#52 – How to spell city names

Or knowing your Kievs from your Kyivs.

Globalised world
While we may live in a globalised world, spelling is something that cannot be universally agreed upon. Just ask our American friends with their strange desires to mangle perfectly good English spellings...

Renamed cities
Usually there is a correct and an incorrect spelling, but sometimes with city names, the lines blur a bit. Occasionally a place is renamed, and sometimes there are large discrepancies between the local and the international spelling.

Krung Thep
Bangkok in Thailand is a classic example. The city simply isn’t called Bangkok – the Thais know it as Krung Thep, yet we persist in giving it a totally inaccurate name. But to use Krung Thep all the way through an article would somehow seem wrong. It would just confuse the reader.

Right to be incorrect?
There are plenty more examples of this sort of thing – Florence and Firenze, Prague and Praha, Warsaw and Warszawa spring to mind. And in most cases, a travel writer is right to be incorrect on the spelling. Of course, every editor has a different policy, and it’s best to go with what they deem to be appropriate. As a general rule, however, go with what feels right for the audience.

Kolkata or Calcutta?
This can be a bit tricky, however, when it comes to cities where the name is being officially changed to the local spelling. In the cases of Mumbai and Beijing, it would now be rare to see an article referring to Bombay or Peking. The transition has been made. But it’s less clear cut with Kolkata or Côte d'Ivoire – have enough people converted from Calcutta and Ivory Coast yet?

Kiev or Kyiv?
The trickiest one I’ve had to deal with recently is Kiev in the Ukraine. Or Kyiv as it is now properly known. In my guidebook, it was called Kyiv, but in most other literature it is still called Kiev. And in the end, that was what I plumped for in my articles. It may not be technically correct, but Kyiv would probably have confused too many readers. I suspect that in five years’ time, however, it would not.

Note at the bottom
To cover my bases on this one, I put a small note at the bottom of the articles I submitted explaining the situation. That meant that it was up to the editors to choose their preferred versions. And for somewhere where the spelling is open to debate, this is probably a good plan.

#51 – Finding plug sockets in airports

Or the joy of vending machines.

Working on the flight
In Tip 48, I suggested using the time we all spend waiting around in airports to do some writing. Naturally, this sort of waiting around doing nothing time also applies to planes. During the flight – especially a long one – can be a good time to get some work done.

Limited battery power
The only problem with this, of course, is that even the best laptop computers have a limited battery life. And quite frankly, no-one wants to be carrying a laptop AND a spare battery in the their hand luggage.

Airport terminal plug sockets
So how best to preserve the battery life? Well, it’s possible to adjust the settings of your computer so that they’re as low performance as they can go. But it’s far better to find a plug socket in the airport terminal.

The golden seat
A lot of the time, you’re simply not going to find one. But sometimes there is a golden seat near a plug socket. If you think about it, the airport’s cleaners need somewhere to plug in their giant cleaning machines and vacuum cleaners. As long as that socket isn’t hidden away somewhere private, you can utilise it as well.

Look behind vending machines
And the best place to look for that socket is behind vending machines. They have to be plugged in somewhere too, and often sockets come in pairs. If there’s only one vending machine, then chances are that there’s a free socket near or behind it. So why not use it to plug in your computer, and reserve the battery power for the plane journey?

#50 - Pitch a story, not a list of destinations

Or how to avoid annoying an editor.

Annoying freelancer habits
The other week, I asked one of my editors what freelancer habits annoyed her most. This was her response:

“I think the most annoying emails are the ones giving someone’s life story and then just saying ‘so I can write any kind of article you like’.
“A close second would be ones that just give a list of well known countries the writer is about to travel to and asking me if I’d like any articles written about them… it’s up to writers to pitch story ideas to me, not the other way round.”

The freelancer’s job
OK then. Hands up – who has made a pitch like that at some point? I know I have, and it’s very easy to see this editor’s point. It is the freelancer’s job to come up with a story idea. It’s important to get to the point in a pitch. You are selling an idea, not asking whether an editor would like to give you some work.

The destination is not a story in itself
If you put yourself in the editor’s shoes, would you be likely to commission someone on the basis of a list of countries they are going to? Of course not. I refer back to my earlier point – a destination is not a story in itself. And if that mantra doesn’t stick, then be aware that you’re going to annoy a few editors.

#49 – Gauging a word count

Or working out how long an on-spec article should be.

How long?
One of the comments left on a previous post asked what the best way to gauge how long an article in a magazine or newspaper is. If pitching to a new publication, this is important – there’s no point sending them something way over or way under what they usually take.

Ask the editor outright
This is something I’m pretty hopeless at. I’ll usually just ask the editor outright, but obviously this doesn’t work if sending an article on spec. After a while, however, you do start to develop the knack of guessing a ballpark figure.

The tedious process of counting
But if you’re not sure that you’ve developed that knack, there’s nothing else for it but to count. It’s a tedious process, but it’s the only way you’ll know for sure. Of course, if you don’t fancy counting word by word, it’s possible to get a reasonable estimate by counting the number of lines and multiplying by a rough average of words per line.
And if the columns are of roughly the same length, multiply average number of words per line by average number of rows per column by number of columns.

Any suggestions?
However, I’m more than open to better suggestions on this one. So if any readers have better techniques to suggest, leave a comment below.

#48 – Make the most of airport down time

Or getting productive when there’s nothing else to do.

