Free-Write

What was this class about?

NMC 301 – Writing for the Media was a class that sought to teach us of the many ways that writers provide content for the media, with the main three examples being film reviews, news features, and screenplays. We went over the processes of how to write for the different mediums, as well as different ways to approach the structure of said content.

What are some of the skills you acquired?

My biggest takeaway was being exposed to different writing mediums that I am familiar with but not as familiar actually making myself – particularly the news feature and screenplay.

What was your process in doing the news feature?

The process for the news features went as follows: overall research, academic and peer-reviewed academic articles, reviewing possible sources for interviews, reaching out to those sources and interviewing them, then after everything was gathered up it was a matter of making a coherent and solid product that was the accumulation of all of those steps.

What was your process in doing the screenplay?

I thought of a premise based around a character and not as much the conflict, as a conflict with an interesting or likable character is what is going to make audiences want to be invested in that conflict. Dialogue was hard to make, as most dialogue I am used to is either novel-like or that of longer sentence structures or phrasing, so I tried to shape it as if it were a casual conversation.

Anything else that piqued your interest in “writing as a media professional?”

While the news feature was the biggest project of the term, and easily the most overwhelming, I can easily see how journalists can carry on to do those at such a rapid and consistent pace – as it is a process of steps that one has to follow to meet their end product. The more you get used to those steps and the more you execute them, the easier it will get to produce and the more accustomed one will be to approaching those steps in the future.