writing

Generating Interesting Articles and Titles – Part One

Colon Cleansing is not a pleasant subject but……..

As a writer for hire, you may have some choice over your subject matter, but realistically you’ll take any work that pays what you are looking for. It’s a stark choice between paying the bills or not and like someone said, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and of the two, being rich is better!”

So you have an assignment to deliver articles on a mundane or less than interesting subject and now you have to come up with content that will attract readers and promote your client’s objectives for creating the project. This is where you can start employing some generic approaches for developing articles that can be adapted for pretty much any subject. Looking through these examples, you will probably start recognising the general formulae for many of the articles and content that you come across on the web.

Here’s our subject then – colon cleansing – this is a real project I worked on recently and frankly, it’s a pretty disgusting and distasteful topic, which I knew almost absolutely nothing about when I was given the assignment. Now, how do we go about generating article ideas for flushing out your insides?

What Not To Do When Writing For Children

Yesterday I was going through a book written for children. Interesting, but not captivating enough. Writers make the mistake of underestimating the quality of work when it comes to writing for children. That doesn’t make sense, as right from the beginning children should be accustomed to reading quality writing. Hence, I would like to enumerate 7 points on what not to do when it comes to writing for children. If you’re interested in writing for teenagers then see my previous post on writing for teens.

Never underestimate children’s capacity and use of kiddish language

Remember that you are writing for children who are often more shrewd and clever than what you were as a kid. After all, the internet, television and computers have widened the range of information and knowledge that is available to them. Nowadays, even children expect quality and substance when they read.

When Writing For Teens, Write Intelligently

First, let’s be clear about something. Teens are those budding youngsters above the age of 12 and below the age of 20. As you can see, this is indeed a wide range, and books written for someone who is twelve will certainly differ from books written for those at eighteen. Though different maturity levels require books on a different subject matter, all you need to know is that books for teens should be well written and about intriguing topics. There are a few tips you can keep in mind while writing books for teens.

Think from a teenager’s point of view

When writing, always keep in mind that you are writing for a teenager; try to think back when you were that age and think about what appeals to them. Get to know teens and ask them what they like to read. Don’t just listen to what they have to say; apply it in your writing. They are generally looking for thought provoking books written on subjects that fascinate them. Have a look on Goodreads to see what titles (and topics) are currently popular before starting to write.

Characterisation And Its Uses

What is a character?

The writer uses many ways to convey the nature of a character. It’s quite obvious he is unable to attach a photo of his character to a book or manuscript. However, there are ways in which a character can be described and written about that enables readers to visualize the character and create an impression of that character’s behavior. Firstly, when the character is physically described, the writer wants the reader to create a faint picture of the character in their mind.

As an example, I have taken a brief excerpt from ‘Angels and Demons’ by Dan Brown. (Read more here.)

Although not overtly handsome in a classical sense, the forty-year-old Langdon had what his female colleagues referred to as an erudite appeal-wisps of gray in his thick brown hair, probing blue eyes, an arrestingly deep voice, and the strong, carefree smile of a collegiate athlete. A varsity diver in prep school and college, Langdon still had the body of a swimmer. A toned, six foot physique that he vigilantly maintained with fifty laps a day in the university pool.

While reading the passage above, the reader imagines that Langdon has an athletic body, toned and well looked after. Now, that was easy, was it not? It didn’t need a model to explain the way he looked and it didn’t need a painting or sketch that would visualize him. We can also identify that he trains quite hard to maintain his athletic look.
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Writing: A Career Scope

Writing as a career has no boundaries. An affinity for writing is something those who wish to begin their career as a writer should have. Other necessary traits include the ability to express ideas clearly in writing, self motivation, creativity and curiosity to know more and write more.

To begin with, editors and authors are generally first choice when it comes to choosing a career, but writers with a technical background can also specialize as a technical writer. A technical writer develops technical materials, such as equipment manuals or operating and maintenance instructions. Most technical writers work with engineers or other techie professionals on technical subject matters to prepare written interpretations for general readership.

A creative writer, a poet, a lyricist, a novelist and a screenwriter, create original work—such as prose, poems, plays and song lyrics; most of these are either for performance or for publication.

As a writer of non-fiction, you will have to put a lot of hard work into research of the specific topic that you have been given to write about. Information has to be gathered through the internet, newspapers, magazines and other print media, personal observation, interviews and most importantly the library.
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Going Off At a Tangent

Twisting ideas to promote your client

By now, if you have been reading my posts, you will have gathered that I am not a so-called “creative writer”. I do not produce literature. I have no burning desire to write a novel, unless it’s guaranteed to be a bestseller ,which will keep me in the style to which I sincerely wish to become accustomed. I am a commercial animal, I write for pay and I look at writing as a means to earn my living and to form the bedrock of a business I am building.

That said, it does not mean that I am not imaginative nor creative with the ideas that flow and am used to delivering work products for my clients. It certainly does not follow that I am in any way less passionate about what I am doing, while I also have a fierce pride in my work, and delivering the very best I can provide for clients. Some of my work is “mindless pap” as I often say to enquiring friends and family and in my honest opinion it is just that – advertising and promotional rubbish. Nevertheless, it is good advertising rubbish and I can say that because it performs the task that my clients wish to achieve and I get paid for producing it.

Today, my work for the most part is not “mindless pap” as my clients and the projects have become more interesting. Writing assignments has started to exercise my mind and imagination to a greater extent, than figuring out how to get 800 words on a paper dealing with Japanese “Geta” shoes, or producing a dumbed down series of articles on alternatives to Viagra. Even when you are confronted with a topic that readily lends itself to a simple churning out of some more advertising rubbish you can exercise your imagination and tackle the subject from a different perspective. I firmly believe that the confidence I have acquired in two years of commercial writing has encouraged me to take alternative approaches to handling a client topic.

Earlier this week I had to write a series of blog posts for a site called Your Health Reporter which promotes alternative therapies, amongst which is the use of a slimming pill derived from a cactus in the Kalahari Desert, Hoodia Gordonii. Your Health Reporter, is a relatively new client for me and initially I started off with the “Lose the keg and get a 6 pack” style of posts for the slimming and fitness products that are being promoted. Last week I altered the style and that produced some incredible results.