Procrastination
When I’m at home, I’m a terrible procrastinator. I’ll often take all day to write a 1,000 word article, interspersed with reading every newspaper website under the sun, doing the shopping, playing online Scrabble, looking up potential flights, messing around on Facebook... You get the picture.

How long does it take to write a 1,000 word article?
This, of course, is hardly the most productive use of time. Especially given that I know I can usually write that 1,000 word article in about an hour-and-a-half if I really want to.

Sitting around in airports
How do I know this? Because I frequently manage to do it whilst sitting around in airports waiting for a flight. In fact, I’d go as far as saying I’m at my most productive when trapped in an airport. This is probably because I’ve got nothing better to do – I see no point in airport shopping, and I’ve learned to appreciate that drinking before a flight isn’t a great plan.

Take the laptop
When there’s nothing to aid procrastination, it’s remarkably easy to get productive. And this is why I almost always take my laptop with me when I go away. I might not get it out all trip while I’m on the road, but I’ll usually manage to complete (or almost complete) two articles whilst waiting around for flights at either end.
That saves me two days’ worth of writing at normal, distraction-filled pace when I get back home.

Fresh memories
Aside from there being nothing better to do, there’s another reason to make airport waiting time into work time. Usually, if you’re sat in the airport, the memories from the trip are fresh. That’s often the best time to write – when something is still vivid in the memory and you’re actively thinking about it.

Little observations
The little observations and details can dull with time, and even if you’ve diligently written them all down in a notepad, the right words and phrasing to describe them can often elude when you return to them at a later date.

#47 – Don’t be afraid to be funny

Or why entertainment isn’t a dirty word.

Dull travel writing
As I have stated before, I don’t like most travel writing. Much output in the genre is spectacularly dull, po-faced and plodding. Ironically, it displays most of the qualities that people go on holiday to avoid.

Why people travel
Yes. That’s right – people travel to enjoy themselves. They go away to have a good time, relax and not take things too seriously for a while. Yet very little travel writing seems to reflect this.

Journalism’s soft option
Let’s get one thing straight: as far as journalism goes, travel writing is the soft option. Cry and protest all you like, but the world would happily keep turning if there was never another travel article published. Perhaps it is because the craft is so frivolous and unimportant that so many writers choose to prove how vital and serious they are in their writing.

Entertain the reader
While there is certainly a place for an authoritative voice, there is a bigger call for something that many writers neglect or see as being beneath them – entertainment. That’s right – it’s not a crime to entertain the reader. In fact, doing so should be positively encouraged.

Use humour
And one of the time honoured ways to entertain is to use humour. It’s a quality so frequently absent from travel pieces, and it shouldn’t be. I’ve got no evidence aside from my own experience on this, but many editors are crying out for writers that can do funny.

Don’t try too hard
Of course, I’d better clarify this by saying that no-one’s looking for someone who is trying to be funny (see Tip 37 about exclamation marks). There’s nothing more painful to read than someone trying too hard to make people laugh (well, aside from holocaust memoirs). But if you can inject a bit of fun into proceedings without making people wince, then do it.

Lighten up
Ironic, self-deprecating, arch, wry, waspish, playful, whimsical... there are lots of different types of humour that can work for various publications. Yet you could be mistaken for thinking that many writers mistake them for swear words. Lighten up a bit, write with a smile on your face, pass on the sense of joy, fun and wonder. Chances are that the piece will be a lot better read.

Fluff
And, whatever you do, don’t take yourself too seriously. Accept that you are writing fluff 90% of the time. But there’s nothing to stop it being good quality, hugely entertaining fluff that will engage your reader, give your editor a different voice to add to the mix and stand out in a crowd of mediocre earnestness.

#46 – When sources should be credited

Or covering your own back.

Cluttered-up copy
In tip #44, I suggested that cluttering up copy with attributions is unnecessary. Explaining the source of every bit of information makes for an ugly read. But for some information, it’s entirely necessary.

Attribute arguments
As a general rule, whenever a point, a statistic or an argument is debatable, it is advisable to attribute it. This obviously doesn’t apply when it’s your own opinion – you don’t need to explain if you think a building is ugly or meal is virtually inedible – but in other cases, it’s important.

Differing estimates
For some stats, like dates and prices, there will be near universal (if not fully universal agreement). No need to attribute there – it’s accurate. But other things are not so clear cut. For example, when dating the foundation of an ancient city (such as Damascus, or the Mayan city of Tikal in Guatemala), there are often many wildly differing estimates.

Back-covering disclaimer
In these instances, I’d argue that you need to say where you got the date from. To state a selected date as fact is wrong – you don’t know it is accurate, and neither does anyone else. This sort of situation calls for a little back-covering disclaimer, such as “according to our guide” or “one scientific school of thought believes”. If you can pin it to a person or reputable organisation, then even better.

Controversial statements
Some statements are even more controversial. For example, if you’re doing a story on a jungle island, and the jungle on that island is being depleted, then you need to be very careful about stating a cause of that depletion. Saying that the jungle is being depleted because of tourism development could, firstly, be untrue, and secondly, leave you open to a libel suit.

Interview, quote and attribute
For something like that, the best course to take is to interview someone who does believe that tourism development is the cause, quote them and attribute that argument to them. After that, give the accused (ie. One or more of the developers or the authorities that have allowed the development) to have their say.

Delineate between argument and fact
Treat both arguments fairly, and you shouldn’t have a problem. But whatever you do, be careful to delineate between argument and fact by attributing the opinions and any information that could be considered debatable.