Creative Writing Tips You Can Apply to Your Freelance Writing Career
Nurturing a successful freelance writing career can be quite challenging; It requires hard work, dedication, and of course, creative ingenuity.
Obviously, there is a difference between writing creative fiction works like novels, short stories and screenplays, and writing online content for either informative purposes or for marketing purposes.
However, even with the disparity between these two popular writing forms, there are still creative writing elements that overlap and can be useful in freelance writing, and vice versa.
Essential Writing Tips Applicable for both Fiction and Freelance Writing
Below are some top creative writing tips employed in fictional writing, but that have also been proven effective when applied to all other forms of freelance writing, like content writing and copywriting.
Implement these tips strategically to experience an impressive boost in the quality of your work.
1. Write With Your Readers in Mind
When creative writers are crafting various written works of fiction, they tend to immerse themselves in the minds of their audience. This writing exercise allows them to rightly guess the expectations of their readers and hence, they are able to incorporate suspense and intrigue in their stories.
You can also apply this practice to freelance writing. Whether you’re writing a blog post, a service page or any other type of web content, you must first identify your target audience. Doing this successfully equips you with all the vital ingredients you need to craft the best web content for the readers.
Content writers who fail to assess their work from the audience’s point of view, often craft articles, blog posts, and web pages that are just uninspiring. Don’t just write what your client wants to see, write content that will engage the readers and also drive more traffic to the client’s website.
2. Use the Standard Writing Format
In creative writing, there is a standard story writing format that is often adhered to by writers of all genres of fiction. This standard writing format is responsible for the similarities in story structures that exist among literary works. Without this standard writing format in creative writing, literary pieces will be so disorganized that readers will struggle to make sense of them.
Despite the differences in plots, themes, and genres, the one thing all good written works of fiction have in common is a well-structured, standard story writing format. In freelance writing, there is also a standard writing format that is usually applied when crafting different types of web content. The format is often composed of an introduction, the body, and of course, the conclusion of the article.
This is the standard format for all types of content on the internet. Use this format as it is the accepted industry practice, although it is not a mandatory requirement. If you choose to ignore it in your freelance writing work, the quality of your written pieces might suffer and your clients be dissatisfied.
3. Stick to Your Content Plan
The content plan of an article or blog post is synonymous with the plot of a written work of fiction. It helps to give direction to the writer, ensuring that the subject of the content is properly covered. It basically functions like a map that guides a writer from the beginning of the article to its conclusion.
In creative writing, when you’re plotting a short story or a novel, you are essentially laying down a blueprint of what the final written piece will look like. You can look at it as a skeletal framework of the final literary piece.
Applying this to freelance writing is crucial if you want to succeed in the field. Believe it or not, it is easy to identify web content that wasn’t properly planned out before it was written. It is usually disorganized with its sub-headings and key points all over the place. There is also a glaring lack of direction that is common with such web content since the writer often veers off topic in the written piece.
Plan out the content you’re assigned before commencing on the writing process. This way your work will be well organized, smooth flowing and easy to understand for the readers.
4. Outline before Writing
This is common practice with creative writers who outline their stories before commencing on the writing process. A story outline is often created before each chapter in the story is written. The principal purpose of doing this is to ensure that each chapter accurately contains the stipulated information.
In freelance writing, though it isn’t necessary to outline your work before writing, doing so has its merit. First and foremost, outlining an article or blog post allows you to develop a sort of architecture for the content; hence, ensuring that you place each content points in the right position.
An outline also facilitates comprehension, ensuring that your content is easy for readers to digest.
5. Edit after Writing
To be clear, this practice isn’t just restricted to the creative writing field. In fact, editing your work after completing the first draft is a basic step that should never be neglected when writing.
Whether you’re writing a novel that may be the next best seller or are simply creating a 500-words listicle to be uploaded on your WordPress page, you must ensure that the first draft of your work is properly edited before it is sent for publishing.
There is a reason why the first attempt of any written piece is referred to as a rough draft. It will be wrong to tender this first draft as your completed piece. Edit the first draft after you are done writing.
6. Proofread before Submitting
It is common in all types of writing to give a written piece one final look before submitting it for publication. This allows the writer to correct any grammatical errors or typos they may have missed during the editing stage.
In freelance writing, proofreading is crucial in the final outcome of the writing task. If you choose to omit this step from your writing process, then you’ll have to endure rejections and complaints from clients.
It takes just a few minutes to proofread web content, so ensure you do it to avoid tarnishing your reputation due to the presence of ugly typos and grammar mistakes in your work.
