Copywriting

Sharing Experience at Slough Writers

At Slough Writers we don’t set out to teach writing – we develop as writers through sharing writing skills and writing experiences.

An excellent example of this approach occurred at a workshop led jointly by SW members Lorraine Forrest-Turner and Neil Dickenson on Monday 27th March. Both Neil and Lorraine are experienced copywriters and they shared their professional knowledge in this field with the group. Lorraine is a freelance copywriter and teacher, and Neil has had a varied career and now specialises in medical areas. Both writers talked about their professional careers and emphasised that sticking to deadlines and understanding the detail of a brief were vitally important. We learnt that creativity is key although clients often needed to be lead gently into doing the right thing.

Lorraine Forrest-Turner (L) and Neil Dickenson (R)

The presenters complimented each other and shared details of the copywriter’s daily life as well as many examples of successful campaigns. The evening finished with an exercise in which small groups of SW members suggested and brain-stormed ideas to create an advertisement for a very challenging client - Slough Writers.

It was an evening where we glimpsed the life of a professional writer and learned about the many areas where a productive cross-over existed between business writing and fiction – not least the four important elements of any campaign:  Grab the attention; build interest and involve the reader; create a desire and finally, make a clear call to action. One final piece of advice – avoid bullshit copy.

Sounds like good advice for any author.

(Report and action photos – Mike Pearcy. Lorraine’s headshot copyright Lorraine Forrest-Turner. Lorraine’s headshot courrtesy of Andrea MacLeod)