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Freelance Article Writing on the Net
This article may be freely distributed in your ezine, on your web site or in your e-book provided this resource box is kept intact complete with active links and author information.I would appreciate it if you let me know if you have used this...
Freelance Writing: A Career From Anywhere
An island in the Mediterranean. A beach in Africa. The east coast of New Zealand. What do all these locations have in common? A recent call for assistance from freelance writers elicited replies from every one of these locations. In each of...
Revealed: The $12,500 Copywriting Formula
Have you heard of Brian Keith Voiles? Probably not, but if you have eyes you've seen his ad campaigns and you probably even bought products that he created ad campaigns for. Would you like to have the formula he gets paid $12,500 to put into use...
The Unwritten World Of The "Reality" Of Letterwriting
The unwritten reality of letter writing
You may wonder why I have chosen this title of this post. Well from my experience is that it is really hard to put the feeling into words about what letter writing means to me. Letter writing is...
Using Emotional Triggers in Ad Writing
Writing ads for either you own products or affiliate products is a large part of a marketing plan. You need to find the emotional "triggers" that will excite your prospects and get them to buy. Take a good look at the product you are promoting....
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Improve Your Writing
None of us will be brilliant writers the moment we first pick up a pen or hit the keyboard. Its a fact. Were beginners and while some will be beginning with better skills and understandings than others, none of us will be the best writer we can be.
Improving your writing is one of the great parts of being a writer. Theres no greater feeling than picking up a story you wrote a year ago or even six months ago, picking up all the mistakes you made and realising you dont do it any more. I bet you can go up to any well known writer and ask them what they think of the first thing they published and the response will be something along the lines of: Im glad it was published because it got me started but quite frankly, I read it now and I shudder."
It can seem overwhelming, when you consider how good you want to be and how far you need to go to achieve it. A famous quote is that you need to write a million words before you can be a good writer. The follow ideas will help you make steady progress in your writing and achieve that aim of being the best you can be.
1). Practise, practise, practise. Yes, youve heard it all before. Write every day. Or at least regularly. And its true. Writing is a skill and like all skills, will only improve if you practise. If youre only going to write once a month or will write ferociously for several weeks and then not again for six months, you cant expect your writing muscles to develop. Even if its only one hundred words a day (and that will only take ten minutes or so), write as often and as regularly as you can.
2). Pick one weakness and work on it. Dont try to improve every aspect of your writing all at once. The first thing I decided to work on was Point Of View (POV). I got books, asked questions in online forums and wrote a lot, focussing my attention simply on POV. I not only got a handle on POV but found the style of POV that best suited my writing.
Once youre feeling confident about that area, pick another one and focus on it. Sometimes, you might only need a week or two to get a handle on an idea. Sometimes, it might take you months before you feel really comfortable with the way your writing looks
and sounds.
The great thing is, even though you are focussing on one subject, the amount of writing you do will see small improvements in other areas as well. So you almost kill two birds with one stone.
3). Experiment with your writing. Each month, set yourself a challenge to do something different. May its to write a story in first person when you normally use third. Maybe its to try writing your story as a transcription of a tape rather than as an observer of the story. Maybe its to try and write one hundred words as one sentence.
You will end up with interesting ideas, new areas that you need to look at and perhaps will discover a skill that you didnt know you possessed.
4). Write short shorts. Nothing will test your writing more than trying to tell an entire story, with good characterisation and plot, in five hundred words. You learn the value of words, the importance of right word at the right time. Even if you think you cant possibly do it, try it. It gets you thinking about your writing in a way that writing a novel doesnt, and you cant help but see what your strengths and weaknesses are.
5). Get involved in critiquing other peoples work and having your own critiqued. It is amazing how you can pick up errors in other peoples work that you cannot see in your own. Youll learn a great deal from the process. And for your own work, a good idea is to ask for questions about a particular thing. For example: Im not sure how clear the description is in this piece. Can you clearly see what is going on? Get your critiquers to focus on the skill you are focussing on and then you can receive their comments without being concerned that they are attacking you or your baby.
Take you time to improve your writing. Allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them. No ones going to come back at you in ten years and say How can she be on the New York Times Bestsellers List? Look at the crap she wrote in 2003. Except maybe you.
About the Author
Nicole R Murphy is a writer and copy editor. She can help you develop your writing skills by copyediting and critiquing your work. Try a free trial at www.yourbestwork.com
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