How To Make Your Writing Exceptional
With the new media taking up a predominant role in the world of communication, a very important and lucrative career has walked into the threshold of digital media. This is none other than ‘Content Writing’.
In the virtual world where the buyer and the seller get to know each other and build up mutual trust only through words, no doubt that content here acts as the king. Words, in the world of digital media can really make or break you. Hence marketers who are busy and cannot afford to spend the extra time required for creating that fabulous content that builds up their empire, hire ghostwriting service providers or professional content writers to create that bit of content which sells.
However, all through my experience in content writing and editing as a professional, I found a few basic norms that you can stick to religiously and be a successful writer. This will always make your piece of writing unique. Here they are.
Þ US or UK?
You really are professionally lucky when you get a client who specifically instructs you what he/she would want the content to be like. With them you have no hassles catering to the requirements. However, you may often come across clients who do wish to have a unique piece of writing and want them to be in ‘US’ English or ‘UK’ English, targeted towards a native readership. This demand is absolutely justified when you are serving an international clientele. You need not panic because of this. Study a few sites of branded US companies along with the business competitions of the client. Get yourself updated with the day to day vocabularies used. Try to understand what the client wants, and the rest will be just a cakewalk.
Þ Focus of the content and its planning
You will find yourself in a bamboo slit when you really come across a client who expects a lot of things from a professional writer, but is not himself quite focused. The client might have a lot to say, but may have limitations in terms of budget. In such a case, getting to know about the exact length of the content that is required, and carefully deciding the focus of discussion in the content is the next important thing that has to be carefully handled. You as a writer need to help the client be focused on his subject of discussion, and plan out the content accordingly. Planning out the content layout is very important for maintaining unique balance throughout the subject. Ask specific questions to the client on the particular areas of discussions that he/she wants. Research on the subjects before you place forth your questions. You need to know exactly how many words you have at your disposal to create a particular topic or subtopic in a piece of writing, so that you can carry out a uniform research accordingly before you strive to begin the actual writing process. Give him/her options to choose from the topics of a subject, honestly mentioning the setbacks. And be assured, that you will win a long term business and where the client will be loyal to you for this extra guidance that you provided.
Þ Creating your draft
Once you are done with content planning and research, make sure that you have an outline of the work that you want to create. Make a rough draft of the content that you want to create based on that. Some writers do not consider this important. However, whether you are bound by the client’s guidelines and research or you are ******doing piece of work on your own, you are professionally obliged to see that your writing fulfils the desired objectives that you started with. Check out whether your draft covers every aspect of the instructional guideline provided by the client. However, if you have been handed over the responsibility of working independently, you must forward the outline of the draft to the client to get his approval. This reduces the chances of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the client’s requirement and getting your work rejected.
Þ Proofreading your work
Once your draft has been approved, give it a thorough proofreading. Check out if the transitions of information in the paragraph are smooth, and the Grammar is correct. See if there is perfect agreement of subject/verb as well as noun/pronoun, or if there are any common errors in the sentences. Check for spelling errors Make sure that ideas are not cluttered all through the work. Change is an important part in the entire writing process, and you should be open to making any changes that would make the piece of unique. You might be the writer, ghostwriter, or an editor, but you should not be rigid in this aspect. Be open to suggestions and criticisms of your writing, and be receptive to them. They will only help you to enhance the quality of your work. It is true that most professional content writers due to excessive work load or for many other reasons do not or cannot provide the requisite time necessary for creating that excellent piece of writing that increases the sale of a service or a product. However this is an essential part of the entire writing process, where there often are scopes of changing, rearranging or discarding certain parts of a writing to create a final product that would arrest every glance that it gets. Hence you need to look at the content that you created very closely, rather sentence by sentence, and as an entire whole piece of content to fine tune it.
Þ Editing and revising your work
After you have gone through all the above processes, you need to give your work a thorough editing and revision. This will streamline your entire piece of writing, and bring in that edge that every good piece of writing bears. A writing can only be termed as good when it has clarity, conciseness, and is to the point. That is why it is always safe to start writing with a good organizational plan in order to save yourself the effort and pain of chunking off large parts that might later seem redundant. Your writing reflects you. Make sure that the writing possesses the right tone and voice to reflect uniqueness. Avoid slangs, colloquialism, and dialects that would alienate a piece of writing from people who do not understand it. Every piece of writing has certain objectives or goals to fulfill. It presents a message to the readers. Whether the readership chooses to opt in favor of that message or vote against it is absolutely the reader’s personal choice. The writing should not hold any biases in it. Even if the writing calls for a little bias to cater the business requirement of the client, it should be presented maintaining a tone of neutrality. This will make your writing stand out in the crowd.
Þ Writers’ social responsibility
As a writer and a member of the knowledge processing unit, whether in the online media or the print media, we all should remember that the words that you weave together to express an idea, has tremendous impact on the mass social psyche. Therefore while catering to the needs of the client, or enhancing the business prospect of someone, you do not weave in webs of false hopes and dreams with the strength of your words. Avoid using such words and phrases which develops a negative impact on the society at large, and adversely affects the prospects of the client that you wrote for in the long run. All of us in the long run look ahead to a world with adversities minimized in everyone’s aspect.
I read Brady Smith when I was new to this field. However, the experience of my teaching years in school was the pillars of my strength. Moreover the professional challenges that I had braved under the efficient guidance of a mentor had helped me master the intricate requirements of professional writing. I believe that sharing of knowledge only enhances one’s own knowledge base, and opens up newer avenues of opportunities for the person concerned as well as that of the others.
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