Reading stimulates thought process

Reading mainly stimulates an individual’s thought process, making one think harder while sharpening comprehension and memorizing skill. While reading we try to guess about the content of next pages and understand the situation better, at the same time recalling characters and storyline. Reading also strengthens an individual’s concentration level.

Builds vocabulary skill

Voracious reading exposes a reader to numerous new words, phrases. Such exposure definitely sharpens vocabulary skill and develops command over the language.

Expertise on a subject

If you want to master a subject, don’t forget to read it first. Reading will build your knowledge and who knows tomorrow you may have your own book. Suppose you want to gain optimum knowledge in Anthropology, start reading books of the same subject. Soon, in 5 years time you will be an international Anthropology expert. If you are a research aspirant, it will help you too.

Reading helps writing

You can pen down great things only when you are filled with great knowledge from within. We are like a pitcher, always thirsty for knowledge. Fill yourself with knowledge, read voraciously; then only you can write great things tomorrow.

Travel world through books

If it’s not possible for you to travel the whole world on your feet, book is the best choice. If past enchants you, different cultures and places haunt you; why not grab a book and see the world through pages? Even while seeing the world on foot, you may miss many things and won’t come to know historical detail, but reading won’t disappoint you. Quench your thirst through books.

Was this narration of Romeo and Juliet interesting? Was it even one millionth of excitement that you got from reading the famous tragedy?

Why didn’t you enjoy it? It had all the key elements that were present in the original play. It told you everything that Shakespeare wanted to tell you then why didn’t you enjoy?

Because it lacked the details, isn’t it?

People like stories not because it connects with them at the level deeper than mere comprehension and consciousness, and details do exactly that. It provides fuel to emotion. Greatness of a story lies in detail. When writing a story, or an article, a feeble writer tends to wander around the subject matter using useless adjectives, dead cliché, etc. But when a great writer writes a story, he goes directly to the heart of the matter, and covers all he sees in his journey to the heart of the matter.

Photograph in outlines

If story is a photograph, details are color, texture, shades, and patterns, without which the photograph is nothing but mere outlines. And I am sure not many people enjoy outlines. A great picture is made when colors, shades, textures, patterns, and other things are added to the outline. Similarly, a great story comes to life when required detail is added.

What about articles?

An Article is a non-fiction cousin of story. It just differs in the subject matter it handles, people who are reading it, and slightly in the writing style.

There is no reason why a non-fictional piece could not be written in story form. After all, the goal of a communication is to connect and inform, and you cannot inform anyone, not with any credibility, without establishing a deep connection with he or she.

Although a book review contains the personal experience of a reviewer, writing a book review is slightly technical. It has certain aspects to it which should not be overlooked, to make a review add value to the reader. In this post, I will talk about those technical things.

Anatomy of a book review

Step 1: Provide essential information

In the very first paragraph provide essential information about the book; like, name of the book, author, subject matter, publication, type of book, etc. You can skip this if you are writing a review for the online media, as the information will be available on the backside of the book’s jacket that you will put in the there.

Step 2: Write overview

In this paragraph, write about the book and the author’s intention behind writing it. You can get this information by reading the preface of the book, or the first chapter of the book. You should also write about the point of view from which this book has been written. You should also mention the genre, intended audience, and what style has been adopted.

Step 3: your view on the book

Now, write if the reader should buy the book or not. If it is worth reading or not. Write in brief about what you think about this book. Think this step like creating an elevator pitch.

Step 4: Elaborate

In this step, you need to elaborate on the topics covered in the book. You can also cite some paragraph from the book that may tell about the subject matter. If it is non-fiction, describe about the things talked in the book.

In short, you need to give gist of the book in this step to give readers an idea about the content.

Step 5: Give your judgment

The next step is to write what you think about the arguments, theories, and examples cited by the author. Do you think they are relevant? Has the author used them judiciously? How successful has the author been in exploring the subject? Do you think it would have been written in a better manner? Quantify your claim and make your suggestion here.

Step 6: Write about author

Now it is time to talk about author, his credential, and about books that the author has written in the past. Give a brief description of author’s background.

Step 7: Summarize

In this step, you will like to summarize all you have said above. You should write about book content, author’s idea about the topic he has discussed main points of the books followed by your remark and conclusion.

These are the essential steps in writing a book review. Along with these you can also include things related to physical structure of the book (binding, formatting, etc.) as well as about the index.

