Don’t be afraid of writing longer documents like books… in many ways they are just a series of short, well-written documents. Read my 15 tips, summarised under these headings: You CAN do it Be sure to plan and structure your work Make the  writing process easy – and enjoyable! Ensure as much of your writing as possible is GOOD Running out of stamina?  Let’s finish the job.    You can do it…  1)        Use a theme, eg...

How would you describe your writing’s style and tone of voice, and do you vary it for different clients/publications? I used to write features for two UK national newspapers: The Guardian, whose Wednesday Society supplements were written in a ‘flat / semi-academic’ style, and The Daily Telegraph, whose Week-end editor repeatedly asked for  ‘lyrical and lively’ text. It paid not to mix the two around. ‘Don’t be negative,’ said the Telegraph...

As a freelance writer, let me give you some useful writing advice, drawing on my years’ of experience… Computers have made it too tempting and too easy to jump on a keyboard and start typing. They even encourage us – after just a few minutes there are lots of words on the screen and we feel we are making progress. But are you? And is that the best way to start your writing? ‘Fail to plan and plan to fail’ is a famous proverb used by...

Tips and Techniques for writing web content and writing SEO text, and how it differs from writing for print… below I share some ideas, spelt out as the Six C’s: I have also written other web writing blogs on these topics: how to write a good homepage, web writing secrets 10 top tips of good web content – based on several years’ reviewing where websites go Right … and Wrong. 1. Curiosity Web users are driven by...

Remember the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?  Well it can show you how to write good copy.  Here’s how:   H – The importance of good H’s – Headlines, Headings and sub-Headings.  O – One, two, three.  A good rhythm helps.  You can achieve this, for example, by citing things in 3’s and varying your sentence length. G – As editors always say “Get a Good quote.” W – Use ‘Word pictures’ to convey images, smells...