1. Spice Up Your Travel Writing
Intermediate Level
Travel Bloggers Unite – Umbria 2012
Abigail King

2. Who am I?
Journalist
Lonely Planet, CNN, Huffington Post, France
Today, National Geographic Traveler & more
Medical journals
@abigailking
www.abigailking.co.uk

3. Who am I?
Blogger
Inside the Travel Lab
www.insidethetravellab.com
@insidetravellab

4. Who am I?
Medical Doctor
Swapped a career as a hospital
doctor for a life with words and
pixels.

5. This Workshop
• After you’ve mastered the basics, how do you learn how to make your
writing stand out from the crowd? How can you make your reader really
understand what is in your head – and relate to what you meant to say?
• In this workshop, we’ll talk about how you can use themes and different
structures to get your point across – and also how to find that slushy-
sounding thing people call “voice.”
• Themes – bringing different layers to your writing
• Speech – introducing others to your story
• Editing - the writer’s “secret” tool
• Voice – where and how to find yours
• Bringing it all together and where to go next

6. The Power of Words

7. Getting Started
• Before you add spice, you must be clear
• Otherwise it’s just confusing
• First, a quick recap on clearing and cleaning up
your writing

8. You have a point, right?
Why are you writing this post?
• Information guide
• Provoke a discussion
• Entertain

9. Cleaning
• Clear unnecessary clutter
– Trim out adjectives
– Eliminate adverbs
– Banish the passive voice
– Avoid word repetition
– Be ruthless: remove at least 10%

10. Get Spicy
• Promise
• Repetition
• Facts
• Speech
• Rhythm & Blues
• Themes
• Voice

11. The Promise
• Begins with your headline
• Reinforced by your introduction
• Carried throughout the piece
• Delivered at the end

12. Headlines
• The day I held the Iron Curtain in my hand
• Two million page views later and why it
doesn’t matter
• Skydiving: my first 60 second freefall
• A waterproof, shockproof camera: the
Olympus TG-610 Review

13. Adding Spice
• Add the spice that fits your promise
• Add the spice that fits your point
• Let’s go!

14. Package Facts
• You are not Wikipedia
• But people like to learn something new
• Sweep away a long list of facts into a tidy fact
box
• Or at least a pair or brackets

15. The Fact Flourish
• They’ve got that perfect blend of comfort food without the weight of
stodge. Plus, they have the element of surprise as you never know which
one you’re going to get. And finally? They come have a wonderful range of
trivia.
Did you know, for example, that pierogi have their own saint? (St Hyacinth,
or Swiety Jacek, in case that piece of life knowledge passed you by. It’s
used in an expression to mean “good grief!”)
And how about this: the Proto-Slavic root “pir” means festivity in its
various Slavic cognates across Eurasia?
And this: the words in that last sentence actually mean something to some
people?!
Yes, a pieróg is no ordinary dumpling.

16. Finding Facts
• Wikipedia – references
• Broadsheet papers
• Interviews
• Books

17. Checking Facts
• Prices, phone numbers, websites
• Names - in person
• http://www.economist.com/styleguide/introd
uction
• Mainstream press websites

18. Rhythm & Blues
• Most people read aloud in their head
• There is a rhythm that pleases us
• Difficult to explain
• But it is there
• Rules of threes

19. Rhythm & Threes
• Education, education, education
• Yes we can
• Just do it
• You get me a coffee, you get me my briefcase
and you...get a haircut!

20. The Road to Sopron
Sometimes things go wrong in life. The printer at the car
hire company breaks, the sat nav doesn’t work, the journey
is longer than you’ve been told and you turn up very late.
Sometimes other things go wrong in life. You’re shot at by
soldiers while walking in a field, you’re banned from living
with your family and the very act of trying to cross the
border that contains you brands you a criminal in a regime
reliant on torture and execution.
And sometimes those two worlds collide.

21. Speech
• Energises text
• Provides local flavour
• If you do it right
• Don’t include everything someone told you
• Ask the right questions

22. The Iron Curtain
“I came here with my friend of Holland,” says
Wind. “Just to look and to make some pictures.”
He trembles.
“And the soldiers, they took their guns and they
shot.”

23. Interviews
• Avoid best of/favourite/top
questions
• Ask “open” questions
• Create colour and character
• Get the name of the dog

24. Play God
• Put someone in the scene
• Bring inanimate objects to life
• Mention all the senses
• Psst - Video can’t do this

25. Pierogi
PS – It’s also suspiciously similar to gyoza in Japan and
nothing like the ravioli in Italy, whatever the food critics
say.
If I were tracing the ancestry of food, I’d be placing
good money on discovering an illegitimate fling
between Japan and modern day Poland somewhere in
the 18th century. Like ravioli indeed...Pah!

