Browse the All Freelance Writing collection of writing and editing articles below.
This section covers the craft side of freelance writing, including clearer writing, stronger structure, cleaner editing, and habits that help you turn in more polished work to clients and editors.
Whether you want to sharpen the basics or improve the quality of your final drafts, these posts are meant to help you become a stronger working writer.
A fellow writer mentioned client projects sometimes took longer than they hoped, so they wanted to learn to write faster in order to avoid this. While there are plenty of ways you can increase your writing speed, one tip I gave was to use “skeleton outlines.” I worked through the beginning stages of of a skeleton outline while they watched to show how quick the
You’ve probably heard this line before: “Fast. Cheap. Good. You can only have two.” That’s true in freelance writing as in most things. Clients have to prioritize. As a freelance writer, you don’t want your clients prioritizing “cheap” work when they hire you. That means you’ll need to provide those other two benefits: being good and being fast. In this case, “being good” means being
In this week’s “short share,” we have a two-year book writing plan from HuntersWritings.com. While two years might be an unnecessarily long time for many indie authors these days, I think it’s a great plan for new authors — especially those trying to write their first book alongside a traditional day job. If you find yourself with limited time to write, but you’d like to
It doesn’t matter how experienced of a writer you are. You’re bound to feel unmotivated every now and then. Sometimes you can plow through these periods. But at other times you’ll need to find ways to get excited about your projects again. I’m like any other writer in this regard. I have good days and bad days. Sometimes a lack of motivation is a result
Scrivener is a wonderful tool for writers. You can use it to write a novel or nonfiction book. You can use it to format your writing as an e-book. You can even use Scrivener for blogging. That said, Scrivener can also be a complicated tool to use. I doubt I even know half of what it can do. It’s one of those tools that you
My next Scrivener template is now available for download: a murder mystery novel template. This one is based on my own template that I’ve been using for my upcoming mystery series. It allows you to plan, outline, and draft your next murder mystery all in one project file. Plus, there’s a place to write up some of your promotional copy, like your book launch press
For this weekend’s short share, I wanted to feature an infographic that applies to authors and copywriters alike: What Really Makes a Good Story? from Tom Albrighton at ABCCopywriting.com. Check out the original discussion or leave a comment to tell me what you think. Are there other vital elements to a good story? Do you disagree with anything in the infographic?
(Note: This post’s original review was published in 2015, but this AutoCrit review contains some updates as of March 25, 2025.) Some authors love the revision process. Some, not so much. I fall in the latter group. But if there’s one thing I dislike more than working on revisions, it’s the idea of automating the process with software. Revisions aren’t only about spelling
We have an interesting question for authors this week from an anonymous reader who created a soundtrack for their upcoming book. This is a topic that’s been on my mind recently as I was looking into BookTrack and also happened across an Amazon Prime music playlist featuring classical music for reading. While I’ve used soundtracks to help me write stories, listening to soundtracks or reading-specific playlists while I
This week’s quick tip comes from a question I received from Cathy Miller (my most recent guest co-host for the freelance writing podcast). Cathy’s thinking about making the move to Scrivener for freelance writing projects. But she’d heard from another writer that Scrivener projects don’t convert to Word well, especially when tables are involved. And most clients expect projects delivered in Word format, so that’s
Do you consider yourself an ethical article writer or blogger? Whether you write for print publications or the web, professional ethics are an important part of building trust with readers and clients, which is part of what keeps them coming back for more. My ethical standards won’t necessarily look like yours, and vice-versa. For example, I have ethical issues with writing about certain topics that
Today I’d like to tackle a reader question from Evgeni Puzankov related to selling writing to English-language publications when English isn’t your first language. Can you do so successfully? “The question that plagues me throughout my adult life is whether one can actually make it in anglophone writing biz, while not being a native. I’m Russian and still live here. My mother sent me to
One of my favorite productivity tools in my freelance writing and blogging work is a timer. I use something called the Pomodoro Technique which breaks down my work into small, manageable periods of time. It’s a great way to stay focused and push yourself to see how much you can do in a short stretch. And it turns out, it works well for writing books
We’ve been talking a lot this past week about Karen Wiesner’s latest writer’s reference book, Writing the Fiction Series. Today I’d like to share some information about another book you should keep an eye out for. The rights to her book, From First Draft to Finished Novel, have reverted to her, and Karen is set to release a new version of the book through another publisher. The new release
