This PR Tools news release demonstrates that by locating ‘Of Is and By,’ the key target words described in How to Be a Better Online Writer Overnight, the lead can be compressed significantly, reducing the word count from 75 to 65 words. Take a look.
Original headline
LA Loves Film, a New Outreach Program from FilmLA, Aims at Sustainable Future for Local Filmmaking (16 words)
Edit
LA Loves Film, FilmLa’s New Outreach Program, Aims at Local Filmmaking’s Sustainable Future (13 words)
One of the principal lessons of the Better Writer series of PR Tools is to watch for certain words (Of, is and by to start) and then eliminate them, instantly improving writing. In this example from FilmLA, deleting these target words improved the lead significantly:
- Of
- For
- In
- By
There were also Word repeats.
Let’s find and eliminate them.
Original lead
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — FilmLA, the film office of Greater Los Angeles, today announced the debut of “LA Loves Film” – a new outreach and education program aimed at a sustainable future for on-location filmmaking in Greater Los Angeles. Prompted by state and local leaders’ success in bringing dozens of new film and television projects to California, LA Loves Film will celebrate the region’s unique creative economy and engage localcommunities in conversation about the importance of being “film friendly.” (75 words)
The breakdown
A. FilmLA, the film office of Greater Los Angeles, today announced the debut of “LA Loves Film” (16 words)
B. FilmLA, the Greater Los Angeles film office, launched “LA Loves Film” (11 words)
Commentary
‘Of’ appears twice in one headline; editing alarm bells are thereby set off. Here is the solution: moving ‘Greater Los Angeles’ in front of ‘the film office’ deletes the first ‘of.’ Then ‘today announced the debut of’ not only contains ‘of’ but also superfluous words: ‘today announced the debut.’ The release dateline covers ‘today,’ so that’s unnecessary; ‘announced’ is not the news, the debut is. A news release by its nature announces something so don’t repeat it. The entire clause, ‘today announced…’ is easily replaced with one word: ‘launched’ and five words disappear.
The Lead, continued
A. A new outreach and education program aimed at a sustainable future for on-location filmmaking in Greater Los Angeles.
B. A new outreach and education program aimed at ensuring on-location filmmaking’s sustainable future.
The person drafting this release demonstrates familiarity with apostrophe usage (leaders’ success and the region’s) but didn’t apply it here.
Commentary
‘For’ is part of the ‘to, for and on’ Better Writer section on most common writing mistakes. Moving ‘on location filmmaking’ to before ‘sustainable future’ eliminates one ‘for.’ However, in the edited B version ‘in Greater Los Angeles’ has been deleted and not just because there is an ‘In’ a target edit word that can be deleted by moving the location before the noun to which it refers: ‘filmmaking in Los Angeles/Los Angeles filmmaking.’ In this instance, ‘in Greater Los Angeles’ was removed as the Greater LA orientation was already introduced in the lead when describing FilmLA itself, qualifying as a word repeat.
More lead edits
Prompted by state and local leaders’ success in bringing dozens of new film and television projects to California, LA Loves Film will celebrate the region’s unique creative economy and engage local communities in conversation about the importance of being “film friendly.”
Commentary
Prompted by stays in; sometimes ‘by’ does work the best. ‘Due to’ wouldn’t necessarily be an improvement. Some other comparisons
- dozens of
- numerous
- engage local communities in conversation
- educating and informing nearby communities
Engage local communities’ meaning is somewhat vague; it can be made stronger and avoid repeating ‘local’ for the second time.
A. about the importance of being “film friendly.”
B. about why it’s so important to be “film friendly.”
Perhaps six of one, a half dozen of the other. With editors license, I just like B. And there is no ‘of.’
Here is the edited paragraph.
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — FilmLA, the Greater Los Angeles film office, launched “LA Loves Film” – a new outreach and education program aimed at ensuring local filmmaking’s sustainable future. Prompted by state and local leaders’ success in bringing numerous new film and television projects here, LA Loves Film will celebrate the region’s unique creative economy, educating and informing nearby communities about why it’s so important to be “film friendly.” (65 words, compared with 75 in the original).
