Articles written by Guest Poster

by Anna Miller

It’s a job that everyone wants to do, because they think it’s easy as pie and the perks are great – you can work from the comfort of your home, at schedules that suit your convenience, and all you need as investment are a computer, word processing software, a good Internet connection, and some creativity with words. But being a freelance writer, especially one who is successful, is not exactly a bed of roses. Yes, the job is great if you want to choose writing as a profession, but before you take to freelancing, here are a few things you must know:

1. Procrastination never pays

When you’re a freelancer and able to set your own schedules and work at your own pace, you tend to put work off when you’re caught up in other activities. You convince yourself that you have all the time in the world, and then when your deadline looms closer, you find yourself rushing to complete the work in the little time that you have. When you do this once too often, you could end up compromising the quality of your work and losing valuable clients in the bargain. So avoid procrastination, and if you feel yourself delaying work for some reason or the other, nip the habit in the bud.

2. You must avoid distractions

When you work from home, there are numerous distractions to contend with – the television, your chores at home, children, visitors and family members taking up your time, and other diversions tend to take up your time if you’re not dedicated to work. And worst of all, the Internet is a very tempting and hard-to-avoid distraction if you work in an unsupervised environment and keep your own hours. Unless you make a concentrated effort to avoid distractions, you’re going to waste away the better part of the day.

3. Keeping commitments is important

A freelancer’s success is based on their regular clients perceive them – if they come across as writers who are always on schedule and continue to produce quality work time and again, it’s not going to be hard to find regular work. Unlike a regular job, a freelancer must work at getting each assignment, and the best way to establish themselves in the industry and gain regular gigs is to earn credibility as a responsible and skilled worker who honours commitments and also writes well.

4. Schedules help

Although you have the freedom to choose and set your own schedules when you work from home, it’s best to establish a regular schedule for work, just like those that are enforced in offices. This not only helps you avoid distractions but also reinforces to other people the fact that you’re working and should not be disturbed.

5. Maintaining connections is necessary

And finally, it’s important to stay connected to other people in the business and your clients so that you continue to get assignments on a regular basis. The best way to do this is to join forums for freelancers and also set up profiles on social networks through which you can connect to fellow professionals and potential clients. When you prove that you’re committed to your work, it’s easy to establish yourself as a successful freelance writer.

This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degrees . She welcomes your comments at her email id: anna.miller009@gmail.com.

What are the most important things you think aspiring freelance writers should know?

This post is part of the Guest Post Giveaway at the blog Unready and Willing. If you think articles about writing or personal development (or personal development for writers) sounds like a good fit for your blog, please take a look at the Guest Post Giveaway page and see if any of the articles spark your interest.

You may be familiar with the phrase “Murder your Darlings.” This is the mantra repeated over and over again by teachers of the revision process. For many writers this is a painful ordeal that seems to take the life from a piece. Painful as it is, cutting out the parts that seem most precious to you is essential in polishing your work. Oftentimes when an editor will suggest that you cut a passage out of your story or novel, it’ll be one of your favorite sections–this is probably because you felt very good writing it. You were in the flow, and everything that fell onto the page just “felt right” to you. And now this editor wants you to cut it? To trash it as though it never existed? How could they be so cruel?

Is this the part of the writing process that you hate the most? Do hate the feeling that the passages that you had had so much pleasure writing will not see the light of day? I certainly did when I started out writing, but there are good reasons for cutting the fat. Although certain passages are beautifully written, they may do nothing to contribute to a story’s plot or give any insight to the characters. Exchanges of dialogue, though clever, may not really be important at all. The character that you snuck into chapter three was forced into the story just because you thought he or she was interesting. Lost in the flow of your writing, you might have spent two paragraphs describing a horse-carriage and not even know it. These passages simply don’t belong.

Instead of getting out your ax and murdering your darlings right then and there, however, why not consider dropping them off at the orphanage so that another story might be able to pick them up? Essentially you can create a database of written material that just didn’t make the cut for your other stories. Not only does this take some of the pain out of revision, but it also can give you a place to access characters, descriptions, and clever turns of phrases that simply didn’t fit in your other work. Whenever you feel writer’s block coming on, you can infuse some of the good stuff you didn’t use from your previous work into your new one.

