A Way with Words

Jennie Cooper and Martin Hesp have a lot in common. They both grew up surrounded by books and developed a passion for words at an early age. After training as journalists, they now make their living writing about food and drink (among other subjects) in the beautiful westcountry they love.

After plenty of work experience on local newspapers, Jennie took her postgraduate course in journalism, earning her coveted NCTJ qualification. She soon realised that magazines were more her bag, so she spent the next five years in London, initially starting as a feature writer for the B2B publication Metal Bulletin Monthly.

“Although I didn’t want to be in business journalism, I saw it as an opportunity. I travelled around Europe on my own, interviewing CEOs of companies, barely knowing what metal was. It was a steep learning curve in every way. I then found an opening at Country Living magazine through a friend. What sold me to the Editor was my detailed knowledge of aluminium foil,” Jennie giggles. “London was not for me, so I eventually managed to get on board with Devon Life, where I worked my way up from Editorial Assistant to Editor of Cornwall Life fairly quickly. I took a step down, briefly, in terms of professional career – but I was home!”

Jennie then joined her husband, Jeff, on the magazine they bought from a former colleague, Taste Buds, and their company, We Make Magazines*, was born.

For Martin, writing was in the genes. “My father was a journalist all his life, and when we could hear his typewriter going, we were not allowed to go into his study. But when he had finished a news story and we could hear whistling, then we could go in. The clatter of that typewriter was the audio soundtrack of my youth, and the smell I remember is the white spirit he used to clean the keys.”

“I got my first job as a journalist when I was 16 or 17 at the West Somerset Free Press. A lot of journalists would have started on weekly papers, then moved to a regional daily, and eventually flown up to a national level. I did it the other way around. I worked for The Guardian for five years and then came back to the westcountry to work on a regional daily, the Western Morning News.”

Martin worked for the WMN for 20 years, first as a senior feature writer, then as editor-at-large. After leaving the newspaper in 2019, he joined Devon-based RAW PR as editorial director. His appointment reflects the changing media landscape, he says. “Once upon a time, you would have everything from a parish magazine, weekly newspaper, a county paper, regional daily, and the nationals. Then local radio came along, then regional TV with a half-hour slot every evening – organisations awash with money and people. Today, the competing interests – from big companies to hyper-local organisations – mean there’s a lot of competition for stories and a multitude of narratives on various platforms,” he says. “It’s more important than ever for those interested in telling the world a story to be more integrated rather than less.”

One thing Jennie fervently believes is that her mixed experience of writing for a variety of publications has enabled her to write for different audiences. At Metal Bulletin, it was factual writing – succinct, concise, and authoritative. At Country Living, softer language was needed, as the magazine celebrates people and the countryside.

“Knowing your audience is key to starting any piece of writing – fiction, non-fiction, for newspapers, or even broadcasting,” Jennie says. “As Martin says, there are now multiple platforms to be heard on. People have less and less time at their disposal, and you need to keep their attention. Thankfully, there’s a new uptick in organisations using experienced writers for their press releases. A word of advice – don’t send in a piece in the hope that it will get looked at. Basics such as checking spelling and grammar and finding out the name of the Editor to address the copy to will certainly help, as will sending in copy with quality imagery. Don’t try to send me information about a product made in London when our magazine is based in Devon,” adds Jennie.

At RAW, Martin uses his journalistic skills in a new way, providing content for newspapers, magazines, and websites. “Lots of stories are out there; you just have to find one that needs to be told, and that, for me, is proper journalism. It’s about how you tell the story too. It’s no good just saying so-and-so makes lovely jam. You have to find the angle and write it in a way that’s readable. You have to find the thing that makes that jam different from the rest.”

For Jennie, it’s important that the basics are right, but, she says, people really need to up their game when it comes to creative writing. “It’s about standing out from the crowd and how you want to get your message across,” she says. “It’s finding a different way of writing a hackneyed sentence, making it clear and concise. In marketing and publishing, the message needs to be simple. You also want it to be interesting and tailored to your audience.”

“Start with the facts and order them by importance. Sometimes, you just need to begin writing, even if you don’t know how your story is going to start,” she says. “I think people often try to pad the work out with ‘fantastics’ and ‘beautifuls’ because they are not very confident about what they’re saying.”

There’s a lot to creative writing, and experience helps, but there are also some simple rules, says Jennie. “You need to think about what are the most important facts to get across. Don’t confuse the reader by cramming too many different ideas into a single paragraph. Think about the headline – write it in three to five words. Think about meaning and impact. Sometimes you can swap the order of the words or change the tense to really create that ‘wham.’

“Get something down and look at it again and again before sending it. Publications welcome contributions, and a good piece of writing will shine.”

*In 2022 We Make Magazines changed its name to We Make Media.