Not knowing where to start? Perhaps you have the drive to write but the end result looks dauntingly far away? The following will help you to sit down and start writing  immediately.  You only need to follow below guidelines and you are on the way of becoming an author!

I will forgo for the moment all the preliminaries that need to be taken care of before you can sit down and write as they only make everything look complicated and therefore would present a psychological burden. Like your frame of mind, the location of writing, your expectations, the list goes on. Because you re geared to ‘get on with it’, with the actual writing, that is.

If you are a self-publisher, you can also ignore the correct form of double spacing, headers and footers, pagination,  which publishers require. And you do not need to bother with a business proposal and introductory letter, however, an automatic word count is a handy instrument, freely provided by most word processors  

Immersing into the writing part you enjoy the wonderful world of painting with words and style of sentences. Later on, you may transform your finished manuscript in to the correct layout with all the trimmings for an ‘official’ presentation. But your creation will always be the same.

There are three things you need to take care of to enable you to put words together into sentences and get somewhere, namely towards the end result:

1.    SYNOPSIS

The first is the writing of a synopsis, that is, exactly what the book is about. A love story that leads through a lot of difficulties and tribulations, a thriller with sudden and unexpected surprises, a historic work, containing newly discovered facts, your own past you wish to enlighten the world with or addressing your family and close friends, you understand what I am trying to say. In this short description, the persons are named, the actions are laid-out, the story is explained to an unsuspecting reader or publisher.

Having this synopsis before you, you cannot get astray- it will guide you through the other pieces of pre- writing that you require.

2.    CHARACTER OUTLINE

Now, having your book outlined and printed out before you, it will be easier to identify the various characters that appear in your story. Write them down by their name, what they are and describe their main characteristics. This comes  easy if you manage to think of a relevant screen character you know – perhaps you can manage to paste into this a picture of this actor, as this will assist you later on in slipping into this persons personality and acting out on paper a very realistic behaviour. Which will make your story so much more believable and fascinating!

This goes, of course, not only for humans, but animals too and even sceneries you are describing can be from a well-known personal experience or from a movie. This would bring so much more immediacy to your writing.

3.    CHAPTER OUTLINE

Now the story unfolds in a concise way and in segments. From the begin you dive into the story and deal with who does what with whom, where they met, and on the story goes all portioned into chapters

There is now law requiring certain amount of chapters, but normally a chapter is somehow self contained, like in a theatre, where a change of scenery indicates a new act. And the beauty is that you can change things around as you recognise improvements in your story whilst working on this outline. Complicated situations are put down on paper as well twisted emotions and reasoning thereby straightening out your train of thoughts

With these three requirements, namely synopsis, character outline and chapter outline, printed out before you, it will be so easy to start your story. Now, writing down  the words as they come to your mind will be easy and after a while your surroundings will disappear and you are in your own world, created by yourself. I shall soon deal with more tricks of easy writing, if you only bring the determination and discipline. And now – off to create your own publication!

PETER FREDERICK

www.life-on-the-road.com

peter.frederick@life-on-the-road.com

There are times when writing can inspire such strong emotions that you find yourself becoming critical or overly clever. While it may sound or look good to you and a few people who know you, it may not always have the same kind of reception with the rest of your audience. By using a tone of writing carelessly, you might not get the kind of results you want. Here are reasons why you should avoid being clever and critical just to write copy and how to improve your writing instead:

Being overly clever is seen as arrogance

You’ve probably come across writers who try too hard to impress their audience. You will agree that they often seem condescending and annoying. The reader’s usual reaction is often, ‘What, does this writer think I’m dumb?’

By being too clever, you’ll alienate your audience, who won’t be too pleased at being subjected to a write-up that seems to insinuate that they are ignorant. Instead, speak to them the way you would to a respected colleague and don’t simply assume that you know better.

Being critical can ruffle the wrong feathers

There are writing styles and topics that call for a writer to use a critical tone. Satire, for example, is very often critical. However, really great writers still manage to inject good humor into the writing, which is actually a sign of genuine talent.

When writing reviews, for example, you also need to be critical in order to inform the reader the positive and negative points of the person, event or product being reviewed. Being critical could be harsh but if you can phrase your sentences well, your write-up will be easier and more fun to read.

Be like Shakespeare

No, it’s not about iambic pentameters and rhymes but being able to state the obvious without doing so. Instead of confronting the issue upfront by being clever and critical, find ways to describe, illustrate, critique or opine. You can add words, omit some, use metaphors and other tricks of the language. The key here is to produce a well-written piece. Just don’t overdo it, though or people will know you’re trying to be clever.

Avoid strong language

You don’t have to be offensive just so people will know that you have something to say. Sometimes, writers can’t help using strong language when trying to be critical about something.

Some writers may even use strong language in the hopes of preventing boredom in their readers. However, this trick often backfires since not everyone is appreciative of language used only in B action movies and street fights. If you use strong language out of context, your readers might think that you are either trying to be clever or being overly critical.

