At the most elemental level, when you consider what art or story is, you’re thinking about the first moment of consciousness or awareness. At the beginning of civilization, humans made marks all over the wilderness to chart their movements. These were just arrows or instructions on how to find an animal or a plant food source. Later, we began to put marks on the trees or structural walls that symbolized internal meanings.

That’s the start of creating a story where you have not only the external information, the goal or destination, but also the internal emotion that came with it. That is the launch of communication media.

At its base configuration, you’ve got art or storytelling as the meeting of external and internal story elements. And there are few exceptions when you’re thinking about art or media forms, whether high art, low art, big-budget movies, experimental films, literary novels, or paperback novels. There’s always an external and internal story.

In high art, the internal story is more strongly emphasized. The more base and genre-linked the story, the more attraction it holds for the masses when an external story is emphasized. A high-action film is all the physical activities. But if you have an action hero with no internal story, audiences are just not interested, we can’t watch.

But you can think about the story in other ways as well. The E.M. Forester example, which is often cited by writing instructors and literary gurus, is the king died and then the queen died, right? That’s not a story yet. That’s just external fact. The king died – and the queen died of grief is a story because the plot provides an internal story as well.

In journalism, it’s the same. It’s very hard to just report media facts without bringing an internal story. People will ask, “Where’s the story?” It’s something that can be quite irritating if you’re a journalist trying to share helpful information with the public: “These are important facts; I want to get this information out there.” But your editor, a staunch member of the media industry, is saying that there’s no story because there is no internal content.

The public has a really, really hard time remembering or relating to any external facts in media writing without internal content or media education. But I don’t think that that’s really part of storytelling as much as it is part of us. That’s just the way we relate to information and how we structure our memories. It’s also how that we relate to each other. With the help of online media education, people can learn to appreciate the internal story in art and journalism while developing a deeper ability to understand human nature.

Good writing is made up of many elements. Writers must display natural curiosity, passion and a drive to undertake the hard work of writing. Writers must write a great deal, writing and revising, practicing consistently to hone their craft.

Learning to write is much like learning to play an instrument. Good writers put in the hours to improve their craft, yet there are those who do not truly understand the process of learning to be a good writer. If one chooses to undertake media writing, that person must put in the effort to learn exactly how that area is unique.

There are those budding writers who become confused about writing, and they might best benefit from media education. These individuals initially think to themselves, “I’m literate; I can read. Surely, I can put letters together, form words, and then make sentences that will form paragraphs.” While it is true that this is a form of writing, that does not necessarily make good writing.

Good writing is something that many in online media education are attempting to explain and teach. However, many teachers are still learning the craft themselves! They need a professor to challenge them in writing essays and other media.

I once had a professor that challenged my classmates and I to an essay contest. During my freshman year, the professor gave the assignment, and my first thought was, “I’m a smart kid; I know how to write an essay.”

However, when the professor returned our essays, he explained that most of the essays had earned “F’s” with a few earning a “D.” There were two essays that had been awarded a “C” – an average grade – and the professor explained that those two writers had “fought for” that grade.

Many years passed before I understood why he gave the class such an assignment. The essay was not about explaining what good writing is; he taught us that we needed to “show” rather than “tell” in our essays. The assignment was not truly to explain good writing, but to demonstrate to the professor good writing techniques in my own work.

What is good writing? Good writing exhibits concrete details that paint a picture for the writer’s audience. Good writing expresses points of view, and it utilizes words in specific ways. Good writing should be structured to a point so that readers can follow the passage. It is not vague. Readers should be able to not only access what the writer is trying to say, but to understand the details and supports for a specific point of view.

Good writers are able to express themselves in a meaningful way throughout the media industry. People must be able to grasp what writers are intending to express. It should be accessible, using vocabulary that is appropriate but not so challenging to readers that they can’t understand the concepts behind the essay. Writers should work to lessen any “speed bumps” for readers – wordiness, unfamiliar words, lack of context clues or jargon in one’s writing. Good writing grabs the reader’s attention and holds it for the duration. It stimulates the mind and leaves the reader understanding the writer’s point of view and perhaps inquisitive to learn more.

This module is really an overview of media writing. It will help you understand the professional landscape of becoming a writer in today’s media industry, which is always in flux. Be prepared to change, and be prepared to pivot. The following information will help you understand how to become a media writer in the Digital Era and beyond. In this first module, you’ll understand what it takes to become a professional writer in today’s digital, print, and broadcast industries. Journalism has history, and this module will introduce you to that history. You’ll learn about the landscape of media education and all the skills that it takes to become successful, especially in this Digital Era where everything is in flux as it has changed so much over time. Online media education offers you the ability to navigate this exciting and complex landscape as a dynamic career opportunity.