Category: Genre

More fashion! It's enough to make you want to regurgitate your lunch so you can fit into them skinny pants. Anyway, Greg Lindsay investigates the dark art of seating at fashion shows:

From my usual perch in the fifth or sixth row of the shows I managed to attend, I began to understand that behind the boldfaced editors in the front row, great swaths of fashion news editors, accessories and market editors, bookings editors and stylists were arrayed behind them. I started thinking in terms of fashion's "Four Families" (the NYC mafia reference is intentional): Vogue, W/WWD, Harper's Bazaar and Elle. After that came the gangs from The New York Times, Lucky and In Style, not to mention the lone wolf critics, fashion reporters from the regional newspapers, the foreign editors and London newspaper critics, all the way on down to the TV producers, and fashion bloggers. But it was never clear how these seating charts were put together, or who the savants able to keep the whole status equation of the fashion world in their heads really were.

So this Spring 2007 fashion season, mediabistro.com asked a handful of designers to explain the logic and the artistry of fashion show seating. As expected, all but one shot us down immediately. But James LaForce, one of the founding principals of PR firm LaForce + Stevens, very graciously invited me to visit his office on the eve of Tuesday's Bill Blass show to watch the seating chart be locked in.

Read on here. And if you still haven't gotten enough, you can follow FishBowl's coverage of FashWeek here.

Fashion Week in New York is wrapping up, but the country's fascination with fashion is only ramping up, thanks to more celebrity designers and, of course, the show Project Runway. Have you been dying to get into fashion writing but don't know how? Sign up for Fashion Writing 101 in New York in a few weeks. Instructor Jene Luciani gets you started with a few key terms you must know:

Haute Couture: Haute couture (French for 'high sewing' or 'high dressmaking'; refers to the creation of exclusive fashions. It is a common term for custom-fitted clothing as produced primarily in Paris but also in other fashion capitals such as New York, London, and Milan. Haute couture is not only made-to-order for a specific customer, it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finish, often using time-consuming hand-executed techniques. The term is sometimes used to refer exclusively to French fashion; more often, it refers to any unique stylish design made to order for wealthy and high-status clients. Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Fashion: "Fashion" is most often used as a synonym for the current style in clothing, however sociologists and other scholars who write about fashion are more likely to use a definition that says that fashion has two elements. It is (1) accepted by many people and (2) its acceptance lasts for a relatively short period of time. Fashion does not exist in all cultures and historic periods. It seems to begin in the Western Europe in the late middle ages. At that time the nobility were the originators of fashions, and the lower classes copied upper class styles (known as the "trickle down theory of fashion."). Today, fashions may originate with all levels of society, even the least affluent, and when this happens, it is known as "percolate up" or "bottom up" fashion change. Source: WWD

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Are you meant to write humor or drama scripts? Screenwriter Jane Espenson describes the differences between writing in the two genres here on her blog.

Some of us hate outlining our writing (raising hand.) However, TV scriptwriter Jane Espenson, looking back on some of her old specs, discovers why it's important to sketch out a good map of your work before you submit it.

mb instructor Dashka Slater is teaching a course on Monday on writing children's books. Too late for you to sign up? Don't worry! You can catch her class on writing picture books that start in a few weeks. Here, get a sneak peek on some of her tips:

Keep track of your ideas. Words, concepts, stories, characters, phrases, rhymes, topics...write them down and keep them in a folder. Thumb through them when you need inspiration

Remember your audience. Write for children - about things they are interested in, in language that appeals to them. Write for parents, who will have to read your book over and over.

Read all your drafts out loud. That's how your book is going to be read, after all.

Study the craft. Read books in your genre. Read books about children's books.

Read poetry. The best picture books are poetry. If you want to know how to make your language musical, magical, visual, and precise, study your poets.

Do research to make your story more vivid. If you don't know something, find it out.

Be a brutal self-editor. Make every word count.

Keep it simple – avoid being too clever, too complicated, too exciting, or too edifying.

Imitate the techniques of the writers you admire until you can make them your own.

Remember what it is you wanted to say. Return to your theme when you start to get lost in your own words.

I received the following email last week that I thought raised a good question on a topic I take for granted a lot:

Claire,

I just read your post about writing great personal essays.

I've got a question. I've been a writer and journalist for 15 years. Here in the UK we don't use the term "personal essay", but I hear it a lot from American writers.

This might sound dumb, but could you please explain just what a person essay is, and how it's different from a regular journalism feature where the "I" of the writer might pop up on occasion.

Hope you can help.

Neil Baker

Freelance writer and editor

I happen to be getting my Masters in Creative Writing at Northwestern University, with my focus on nonfiction writing. One of the topics that seems to get beaten to death is "What IS creative nonfiction"? It seems like we talk about it so much that we very conveniently forget the question. Anyway, I wanted to answer Neil's question by posing it to one of my teachers at Northwestern, Sandi Wisenberg, codirector of the Masters in Creative Writing program and practicing fiction/nonfiction writer. Her response to Neil is:

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The other day a friend of mine asked what advice I had for breaking into airline magazines. My experience with them unfortunately yields not-very-helpful advice: meet somebody who is an editor at an airline mag and hope that they offer you a few assignments.

For those seeking something a little more practical, I spoke to a handful of experienced travel writers for their advice on breaking into those airborne glossies.

"Pitching inflights is the same as pitching any other magazine, in that you should take the time to familiarize yourself with the magazine's content before you just go randomly sending story ideas in," says Jill Becker, who has contributed to American Way. "In fact, it's probably even more important to hit the mark as close as possible your first time out when pitching inflights, because they generally have very small staffs and editors there typically don't have time to "work with" and "forge relationships" with writers. They're looking for writers who can get it right pretty much the first time."

Also like other magazines, "Study the magazine and see what the smaller,shorter, FOB and other less feature-y sections look like," says Ethan Gilsdorf, who teaches Breaking Into Travel Writing for mb. "It's going to be harder to land a big assignment. In this regard, they are like other magazines -- start small, go from there." However, Joanne Bamberger, who has written for Go, AirTran's inflight, has another way of looking at that: "I've always tried to aim for the features well and so far it's worked for me. Why not aim high?"

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If it feels like writing and submitting spec scripts is almost as fruitful as Sisyphus rolling that big rock up the hill, screenwriter Jane Espenson has a few inspirational tales of writers who actually got gigs based on their specs.

For those new to the personal essay, one of the biggest hurdles is figuring out what makes for a good piece versus a self-indulgent ramble. Christopher Frizzelle, the arts editor of The Stranger, Seattle's leading weekly newspaper, will be teaching the course Writing Great Personal Essays in Seattle on Wednesday. Amongst the things he'll tell you is knowing what you can turn into a good essay (versus a mediocre blog post.) If you want to learn more, sign up for his class--quickly!

Ask yourself:

• Am I ready to write about this? A personal essay draws on your experience in the world, and the more loaded your experience is, the deeper and more meaningful your essay will be. If you're scared to write something, that's usually a sign that you should. That said, is it something you're ready to share with strangers? If not, you won't be able to write about it honestly, and if you aren't able to write about it honestly, it isn't going to be a great essay.

• Where is the action? Although personal essays often have reflective passages, action is crucial for getting the reader (and editor) interested, illustrating your points, and moving your essay forward. A great personal essay tells a story, or several stories, with vivid scenes, characters, and dialogue. Do you have enough to work with?

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Turning the organization of your query letters upside-down can be an effective technique to win trade magazine assignments, writes John K. Borchardt for Writers Weekly. This means first presenting yourself as the type of writer the editor needs: accomplished and professional, rather than first pitching your article idea. More on this technique here.