Writing Websites

Writing Websites

1. a website with a list of superpowers and what they are

2. a website that generates random au ideas

3. a website that generates names, basic info and futures in a bunch of languages

4. a website that checks your grammar

5. website that lists types of execution in the states

6. a website with info on death certificates

7. a website with info on the four manners of death

8. a website with info on the black plague

9. website with information on depression

10. a website with info on the four types of suicide

11. website that lists famous quotes

12. website with different kinds of quotes

13. a website with info on food in every country

14. a website with a list of different colors

15. website with a list of medieval jobs

16. website with a list of fabrics

17. website with a list of flowers and pictures

18. website with a list of flowers and no pictures

19. website with a list of poisonous plants

20. website with a list of poisonous and non-poisonous plants

21. website with a list of things not to feed your animals

22. website with a list of poisons that can be used to kill people

23. website with info on the international date line

24. website with a list of food allergies

25. website with a list of climates

26. website with info on allergic reactions

27. website with info on fahrenheit and celsius 

28. website with info on color blindness

29. website with a list of medical equipment

30. website with a list of bugs

31. website with an alphabetic list of bugs and their scientific name

32. website with a list of eye colors

33. website (wikipedia sorry) with list of drinks

34. website with a list of religions

35. website with a list of different types of doctors and what they do

36. website (wikipedia again sorry) with a list of hair colors

37. website that generates fantasy names

38. website with a list of body language

39. website with a list of disabilities

40. website with an alphabetic list of disabilities

Right now, I’m sifting through 50+ applications for a new entry-level position. Here’s some advice from the person who will actually be looking at your CV/resume and cover letter:

‘You must include a cover letter’ does not mean ‘write a single line about why you want this position’. If you can’t be bothered to write at least one actual paragraphs about why you want this job, I can’t be bothered to read your CV.

Don’t bother including a list of your interests if all you can think of is ‘socialising with friends’ and ‘listening to music’. Everyone likes those things. Unless you can explain why the stuff you do enriches you as a person and a candidate (e.g. playing an instrument or a sport shows dedication and discipline) then I honestly don’t care how you spend your time. I won’t be looking at your CV thinking ‘huh, they haven’t included their interests, they must have none’, I’m just looking for what you have included.

Even if you apply online, I can see the filename you used for your CV. Filenames that don’t include YOUR name are annoying. Filenames like ‘CV - media’ tell me that you’ve got several CVs you send off depending on the kind of job advertised and that you probably didn’t tailor it for this position. ‘[Full name] CV’ is best.

USE. A. PDF. All the meta information, including how long you worked on it, when you created it, times, etc, is right there in a Word doc. PDFs are far more professional looking and clean and mean that I can’t make any (unconscious or not) decisions about you based on information about the file.

I don’t care what the duties in your previous unrelated jobs were unless you can tell me why they’re useful to this job. If you worked in a shop, and you’re applying for an office job which involves talking to lots of people, don’t give me a list of stuff you did, write a sentence about how much you enjoyed working in a team to help everyone you interacted with and did your best to make them leave the shop with a smile. I want to know what makes you happy in a job, because I want you to be happy within the job I’m advertising.

Does the application pack say who you’ll be reporting to? Can you find their name on the company website? Address your application to them. It’s super easy and shows that you give enough of a shit to google something. 95% of people don’t do this.

Tell me who you are. Tell me what makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work and feel fulfilled. Tell me what you’re looking for, not just what you think I’m looking for.

I will skim your CV. If you have a bunch of bullet points, make every one of them count. Make the first one the best one. If it’s not interesting to you, it’s probably not interesting to me. I’m overworked and tired. Make my job easy.

“I work well in a team or individually” okay cool, you and everyone else. If the job means you’ll be part of a big team, talk about how much you love teamwork and how collaborating with people is the best way to solve problems. If the job requires lots of independence, talk about how you are great at taking direction and running with it, and how you have the confidence to follow your own ideas and seek out the insight of others when necessary. I am profoundly uninterested in cookie-cutter statements. I want to know how you actually work, not how a teacher once told you you should work.

For an entry-level role, tell me how you’re looking forward to growing and developing and learning as much as you can. I will hire genuine enthusiasm and drive over cherry-picked skills any day. You can teach someone to use Excel, but you can’t teach someone to give a shit. It makes a real difference.

This is my advice for small, independent orgs like charities, etc. We usually don’t go through agencies, and the person reading through the applications is usually the person who will manage you, so it helps if you can give them a real sense of who you are and how you’ll grab hold of that entry level position and give it all you’ve got. This stuff might not apply to big companies with actual HR departments - it’s up to you to figure out the culture and what they’re looking for and mirror it. Do they use buzzwords? Use the same buzzwords! Do they write in a friendly, informal way? Do the same! And remember, 95% of job hunting (beyond who you know and flat-out nepotism, ugh) is luck. If you keep getting rejected, it’s not because you suck. You might just need a different approach, or it might just take the right pair of eyes landing on your CV.

And if you get rejected, it’s worthwhile asking why. You’ve already been rejected, the worst has already happened, there’s really nothing bad that can come out of you asking them for some constructive feedback (politely, informally, “if it isn’t too much trouble”). Pretty much all of us have been hopeless jobseekers at one point or another. We know it’s shitty and hard and soul-crushing. Friendliness goes a long way. Even if it’s just one line like “your cover letter wasn’t inspiring" at least you know where to start.

