Travel articles - common mistakes

Like sports writing, travel writing is one of the areas of the business which many newbies and students dream of specialising in. People dream of spending their lives jet setting from one country to another, living a glamorous life. So in this post I will dispel a few of the travel myths.

1.       When people think of travel writing they think of people like Michael Palin. They think that there is plenty of work out there and that there is no end to the exotic locations editors want you to write about. The reality is that nowadays many travel pieces are written by staff journalists who are given ‘free holidays’ on condition that they write about it afterwards. This isn’t to say that you should not try travel writing, but it is important for you to know about this as it may be your main competition depending on the publication.

2.       Publications don’t pay for you to go. This is a mistaken assumption many people make. If you are lucky a PR will organise the trip from start to finish but more often you will need to spend a bit of time phoning the press office of airlines and hotel chains negotiating flights and hotels etc.

3.       It is worth remembering that the article doesn’t have to be about somewhere foreign. What about your own home town? I often advise students to start there and to think about how they could write about the area where they live. This is so obvious that people don’t even consider it.

And here is some advice on how to write a good travel article:

1.     Think like a reader and include details you as a reader would like to know. You should be trying to paint a picture of the place. It is about the difference between the reader thinking ‘that sounds nice’ and her thinking ‘I really must go there’. Bring the place alive so that she feels as if she is there with you.

2.       Add in lots of details and observations. But don’t go into too much detail on the irrelevant. You may have met a couple you got on great with but how interesting is this to the reader?

3.       Yes your family can feature in the article but apart from brief mentions really they should only be used to make a point. So if you are writing about a tourist attraction that is aimed at kids it is useful for the reader to read about what the children thought of it.

4.       What is new or unusual about the place? What is the news hook?  If the attraction is not new then you have to find a new slant? A visit to Lapland in the summer perhaps, or visiting Disneyland Paris and using a special guidebook.

1.       Finally the holiday account versus the travel article. Many newbies confuse the two. Over the past few years I have noticed that some of the women’s weeklies have started asking for holiday accounts, but on the whole most places are wanting travel accounts. The two are very different – both in the way they are written and in the types of destinations covered.

How many spaces after a full stop

How many spaces should be left after a full stop? This is a question which comes up again and again on writers’ forums. I could make this post very short and tell you the answer – one, but for the doubters, of which there are many, I will expand on this answer.

Only one space is used because that is all there is needed. Years ago, back in the time of type writers the fonts used were such that two spaces were required. PCs have got rid of that problem, and whether the article is to be published online or in print it doesn’t matter – always one space.

Why does this matter? Well as a writer you should be aiming to be professional at all times and give the impression that you are one.  And professional writers place one space after a full stop. But also think how annoying it is for the editor having to make corrections. Everyone makes mistakes and these are excusable, but mistakes made on purpose are not.

If you would like to read more on this subject take a look at this Telegraph article on the subject.

Copy approval

Every so often when interviewing for an article, I get asked if the interviewee can see the article before it goes to print. And unless there are mitigating circumstances I always say no and explain why.

Years ago when I started out I would on occasions let people have copy approval. And every time this would happen:

1.      I would give the person a deadline of, say Monday noon, and they would always return it Tuesday afternoon at the earliest. Always, always. 

2.      Grammar or punctuation errors would be added to my work. This one really riles me.

3.      My eight hundred word article would have been turned into a 1,200 word article which I then have to edit down, or even worse a five hundred word piece, leaving me with a gaping hole.

4.      The person to whom I gave copy approval would, after having come back after my deadline, demand that if the magazine had gone to press already, then everything would have to be stopped and the magazine taken off the shelves because I had described something as yellow when it was actually lemon.

5.      Quotes will be changed, despite me having taped evidence that the person did say what I have written.

If you are one of these people who thinks copy approval is okay, here’s two more reasons to think about:

1.      By showing the article to someone else before publication the writer could be in breach of contract with the publication. The argument is that this is by showing the article to a third party you are leaking information that came to you in the course of your employment. This is a disciplinary offence.

2.      If the company wants to okay what is written about them this is called an advertorial and writers charge for that.

What do editors want?

What every freelance writer wants to know – what do editors want? Many new writers view it as being akin to mindreading. At first they think they know, and they suggest ideas which they think would make a great article. Common mistakes are – everything you could possibly want to know about X; my family holiday in Majorca (oh yes, travel editors love that one); and an article on the latest craze which has been around for ten years and which everyone knows about anyway.

It is hard to know what someone else wants, so apologies if any of my reader have pursued any of the ideas mentioned above. Please don’t take offence. We’ve all been there (apart from Majorca). 

One thing you have to realise when you are starting out is that you need to put yourself in the editor’s shoes and view ideas from his point of view. Contributors often think they know a magazine well and may disagree with the editor’s decision to reject their article, but really that is the equivalent of me, a stranger, going up to you and saying that I know you and your family better than you yourself do. 

Read as many back copies of the magazine as you can get hold of, decide who the reader is, what their interest are and how much knowledge of the subject he is likely to have, find a news hook, give the editor something new.

Finally, don’t forget the advertisers. Advertisers are very important, particularly in today’s economic client, and an editor can’t risk losing regular advertisers. Years ago when I was starting out I sent an idea for an article on how forward facing buggies where detrimental to a child’s development. I sent it to a parenting magazine, and the editor, quite rightly, pointed out that while she thought it was a great idea she couldn’t risk upsetting one of their largest advertising clients, one of the biggest pushchair brands.

In short – put yourself in the editor’s shoes, get to know the magazine and readers well, and think like an editor, not a writer.