To establish this orphanage, create a folder on your computer for your rescued darlings and then make sub-folders with names like “characters,” “descriptions,” “dialogues,” “settings,” and so on. Every time you cut a substantial part from your story, copy it and paste into a new document. Title the document in a way that you’ll be able to recognize it easily when you come back to it. Your “settings” folder would have documents titled “Roadside Cafe,” “African Village” and so on. The “Characters” folder could have documents with the character names, or just a short description like: “Nerdy Mobster” or, “Obsessive-Compulsive Stockbroker.”

Personally I find that I tend not to use too many of my rescued darlings in my new work. It’s comforting, however, to know that they’ll always be there waiting should you ever need them.

Kenji Crosland is a creative writing major who, scared of becoming a starving artist, became a corporate headhunter in Tokyo. Since then he’s regained his sanity, quit his job, and now blogs about creating an ideal career at unreadyandwilling.com. He is also developing a web application that just might change the internet. Follow him on Twitter: @KenjiCrosland.

Have you ever cut a part of your story that you really wished you’d kept? What do you do with the darlings you cut? Have you used a character or scene that didn’t make the cut in one story for another? What kinds of safety nets do you use when editing and revising your work?

by Laura Cross

Book industry insiders estimate that ghostwriters author 60% to 80% of books published each year. And with book ghostwriting fees range from $10,000 to $100,000 per project — $10,000 being the very low end and $100,000 usually paid to more established writers (“celebrity” ghostwriters earn $250,000+ per book) – more and more freelance writers are discovering that authoring books as a “hidden writer” or collaborator can be a viable and lucrative career.

Here are three secrets to help you create a successful career as a book ghostwriter:

1. Learn How To Capture The Client’s Voice

The ability to capture and convey the client’s voice is an essential component for a successful career as a ghostwriter. Being able to effectively structure content and manage a project are also necessary skills for ghosting, but the ability to mimic the client’s speaking style and make it come alive on paper is the skill that will land you recurring, high-paying projects. Carefully listen to the client during your interviews and conversations (and review any available audio – videos, podcasts, etc. – as well previously published material written by the client) to learn how he or she structures sentences. Listen for specific phrases, word patterns, vocabulary choices, and tone, texture, and energy – and then practice recreating it until your words and the client’s words blend seamlessly.

2. Position Yourself As One Of The Experts In Your Niche

Are you the go-to writer for women’s fitness and health? Do you mostly write narrative essays or opinion pieces? Are you the how-to article guy or the relationship advice guru? Are you a freelance writer with a background in accounting or experience in social media? Ghostwriters who specialize in specific genres (such as memoir, finance and investing, or women’s issues) tend to be more successful than those who generalize. Capitalize on your experience and expertise by focusing your ghostwriting in one to three areas of specialization. Use your portfolio and online presence (website, blog, social media profiles and interactions) to establish and build your platform. Consistently deliver quality content and exceptional customer service to solidify and maintain your status.

3. Connect With Literary Agents

Literary agents are one of the best referral sources for quality ghostwriting projects. Many experts, business leaders, entrepreneurs, politicians, actors, television celebrities, sports figures, chefs, doctors, professors, gurus, and media-darlings-of-the-moment, lack the necessary skills to write a compelling book. Literary agents need to match their clients with professional ghostwriters or collaborators. Connecting with literary agents, and growing and nurturing those relationships over time, is an invaluable element to a successful ghostwriting career. (You can download a free chapter on “Finding and Selecting an Agent” from my book The Complete Guide To Hiring A Literary Agent at GetALiteraryAgent.com)

Laura Cross is an author, screenwriter, ghostwriter, freelance book editor, and writing coach specializing in nonfiction books and script adaptation (book-to-film projects). She writes two popular blogs, NonfictionInk.com and AboutAScreenplay.com, and teaches online writing workshops.

Laura’s latest book is The Complete Guide To Hiring A Literary Agent: Everything You Need To Know To Become Successfully Published. You can download a free chapter, view the book trailer, read the full table of contents, and purchase the Book in electronic format at GetALiteraryAgent.com.

Have you every considered ghost writing? Are you in the process of finding a literary agent? Laura joins us today on her blog tour. You’re invited to ask questions in the comments. What would you like to know?

by Melissa Hart

Ten years ago, when I began writing short humorous essays in earnest, I received a phone call from an editor at Woman’s Day. I’d sent her an 800-word piece about how my great-aunts purchased the front of a crazy-quilt at a thrift store, sewed a velvet backing on it and proceeded to exhibit it at county fairs, winning blue ribbons and cash prizes for a handicraft they’d contributed to only marginally. The New York editor struck me as elegantly brusque. “We’d like to publish your essay,” she said. “Will two thousand be acceptable?”

