Gregory Gottfried – Three Useful Skills Customer Service Teaches

Gregory Gottfried has enjoyed his career in customer service but hopes to move beyond the entry-level and further up into a company to help it grow. Since 2010, Gottfried has worked a series of customer service positions for various companies in several different towns in upstate New York. Gottfried has picked up many useful skills he can put to work in different jobs as his career expands. Here are three useful skills Gottfried’s career working with the public has given him:

• Spoken communication skills. Speaking clearly and explaining what you mean in exactly the right tone at exactly the right time is not easy. Gregory Gottfried has had to work with many different customers in all kinds of settings to understand what they need and to help them get it. He has worked hard to convey information clearly and simply to all customers to avoid miscommunications and frustration, which can lead to negative customer interactions.
• When to bend the rules. Company bosses won’t tell you this, but customer service representatives will sometimes bend the rules for customers in some situations. This is not a strictly sanctioned move, but as Gregory Gottfried knows, sometimes the situation calls for it. Learning when to help customers out of a jam comes from experience and a strong relationship with his or her superiors, and knowing when to stand firm and when to bend the rules slightly is a practiced skill.
• When to disengage. Sometimes the best move in customer service is walking away. It can be tough to tell customers what they don’t want to hear, but you have to make the call on your own and deal with the fallout like a professional.

Gregory Gottfried makes his home in New City, New York.

 

Gregory Gottfried – How to Craft a Thriller

Gregory Gottfried found while writing what he hopes will be his debut novel—the first in a long career—that crafting a story takes more than simply sitting down to write it. That’s a huge first step, of course, no novels aren’t written without the author bearing down and his or her desk to write, one way or another. But, to get the effect that Gottfried desires, he has found that he has to craft his story in a certain way and perform some of the same tricks and moves that writers have been doing since writing was invented.

Gregory Gottfried works in customer service at a hotel in Tarrytown, New York. His work there is the inspiration for many stories and indeed a large part of the novel he’s writing. However, in order to make his story compelling and to keep his future readers turning pages, he has had to withhold information, plot the surprises and twists of his plot ahead of time, and, most importantly, know his characters intimately. Gregory Gottfried has worked hard to make his characters three-dimensional and an accurate representation of how a real person will behave in the circumstances he puts his characters in. by knowing his characters and their motivations, he can withhold certain details that come to be large plot points and surprises later. An effective twist or surprise is only effective when it comes from the characters themselves, not the author pulling strings from high above.

Gregory Gottfried lives in New City, New York.

Gregory Gottfried – Working for Publication

Gregory Gottfried is an aspiring writer with his debut novel already in the works. Gottfried has been working on his first novel for several months and is nearing completion. He feels that he can start the publishing process soon after he completes his novel because of his knowledge of the publishing system and his belief that his work will be attractive to publishers and agents. Gottfried wants to keep the novel mostly under wraps until it’s finished and ready for publication, but he claims that it will be a thriller of some kind, with suspenseful moments and compelling characters that he hopes will keep his future readers enthralled and in the grips of the story from beginning to end.

Gregory Gottfried caught the writing bug early in his life, as many writers do. In high school, he was mostly infatuated with movie and television scripts for how they brought the actors, scenes, and storylines to life on the screen. He wrote many scripts of his own in his formative years, eventually graduating from high school and studying film and screenwriting at the Tompkins Cortland Community College in Dryden, New York. Gottfried loved to rewrite his favorite episodes of some of his favorite television shows, mostly suspenseful shows like 24. He practiced and honed his art over years of study and careful planning.

Then one day Gregory Gottfried picked up a paperback and couldn’t put it down. He has since read dozens more, by Lee Child, Vince Flynn, and other popular suspenseful writers. They inspired him to shift his writing ambitions slightly. He started working on his own thriller in the vein of some of his favorite authors and worked hard to make it as compelling and surprising as possible. Gottfried has read many kinds of books, but the ones that held his attention and made him want to turn the page are those that threw him into the world of its characters headlong and didn’t ease up on the pressure and suspense until he finished it. He wants to craft his stories in the same way.

Gregory Gottfried believes that the best stories are those that surprise the audience. Stories of any length that seem to plod along the same tired and retread plotlines are boring to him. He wants to draw the reader in from the first page and pull them through to the end. For Gottfried, reading is a very visceral and physical experience. His favorite thrillers make him feel the nervousness of the characters in his gut and seize him in a very real and irrefutable way from beginning to end. Throughout his young writing career, whether it’s in the form of a novel or a screenplay, Gottfried has always tried to give his readers the same physical experience he has when he reads his favorite thrillers.

