Call me biased, but writing is one of my favorite things. It doesn’t matter if I am writing up web copy, blogs, book reviews, or short fiction, writing is something I deeply enjoy and I am not alone. There are many people out there who love writing, but there are also many out there who want to get started to see just what it’s all about.
However, it can be tricky when you’re a new writer, and looking for advice is one of the first things you do – hence why you’re here, right?
If you’re new to writing, then this blog is perfect for you because I will be going over some great, first-time writer tips that can help you create excellent content, no matter what.
Many of these are things I’ve learned over time and want to share my little bits of wisdom with anyone making their way in the writing world.
7 Ways A New Writer Can Be Successful
There are many ways to be successful when it comes to writing, but there are a few that I think stand out from the rest. Let’s take a look at what you can do to have a successful writing career whether you are writing a book or focusing on blogging for your business.
Write One Word, and Then Another and Another. This is incredibly common sense, but many new writers get so caught up trying to “be the best” in writing that they forget. When you are starting out as a writer and are looking for excellent tips, the best one to start with is simply to write. Write one word, then another and another until you have a sentence and so on. This is something award-winning author Neil Gaiman is known for saying, and it is incredibly helpful and true. When you focus too hard on getting the best short story, wanting the next Harry Potter franchise or having a stellar content campaign like Disney, you will get discouraged easily. However, if you just start to write and keep writing, you will find that you are able to come up with great content no matter what it is you are writing.
Know Your Resources and Follow Them. Writers all need to have resources, no matter if they are writing fiction, non-fiction, or focusing on writing web copy. Resources help give direction for content and give great, useful information. If you don’t use resources, you can end up saying things that aren’t true or writing something incorrectly. For example, if you are writing a story based in the 1940s, you need to make sure you know the lingo they used. In addition, if you are writing web copy and want to rank with great SEO, you need to know what to do.Following SEO resources like Moz or Copyblogger can help provide you with the information you need. This will help keep you informed about SEO changes, as well as helping you create excellent content for your website or blog. No matter what you are writing, you will be able to find resources and you need to make sure you have access to them.
Don’t Stress if Your Writing isn’t Top Quality Right Away. Writing is like playing an instrument or learning a new language, it takes time to master it. Even then, there will always be something new to learn, and you can’t expect to know it all. When you first start out writing, it isn’t going to be near as good as it could be simply because you are out of practice. Think of this; if you know a small amount of French but never practice it, you are going to have a hard time going around France, aren’t you? However, if you practice French, you will have an easier time traveling the country and understanding the people. The same can be said about writing. Keep practicing, and you will improve over time. When you first write and read your copy, don’t get discouraged if you feel it isn’t top quality or if someone gives you constructive criticism. Keep writing, and you’ll be epic in no time.
Set Aside Time Each Day to Write. When I first started writing, I made sure that I set aside time each and every day to write. This is important because it helped with what I mention in point one – getting in the practice of writing and improving. Before I became a copywriter, I wrote short stories and little prose poems each day just to write, and that helped me work towards a goal of awesome writing. This helped immensely once I started in the content field, and since I was already in the practice of writing every day, there wasn’t much shifting to my writing schedule. Now, I write several thousand words a day, and it helps to grow my writing capabilities. Since you’re just now starting out, consider setting aside thirty minutes each day and bump it up to an hour or more as you get used to it. Work out that brain and your fingers, and you’ll be incredibly happy with the results.
Stream of Consciousness Writing and Writing as You Speak Can Be Excellent. Stream of consciousness writing is a style of writing that is was popular amongst authors such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf. It is even still a major part of modern American literature and is something you can expect to read when buying books or even reading blogs. While you don’t always want to write in a stream of consciousness manner, this can help you create excellent written work that flows and sounds natural. Another way to achieve this is simply to write as you speak. Basically, doing these two types of writing will help you write content that is easy to read, flows well, and makes more sense to a casual reader. However, if you do end up going the stream of consciousness route, always make sure to proofread and have someone else look over it to make sure it makes sense.It is wise to know that stream of consciousness might not work as well for web content, as web content needs to have more structure to it. However, this can really help improve your writing if you follow point number four and write every day. Stream of consciousness makes that goal easier to achieve and helps you work on excellent ideas, as well helping you flesh out various points. You might even find you can create great blogs by writing in this format and then going back and making changes to help it be more structured.
