Stick to 'says': letting stories speak for themselves
When writing – whether it’s an investigative exposé or a piece for your brand newsroom – it’s sometimes best to step away from the thesaurus. Our junior content producer, Scarlett Sherriff, argues that to create brand content that gets results, you should keep it simple and find the stories that show without needing to tell.
Back-to-school season is on the horizon – it’s time to dig out your exercise book and take note of an essential storytelling lesson.
You might recall sitting at your table in primary school and being passed a crib sheet of words to use instead of ‘said’. Your homework that weekend would have been to write a story and slot in ‘bellowed’, ‘cajoled’, ‘grumbled’, ‘yelled’ or ‘screeched’.
Such lessons are still lauded today. Look no further than the education-geared website BBC bitesize, which offers curriculum based lessons for school children, including an exercise focused on alternatives to ‘said’ to teach similes.
There’s an obvious value to covering this topic in class – a wide vocabulary and the ability to find the right word is an essential part of a writer’s toolkit. The problem is that giving marks for using words like ‘mumbled’ and ‘whispered’ does not teach how to identify when such words are surplus to requirements. For example, once ‘whispered’ has been used several times in a text, it no longer tells the reader much about how the phrase was delivered at all.
It’s about maintaining trust
The Guardian style guide – an authoritative manual for its journalists, used since 1928 – is pretty clear on this issue: “Said: normally preferrable to added, commented, declared, pointed out, ejaculated, etc.” Hemingway, who began his career a journalist, also knew the score: “If I started to write elaborately, I found that I could cut out the scrollwork or ornament and throw it away.”
Avoiding flowery attributions means that on the rare occasion where you do veer from the norm, it’s all the more powerful. Using ‘said’ throughout a feature will make that single instance of a word like ‘whispered’ particularly striking.
But it’s not just a stylistic issue. These synonyms can be disingenuous and even false if they spotlight a writer’s interpretation of a quote, rather than the content of the quote itself.
On the newsstands, this is crucial. If you falsify an attribution, you risk being charged with defamation. It’s not just about attributing a quote to the right person – you also need to avoid liberally interpreting the way something was delivered.
These newsroom rules apply to building trust for your brand – and maintaining good relationships with your audience and stakeholders.
Show don’t tell
So how can you pique your readers interest? The answer is having a text filled with compelling quotes – by choosing stories that stand out.
Part of our approach at Speak is asking the right questions in an interview, to allow us to share a meaningful story with a brand’s audience. You won’t need to use a verb like ‘exclaimed’ if you spotlight a quote that demonstrates a colleague’s passion or excitement.
The key to creating content that drives your brand forward is finding the best stories and sources – and shaping them so that they can speak for themselves.
Want to find out how to implement a best-in-class editorial strategy that connects your organisation to your always-on audience?
Contact Gabrielle Bridle from our client services team at gabriellebridle@speakmedia.co.uk or on LinkedIn.