26. Use Power Words
• Death, love, passion, money, power, mother,
baby, child, life, living, ghost, free, trust
• You

27. The Dummy
• Lull the reader into expecting one
thing
• And then surprise them with
another
• Badoom- bash!

28. Analysis
Sometimes things go wrong in life. The printer at the car hire
company breaks, the sat nav doesn’t work, the journey is longer
than you’ve been told and you turn up very late.
Sometimes other things go wrong in life. You’re shot at by soldiers
while walking in a field, you’re banned from living with your family
and the very act of trying to cross the border that contains you
brands you a criminal in a regime reliant on torture and execution.
And sometimes those two worlds collide.
The day I held the Iron Curtain in my hand

29. SEO & Drama
• Surviving the World’s Most Dangerous Road in Bolivia
To be fair, it’s technically not considered the “World’s Most
Dangerous Road” anymore. Due to the construction of a
new highway close by, which directs most traffic away from
its path, they’ve recently upgraded the trail’s nickname to a
much more simple, passive and inviting moniker… “The
Death Road.”
• Tourist2Townie.com

30. Analysis
• Surviving the World’s Most Dangerous Road in Bolivia
To be fair, it’s technically not considered the “World’s Most
Dangerous Road” anymore. Due to the construction of a new
highway close by, which directs most traffic away from its path,
they’ve recently upgraded the trail’s nickname to a much more
simple, passive and inviting moniker… “The Death Road.”
• Tourist2Townie.com

31. The Lure
• Chloride, Arizona, is a living ghost town.
It’s an odd village with crumbling buildings, a bizarre collection of yard art
and an impressive number of tractors. More than 72 mines used to
operate in Chloride, and remnants of many of them can still be seen today.
There are a few small corner shops where people sell gifts and cold sodas,
and occasionally a ghost is spotted wandering around, but other than that,
there’s not a whole lot going on in this high desert town.
Except one thing …
Kaleidoscopic Wandering

32. Analysis
• Chloride, Arizona, is a living ghost town
It’s an odd village with crumbling buildings, a bizarre collection of
yard art and an impressive number of tractors. More than 72 mines
used to operate in Chloride, and remnants of many of them can still
be seen today. There are a few small corner shops where people
sell gifts and cold sodas, and occasionally a ghost is spotted
wandering around, but other than that, there’s not a whole lot
going on in this high desert town.
Except one thing …Badoom-bash!

33. Voice
Unleash your inner rock star

34. Voice
• Unique
• You
• Stand out from the crowd
• Writing “rules” help unleash yours
• Writing badly hides it

35. Finding Your Voice
• Sing in the shower
• Write in as many different styles as you can manage
• Write as though no-one will ever read it
• Write without reading back
• Write without stopping
• Let loose – now you know you can return and bash it
into something presentable through editing

36. Don’t Hide Your Voice
• Search out the bland words and expressions that
we all share
• Lovely, awesome, gorgeous
• Beware your “crutch” words
• The best
• Don’t drown it out beneath the howls and
gnashing of teeth of poor spelling and grammar

37. Themes
• Shrek
• Children’s film that adults can enjoy
• Jokes and plot points that work on several levels
• A deeper theme: character is more important
than beauty
• (and our culture currently teaches the opposite)

38. The Godfather
• Gun fight gangster entertainment
• Crime doesn’t pay in the end
• The quest for absolute power leads to absolute
loneliness
• The quest for respect
• Universal themes: power, respect, inheritance,
loyalty, betrayal, family conflict
• Relates to us all

39. Too Heavy for A Blog Post?
• People respond to emotion more than reason
• People travel to feel something
• People read about travel to feel something (or
to learn something that will help them travel)

40. Dangerous Spice
• Very unique
• “Only in Italy...”
• The best
• Complaining too much
• National stereotypes
• Too much slang

41. Deliver Satisfaction
• Don’t just stop
• Deliver your reader safely back to the real
world
• Make them glad they bothered to read the
whole thing

42. The Finish
• Echo something from the start
• End with a teaser
• End with a quote
• End with a question

43. The Start
I’m running through Kraków’s bus station, spinning around to see coaches
lined up behind me and smaller trams rattling through the concrete space
below. My eyes jump around, searching for D8, for Oświȩcim.
A stocky man strides towards me.
“Proszę,” I say, please, before my supply of Polish dries up. I’m suddenly
embarrassed, flushed and ashamed to say to the face of a stranger one of
the most emotionally charged words in the world.
“Auschwitz.” He says it first.

44. The Finish
Ninety minutes later I’m back in Krakow, in the rush hour stream of
21st century life. Beyonce’s Beautiful Nightmare accompanies the
commuters and shoppers, while fluorescent lights shine over the
latest Zara collection and women sell salt-encrusted Obwarzanki from
kiosks sheltered from the wind.
I go to buy one and find two pieces of paper in my pocket. Jan’s card
and the square cut-out from the first bus driver. It lists the departure
times from Auschwitz back to the modern world.
It’s only small, but perhaps this was the sliver of beauty and hope
that I was searching for.

45. Call to Action
• Subscribe
• Read more
• Share
• Buy
• Join a tour

46. Where to go next...
• Matador or writers.com for online courses
• My online course on social media for writers:
http://www.writers.com/king.html

47. Going further
Books
Write to Sell – Andy Maslen
On Writing – Stephen King
Story - Robert McKee
Blogs
Copyblogger
http://www.economist.com/styleguide/introduction

48. Thank you
www.insidethetravellab.com
@abigailking
@insidetravellab