When you tell people you’re a writer, they nod their heads and say “ahhh”. They’re not quite sure what to make of it, after all, we all write every day of our lives don’t we? Is writing seriously something you can class a profession?
The thing is, not all of us can write well. There is a wealth of examples of well written articles online and just as many poorly written ones. The difference is that the well written articles are commented on, shared via social media and the authors asked to contribute to industry leading websites.
My aim is to help my current and potential clients understand the importance of producing great copy and to see tangible results.
Achieving results
Over the past year, I’ve spent a lot of time working with one of my clients, helping him to hone his writing skills. He’s eager to learn and to understand why phrasing things in a particular way improves his chances of being published and having his message heard and clearly understood by industry colleagues and potential clients.
It’s all part of the strategy we’re working on to build his personal brand and position him as a thought-leader who has good insights into his industry and its working. One of his posts made the top ten most read list on BizCommunity last year, something he was very excited about. He’s worked hard on his writing over the year.
The process
We created an editorial calendar for him, which will provide his readers with topical and useful guidance and information throughout the year. He writes the articles and then sends them to me for editing. We use the track changes function on MS Word so that he can see the changes that I have made and we have discussions about why the one way works better than the other so that he learns from each interaction.
To date this process has born great fruit for my client and I have been thoroughly impressed at the improvement in his writing. Compared to a year ago, there are consistently fewer changes made to each article and he is being published on a number of industry leading websites including BizCommunity, Ideate and Memeburn.
Quick Steps to improving your writing
- Use plain English – don’t try to impress your readers with your huge vocabulary of words most people won’t understand. If you want your message to be easily understood and not lost in translation use plain English
- Keep it short and sweet – less is more. Stick to one idea per sentence. Aim for three to four sentences per paragraph – particularly when writing for online use
- Punctuate carefully – remember that an apostrophe shows possession (Sheila’s car) or omission (wasn’t it painful when you broke your arm?) Don’t put full stops at the end of the last sentence in a bullet point list. Follow one of the fabulous grammar gurus on Twitter for little daily lesson’s which will help you understand all the subtle nuances of the English language
- Find yourself an editing buddy who will read through all the important correspondence, blog posts or articles that you write – a fresh pair of eyes will pick up on mistakes more easily than if you are reading it yourself
- Don’t use your spell / grammar check as the final word in editing – they are not always right