Karen Wiesner isn’t just our first featured guest here at All Freelance Writing. She is also the author of some of my favorite writing reference books. I was a huge fan of her First Draft in 30 Days in particular — a book that helped me map out my own customized book planning, outlining, and organization process. So I was thrilled when she contacted me about
Note: Melissa no longer offers these services. This post remains as archived content for your reference. One of the most common questions I get as an editor is about what different types of editing there are and what each one entails. New clients aren’t always sure what level of editing they need and don’t know how to make that decision. Before you can decide between the
If there was ever a piece of punctuation to give us all fits, it’s the comma. When do you use it? When are you using it too much? Do I need a comma there? Correct comma usage causes endless questions simply because there are so many rules. Let’s worry about one comma in particular – the serial, or Oxford, comma. It’s the most controversial of
As an English teacher, I have a strategy that usually works for struggling and reluctant writers. If they claim to not be able to write something, I ask them to tell me the story or response to address the prompt. Then, after they tell me a sentence or two, I repeat it back to a student and tell him to write it down. Kid says,
Before hitting “send” when sending out a new piece or before hitting “publish” on a new blog post, it pays to proofread your piece. Here are some quick things to check when proofreading your own copy. Homophones Perhaps one of the most common mistakes when when writing is misusing homophones–words that sound alike but are spelled differently. Spell check won’t catch a misused word; it
You may have had college professors preach to you to “show, don’t tell.” The ironic thing about that statement is that it contradicts itself. Take the video I’ve embedded below, for instance. In the video, a blind homeless man is begging for change. A young woman comes by and changes what he has written on his sign–and in response, many more people begin to give
This morning I woke up to a beautiful sight. I live in a wooded community, and we had snow last night. This morning the snow was still sticking to the trees. That’s rare. It gets windy up here, so snow usually blows off the trees right away. The view made me think about how this environment sometimes impacts my writing. The view this morning outside
Sometimes everyday life gets in the way of writing (and sometimes writing is that everyday life). But in the former case, one of my favorite things to do is go somewhere else — plan a mini writer’s retreat of sorts. I’m doing that with my husband this weekend. We’re heading to a B&B called Sayre Mansion, about an hour from where we live. We stay in a
My nonfiction book, The Query-Free Freelancer, has been moving along in an extraordinarily slow fashion. That’s due to a variety of things (from several months of illness where I focused my limited work time on clients to simply shelving the project for a while for a fresher perspective). Now that I’m moving forward with that first draft again (my own edits to the manuscript before sending it
Creativity is defined as the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc. We often hear this concept expressed as “thinking outside the box.” Authors, perhaps even more than other creative groups, feel the stress to be “truly creative.” To avoid cliches. To add stunning plot twists. To do what has never
Pop quiz, hot shot! How many of the old, conventional writing rules do you break on a daily basis? You probably know the ones I’m talking about. These are rules like: Never start a paper with a question. Never start a sentence with “and” or “but.” Never end a sentence with a preposition. Paragraphs must be a minimum of five sentences. There are countless more
Ever wonder what an editor does? Chances are it’s a lot more than you think. It’s an editor’s job to make sure your readers can see the forest despite the trees—that they don’t get caught up on typos and mistakes that will cause them to focus on the words instead of the story. And, in the process, a good editor will look for things you
Last month Tim Berry wrote about learning that a stop sign requires a full stop—one where the car rolls backward slightly—and how that reminded him of decision making. That sometimes we all need a full stop now and again to think things through and prepare ourselves to head off again in the right direction. I couldn’t help but think of how the same concept applies
I recently came across a fun writing toy and I’ve just spent the last hour playing around on it. It’s not earth-shattering, nor is it going to change the world, but it does illustrate a point rather nicely. Your voice is a secret writing weapon, so use it. Here’s the toy: https://www.codingrobots.com/iwl/ “I Write Like” is a website where you essentially paste a chunk of
[This post is part of a series on writing sales copy for your book—see the first piece in the series here: The Truth About the Back of your Book.] We’re always told not to judge a book by its cover… but most people are referring to the front of the book. It’s flip side is a different matter. Without well written sales copy to convince
This morning, as I worked with my kids at school, I realized just how often subjects and verbs get complicated and mismatched. This happens most frequently when you have more than one noun in the subject in the sentence. Consider the following: One of the boys jump over the fence. One of the boys jumps over the fence. Which one is correct? Let’s dissect them