the kind of Guide Entry our Guide Editors are begging for: short, and interesting. If possible, funny.

There is a reason people tend to finish reading my Guide Entries. At least, that's what they tell me. 2legs once said, 'I didn't mean to read this, but I got interested, and before I knew it, I'd read the whole thing.' And you know how reliable and honest 2legs is.

Here's what people know when they start to read an Entry I wrote:

• The first couple of paragraphs will tell them what it's about.
• It will do what it says on the tin: if the 'hook' says something about Jesus' underwear, then there will be something about Jesus' underwear in there. No bait-and-switch.
• Somewhere down the page, there will be at least one joke. If there are no jokes to be had, there will be at least one piece of unusual and interesting information.
• The unusual or interesting information will not take another 1000 words to tell about, either.

Now, I'm not bragging on me. Unlike my former school editor, I'm not an internationally recognised authority on anything. But I do know how to write a Guide Entry. (As Sigourney Weaver says in Galaxy Quest, 'I have one job. Let me do it.') So please…

Find a topic. Tell 'em what you want to say. Write an inverted pyramid if you care to. Keep it short, sweet, and amusing if possible. Eschew prolixity. And h2g2, our beloved website, will thrive forever and be enshrined among the great information sources of the Galaxy.

And Galaxy Babe, SashaQ, and Bluebottle, our tireless Guide Editors – none of whom, to my knowledge, smokes cigars or wears an eyeshade – will thank you. (And me for telling you.)

Thanks, all. This has been about 1000 words of prose. Did it seem too long to you?

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

07.03.16 Front Page

Back Issue Page