 

Gregory Gottfried – Aspiring Writer with the Skills to go Far

Gregory Gottfried has several jobs at the same time. By day, Gottfried pays his bills by working as a front desk agent for the Sheraton Tarrytown Hotel in Tarrytown, New York. His job involves greeting and welcoming guests, mostly travelers in town for a limited stay at the Sheraton Tarrytown, checking them in and out, answering phone calls and making calls to satisfy the operational needs of the hotel and on behalf of customers. He works with tourists often to help them make their stay in Tarrytown the best and most convenient that he can. In the process, he listens to their stories, the small glimpses into their lives—and it all goes to his writing.

Gregory Gottfried

Gregory Gottfried became interested in writing screenplays and stories in high school. He had always been enraptured by movies and novels, and from an early age he thought about the writing that goes into making his favorite movies come alive on the screen. He followed that passion throughout his life, re-writing famous movie scripts while he studied film and screenwriting at Tompkins Cortland Community College in Dryden, New York before transferring from Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, New York. He considers his work in the hotel a part of his normal day job, along with improving his writing constantly by working on his craft and reading voraciously.

Gregory Gottfried learned how to create and edit videos as well with his post-high school education. He helps friends who have bands and the desire to make videos for their music create better products that they can share and improve their image with. Gottfried also sharpens his storytelling skills by helping others strengthen their own stories and writing. His friends know that if they need any kind of their writing edited for content or technical clarity (punctuation, grammar, spelling, etc.) they can come to him. Gottfried is extremely busy holding down his many jobs and responsibilities for himself and his friends, but he loves the rush of creating a new story from an idea or an observation, or just a wandering thought.

Gregory Gottfried has plenty of professional experience in addition to writing talent and skill. He has worked in many retail stores in his young career, including the GAP and Aeropostale, and has plenty of customer service experience supporting his current position at the Sheraton Tarrytown, including stints at Olive Garden and Applebee’s. Gottfried uses his unique experiences in customer service to create his stories and weave in elements of his life and observations. He is on his way to creating his own books and stories for others to read and enjoy. Hopefully they will be inspired by Gottfried’s perspective on the life and world around him.

Gregory Gottfried – Tips For Writing A Good Cliffhanger

Gregory Gottfried has always had a passion for the thriller genre, which is why he chose that route when writing his first novel. Of course, one of the keys to creating a great thriller novel is to make good use of cliffhangers in order to encourage people to keep reading, so he has developed the following tips for fellow aspiring authors.

Placement Is Everything

A cliffhanger that is dumped into the middle of a chapter is rarely going to work unless the story has a dual focus and the chapter moves on to a separate protagonist. Ideally you want to place your cliffhanger at the end of the chapter to encourage the reader to keep turning the page, but wherever you put it, you should never aim to resolve it in the same chapter.

Make It Believable

One of the biggest problems that people face when creating cliffhangers is writing something that comes across as a cheap trick that is only there to keep people reading. Your cliffhanger needs to make sense in the context of both the story and your character’s motivations, so be very careful about how you use them.

Don’t Forget About It

Gregory Gottfried has found that one of the biggest mistakes an aspiring writer can make is to create cliffhangers that never get resolved during the course of the story. You should aim to tie up every loose end that you create, so when you create a cliffhanger you need to be make sure it is resolved at a point in the story where it is still fresh in the mind of the reader.

Gregory Gottfried – Tips For Handling Literary Rejection

One of the most difficult aspects of being a writer is that your creative endeavors are never going to be appreciated by everybody. You may write what you believe is an amazing piece of work, only to find that potential publishers reject it and leave you feeling like you’re back where you started. Gregory Gottfried recognizes that this is all a part of the writing process and has developed the following tips for people who are dealing with literary rejection.

Don’t Take it Personally

It can be all too easy to get angry at the publisher who chose not to publish your manuscript, but you need to remember that they have a business to run and are going to make their decisions based around that and nothing else. There are many reasons why your work might be rejected that don’t have a thing to do with its actual quality, so keep that in mind if you didn’t get the outcome you wanted.

Use Criticism

If you receive criticism from a potential publisher you need to consider it carefully and figure out ways that you can improve your work based on the feedback. Remember that these companies want to find work that they can publish, else they will go out of business. If you have received any form of feedback, you should use it in a positive manner in the hopes of providing them with what they are looking for.

Keep Plugging Away

Don’t simply assume your work is a failure just because one publisher said “no.” Gregory Gottfried notes that many of the best authors in the world were rejected multiple times before they got their break, so it is important to keep plugging away and sending your manuscript to as many people as you can, as the reception it gets will be different from one publisher to the next.