A freelance writer should read anything that succeeds in catching, holding, and retaining his attention. Because the more diverse your reading habit will be the better equipped you will be to handle the challenges posed by freelance writing. You should care less about following a genre through head to tail. Well, doing it will be make you an expert and may be better accomplished as a writer of that particular genre, but expertise in one and dumbness in rest of the subjects is not what you should eye for. You need to have sufficient control on as many genres as possible.

What did you say— you will be master of one and will research for the rest?

I know many freelancers doing that, and quite a few have attained some degrees of success while treading down this road. But more often than not an article written by a freelance writer who has no prior knowledge or intuitive understanding of the subject matter lacks depth. To add depth and texture to your writing, you need to learn various things.

Freelance writing poses unique challenge that is seldom faced by fiction or non-fiction writers. Therefore, the solution used by freelance writers should also be different.

Read as much as you can, and from as many genres as you feel comfortable in!

Learning is a complex process, and acquiring knowledge is even more complex.  One never knows which piece of text or byte of media triggers what. Sometimes the knowledge gained is a direct result of the things you are reading, while at other times, it is gained because the things you are reading have activated some unknown part of the brain which has triggered something else then something else, and the end result of all this could be the new understanding you have developed.

So, to help your brain form new pattern and new understanding, you need to provide it as many types of fodders as possible.

It is where when we need writing prompts to help us get out of this rut. Writing prompt can be anything that can make us write. It could be a picture, a word, a phrase, a quotation, an illustration, a person, a place, or anything. Anything that prompts us to write can be called writing prompt.

You will need writing prompts a lot in your writing career, hence I will ask you to maintain a list of writing prompts that can pull you out of the writer’s block. If you think, you are not going to face writer’s block in your career then either writing is not something in which you are going to make your career, or you are not planning to write much, at least not regularly.

How to use writing prompt

1. Make a list of writing prompts that will help you get out of the writer’s block. Always remember, writing prompt for a fiction writer cannot be same as writing prompt for a non-fiction writer. Writing prompt used by a self-help writer cannot be same as writing prompt used by writer writing on health-related issues. Hence, see what works for you and make a list of it.
2. Like anything else, writing using prompts also depends upon practice. The more you practice the more quickly you can get out of the block.
3. When faced with the writer’s block. Start with choosing any random prompt from the list, and then write on it continuously for 10-15 minutes.

In the next blog post, I will tell you how to build your own list of writing prompts. Till then practice what you have learned.

These questions are the two aspects of the same story, but with different protagonists: do you know what it takes to be successful as a freelance writer? This blog-post and the coming ones will provide you with a list of things that you must accomplish before venturing out for freelance writing.

I have organized this list of items to verify before jumping on the freelancing bandwagon based on the closeness of the topic to a freelance writing fresher. We (You and I) will begin this journey with you and your attitude towards writing, then will move ahead to see how the market is and what all you need to know before you commit. So, let’s get going.

Have you rounded of your writing skills?

Writing for someone else for money or without money is entirely different from writing for yourself or your term papers. The former requires precision in writing techniques, which may or may not require in getting the latter job done. I do not doubt your writing skill. I just want to say is go and brush up your grammar and writing skills to prepare yourself for better gigs.

What type of writer you are?

This is the second basic question you need to ask yourself. Are you a fiction writer or a non-fiction writer? If fiction is your genre, do you write stories, or poems? If you are a story writer, do you write short story, very short story, novella, or novel? What kind of story on that: crime, detective, erotic, historical, psychological, etc.? If you are a non-fiction writer, what kind of non-fiction you write? Do you write articles, press releases, sales letters, blogs, website content, political essays, term papers, magazine articles, news stories, or what?

As you can see this is a huge question, and you must have guessed, you will require a soul searching to know which genre fits your type. Not everyone is a “writing Leonardo “who can write on anything and everything with equal gusto, and produce equally mesmerizing output. Some people can do that, and rest of us can just hope to.

Where is your portfolio?

If you thought only a designer (graphic, fashion, web, hair, or any kind), a model, or a photographer, etc., needs a portfolio then it’s time for me to break the news: “A freelance writer also needs a portfolio!”

Build a portfolio that consists of writing samples from all the genres you want to get work in. yes, you can write in more than one genre!

Give me your URL?

C’mon, don’t say, you don’t know what a URL is!

Just joking.

When you are starting out, you many not feel the need to have a website, but once you move up the ladder, you will feel the need for one, and then you might think, “Why I didn’t have it yet?”

You are going to need it eventually, then why not now?