“Words?” I asked, already considering how to lengthen the piece.

She sighed with the world-weary patience of Manhattan confronting a country-mouse. “Dollars,” she said.

Thus I realized that an essay–penned in an hour over a mocha at my favorite coffeehouse and then revised in another hour a week later–could earn me a month’s income. Since then, I’ve sold short humorous essays to The Washington Post, The Advocate, The Chronicle of Higher Education, High Country News, and numerous other publications in a process that requires a quick burst of focused energy, a dedication to equally swift and relentless revision, and an understanding of the numerous magazines and newspapers that publish this genre.

But a few years ago, when my husband and I decided to adopt a toddler, I believed my writing career was over. I didn’t know how I could possibly concentrate while learning to care for a child. Finances mandated my continued work as a journalism teacher at the University of Oregon and a memoir teacher for U.C. Berkeley’s online extension program. Deeply in love with my husband, I wanted to remain devoted to hiking and traveling with him and our new daughter.

“There’s just no time to write!”

I wailed this to our long-suffering counselor at Eugene’s Artists’ Counseling Service. Peggy merely laughed and took out her giant pad of paper and a purple pen. “We’re going to break down each day into chunks,” she told my husband and me, pre-adoption. “You’ll see that Melissa gets several blocks of time each week to write, and Jonathan gets the same amount to devote to his photography.”

In theory, she was right. We looked at her seven-column grid and saw how we might structure each day so that we could spend time with our daughter, time with each other, write and/or photograph for a reasonable number of hours, and retain our day jobs. In actuality, once our daughter came home, I cringed at the thought of leaving her, even for two hours, to engage in something as indulgent as writing essays.

“Love, it’s your work.” My husband handed me my notebook. “Go get a mocha. All you have to do is produce a rough draft.”

I knew he was right. Reluctantly, I walked down to my favorite coffeehouse and sat there for an hour, staring dismally at the blank pages. I returned home an hour early. “Performance anxiety,” I explained.

After several false starts, I did begin to find my rhythm as a writer and mother, thanks to my practice in writing short essays. Now, I can whip out a rough draft between university classes. If I wake early, I sit up in bed and reach for my notebook and pen. If my daughter’s at preschool and I find myself inspired by a current event or trend or family memory, I sit down at the computer even if I have a stack of papers to grade, bills to pay, and the kitchen floor to mop.

I’m learning to view the chapters of my memoir-in-progress in the same manner as I approach short essays; I just have to remember that the chapters, longer and sometimes more literary, require multiple revisions.

These days, I receive enough editorial acceptance to keep up my confidence. But money earned from my essays and memoir represents a secondary reward. My husband is right–writing is my work, and I love the process of crafting essays and books almost as much as I adore my family.

It’s difficult to juggle my roles as wife and mother, teacher and writer. Sometimes, I collapse in exhaustion. I tell myself during those down-times that I could let the writing go . . . but then what would I be teaching my daughter?

Early Sunday mornings, she pads out to the living room to find me bent over my computer, much as my mother used to bend over the short stories composed on an electric typewriter. I hope that the sight of me writing–even if the dishes sit unwashed and the windows need scrubbing–will inspire my daughter to dedicate herself to a passion that, along with beloved family members and friends, makes life worth living.

Melissa Hart is a journalism teacher at the University of Oregon, and a memoir writing teacher for U.C. Berkeley’s online extension program. Her new memoir, Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood (Seal Press, 2009), is a coming-of-age story about growing up white, heterosexual and boring in multicultural Los Angeles with a lesbian mom, a brother with Down syndrome, and a deep desire to be a Latina.

The Oregonian notes, “Hart, who teaches writing at the University of Oregon, has crafted a well-balanced tale that forgoes blame in favor of poignancy.”

Booklist says, ” “LGBT families and immigrant kids will want it for the honesty, humor, and love. Every lively chapter ends with a detailed recipe that mixes food and feelings.”

Kirkus Reviews says of Gringa, “”The book is filled with detailed conversations and particulars of dress, mannerisms and facial expressions that give it the feeling of a novel. A quirky narrative of artfully reconstructed memories.”