Avoid the Urge to Follow Popular Formulas. It can be easy to mimic popular, successful formulas when you start out writing. It seems like the way to go when you want to be successful, but that isn’t always the case. In fact, if you focus on following common formulas, you have a higher chance of learning bad habits, and you won’t improve. You can always gain inspiration from other writers, blogs, and websites, but you should always make sure you make it your own. This will help set you apart from others and make your writing something people prefer. You want to be known as someone who has new ideas, and can make readers think or give readers something to enjoy. You don’t want people to think you don’t have an original idea as that can lose readers quickly. Write original content consistently, and your writing success will take off incredibly.
Don’t Hesitate to Take a Journalistic Approach to Writing. Approaching writing for your business’s blog can be daunting. However, a great way to start creating excellent content, even as a new writer, is to start writing with a journalistic approach. This can give you a great formula to start with, and help you craft excellent material that will get read by your clients, and might even get you noticed by industry leaders. This is even a great idea for up and coming authors, especially if you want to engage with your potential audience via blogs when promoting any of your work. A journalistic approach means that you write the pertinent information first, give more explanation about said information, and then give the general info towards the end. Use this when writing your blogs whether you are writing news content or just writing a plain, simple blog post for your followers or fans.
Write On!
Don’t fret about being a perfect writer just yet. Just focus on writing and having fun, and you will begin to see awesome results from readers. Once you start writing consistently, you will see improvement in your style, more clicks on blogs, and you might just even get published! Whatever your goal for writing is, these tips are sure to help you and give you the best chance possible.
If you are still unsure about writing, especially for your business’s blog, Express Writers can help. We have a great team of dedicated writers who have all experienced the awesomeness of the written word. We can provide you with excellent copy, no matter what it is you’re looking for. Take a look at our services to see just how our team can help you create excellent, written content.
Were you ever in a play? Most of us have tried our hand at acting at some point in our life. For the majority of us, it was in elementary school. Some of us volunteered or auditioned for roles in middle and high school productions. The brave and bold out there, they went to college and took acting classes. Whether we found it fun or nerve wracking, most of us have been in a play at least once.
According to SoYouWanna.com, every stage play has a beat. Actors learn about the beat early on in their careers, and they work with beats on every production they undertake. SoYouWanna.com says a beat is “that moment in a scene when something big happens, when stakes are raised, when characters confront their foes and win. Or lose… It’s a given that a play won’t crackle and keep audiences on their toes unless it has commanding beats.”
Copywriting Secrets: What Play Beats Can Teach Copywriters
Play beats are written by none other than writers who specialize in playwriting and scripts. Every theatrical production is composed of beats, whether it’s a Broadway play or a big Hollywood production. SoYouWanna.com goes on to reveal that a good beat is made up of five specific keys:
Action
Obstacle
Event
Stakes
Strategies
If you dabble in copywriting (or even creative writing), I’m willing to bet your brain is buzzing right now. Don’t these five keys sound just a little familiar? Obviously, they aren’t identical to the primary keys we follow when writing copy. Nonetheless, I’m willing to bet you’re drawing comparisons to the five keys of copywriting:
Grab attention
Overcome objections
Present the benefits
Tell them what they stand to lose (or gain)
Issue a call to action
As you can see, we have the potential to learn a lot from the “tricks” of playwriting and big screen script writing. But before we dive into the parallels and review a few vital secrets, let’s first talk about the biggest swaying point of films, plays, television and writing: the audience.
The TV Audience versus Your Audience
In regards to television, Steve Jobs said, “I think it’s brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I’ve ever seen is called television – but then again, television, at its best, is magnificent.”
What makes a television program undeniably magnificent? Not everyone is a fan of Hallmark movie productions. You know what I’m talking about. Those Hallmark feature films, the ones that air on a special night on your local television station, usually right around a holiday. In fact, I know some guys who won’t hesitate to labels these feature films as “sappy chick flicks,” and they do everything in their power to get out of watching them with the girlfriend or wife.
But when they fail to escape a Hallmark movie night, do you know what inevitably seems to happen? They’re usually caught quickly wiping away a tear at some point, pretending it never happened. Why? The program touched them. It reached them. They connected to it, and they felt something. They felt something so strong that it evoked a physical reaction.
