I had a fairly successful end to 2011. In the week before Christmas I discovered I’d passed my NCTJ (National Council for the training of journalists), News writing exam.
You probably don’t realise how much pleasure it gives me saying that. The NCTJ news writing exam is without question the most difficult exam I’ve ever done.
I’m not embarrassed to admit I’d failed it 3 times before passing! The exam is notoriously hard and it takes most people at least two attempts to pass!
Despite the previous failures and the endless evenings spent writing practice papers, passing the exam has certainly improved my writing significantly. I thought I’d share with you some of the skills I’ve learned that I think can be applied to all forms of writing.
1. Strong intros are a must
I quickly realised that in news writing the intro is the most important part of the story. The intro is what sells the story to your reader. You have to interest them, grab their attention, raise their curiosity. 18 – 25 words is the ideal length needed for an introduction and you need to pack in as much info as possible.
The best advice I was given about writing intros is to imagine you’re telling a story to a friend. How would you sum up the story in one sentence?
In the news writing exam a strong intro sets the foundation for a strong story. Start with a weak intro and your story will struggle to recover.
2. The importance of accuracy
In the news writing exam your spelling and grammar has to be spot on. There’s no place for typos and spelling someone’s name incorrectly is enough to fail the exam straight away!
You need to give yourself enough time to check, check, and check again. There are certain areas you need to pay close attention to. People tend to make mistakes in following areas.
People’s names:
Always check names, I made a spelling mistake with one person’s name but managed to correct it whilst I was completing my checking at the end.
Titles:
If a person is a Miss don’t call them Mrs!
Other common mistakes occur with:
address details, telephone numbers and website addresses
I’ve realised that with whatever you’re writing you’ll usually make mistakes in your first draft, so you need to go back and find those errors.
3. Don’t overwrite
The main question in the News writing exam requires you to write a news report between 275 – 325 words, followed by one report of 70-80 words and a third story of 40-50.
If you write too much or too little you lose marks. It means that I needed to write within the word limit but still ensure that I included all of the most important facts of the story.
I spent countless evening doing practice papers, and the most common feedback I received from my tutor was the need to stop overwriting and cut out unnecessary detail.
The news writing exam taught me the importance of writing tight copy, where every word and sentence really has to count; a very useful skill which can be applied to all forms of writing.
4. Summarising
The key to not overwriting is learning how to summarise information. With the exam imposing strict word limits on each question, you can’t afford to waffle. Every single word has to count.
One of the best ways of summarising is to identify and highlight the important points you want to make. You need to think of your main point, then follow up with your supporting points.
During my exam this meant asking myself ‘What is the main story here’, What are the key issues that the reader needs to know?
After completing each question, I re-read what I’d written removing any words that I didn’t think added any value or didn’t need to be there.
5. Avoid Jargon
Jargon just alienates your reader, and in the news writing exam jargon will lose you marks.
Businesses, council officials, and academics are just some of the areas where jargon is commonly used in publications.
The news writing exam taught me how to cut the jargon out and write in simple plain English that will appeal to the reader.
6. Structure
Make sure that what you write flows in a logical sequence.
After failing my exam for the second time, an area that the examiners highlighted for improvement was the structure of the story.
News writing is all about getting the latest and most important facts of the story into the intro, before elaborating in more detail as you continue writing.
As with accuracy, its important to go back and re-read what you’ve written to make sure it all makes sense.