By Peri Coeurtney Enkin

Musicians do not appear on stage to perform without hours of previous practice. Dancers learn their choreography in the studio before they dance for the public. Singers do scales. Athletes stretch. Writers need to light their Creative Fires and maintain their Creative Flow too.
Writers need to write – often, regularly, for all kinds of reasons.

Last night I handed out the following list to my Write with Spirit class. I asked everyone to consider why they write. It helps to know. In fact setting your intention for writing with a specific purpose in mind harnesses the creative forces of the universe on your behalf. Often we are wishy-washy. We want to write to educate and we end up writing to soothe ourselves. Both are important and valuable – yet require different attention from us.

1. Write to Free Your Creativity – You want to live a creative life and writing is one way to do that.
2. Write for Wholeness – You want to develop, deepen and expand your connection with your Higher Self.
3. Write for Guidance – You want to receive guidance from your Higher Self.
4. Write for Insight and Understanding – You want to broaden your perspective and see through the eyes of Spirit
5. Write for Personal Growth – You want to experience more personal balance, alignment, and calm. You want to know your authentic feelings and needs better. You want to learn and grow
6. Write to Heal – You know writing offers you a path through confusion to clarity, through sadness, depression and fear into hope, appreciation and forgiveness.
7. Write for Relief – You want to step outside of your small mind, find comfort, soothe yourself.
8. Write for Joy – You write because it is fun and you love doing it! You reach for to experience the joy of “Dancing with the Universe.
9. Write to Deliver a Message – You have something to say and you want to teach, share, educate.
10. Write to Entertain – You want your words to provide delight, humor, intrigue, drama or fun for others
11. Write to Inspire – You want your words to help others to wake up to their own Magnificence.
12. Write to Connect, Move, Touch – You want to touch hearts, provide comfort, romance, ease, and hope.

The next time you sit down to write consider your intention before you begin:

• Do you seek inner guidance?
• Do you want to free your Self-Expression?
• Do you want to hone your writing skills?
• Do you want to give words to a message that wants to be born through you?

When you write with a destination in mind you are more likely to get where you are going. Just do not forget to include regular writing practice in your schedule. Writers do need to write.

Do you Love to Write? Join me for Write with Spirit classes from the comfort of your own home. Email me for a link to current events peri@creatorschoice.com

Enjoy my Write with Spirit Blog http://www.writewithspirit.blogspot.com/ and sign up at my website to receive my ezine http://www.creatorschoice.com

I’m all about celebrating your creative spirit with Writing Practice Tips, Positive Partnership Skills and anything else that inspires and engages hearts. I enjoy personal contact with my readers so feel free to contact me directly. Thanks for being YOU!

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Do you need help discovering your passion, motivation, or true purpose? Perhaps you need a Date With Destiny. Join inspirational life coach, Tony Robbins, this December!

If you currently market your writing online through sites such as Associated Content, Constant Content, or Triond, you know there’s an enormous demand online for information of all types. One of the most powerful strategies for multiplying earnings from your writing is to recycle non-exclusive articles you’ve written for the various online submission sites into a larger scale work such as an ebook that can be sold online. It can be very exciting to be an ebook author and you’ve already done much of the work by writing your own original articles. Why not use your articles to write and sell an ebook to enhance your online writing income?

While many people think the task of writing an ebook is a monumental undertaking, the truth is if you publish articles on a narrowly defined group of topics, you may already have the material for several ebooks on your computer just waiting to be organized and compiled. An ebook can be as simple as a group of articles grouped together with some added writing between articles to bridge the gaps and make the book flow better. To write and sell an ebook is not such an overwhelming endeavor after all.

For example, suppose your favorite topic to write articles about are fly fishing techniques. You’ve written over twenty articles on that topic and consider yourself to be somewhat of an expert on fly fishing. Your articles get lots of page views so you know there’s significant interest in the topic. Since you wrote these articles as non-exclusives, you’re free to use the material you already have to write and sell an ebook.

Why not gather together those already completed articles and formulate them into groups based on subtopic? These could form the main topic headings for your first ebook. Once you have the articles grouped, you can outline your table of contents. Now that you have your table of contents and subject headings, it’s a simple matter of using your articles to fill in the body of each subject heading and manipulating the wording so it flows more smoothly. An ebook will come together more quickly than you ever dreamed possible and you’ll have spent little time on the actual writing.

