Scampston Conservatory Preservation Company Ltd: March 2014

Writing Skills with Kate Measures - Scampston Hall 27th Feb

Write nothing your reader won’t read

I’m on a hiding to nothing.

Volunteered to write the blogspot on Kate Measure’s workshop for budding exhibition panel writers at Scampston Hall on 27 February 2014.

Here’s just some of what we covered:

Text with attitude

Get the plan right first

Layer your information

Keep it brief

Grab their attention

It is not easy to read a very long line of text that goes all across the page like this

CAPITALS MAKE FOR UNFRIENDLY READING

Highlight key words

Be playful

Verbs are active - better than adverbs

Use ragged not justified text

Focus on 1 big idea or theme

Pose o p e n questions

Move the reader along >>>

Use simple short words and sentences

(eschew the promulgation of esoteric cogitations )

Tell stories, not facts

A fight breaks out!

We considered the issue of whether to clarify or correct dialect in oral histories.

After heated debate we concluded that amendments should be avoided if the meaning is clear.

Finding a voice for Scampston...

Ideas were suggested for exhibition themes:

ü Gardening old, gardening new:
Capability Brown v Piet Oudolf

            Medieval Garden Mounts v Scampston’s modern mound
            All-season Roman cucumbers v year-long glasshouse strawberries
            Bustards at Scampston v Hampshire’s Bustard re-introduction project
            Pineapples in history and today.

ü The story of Scampston and how the estate functions as an entity.

We also brainstormed alternative wording for Scampston’s roadside hoarding,

e.g. ‘Look behind the garden wall...’?