Charlotte Church in the Guardian

[JessieMcJessie]

Here

This is on the site today and she had another piece in a few weeks ago. The writing style is really good- do you think she’s writing this stuff herself or it’s ghosted? It just seems so at odds with how I’ve seen her speak on TV- I mean she comes across as perfectly pleasant and bright (and spoke well at the Leveson enquiry) but this is another level.

I write differently to how I often speak so ime it can happen.

I was a big reader in a family of non readers and so my spoken language and written language have always been divergent!

I'm the same - working class background, I've got a broad vocabulary but am sweary, shouty and strongly accented. I also have a PhD and regularly attend conferences to present my written work. I think if you have a chance to sit down and think about things as you would when writing, you can be far more articulate than if you're speaking and thinking on the hop, as it were.

I agree with all that (and would not expect a writer to speak how they write) but I don’t think I have ever seen any writing of hers published before, has anyone else? Did she write her own autobiographies?

I think she's writing that herself - it sounds like her. Her autobiographies would almost certainly have been ghosted, though.

Yes, confirmation www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2008/nov/22/ghostwriters-celebrity-jordan here]] -bout at least one book. That’s fair enough, who has time to write a book when they have a singing career?
Re the article, a good ghost writer would of course be adept at creating the subject’s “own voice” though?

I don't know but I remember when her GCSE's were reported she had all A*'s and A Grades and she talked of going back tyo education to do A levels that she didn't do becasue of her performing career so she is obviously bright.

Some most sports celeb columns are ghosted, but I wouldn't have thought the Guardian would commission an opinion piece from someone like CC, who's been quite vocal about press standards, and then have someone write it for her. It's probably been edited a bit, as columns are, but she's a bright and articulate woman.

She may well be writing the content but the amount they edit varies. I had a friend (not a journalist) who wrote bits for the Guardian which were definitely edited because I saw the drafts and knew her writing style (dreadful, by her own admission, despite her level of education - writing just didn’t seem to be her thing - she actually said herself what a difference the editor had made). I’ve since seen things she’s written for another publication (industry specific) which clearly haven’t been edited and the difference is really obvious - think awkward sentence structure, clunky mixed metaphors etc. A good editor will smooth out the writing without losing the tone of voice.

No idea about CC though, she may genuinely be a good writer, as others have said many of us don’t write how we speak.

It just seems so at odds with how I’ve seen her speak on TV

Really?

I read it in a welsh accent so can't find anything amiss 🤷🏻‍♀️ it was well written but then I write well myself but swear like a navy and do not sound posh by any stretch

She's pretty articulate here: . I think it is worth remembering that she was very, very young when she entered the public eye. She is still only 33.

The piece will have been sub-edited, of course, like all the rest of the copy here.

Name changed for this. I highly doubt she'll have written it by herself. Don't want to say how I know this, but she's rather good at using other people's ideas and words. Up close she's the definition of a dilettante.

Perhaps where I am coming from is that I work with a lot of highly-educated professionals who write well for their field but really struggle to write well-structured and readable copy for opinion pieces or anything that requires a more journalistic approach. I include myself among them. We have benefitted hugely from having an ex-journalist join our company to knock our work into shape, hopefully he’s teaching us some tricks but it’s a long process and I know that writing in what seems at first blush to be a chatty conversational style is a real skill. But then I suppose that is the job of a sub-editor and, as others have said, and the Guardian have probably subbed this quite heavily.

My writing style, in letters, essays etc is poles apart from how I speak. Mainly because I did a degree in English literature and I am a voracious reader, but many of the words would be a bit pompous used in every day speech. So yes, i think it is her, she must have a knack for writing, and it would obviously have been edited well too.

I heard Charlotte Church on Radio 4 recently and was blown away - she was extremely articulate and intelligent.

miaow betteroblivian

CC went to a very expensive and highly academic private school in Cardiff - no way is she working class. She achieved very strong results despite travelling/performing from a relatively young age

She always seems very intelligent and clued up to me. Would you suspect an attractive and bright male celeb of being ghostwritten?

Charlotte Church is very smart, all A’s & A* in school .

Yes what @RuffleCrow said.

ive always thought she was smart- i changed my mind slightly when she got with that fella with the - no offence- kind of simple face?...
but she left him, didnt she?

go charlotte! fantastic stuff...

CC went to a very expensive and highly academic private school in Cardiff - no way is she working class.

Didn't she only go there after her rise to fame on a vocal/music scholarship? Before that I think she was a chorister at a cathedral school. I'm not sure about the finding system in Wales but in England those schools are usually highly subsidised.

The Fellow With The Simple Face.

She always seems very intelligent and clued up to me. Would you suspect an attractive and bright male celeb of being ghostwritten?

Yes. See my point above about how the very bright men and women I work with would struggle to write like this. My point is that it looks like professional journalism, which is about experience and training, not just general education/intelligence/articulacy.

TFWTSF