Once you have your ebook organized, it’s time to come up with a compelling title. The title needs to solve a problem, be compelling, and arouse emotion in your reader. Which title would you rather read?:

The Online Guide to Fly Fishing
Conquering the Waters: The Complete Novice’s Guide to Fly Fishing Like a Pro

The second title packs more emotion punch and will probably compel your reader to want to purchase your ebook more than the first one. Remember, a title can make or break sales of an ebook.

Once you’ve completed your ebook it’s time to put it into ebook format. Most successful ebooks are published in pdf format which makes it capable of being read on both PC’s and Macs which widens your potential customer base. There are a variety of free software programs that will convert your document to PDF format. One such free one is Open Office. You’ll also want to design an eye catching ebook cover to grab the potential reader’s attention. Once you’ve completed your book, there are a variety of ebook directories where you can promote and sell your book.

And you thought it would be hard to write and sell an ebook? Nothing could be further from the truth. Why not gather together those non-exclusive articles and get started today?

Dr. Kristie is a medical doctor with a concentration in family practice. She also has an undergraduate degree in both Biology and Psychology as well a master’s in Clinical Pathology. Dr.Kristie has been a published writer for the last two years and was named one of Associated Content’s top 1,000 writers for 2007.

Are you a person who’s skilled at creating witty quotes and sayings? If so, you can make money with your talents. The internet has opened up a variety of ways to make money from short quips and quotes that inspire people or cause them to smile. If you want to make money selling sayings, consider these options:

Sell sayings: Sell your quotes on Café Press

CaféPress is an online site where you can sell your original sayings or artwork to be placed on t-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, and a variety of other items. You simply upload your saying or artwork to the CaféPress site and it will be displayed on their marketplace or you can set up your own CaféPress store selling your pithy quotes and sayings. Each time an item sells, you get a percentage of the profits without having to do a thing except make up more clever sayings.

Sell sayings: Publish an online saying of the day

Why not build up an email list of people who want to receive your witty saying of the day? You can profit by including a link to a related affiliate program with each email. A certain percentage of the people who read your daily mail will click on the link and purchase the product. When they do, you’ll receive a percentage of the sale. To have the best chance for success, design your quotes for a niche audience such as witty sayings about bulldogs or motivational sayings for sales people. Choose your affiliate products carefully and you can build up a nice business using this method for selling sayings.

Sell sayings: Publish your sayings on greeting cards

Greeting card companies are always looking for interesting sayings and poems to print onto greeting cards. In fact, most of these companies use freelancers in some form or other. Why not gather together your best sayings and turn them into greeting card material? It’s best to start your submissions by approaching small to medium sized greeting card companies where the competition is less. Write to each company and determine what their submission guidelines are and what they’re looking for. There’s no point in submitting religious sayings to a greeting card company focused on humor. Buff up your sayings and quotes to correspond to what each particular greeting card company wants. Expect rejections at first until you better understand the market, but if you persist and adapt to the market, you can find success selling saying to the greeting card market.

As you can see, something as simple as a witty saying can be marketable. Selling sayings can be a fun way to exercise your creativity and make money at the same time.

Dr. Kristie is a medical doctor with a concentration in family practice. She also has an undergraduate degree in both Biology and Psychology as well a master’s in Clinical Pathology. Dr.Kristie has been a published writer for the last two years and was named one of Associated Content’s top 1,000 writers for 2007.

Working from home can be very beneficial, but there are also downfalls that can hinder your success if you don’t know how to handle them. Use the following guide to help you keep on track and make working from home a complete success:

Do: Stay in the land of the living

What does this mean? This means getting dressed instead of staying in your pyjamas all day. You don’t have to dress up, but you need to change your clothes to switch out of bedtime and into the work day. Secondly, open the curtains. Let the natural light in. Don’t stay cooped up in the dark all day long. Natural light will help keep your mood up and keep you alert. If the weather permits let the fresh air in too. You’re a writer, this doesn’t mean you have to hide yourself away and become a complete slob.

Don’t: Take personal calls during work hours

Working from home often makes friends and family think that since you’re home you can take calls at leisure and catch up on your work later. They might call you during their lunch hour at work and expect you to adjust your schedule because this is their only time to talk. Maybe your mother is retired and likes to call you during the day and chat. If you’ve already explained to your loved ones that you can’t take phone calls during your work hours, but they still call, this might be a good time to invest in an answering machine. If you can afford it call display is even better since you might get calls from work that you need to take. Expect that some people will get offended that you don’t answer the phone when they know you’re home. Call them back when your work is done.