Instead of falling into this trap, turn to useful references such as a dictionary or a thesaurus for better alternatives. You’d be surprised at how well you can write copy that expresses exactly what you want to say using well-chosen words. You’ll gain more respect for it.

Use humor instead

Instead of being clever and critical when writing copy, consider appealing to your readers’ funny side. Some of the best writing ever produced used humor to express opinions and ideas even about the most serious of topics. Doing so will allow you to explore a different aspect of your subject and to offer your readers a means to see things in a different light.

As a creative writer, you must feel the mood your are writing about. It is imperative if you want to reach your audience. And how are you supposed to do that? By experiencing the mood.

Let’s suppose you want to write a scene that displays anger. Maybe the story is about abuse, a mom and dad arguing, or sibling rivalry. Maybe it’s about a girl breaking up with her boyfriend because he was playing around on the side. If the scene is intense, you have to get into the mode. I mean red, piping hot angry.

Remember the guy or gal that dumped you 30 years ago? Remember the time you had a bad dream about your mate and you wouldn’t speak to him all day? How about when you got steamed at the boss, or got into a heated argument over politics, world affairs, abortion, women’s rights, etc.? As a writer, you must capture those emotions again and write them into your scenes. It should be so real that you will need to attend anger management classes to get over it.

Do you need to be happy? Then think of some very happy occasions. Sing really crazy! Laugh like an idiot! And when you begin laughing at yourself, it’s time to write that joy into your scene.

Another way to develop the needed emotions is to imagine yourself as the character and write entries in a diary from his/her point of view. Live the make-believe life. Do whatever it takes to crawl into your character’s skin. You can’t write effectively what you don’t know or aren’t in the mood for. (You can, however, write a draft for the scene and come back to build it in a more realistic way later.)

Remember that your protagonist (main character, hero) and antagonist (villain) must be three-dimensional characters. They must have a past and a future; they must have problems in their lives and they must work through those problems like real, live people. Those characters should be real enough to walk off the page in your reader’s mind and sit next to them. If the reader can’t identify with the characters, they aren’t likely to stay with the story.

I remember when my daughter was 16-years old. It was not uncommon for her to sit on the floor Indian style, and bawl her eyes out over a drama TV show. One night I winked at my husband and said, “That actress is playing her part really well, isn’t she?” He picked up on it and we talked back and forth about the actress’ career and wondered out loud what movie they would play in next.

Our daughter turned around, tears dripping off her cheeks, and said, “Quit it, you guys. You’re ruining the show!” But what she really meant was, “I’m into the character. I feel what she is feeling. Don’t move me out of the scene.”

If your characters aren’t three-dimensional, you’ll lose your readers. Put yourself into the mood and into the groove. Live what you write.

See Christmas $ale below!

From the desk of: John Arrington

Sunday 11:02 pm

The first step to writing a great article is, to write about how to help your reader get what they want, and achieve their dreams.

The simplest way to start writing a great article is: Start just jotting down notes, sentences, paragraphs, as things start coming to you. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling at this time just take note. You will be bringing it all together later. Just get started. One way to help you with this simple task is to carry a small recorder with you at all times. When you think of something just record it and come back to it later and write it down. This is a great idea for those who have busy schedules. Don’t worry, if you don’t have a recorder a note pad will do.

Write about things that is important to your reader and offer them advise about how to improve their circumstances and how to achieve their dreams. When writing a article, write like you are talking to someone. You advice has to be helpful, not condemning. Write as though you are talking to them, not at them.

How To Get Your Article Read!

Write a short heading saying something like this: This information has been a great help to me, I thought it might be interesting to you also. Share with others what has worked for you. Your hearts desire as a writer should be to help others save time, heart ache, and money. And reach their goals in the shortest period of time.

Make sure your advice is easy to understand and easy to put into action. Don’t confuse your readers with a lot of do’s and don’ts. This is considered TMI (To Much Information). Stick with the facts. Talk about your reader, Not about you.

People want to learn about how to avoid pain and get what they want. The sure fire way to get your article read is to define the readers problem. Now tell them how to solve the problem. This makes reader begin to think and makes your article sticky.

I’m only trying to help those who want to become successful writers, just write from your heart. Reach out to your readers and truly offer information that will help them. Your rewards will come later. You only receive after you have given. You don’t receive before you give.

Be A Problem Solver!

Think of areas or problems you have had when you tried to do something. Then what did you do that made it a lot easier. Then what was your reward for solving the problem. Keep it simple, just the facts.

I guarantee if you practice what I’m revealing to you here in this article, you will in time become one of the most sought after Authors, but it takes time. But you must really want to help your fellow man and don’t focus on trying to sell something or sound like you’re a sales person. Article are not to be written in that manner. Make sure you have read the submission policy before submitting your articles. When writing just be yourself. A true help to man kind.

How To Become The Super Article Writer!

How to information is very valuable. People want to know How To do something. Just start taking notes as your thoughts start coming to you. Let your feelings flow. I truly believe that everyone has some advice that could help some one. And most people will offer many excuses like. I don’t know where to start or I don’t know what to say. No, I think the real problem is, they just don’t get started. If they would just start I think they would be amazed at their knowledge and feeling good about themselves because they truly helped someone more on with their life. Or become a better person.

Ok, now you have finished writing all your notes. Now its time to edit your notes and rewrite them as a draft. Delete the garbage and rewrite the strengths of your message.

Make Your Article Interesting To Read!

All this means is to make your article easy to read and understand. Try to keep your paragraphs short. Don’t try to crowd to much into one paragraph. And don’t be to serious because this becomes boring reading material. Be creative and write a funny sentence every once and awhile, but stay focused on offering advice about solving their problems.

Write With Seeing Words!

Use words that makes the reader see their situation and see the solution. It’s like writing in such a way that the reader see’s and feels the message being presented to them. Much like watching a movie. Write with feelings. Believe what you are writing about.

Now Sharpen Your Articles Appearance!

Now that you have rewritten your notes and edited the garbage and rewritten the strengths as a draft. Now its time to rewrite this draft one more time. That’s right, just one more time. But this time either add more to it or subtract even more weak words. This will be your final Super Article. Remove all the words with no strength or wasted words.

Now, read your Super Article over again. Is there some more weak words or can you improve it some more by adding to its strengths? Now once this is done let your family and friends proof read it and get their feedback. If the feedback is good. Start submitting right away.

Congratulation!

You have just become a great author. Give yourself a pat on the back you deserve it.

I hope this article helped you with your writing career.

To Your Success,

John Arrington

Copyright 2006 & beyond John Arrington.. Reprint rights granted to all so long as this article and by-lines are reprinted intact and all links made live..

Article writing is one of the most established ways to drive instant traffic and sales for any online business. Ask any internet marketer and chances are you will find article writing as part of the website promotion strategy for the marketer. Since we are convinced of its power and effectiveness, it is so important to know how to write quality articles. It is even more crucial to know how to do so in double-quick time so that we can save time and achieve more for our online businesses. Ready for some killer tips to write quality articles in minutes?

Article writing can be real quick and completed in minutes if you follow a simple plan or system. But before I share more, let us first define what a quality article is. A fine piece of article is written to attract the attention of your reader to your website. It is like a movie trailer or sneak peek where you pack the most exciting and most meaty part into it.

I am going to show you the exact steps to write 6 articles quickly within 3 hours. Here is the hot article writing system to crank out many articles and you would understand why it is effective for coming out with dozens of great articles.

1. Conduct your keyword research to find a list of 6 keywords. These 6 keywords would be the main keywords you are targeting for the articles. Go to Overture and start searching for keywords with searches lower than 1000 per month. Next, head to Google and search for the keywords with quotes, ie “keyword” and if the number is less than 5000, use it. Make sure they are related. The whole search should take no than 10 minutes.

2. Go to Google and start searching for your content. Key in each keyword and go to the top 5 – 6 search results and note down whatever relevant content from the websites related to the keyword. It will probably take you about 15 minutes to do so.

3. Ok, now you have your content. We are ready to write our quality articles! Start first with creating a seed article. This is the base article we would use to create more articles. You can afford to spend a little more time on this article.

4. Here are the steps to write a quality seed article

Step 1 – Create an attention-sucking title. Use words like “How to”, “10 Sure-fire Tips”, “Learn to”, “Why”, “5 Easy Ways”, “Top 10” and so. Notice that the titles all invoke some kind of curiosity? Remember to include your main keyword into the title in its entirety, that is, do not break it up. For example for the key phrase “write quality articles”, use “write quality articles” and not “write 10 good quality articles”. This is good SEO juice.

Step 2 – Write a 5-paragraph 400 – 500 word article – an introduction, a concluding paragraph and 3 content paragraphs. Each content paragraph would first start off with one sentence illustrating one point. Use the main key phrase in each paragraph.

Step 3 – Elaborate on each point and expand the sentence into a few more sentences. For example, if I am writing about how to write quality articles, I can talk about what makes an article a quality one in one paragraph, another to describe the content gathering process, and so on. Repeat the main keyword for at least 5 times to achieve a minimum 1 percent keyword density. This will rank your article high in the search engine. You may also choose to include a secondary key phrase within your article as well.

5. Take the seed article and rewrite each sentence into 5 different versions. Paraphrase them and use the other 5 keywords for each sentence. This whole process of rewriting would take you probably 20 minutes each.

So that’s it. 6 quality articles ready to pull in great traffic, sales and subscribers for you. Do some simple maths and you would figure out that each article takes no more than 30 minutes to write.

Anyone who is keen to learn the one secret that article marketers use to write quality articles in minutes should visit my article writing blog.