Saturday, November 5, 2011

Headlines are music to my ears

I loved this headline assignment for editing.
I wish I had more time to pour over the headlines and catch every little nuance and rhythm.
For me, writing headlines is a combination of writing poetry and solving a puzzle and writing a piece of music.
Like poetry, you need to catch the essence of the story in as few words as possible without losing the essence of the tale.
Like solving a puzzle, you need to amass possibly disparate elements into one cohesive and comprehensible whole.
Like writing music, you need to latch onto a catchy riff. Find a rhythm that the listener/reader finds irresistible so that they will be compelled to continue onto the story to hear/see the rhythm develop itself completely.
Headline writing is an art form, and I think that I'm in love.

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