Do: Take a lunch hour

Working for 8 straight hours straight and alone might start to drive you a little nutty. Take a break for lunch each day. Get out for a short walk. Eat lunch in the park. Do some personal reading. Do anything but work. You deserve a break. If you can swing it, meet up with someone else who works from home so that you both get out and have human contact. You’ll feel better for it.

Don’t: Check your e-mail too often

E-mail can certainly be addictive, fun even, but it can also become very time consuming. Stick to a plan when it comes to your e-mail. If you get a lot of e-mail for work you might want to check it every few hours. If you don’t usually get a lot of work related e-mail each day you can probably stick to checking your e-mail 3 times each day, once in the morning, the afternoon, and at the end of your work day. The important thing to remember is that anyone can wait 12 hours for a reply to an e-mail, so don’t rush yourself or feel anxious to reply right away to e-mail. Personal e-mails can wait longer than work related e-mail. Don’t feel guilty for replying to a friend two days after her e-mail to you. That’s nothing. Another rule of thumb for e-mail is to only open an e-mail when you have time to reply to it. Opening and reading all of your e-mail and then only replying to one is a waste of time.

Do: Have a proper workspace

Placing your workspace in the perfect place can make a lot of difference in how productive you are. If you are in or close to the living room or kitchen you may end up doing things such as dishes, vacuuming, watching a little TV, washing windows, laundry. It always seems to be during the work hours that we “remember” all the chores we need to do. Fight this urge by placing your workspace away from tempting areas. No matter where your workspace is though, remember to keep it your workspace. Do what you can to keep it free of unrelated items (I.e. clothes/toys). Get others into respecting your work area as well. You want this to be the place that you feel good going to every morning.

Don’t: Overwork

If you can manage to work efficiently during your work day, you won’t have to work after hours or on weekends. You can spend that time with family and friends. Getting out of the house during your off hours will also help you to work better at home, because you won’t feel as isolated when you are working inside for 8 hours. Staying home and working 24/7 is enough to make anyone crazy.

by April Aragam

By Jan Hoadley

I think we’ve all done it. We find a book that looks incredible. It’s on a topic we’re keenly interested in – the cover and description are great. We buy the book, get home and settle in to read – and by the fifth chapter we’re bored to tears with the presentation. It’s hard to follow, the information isn’t focused, and it’s difficult to get a grasp as to what the author means and where they’re going.

For example, I could write about my dog. She’s a border collie, three years old, hyper at times and bossy to the other dogs. Doesn’t that sound immensely boring? It gives the facts – but beyond that tells little to nothing. Contrast this:
Her nose pushes out the barely-opened window sniffing for the cats on the other side. She turns, bounds off the couch, runs to the other window, bounces off the wall and returns to thrust the nose out the window as if it might go further this time. As Fly crawls on the sofa to rest she pins her to the ground and stands over her growling. Then a blue merle blur circles the room again before returning to the window in hopes there’s a cat out there NOW.

Which description gives you a better picture in your mind of Abby? Do you, the reader, really care how old she is? Bringing a character alive makes the reader want to see more. It brings up questions – why is she so interested in the cats? Does a cat make contact with her and what does she do then? Does Fly avoid her or return to the sofa? How does the scene figure in to the bigger story?

Before getting in to extensive descriptions sharpen in your mind the characters. Write down as much information on them to get it clear in your mind WHO this character is. Know your character well. When you thoroughly understand the character it’s easy to put yourself in their shoes. It’s almost like becoming an actor – the actor might be outgoing but the character he plays is quiet and plays things close to the vest. The character may act different than the actor would in the same situation. In writing – we are the “actor” – we decide what those characters do if it’s fiction. If non-fiction we can research and make the characters interesting enough to teach our audience and entertain them at the same time. Fill out an employment application for your adult characters. Do a background check on them! Interview them and look at the pictures on their desk! Use your imagination! Why does this character do this?

Non-fiction writers doing a profile want to portray their subject accurately – use these same powers of observation and details to breathe life into your character.

