3 Skills Challenge! Gary's writing tips.....

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Gary Hutchinson from the Stacey West Blog and podcast has lent his support to encourage young Imps to get writing about their club while at home. Gary will be helping to judge the entries and will also publish some entries before the finals! He's very excited to see what you are going to come up with and to help you on your way, here he outlines some handy tips to help you prepare ….            

• Have a clear idea what you’d like to write about before you start. You might not need to plan it out, but it can help if you do. Your story should take a reader on a journey and how can you go on a journey if you don’t know the route you’re taking?
• Try to tell the reader something they don’t know. Yes, Lincoln won the title in 2019, but how can you make that story personal to you? How did it affect you, which players were your favourite and why. Make sure your piece has something unique in it to make it different from everyone else?
• Don’t repeat words too often. For instance, a sentence that reads ‘Lincoln City beat Burnley 1-0 in the FA Cup, which meant Lincoln City went to the FA Cup Quarter Finals’, is clumsy to read. You can always swap ‘Lincoln City’ for ‘The Imps’ or ‘the visitors’ or something like that.
• When talking about a player, use their full name the first time you mention them. After that, they’ve been introduced to the reader so you can just use first, or second. Again, no need to repeat. So, for Tyler Walker, you could use ‘the Nottingham Forest loanee’, ‘the former Mansfield striker’, ‘The 22-year-old’ instead of his name to make it easier to read.
• Make sure any facts you have are checked afterwards. Don’t write about a game and get the score wrong.
• Think creative when describing things. Instead of saying you were ‘really happy’, think about saying you were ecstatic, delighted or overjoyed.
• Double check your work after finishing. Don’t just rely on a spell checker, have a read through and get someone else to read it as well. There’s no shame in doing a second edit.
• HAVE FUN – this is the most important thing of all. Writing is fun, you’re creating something for others to enjoy and if you enjoy creating it, others will enjoy reading it.