Write Away! Workshops

Enabling participants to write more clearly, concisely, correctly, and comfortably

My writing workshops are extremely flexible. Although I recommend group sizes of 12 to 24, I have conducted sessions for fewer than 10 and more than 40. The length has ranged from a couple of hours to a series spanning many months. I have geared the topics to professionals and support staff...to businesses and non-profit organizations.

The workshops illuminate and liberate, with exercises and lively discussion highlighting a number of writing principles participants have forgotten – or never learned in the first place.

Because writing effectively is much more important to us now than it was in the 7th grade, the workshops produce results. They engage participants, sharpen perspectives on writing, and solve scores of recurring problems permanently.

• Why Your Group Might Need a Writing Workshop
• Workshop Options
• How the Workshops Came to Be
• To Inquire About Write Away! Workshops

 
Why Your Group Might Need a Writing Workshop

Three of the reasons many workplaces suffer from mediocre writing:

1. The premium on immediacy

E-mailing and faxing are revolutionary time-savers, but they also create expectations about responding right away. Clarity and correctness can easily fall victim to this rapid pace.

2. Weak Backgrounds

Business leaders and educators generally bemoan the inadequate writing skills of today’s high school and college graduates. A society that once prided itself on literate letter-writing and precise knowledge of grammar is now failing to instill that know-how.

3. Fewer secretaries

Today’s technology enables us to compose and print a snappy-looking letter or memo completely by ourselves. What we lose is that second pair of eyes that could save the day by recognizing poor organization or spotting an embarrassing error.

Two paradoxes that point to common problems:

Paradox #1: As readers, most of us want messages that are clear, brief, and natural. Yet, as writers, many of us suppress natural expression and grind out pieces that are too long and stodgy.

Paradox #2: Our technological age is bursting with breakthroughs that dramatically extend our communications reach and shrink the time it takes to send messages. Devices at our fingertips even help check our spelling, grammar, and writing style. Yet, the need to compose messages independently and immediately has made many of us more uncomfortable as writers.

  
Workshop Options

All-Day (or two half-days, a week or two apart)

Each workshop is customized, but most emphasize obstacles to clarity, common misunderstandings and errors, the power of a natural style and simple language, how to organize and avoid procrastination, "fat phrases" and other keys to brevity, proper tone and additional ways to appeal to the reader, and effective use of e-mail.

Four hours

Similar to above, but with less reinforcement and fewer "side trips."

Two hours

Focused on one to three topics, such as achieving clarity, writing for impact, avoiding common errors, or overcoming procrastination.

One hour (often a luncheon program)

Devoted to one or two topics and still interactive if group size permits.

 
How the Workshops Came to Be

For years, I offered writing workshops just to my own colleagues. Eventually, the enthusiastic responses of the participants and the glow I received from casting light on the writing process spurred me to develop the workshops as a business.

In 1997 I established my own firm, Norm Friedman Communications, so I would have the freedom to provide writing workshops to businesses and organizations and perform a variety of communications tasks for a cross section of clients.

I find myself reading more slowly now than I did as a teen because I can’t get away from observing writing issues and analyzing the style and skill of virtually every writer I encounter. Whether that writer is a consummate professional, or someone benefiting from my red pen, I use the experience to add to my reservoir of what works and what doesn't. That cataloging serves me well in each Write Away! workshop.
 

To Inquire About Write Away! Workshops

Contact me if you are considering one or more business writing workshops at your location.