Character Voice is as difficult to pin down as it is critical.
Plenty of writing advice resources talk about the importance of your main characters each having a unique voice, but how do you achieve that?
The main problem is that all of those characters are essentially coming from the same mind – yours – so you need to find ways to ensure your personal characteristics, speech patterns and nuances don’t all bleed into your characters.
What is it you fear most as you sit in front of a blank screen? Perhaps the fear of rejection holds you back from putting words on paper. You know your work is likely to get rejected by publishers and agents because the experience of others told you to expect it.
Maybe you fear humiliation. Putting yourself out there on paper opens you up to all kinds of criticism and ridicule. It's really hard to be vulnerable in your writing because the critics' sting hurts that much more.
You can be a writer without being a starving artist. In fact, plenty of writers make a healthy living from their craft. Some even crest six figures.
If writing a best-selling novel is your secret (or not-so-secret) hope or your favorite fantasy is about being invited to read your poetry at esteemed universities, you can fund those dreams using what you already know and love… writing.
Here's how to use the 7 Deadly Sins like an angel to present your product or service in its best possible light. Master these tips and they'll be eating out of your hand.
Whether you write for yourself or you're a hired gun, you need to answer a basic question: is your blog successful? The only way to determine success is to measure your blog's results, and to do that you need Google Analytics.
Since there are dozens or more posts out there on how to use Google Analytics, let's focus on what exactly you need to measure to determine how successful your blog is. Let's face it, you could spend a month analyzing the various metrics from Google, but you really only need a few. We will peel back the many layers and show you the 6 key blogging analytics you need to track.
Copy has different purposes: direct response (you want readers to act/purchase) or educational (providing the information they need to decide). Regardless of your purpose, writing great copy takes finesse and skill.
If you want to nail your copy every time, stay away from these 7 deadly copywriting sins.
What is it you fear most as you sit in front of a blank screen? Perhaps the fear of rejection holds you back from putting words on paper. You know your work is likely to get rejected by publishers and agents because the experience of others told you to expect it.
Maybe you fear humiliation. Putting yourself out there on paper opens you up to all kinds of criticism and ridicule. It's really hard to be vulnerable in your writing because the critics' sting hurts that much more.
You can be a writer without being a starving artist. In fact, plenty of writers make a healthy living from their craft. Some even crest six figures.
If writing a best-selling novel is your secret (or not-so-secret) hope or your favorite fantasy is about being invited to read your poetry at esteemed universities, you can fund those dreams using what you already know and love… writing.
When the concept of blogging first emerged, becoming a professional writer in glorified online journals to make money wasn’t the goal.
The blogging community has significantly evolved as people write, not for one, but many different reasons. There is a wide range of niches available to choose from – business, fashion, food, lifestyle, entertainment and many more.
The master of Gothic horror stories, Edgar Allan Poe could set the tone of anything with a few chosen words. Here's how he did it.
Copy has different purposes: direct response (you want readers to act/purchase) or educational (providing the information they need to decide). Regardless of your purpose, writing great copy takes finesse and skill.
If you want to nail your copy every time, stay away from these 7 deadly copywriting sins.
Auto-antonyms are words with multiple meanings of which one contradicts or reverses another. What, you say, how can that be? Let's go through a couple examples.
Both content marketing and ABM are strategy-driven. The big difference is the focus of the strategy. Let's look at definitions of each.
Both content marketing and ABM are strategy-driven. The big difference is the focus of the strategy. Let's look at definitions of each.
Here are two key ways that partnering with another copywriter can help you build your business and your skills.
Are you a writer? Do you want to supplement your income? The first question you should ask yourself is: Am I currently recommending something to colleagues/fans/friends and not getting paid for it?
"Write what you know" has been around forever. Some attribute it to Mark Twain and others to Hemingway. Regardless of who came up with this entreaty, my writing would be middle-class, ho-hum if I had to stick with only writing what I've experienced. Isn't that what research is for, right?
You probably have more ideas than you know, but when sitting in front of a blank screen, your mind is just as blank. How do those prolific bloggers and content marketers keep the fresh ideas rolling?
Ideas do come to you. But you're not recording them fast enough. The best writers have trained themselves to capture ideas before they're a mere wisp floating away, never to be seen or heard from again.
Homer Simpson has only one focus in this world: himself. He has some pretty unlikable characteristics, I'm sure everyone can agree. Why do we love to hate Homer and hate to love him so much? Because he's a well-done anti-hero, that's why.
How do you build the past progressive tense? Simply use the "to be" helping verb in the past tense and add on the present participle of the verb with an "-ing" on the end.
If this sounds complicated, it's actually not. Here are some examples:
