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...

You can do it 1.) There is no need be afraid of writing longer documents – they are a series of well-written short documents. But use a theme, eg conveyed through the headings, to provide a coherent whole. 2.) And you don’t have to be a great writer to write a book – you are not aiming to write a literary work, or the biggest seller ever. If you have passion for your subject it will show through in your writing, and that will make it an...

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...

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...