And seriously, if you have any friends that do any kind of hiring or have any involvement with that side of things, ask them to look at your CV with a big red pen and brutal honesty. I do this all the time, and the most important thing I do is making it so their CV doesn’t read exactly like that of every other person who took the same ‘how-to-get-a-job’ class in school. If your CV has a paragraph that starts with something like ‘I am a highly motivated and punctual individual who–’ then oh my god I AM ALREADY ASLEEP.

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An aye-write guide to Showing vs. Telling

I’ll bet that if you’ve ever taken an English class or a creative writing class, you’ll have come across the phrase “Show, don’t tell.”  It’s pretty much a creative writing staple! Anton Chekov once said “ Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass.” In other words, showing should help you to create mental pictures in a reader’s head.

Showing helps readers bond with the characters, helps them experience the emotions and action more vividly, and helps immerse them in the world you have created. So “show, not tell” is definitely not bad advice - in certain circumstances. But it has its place. More on that later. 

So How do I Show? 

Dialogue

Thoughts/Feelings

Actions

Visual Details

So instead, of telling me “He was angry”, show me how his face face flushes red, how his throat tightens, how he slams his fist, how he raises his voice, how his jaw clenches, how he feels hot and prickly, how his breathing gets rapid, how his thoughts turn to static, etc.

Instead of telling me “The cafeteria was in chaos”, you could show me  someone covered in food and slowly turning crimson, children rampaging under the feet of helpless adults, frenzied shouting, etc. 

Handy Hint! Try to avoid phrases like “I heard”, “I felt”, “I smelled”, etc. These are still “telling words” (also known as filters) and may weaken your prose, as your readers could be taken out of the experience and you may lose their attention.

Is Showing Always The Right Thing to Do? 

No! Absolutely not! Showing is not always right and telling is not always wrong! It’s important to develop the skill and instinct to know when to use showing and when to use telling, as both can be appropriate in certain occasions. 

So, “Show, don’t tell” becomes “Show versus tell”. 

What is Showing and Telling? 

Showing is “The grass caressed his feet and a smile softened his eyes. A hot puff of air brushed past his wrinkled cheek as the sky paled yellow, then crimson, and within a breath, electric indigo”

Telling is “The old man stood in the grass and relaxed as the sun went down.”

Both of these excerpts are perfectly acceptable to use in your writing! But both do different things, although their meanings are pretty much the same. The first example is immersive, sweeping, visual, engaging. The second example is much more pared back and functional. But both have their places in prose! 

Telling is functional. Think about when you tell people things. You tell your children dinner is ready. The news reporter tells you there’s a drop in crime rates. Your best friend tells you she’ll be late because her car broke down on the way to yours. These are brief and mundane moments in everyday life. 

So, do these deserve multiple paragraphs with sensory detail and action/feeling/thought for every little thing? Do you need to spend an entire paragraph agonising over a minor detail when there’s a sword dangling (physically or metaphorically) over your MC’s head? No. And I’ll explain why. 

When To Use Telling

As before, telling is functional. It’s brief. It’s efficient. It gives a gist of a situation without getting bogged down in detail.

Showing is slow, rich, expansive, and most certainly not efficient! 

Here’s an example of some telling: 

“Years passed, and I thought of Emily less and less. I confined her to some dark dusty corner of my brain. I had to elbow my memories of her to the side. I was too busy with other things. Finishing school, then university a year later. Life was full and enjoyable. But then, one dark cold September night…”

You can’t show this example, unless you wanted to waste page after page of your MC waking up, going through everyday life, to get to the point your actual story started. If you do that, you will likely kill off any interest a reader would have in your novel and likely, your book itself.

Summing Up 

Showing: 

Should be used for anything dramatic

Uses thoughts, feelings, dialogue, action, and visual detail 

Will likely be used more than telling

Telling: 

Can be used for 

Delivering factual information

Glossing over unnecessary details 

Connecting scenes

Showing the passage of time 

Adding backstory (not all at once!) 

The significance of plot without conflict

In the West, plot is commonly thought to revolve around conflict: a confrontation between two or more elements, in which one ultimately dominates the other. The standard three- and five-act plot structures–which permeate Western media–have conflict written into their very foundations. A “problem” appears near the end of the first act; and, in the second act, the conflict generated by this problem takes center stage. Conflict is used to create reader involvement even by many post-modern writers, whose work otherwise defies traditional structure.

The necessity of conflict is preached as a kind of dogma by contemporary writers’ workshops and Internet “guides” to writing. A plot without conflict is considered dull; some even go so far as to call it impossible. This has influenced not only fiction, but writing in general–arguably even philosophy. Yet, is there any truth to this belief? Does plot necessarily hinge on conflict? No. Such claims are a product of the West’s insularity. For countless centuries, Chinese and Japanese writers have used a plot structure that does not have conflict “built in”, so to speak. Rather, it relies on exposition and contrast to generate interest. This structure is known as kishōtenketsu.

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https://mamot.fr/@setthemfree/106014810050613790

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/google-testing-its-controversial-new-ad-targeting-tech-millions-browsers-heres