Successful television productions, the ones that stand out as award winning material, all have one rudimentary thing in common: they reach out and touch the audience. Successful copywriting projects, the ones that scream awesome and go viral, also have one rudimentary thing in common: they reach out, touch the audience and move them to action.
The primary focus of both industries is the audience. Let’s face it, without the undivided attention and backing of the audience, every production would inevitably be a lost cause. Content is useless if no one wants to read it, just like a play, movie or television program isn’t worth production costs if no one wants to see it.
The Secrets of Great Writing
Steven Spielberg, unarguably one of the greatest movie directors of our time, once said, “It all starts with the script: it’s not worth taking myself away from my family if I don’t have something I’m really passionate about.” It’s amazing what passion can do. It reaches deep down into the depths of our core. It motivates us. It has the power to temper or amplify our reactions. It can be like jet fuel! So, what prodigious secrets does great writing from the big screen reveal? The first secret we can glean from the big screen is that if it lacks passion, it’s not worth doing. The first key to awesome copywriting is grabbing attention. How do we accomplish this? Like the playwriting beat, we start off with a little action. We infuse a little passion. We take our excitement and transform it into a hooking introduction that cascades down into the headings and paragraphs. The infusion of passion, a strong and basic emotion, is the perfect means of instantly establishing a connection with our all-important audience.
It’s important to point out that just as a beat holds the audience’s attention throughout a theatrical production, the writing of copy needs to likewise hold attention. It can’t start out amazing and then vanish. The audience will vanish right along with it. Steven Spielberg offers another piece of advice that applies, “The public has an appetite for anything about imagination – anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible.”
Now, the world of copywriting revolves around content that is usually educational, factual, informative and designed to promote a certain way of thinking or something for sale. How is Spielberg’s advice pertinent? A key means of holding the audience’s attention is through storytelling. Nine times out of ten, you’re relaying a true story, but the mere fact that it’s a narrative story connects the audience through the most motivating mental power known to man: imagination. Don’t underestimate this! The second secret is all about overcoming. For playwriting, it’s the characters overcoming an obstacle. For copywriters, it’s overcoming the audience’s objections. Don’t be afraid to bluntly present objections and then heroically overcome them. An excellent example from the big screen are the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Robert Downey Jr. Holmes tackles obstacles with sizzling precision, and leaves our jaw hanging as simple deduction and logic prevail. You can do the same when attacking and conquering the probable objections of your audience. The third secret revolves around a planned event or presenting the benefits. In the realm of copywriting, benefit presentation is our main event. It’s the moment where our audience sits on the edge of their seat, eager and ready to learn the answer to the all-important question, what’s in it for me? It’s just like that highly anticipated event in any movie where we perch on the edge of the movie theater seat, holding our breath and wondering, what’s going to happen next? The fourth secret we can glean from playwriting is the stakes. What does the character have to lose? How will the loss affect them? For crying out loud, how will their loss affect us as we’re chomping away on popcorn? When it comes to copywriting, presenting the audience with what they stand to lose by not adopting an idea or purchasing our product or service can be just as devastating. Metaphorically speaking, your goal is make them drop the popcorn in shock and awe, mutter about something in their eye as they wipe away a tear or fly backwards in their seat as they experience that unmistakable “Whoa!” moment. The fifth and final secret we can take away from the theatrical beat is the implementation of a strategy, or in our case, a call to action. You want a movie that delivered one gripping set of strategies? How about two series of movies to review: James Bond and the Jason Bourne films. You can’t deny that by the end of these films, you walked out of the theater ready for the next installment. And there had better be a next installment in the works! A copywriting call to action is similar. Content should build so much anticipation and excitement that by the end, the audience jumps at the chance to take some sort of action.
Inspiration and Passion = Awesome
Perhaps the most valuable thing we can learn from Oscar winning movies and Tony winning plays is that audiences have an insatiable hunger for inspiring, passionate entertainment. Our job as copywriters is to create an educational and informative piece that also entertains. It stands to reason that by adopting the five keys of creating a beat, merging them with the five keys of killer copywriting and throwing in some inspiration and passion for good measure, we’ll create the perfect recipe—maybe even “The Perfect Storm”—for capturing the minds and souls of our audience. What about sales? That’s one of the main points of our online content, right? Well, it’ll follow as we connect with our audience.
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