Secret of PR Writing that Beats the Band: Take Drum Lessons, Suggests Agency Wordsmith After Awards Fete

Great marketing-oriented writing has a discernable "beat" readers can practically dance to. But without that rhythm, such writing sinks to the level of nails across a chalkboard, warned business communications "percussionist" Rich Smith, Newsdesk365, after picking up a pair of awards April 30 for outstanding PR writing.

Riverside, Calif. (PRWEB) May 1, 2008 -- Forget about learning the difference between a preposition and a participle. To master the art of barrier-busting PR writing, first learn the difference between a paradiddle and a pataflafla.

So suggests a marketing-communications agency wordsmith who believes that the skills necessary to craft great writing are not unlike those required to play the drums - and that acquiring the latter can improve the former.

Nothing causes audiences to disengage faster than writing that has no sense of rhythm, no timing, no pulse.

"You make music with words if you string the right ones together the right way; but when you read a razor-sharp piece of prose, a driving piece of prose, it's not a melody you hear playing in your brain -- it's a rhythm," asserted Rich Smith, Newsdesk365 (http://www.newsdesk365.com), while last night (April 30) after picking up a pair of Capella awards for excellence in PR writing from the Public Relations Society of America, California Inland Empire Chapter (http://www.prsaie.org).

"Take drum lessons and you're likely to find yourself doing a better job writing brochures, press releases, and speeches," continued Smith, whose Yucca Valley, Calif.,-based word lab specializes in overcoming reader tune-out.

"Drummers rivet audiences any time they break into a pounding solo, and it's all done with a beat, which is exactly what PR writers need to be able to accomplish on paper," he said following the awards ceremony at the Riverside Museum of Art. "Nothing causes audiences to disengage faster than writing that has no sense of rhythm, no timing, no pulse."

Smith, a 1976 magna cum laude graduate of the journalism school at California State University, Long Beach, took his first drum lessons when he was 10 and by 11 was able to perform drumbeat rudiments such as the paradiddle and, later, the pataflafla. He still plays, but only for recreation and to help ensure his writing maintains its edge.

Contact:
Rich Smith
Newsdesk365
760-364-2218

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