Sharpen your writing of directions. Think of something we do on a regular basis and write step by step directions. Use something we do often – brushing teeth or heating a can of soup. This teaches you to pay attention to details in your explanations. We often take for granted things – open the can, put on the stove, pour soup in a bowl and eat. Do that exactly and it’s not very tasty!! It leaves out pouring the soup into a pan, water or other ingredients added, turning on the stove and placing on a burner until heated. With the former one – if followed exactly – you could be eating cold soup concentrate! While this might seem silly – when you think about it what if it’s directions to something that could be fatal? Leaving out a step could be bad! When you learn to take and give directions precisely even mapquest and other map sites aren’t accurate in many cases – and when it leaves out a step you can end up a totally different place. On the same principle, your story can end up a totally different place if something is left out. It doesn’t make sense.

Some people have the idea non-fiction writing is boring – it doesn’t have to be. Using similar techniques can breathe creativity into fact. While it’s true that fiction you don’t have facts to box in – facts don’t have to be boring! It can be a little more interesting to make it interesting but it can be done. Books like “Secretariat The Making of a Champion” (by William Nack) or “Great Horse Racing Mysteries” (John McEvoy) are all factual information – but read like novels. The influx of true crime and other books may or may not be fact but those based on fact tend to be more believable. When you put the right spin on something you can make the unbelievable believable. Think about it – how many read Steven King’s Christine and thought twice about a car coming up behind them? We *KNOW* cars don’t have minds to think and stalk people but there’s just enough there to think “what if”. How many read a scary book and associate bad things with corn fields or sewer grates or other things? The power of a good story gets through.

Use word pictures to sharpen your writing. When your character is in the car is she driving down the road? When looking at the trees is she looking at a tree line in the distance or laying under one watching the branches and leaves over her? They’re both trees but proximity and perspective makes a difference in the story. Good descriptions make scenes come to live. It enables someone who is blindfolded to see the picture you’re looking at. Strong characters, purposeful actions and making writing interesting makes the difference in a story with good information and a story with good information that gets read.

Whether you add creative details to non-fiction or realistic details to fiction, making writing interesting *and* engaging enough to read keeps the reader going.

Sharpen your skills and make your writing sizzle.

How do you add spark to your writing?

Pace is one of the most important elements for any short fiction writer interested in success. When handled correctly a good sense of pace can help create a piece of written art, when mishandled it can spell disaster for a short story. Learning the difference between the two is what divides ambitious amateurs from successful writers.

Given the inherent brevity of short fiction, pace plays a more prominent role than in novels and larger texts. In order to fully tell a story within the word restricted remit of a short story, a writer must utilize their skills to keep the plot moving along at a fast clip; fast enough to keep the reader interested, but detailed enough to be comprehensive. Below are a few methods with which to ensure a successfully paced short story.

One of the most fundamental skills a writer needs in order to write a well paced story is the ability to differentiate between a story that works well as a short fiction and one that does not. Amateur writers are often so determined to tell their story that they neglect to consider the correct form of the piece. A longer fiction artificially compressed into short story loses the elements that made it a good story in the first place; as side plots, secondary themes and minor characters are cut to meet the word limit the story loses its ‘heart’. Likewise, although less common, when a single scene or flash fiction is expanded into a short fiction it ceases to be effective as superfluous elements are added to pad it out; and the pace of the important elements slows accordingly. Knowing when a piece needs to blossom into a longer fiction and when it should remain as a single scene or idea is the mark of a good writer.

Having identified a suitable story, how then does the writer maintain a pace fast enough to convey it fully in a limited word count? Where novels and long fictions are able to spend pages building up complex descriptions and imagery, a short fiction writer must have a prudent and comprehensive vocabulary. Where a novel uses many descriptive words, a short fiction uses few. Therefore those used must be suitably evocative, able to conjure up an image or describe a scene briefly but completely. Essentially in this regard a short fiction writer utilizes the same skill as a poet, paring down their work and selecting only the most powerful words. In this way a skillful writer can keep the word count down, but convey just as much meaning and impact in far fewer words than a less skilled writer with twice the space to fill.

Pace is by no means an easy writing element to master, but with practice and patient reworking of short fiction it can be a real asset to a writer and with it a story can shine.

Nicholas Cockayne is a talented UK-based writer with a BA in English and a MA in Creative and Critical Writing. He’s currently involved in Media Consulting, Marketing, and Advertising.

How do you control the pace of your writing? Have you ever considered it’s importance before?