Tips for a new writing coach

I had lunch recently with the new writing coach of the Houston Chronicle, Tony Freemantle. Aly Colón of the Poynter Institute and I were visiting the Chronicle for one of API's Our Readers Are Watching seminars. Tony wanted to hear our advice for a new writing coach. I thought I'd share our suggestions with a larger audience.

We talked about brownbag lunches where a coach can lead a talk with the staff about writing. These aren't workshops focused on a particular topic, but chats among colleagues about our craft and how to do it better.

When I was in newsrooms, I sometimes asked staff members to bring drafts of stories to brownbaggers. You would read your story to colleagues, then listen as they discussed it. The first reason this is helpful is that it forces writers to read their stories aloud, which they don't do often enough. Every time I held one of these brownbaggers, writers would stop as they read and scribble some notes, having heard a clunky passage or a wordy sentence they realized needed attention later.

The feedback from colleagues is helpful, too. Not that you should follow every suggestion you hear. You couldn't anyway sometimes, because you will receive conflicting suggestions. Still, the responses are valuable. If you think a line is funny and no one laughs when you read it aloud, you'll cut it out before sending the story on to your editor. If you wonder whether a point is too subtle, questions from colleagues will quickly provide your answer.

I liked the idea of these brownbaggers when I first started them. But I wondered whether they would work for the staff. I got my answers when some reporters who had read their drafts before came back for repeat sessions. You can usually discuss two or three stories over one lunch, unless someone has written a really long story that can take up the whole lunch hour. This didn't become a permanent feature of my newsrooms. They ran their course after a while and I gave them a rest. But they were helpful in establishing my coaching relationship with the reporters.

Aly also advocated other kinds of brownbaggers, such as discussing a current issue in our business, bringing in someone from outside the newsroom to share his or her expertise with the staff or asking someone who just finished an outstanding story to tell colleagues how they did it. This has a twofold benefit: recognizing outstanding effort as well as learning from it.

I also recommended that Tony join the Newscoach list-serve, so he can seek advice from coaching colleagues and benefit from the advice other coaches receive on the discussion list.

I encouraged him to use the training resources of No Train, No Gain (and to contribute handouts and other training materials he develops to the site. We welcome your contributions, too. Just e-mail them to me). Disclosure here: I'm one of the founders and the content coordinator.

I went first in offering advice to Tony over lunch. While I talked, Aly jotted some ideas on the paper table covering. After lunch, I tore off his notes, so I could pass the tips along:

• Have office hours, when you are open so anyone can stop by and ask questions.


• Offer yourself not as the know-it-all on writing, but as a resource or asset for reporters and editors to use.


• Help create and support writers' groups.


• Wander about the newsroom, offering specific praise to people who have done outstanding work recently.


• Start a writing blog on the newsroom intranet.

Some of the other advice I offered Tony, or would have, if I had remembered at lunch, was covered in previous previous Training Tracks columns:

• Coaching advice must be timely.


• Trainer, teach thyself.


• Don't limit training to your strengths.


• Ideas on stimulating workshop participation.

Other sites I recommended to Tony that deal with writing and/or training:

• Writing Matters


• Bob Baker's Newsthinking


• John McIntyre's About Language blog


• The elements of digital storytelling