EVERY WRITER NEEDS AN EDITOR. Some are fortunate to have good ones; others have bad ones, and many have none at all. If you are in the latter two categories, Dick Weiss can help.
Dick offers workshops and provides one-on-one coaching in person or by e-mail for journalists, freelance writers, students, communications professionals, and those who have simply got a story to tell.
Dick has 30 years experience as an award winning reporter, editor and writing coach, most of them at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Visit "About WeissWrite" for a bio and writing samples.
The Best Stories You've nEver Read #7
If you miss the corner drugstore, this story from the Washington Post is just for you. Reporter Dale Russakoff takes readers into Cheri Garvin’s Leesburg (Va.) Pharmacy where customers can ask Garvin and her staff to whip up tummy-ache medicine in almost any flavor a child desires (and provide a taste to see if it’s just right) and where they can buy a special diaper rash ointment called “Robert’s Butt Paste.” “Try asking your mail-order drug plan for that,” Russakoff writes. But this story is about more than nostalgia. It provides a keen analysis of economic trends and what Americans are losing and gaining as the prescription drug trade becomes increasingly competitive.
-- Dick Weiss
An Unfortunate Political Triangle
Chris Matthews, the Edwards and Anne Coulter make strange political bedfellows.
John and Elizabeth Edwards have a minimum of high regard for Anne Coulter, but they've used her vile rants to raise money for John's presidential campaign. Chris Matthews uses Coulter to spike viewership. Hate speech sells. Dick Weiss and McGraw Milhaven discuss the trend on the McGraw Show on KTRS (550-AM).
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The Best Stories You've nEver Read #6
This story from the San Francisco Chronicle could have been headlined The Nightmare Next Door. Your new neighbors move into a derelict home next to your home and, thank God, they're renovating it. But oh no, they're doing it themselves. And double oh no... while you're on vacation, the house comes off its foundation, rolls down a hill and crashes into your home causing. $30,000 damage and creating a neighborhood bio-health hazard.
-- Dick Weiss
A Media Vaccine
Fred Thompson has done it. So have Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama. They discuss their foibles before the press gets at chance to make too much of them. Dick Weiss and McGraw Milhaven discuss the trend on the McGraw Show on KTRS (550-AM).
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The Best Stories You've nEver Read #5
From time to time, I'll post links to gripping stories here that are meaningful and relevant to our times. Today I recommend David Flick's Waitresses Serve Up Plenty of Charm in the Dallas Morning News.
You can’t miss with an opener like this:
Barbara Woodley, a waitress at Mama’s Daughter’s Diner, came to work last week wearing big hair, a purple blouse, black pants, bright costume jewelry and a pair of oversized, rhinestone sunglasses.
Her sister Natalie, everyone agrees, is the flamboyant one.
-- Dick Weiss
Grilling The Candidates
What was the saddest day of your childhood? When did you learn there wasn't a Santa Claus? Now those are the kind questions that will get the candidates off their talking points, Dick Weiss tells McGraw Milhaven on the McGraw Show on KTRS (550-AM). Dick and McGraw also discuss the Dan Rather-Katie Couric dust-up and the Post-Dispatch's look at a developer who's buying up north St. Louis.
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Forty-One Questions For The Candidates
Tired of hearing the presidential candidates answering the same old questions from the press. Here' some that may be illuminating and throw the pols off their talking points. Thanks to John DeGroot, a writing coach and a former staffer at the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. for sharing these questions at one of his workshops. -- Dick Weiss
1. What is your earliest memory?
2. Tell me about your mother and father - what were they like?
3. Who had the greatest influence on you during your childhood?
4. Describe a typical day in your childhood.
5. Do you remember your first day of school?
6. What teacher had the greatest impact on you?
7. What was the happiest day of your childhood?
8. What was the saddest day of your childhood?
9. What was your first personal experience with death?
10. Did you have pets?
The Best Stories You've nEver Read --Fourth In A Series
From time to time, I'll post links to gripping stories here that are meaningful and relevant to our times. Today I recommend J.R. Moehringer's hysterically funny piece on Cheeta of Tarzan fame.
Cheeta (top left) recently celebrated his 75th birthday and Moehringer (top right) gives you a look at the world through Cheeta's eyes. You also learn quite a bit about chimps. The piece appeared in April in the Los Angeles Times. Moehringer has since left the newspaper to work as a magazine writer, among other things.
-- Dick Weiss
Paris Hilton And The Post-Dispatch Both Sing The Blues
Cable news coverage of the Paris Hilton case reached a new low Dick Weiss tells McGraw Milhaven on the McGraw Show on KTRS (550-AM). Dick and McGraw also discuss the Post-Dispatch's stellar package on blues music and author/columnist John Grogran's hissy fit over his former newspaper's effort to capitalize on his book, "Marley and Me."
Here's a link to the Post-Dispatch's web special on the blues.
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The Best Stories You've nEver Read --Third In A Series
From time to time, I'll post links to gripping stories here that are meaningful and relevant to our times. Today I recommend the Tampa Tribune's "Of Faith , Fame and Fortune." This story is both well-documented and well-told. Michelle Bearden and Baird Helgeson beautifully demonstrate how to use the best narrative techniques to draw readers in, and then bring to bear a set of facts that cast a shadow over what once appeared to be a well-intentioned ministry. They write about Randy and Paula White who arrived in Tampa 16 years ago with all their worldly possessions in a U-Haul and a driving ambition to create "the perfect church for people who are not." Today that church is one of the fastest growing in the country with many worthy outreach programs, but it has also enriched the Whites to the tune of a $1.9 million business jet and homes worth more than $5 million in Tampa and New York.
-- Dick Weiss