Gregory Gottfried – Things You Need Before Writing A Book

So you have decided to write a book and think you are equipped with all of the tools that you need to make it a good one. Gregory Gottfried was in that exact position before he started writing his own novel and he has come up with a few of the things you need to have ready before you start writing.

A Plan

You may have the seed of a basic plot in your head, but it really helps to create a short plan that includes a beginning, middle and end. The detail will come much later and you will probably find this plan changes multiple times once you start writing, but you should at least have an idea of what you want to do with your story before you start writing it.

A Comfortable Workspace

A lot of people underestimate the positive effects of a comfortable workspace on the new writer. Remember that writing a book is much like work in many respects and it is going to be a real slog at times. Make sure that your workspace isn’t cramped and contains plenty of plant life to help it stay fresh. You should also aim to be away from any distractions if at all possible.

A Thick Skin

The need for a thick skin and a humble attitude will come much later, but Gregory Gottfried points out that you are going to struggle as a writer if you are unable to accept criticism and rejection. Practically every author has been told “no” by many different publishers, so you need to be in the right mindset to accept that what you produce may not be to everybody’s tastes.

Gregory Gottfried – Tips For Redrafting

When writing a screenplay or novel, one of the most important stages actually comes after you have written what you wanted to down on paper. Gregory Gottfried points out that the redrafting stages is vital if you want to make sure your writing is of a high quality and has offered the following tips for people who are struggling.

Gregory Gottfried

Wait Until You Finish

One of the biggest mistakes that new authors make is to start redrafting while they are still writing their piece. This can lead to you getting bogged down, breaking the flow of your writing and preventing you from finishing the story that you started. Instead, you should get your story finished before you start redrafting, allowing you to dedicate time to the process instead of flitting back and forth between redrafting and writing.

Making Corrections

All writers make mistakes. If they didn’t, there would be no need for proofreaders and editors in the world. Still, your redrafting period should allow you to catch as many of your mistakes as you possibly can, which ensures that your work looks much more professional when you eventually present it to a publisher.

Catching Broken Narrative Threads

Gregory Gottfried has found that it is all too easy to create small narrative threads that are intended to be a part of your larger story but get lost in the shuffle when you are focused on writing. A god redraft will allow you to identify plot elements that you may not have wrapped up in the manner that you wanted, making your story tighter and more cohesive in the process.

Gregory Gottfried on Re-Writing

Gregory Gottfried is a writer living and working in upstate New York. By day, he works at the Sheraton Tarrytown Hotel. By night, he works on his debut novel, which he hopes to release by 2017, either through a traditional publisher or by self-publishing the story. Gottfried hones his craft and keeps his stories tight and fast-paced by re-writing screenplays of some of his favorite movies, something he has done since high school. Gottfried believes in the freedom and the necessity of re-writing, editing, and revising in his own work and that of others. He knows that if he can re-work the stories of others, he can craft his own story.

Gregory Gottfried writes and re-writes his novel every day. The simple knowledge that he can go back and change anything in a particular draft gives him the freedom to try new things in his writing. He can write first drafts of scenes that don’t go anywhere and make mistakes that he would otherwise be too afraid to make without re-working and re-writing his prose time and time again. Gregory Gottfried has re-worked many characters and places in his novel until they are perfect, just the way he wants them.

Gregory Gottfried wants his novel to be an exciting ride through extreme situations made more fun and fast-paced by carefully crafting the characters and their actions which drive the plot. Gottfried has struggled for many months to get the plot and the characters just right as he works toward finishing his manuscript and finding a way to get it in people’s hands.

Gregory Gottfried – On Pacing in a Story

Gregory Gottfried is an aspiring novelist who is a huge fan of thrillers and the work of Lee Child, among others. Gottfried came to novel-writing after working on screenplays since high school. He wanted to write his own story that would excite readers the way that moviegoers like himself get excited to fast-paced, action and suspense films. Gottfried has learned much from studying and re-writing the screenplays of some of his favorite TV shows and movies over the years and he wants to use those lessons in the way he builds his first novel.

Gregory Gottfried has been working on his novel for many months and plans on releasing it in 2017. He hopes that the novel can achieve commercial success, which for a debut novelist, can be very difficult. Gottfried paces his novel so that every scene pushes the plot forward toward its dramatic conclusion. Gottfried mapped the story out and built a story structure so that he could place the details and the actions of the characters on the plot and build an ever-deepening, evermore suspenseful ride for his readers. Gregory Gottfried wants his novels compared to the work of some of his favorite writers and some of his favorite movies one day when he publishes it.

Gregory Gottfried is constantly reading and re-writing, looking for more inspiration to serve as his first novel’s engine so he can create compelling characters and find ways for them interact and create a compelling storyline for a wide range of readers.