1.INTRO – ABOUT PICTURE THIS POST FOR WRITERS
Picture This Post Review Writers’ Guidelines
Our Words Draw Pictures; Our Pictures Pen Narratives
WHO – Audience:
Our reader is someone who is time-strapped but interested in cultural offerings. They are looking for tips on how to spend their valuable time (and often money, too).
The magazine caters to a wide audience: from the culturally astute to the novice, to the young and old and in-betweens, to the local and to the tourist.
Write more for the person who stumbled upon it — perhaps snagged in to read your words by a picture they saw on the magazine’s front page.
WHAT:
Vivid, highly descriptive story, typically 600 – 1000 words, that could always begin with the phrase “Picture this…”
You are a matchmaker. Although we summarize each review with a ranking, we start from the premise that every work has a best-match audience. Your most important opinion, and the one you are asked to cultivate, is —Who would love X and who should steer clear??
WHAT IT IS NOT:
It’s NOT about you.
Stories written in a traditional critic voice with a focus on the writer’s analysis or critique of a work are not accepted for publication.
You, the writer, are the equivalent of a photographer looking outward through their camera to capture the scene and its essence.**
Your words are the equivalent of your camera. Where you choose to point the camera, when you choose to shoot the camera, and how you compose the image is where and how you make your story imprimatur.
To expand upon the metaphor- you are not shooting a selfie.
WHEN:
Reviews of live performances with a finite run are usually written within 24 hours. Other stories are written more at your leisure and in the expected time frame that you have negotiated with your assigning editor.
HOW:
Every word paints a mental picture for the reader of what the performance or other work/event you are reviewing looks like and what they are getting into when they opt to go—without spoilers.
The review is honest. Perceived shortcomings are noted clearly, briefly, and gently, and always through a take-ownership-of-opinions lens that communicates you know you are not the keeper of the Truth.
Your story will be edited. Picture This Post is a heavily edited publication.
Why?
Write vividly with the aim of empowering the reader to determine if the work you are reviewing is their cup of tea.
Editor’s Note: In a conversation with a Saint usher early in our first year she asked the editor what publication she was with. When told PTP, the Saint exclaimed- “Picture this Post! You’re the one with all the great writers!”
Please live up to this reputation—please raise the bar higher.
**Thank you to PTP writer Chiara Berzieri for this insightful metaphor and update to our writers’ guidelines.