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.

3 time wasting monsters

Personal conversation

This is the most dangerous monster that covertly follows you everywhere, which you always fail to notice until it’s already late. You can find this monster lurking around in your office and even in your home. It makes you feel that you are doing some important discussion, but the fact is you are not. You are just wasting time talking about your personal stuff when you should be working on the project at hand.

There is a time and place for personal discussion. Confine it there only. Do not let it disturb your work schedule.

Frequently checking e-mails

E-mails are important, and some are very important. But none of them is as important as the work you have at your hand, so it will be more fruitful to spend time on doing the work than checking mails, regularly.

Make a mail checking routine. I would suggest checking your mails once or twice a day, but if you expect important mails throughout the day or if you cannot live without browsing through your inbox then check your mail 4 times a day, at max. Do not let this monster kill your time.

Breaks

Taking breaks during a day is important, as it help you energize yourself. A break helps you remove your thought from the project, and hence get a fresh perspective on the subject matter, when you get back to it after the break. But frequent or too many breaks do not allow you to come back to the subject matter, ruining the purpose of the break itself.

Too many breaks create distraction, so avoid indulging in that. In fact, I will suggest you to make a “break taking” plan around your work schedule. This will keep you on track, and the plan will keep this “time wasting” monster contained.

These 3 monsters should be avoided at any cost, if your goal is to do anything with your life.

4 Writing preparation tips

One idea per post

Do not cram too many things in one blog post. It will confuse the readers, which will push them to move away from your blog. The more ideas you will insert in the post, the more users will move away from the blog. Find a core theme and stick to it. Do not wander off, or else you will never be able to finish your blog post.

Find the purpose of your blog post

Knowing the purpose of a blog post will help you draft your article better. Why are you writing the article? Do you want your readers to purchase something, or you want them to know more about the subject, or you want them to subscribe to your newsletter after reading it? Once the purpose is defined, writing becomes easier, as you choose mode, tone, and words on that basis only.

Who is your target audience

This is another important consideration. You need to define an ideal reader of your blog post. Find out what he does, how much experienced he is, and what is his qualification? You also need to find their interest level and intension. Is your ideal customer in the market to buy the thing you are writing about? Is he just researching, or reading casually? Knowledge of the intention will help you customize your language.

Write a draft headline

Write a temporary headline. It will give you a target around which you will organize your ideas. This, in no way, is the final headline that will go with your post. This headline is just the first draft. Revisit the headline, once you are through with the article.

You are much better equipped to write a headline after you are done with the article, as you are much more knowledgeable about the subject matter.

Follow the tips shared above, and you will produce better articles.

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.

Step 1: Research the subject matter

Before beginning to write, gather some key information related to the topics you are going to write about in the article. Do not waste your time in finding every aspect related to the subject at hand. Find only what is necessary to explain what you want to write. Once they are handy, stop researching.

Step 2: Remove all distraction

Switch off your cell phone or put it in silent, remove your landline cord (if you cannot put it in silent), log out from your mail as well as social book marking accounts, log out from all instant messaging services, and also remove the internet connection for the time being.

Step 3: Write down the bullet points

Be quick and write down the bullet points that you are going to cover in the article. It should not take much time, if your pre-writing research is in place.

Step 4: Do not write and edit

Avoid using backspace and delete key when you are writing. Leave the editing work for later. Right now focus your energy on crafting the piece.

Step 5: Edit

Do not waste a life time editing an article. This is nothing but a sheer waste of time, unless you are sending your article for some research or academic journal. Remove the issues you had while writing the article.

Conclusion

Follow these steps and your writing will be quick. Do you wish to know how much time did it take me to write this short piece? Well it took me 9 minutes to write all this. It could have been 6 or 7, if I had not fall prey to editing while writing. Hope, you will not make the same mistake that I did while writing this, and get the work done real quick.