Robert Ausura Writing

     It's an old commercial, but you probably remember it. A young American tourist in Paris finds himself eyed by an alluring Parisienne. She approaches. He anticipates. You can feel his heart beating. She speaks softly as she glides past him. A passing waiter translates her comment: "Nice pants."

     Yesterday I got a call from the Managing Producer of a large and successful production organization here in Washington. We ended up trading stories about competitive bidding. "I worked with this one writer," he said, "who wrote good proposals but always printed them out on cheap paper. My clients noticed it every time, and for two years I couldn't convince any of them to choose him for a contract. One day I told him what I thought the problem was. He switched to really good paper and won the next three jobs he bid."

     Nice pants.

     I've always used good paper (the paper I use for proposals and final scripts is more expensive than the pants I wear), but I know how that writer feels. I spend hours and hours honing each sentence to a keen edge, and often the only feedback I get is, "Love the way you format pages. What word processor do you use?" I bite my tongue, glad that the client likes the way my writing looks but disheartened at such little attention to how it sounds and what it says.

     It is sad but true that, like so many other things in 21st Century American culture, writers and writing are judged largely by their image. A writer can, standing on principle, refuse to use $11/ream paper and a photo quality printer. He can refuse to wear a tie to initial meetings with clients and shun giving out professionally designed business cards. But the tide will run against him (or her). Starving writers starve for a reason. Better for business to join what you can't beat and to develop an image that matches the standards of your writing.

     A few guidelines:

Know the image standards of the market. People buy from people they feel comfortable with, and professionals feel most comfortable with others who look, dress and act professionally. Subscribing (within reason) to the style of the business world you serve gives you a foot in the door.
Create a unity of impression. Edgar Allan Poe said that every element in a short story should contribute to a "unity of impression." (Not a single syllable in "The Cask of Amontillado" distracts from the story's tense irony or forward motion.) Writing, in short, should create a tightly focused image. So should writers. Every element of your business that touches the world—your answering machine message, your fax cover page, your business stationery, your page formats, your home page, the briefcase you carry, the pen and the notebooks you use, the way you answer the telephone—should build your image as a professional.
Radiate a "can do/will do" attitude. Not all writing assignments are gems. Not all clients are warm and fuzzy. Accept the cliff scalings with the cakewalks, the curmudgeons with the kittens. Muster the same enthusiasm to write the seventh draft that came to you naturally when you wrote the first. In this business a positive attitude and a willingness to tackle and retackle every assignment until it's done right are as essential to success as good grammar and a broad vocabulary.
Listen to everyone. Listening is the mark of someone who is interested, confident and observant—all things that clients want in a writer. Let your writing do the talking.
Write everything well. It's easy to write the fun stuff well. It's challenging to write the tough stuff well. It's expected that you'll write all your assignments well. But what about your letters, invoices, Post-It® notes and e-mail messages? Keep in mind that people judge writers by every word they pen, type, scribble or scrawl.

You may not want to be recognized for your pants. But it's better than not being recognized at all.