How Much to Charge as a Freelance Writer (Per word, per hour, per article, per email)
Knowing what to charge as a freelance writer can be a stressful situation.
You want to land the job but you don’t want your pricing to scare away potential clients. You also don’t want to charge too little and find that you are being paid unfairly for your skills and service.
You might feel like you’re between a rock and a hard place trying to find the right balance between what’s good and what’s fair.
Hopefully, this guide will help you sort out how much you should get paid and how much clients should be paying you.
Should I charge per hour or per word?
It really can be a matter of preference and a matter of client preference. I personally wouldn’t put too much stake on it. If you are able to write 1,000 clean, optimized words an hour and your client wants to pay per word you can think, “what do I want to make an hour?”
The client wants to pay .10 cents per word then you’ll make about $100 an hour. If they want to pay five cents per word that drops your pay in half for your time. Think about it this way and you can work with clients that want to charge per word and per hour.
The important part is knowing how long it takes you to write around 1,000 words as a meter. In freelance writing, it is a basic you will want to know off-hand how long it takes you to write 100, 200, 500, 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000-word articles so that you have at least a vague idea of how much you’ll be making per hour whether it is paid per word or per hour.
How much to charge per hour:
If just starting out, charge no lower than $20 an hour. This is low for writing online. When you are more advanced charge $60 an hour. When you have a specialized skill set like email or copywriting experience you can charge $150+ per hour.
There are of course many variables and many prices you could charge in between, but these types of prices could be pretty standard for freelance writing compared to other freelance skills.
How much to charge per word:
When you charge per word you don’t have to take your hour into account. If you write really fast then it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to jam out 1,000 words.
If you are starting out you might find yourself writing for .02 per word. When you are more skilled .10 per word can be expected. The highest paying per word is usually capped out at $1 per word.
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How much to charge per article:
With articles, skills really determine pay.
If you are unskilled, don’t understand SEO, and leave lots of edits you could charge $10-20 per 1,000-word article.
If you know your way around SEO and can turn in a finished product then you can charge $500 for a 1,000-word article. If you specialize in a subject and have the skills to back up ROI you can charge $1000+ for a 1,000-word article.
How much to charge per email:
Email writing is a huge industry for writers right now.
For emails, you can charge as little as $20 per hour. If you’re advanced you can charge $60 per hour. If you’re an expert and specialized you can charge $150+ per hour.
Clients will pay for help with email because it is such a huge ROI potential for them to get their emails working correctly.
For cold emails, which is a specialization you can charge $100 for one email easily if you know what you’re doing.
How much to charge for sponsored posts:
Sponsored posts happen when you have followers on a blog or a social media presence and a company pays you to feature their product or service in some way.
The least an influencer should charge for a sponsored post would be $250.
When you get more sponsors and more followers you can charge $1000+ for a sponsored post.
Blogs with traffic of 300,000 or more a month could charge thousands for a single sponsored post.
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Can my Copywriting Portfolio have Anything I Have Written Or Just Specifics?
What should be in your copywriter portfolio?
Great question.
You may have written anything by this point. You may have written a book, a screenplay, a short story, a blog post, an essay from high school. There are many things you could have written by this point in your life.
The question is should these things go into your copywriting portfolio that you hand to specific clients?
Include the most similar things first.
If your client is asking for a blog post, do not send them a screenplay you wrote.
Send them blog posts, more specifically send them blog posts that are very close to the type of blog posts they need. (Don’t hand them free work, mind you.)
Let me give an example, you get an offer from a site that needs weekly blog posts on cake recipes.
If you want to win the job, send them 1-3 viable examples. If they are live, that is best, but if they are not that is fine too.
They want cake recipe blogs. The problem is you’ve never written a cake recipe blog. That’s okay!
Just write a recipe blog on say cookies (it could be a recipe on anything) and send that over.
You can even just write 200-500 words of a recipe blog post and send that over and you are 90% more likely to get a response and interview from the client than someone that sends them an old essay they wrote in college. You’re even more likely to get a Response than someone that sent them 3 examples of blog posts that have nothing to do with recipes.
Think this way when applying for contracts.
Should I send them my entire portfolio?
Please don’t. Ever heard the expression, “less is more.” This applies here.
Think as if you were a client. Put yourself in their shoes. You send out an offer looking for a copywriter and you get sent 20 interview requests. You start looking through each one. Are you going to want 100 examples to look through for each possible contractor or are you going to want to find just one that sent you the perfect example that let you know (as the client) they are going to do a good job at what you’re asking for.
Don’t send them all your previous work. Just send 1-3 that shows the client you can deliver what they are asking for well.
You have options.
You can have a line on your resume that says things like, “published author, published playwright, etc.”
Don’t be afraid to give light to the fact that you are a well-rounded writer.
But with your examples that you put right in front of their face for your job, be sure they are specific to the job and show the client your ability to give them what they are asking for.
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Copywriters say that fear sells. They’ll tell you that if you want to have someone buy your product you have to manipulate their fears.
Is this true?
Yes, and no.
Fear-mongering is a real thing and people in power use it to manipulate people all the time.
But is it really what you want to do as a writer?
What are the psychological mechanisms at work here and how can we use them in a better way as writers?
Finding the right product.
Do we really want to be the type of copywriters that use conjured up fears to sell a product that doesn’t actually help anyone?
Personally, no. I don’t enjoy doing that.
So what can you do instead?
We can find products that help people and deliver on what they promise.
Let’s say Mary has toenail fungus. It’s embarrassing, gross, and annoying. It is really hard to get rid of.
Now, we could spend time trying to sell Mary just any product that claims to treat toenail fungus. Or we can do our research and send her in the direction towards something that has actually helped a lot of people.
Steering with problems.
Once we have found a really good product, we can then feel better about trying to lead people to it. People that could actually benefit from it.
How are we going to lead them there?
Through talking about their problems and fears.
Remember the pain Mary goes through every time she thinks about wearing a sandal. She worries about giving it to anyone she might get close to.
She never takes her socks off. She can’t go swimming with friends without thinking through how she’ll avoid them seeing her toes. There are a bunch of painful things we could talk about to let Mary know we understand the pain.
Understanding someone’s pain is understanding their fears. We could “fear-monger” them into a decision or we could show them that we understand and that we want to help.
Fear of loss.
This is an interesting one. People often buy out of fear of loss compared to buying to gain.
Also known as the fear of missing out. Happens all the time on Wall Street.
The stock starts to rise rapidly and a bunch of people buy-in because they’re afraid they miss out if they don’t.
On the reverse end if the stock goes down they’ll sell and lose money for fear of losing more even if they lose more than if they would have waited it out for tomorrow.
The fear of loss is a powerful tool for the copywriter. Use it to steer buyers to great products that they may really benefit from.
More bad news.
Fear really does draw attention. Why do you think most news headlines are full of carnage and mayhem?
It’s because the major news outlets know that fear sells. They know you’ll tune in for “Breaking News: Something just blew up! How this will crush your life savings!”
Compared to: “The economy is climbing and all is well! Whistle a happy tune!”
They know if they posted that, you’d go out to eat with your friends and have a great time rather than sit down and watch their ads.
Trust is more important than quick gains.
If a company or writer really wants to be successful, trust is a more important factor than cheap fear.
Understanding people’s fears and pains are important to gain trust. When you tell them you understand their fears and lead them to a viable solution you gain trust, therefore a loyal follower. If you use their fears to lead them on eventually they will see through your charade and leave.
Trust is important for the long game. If you only care about quick gains and leaving people behind then fear-mongering will work, but most likely will bite you in the end.
Final Thoughts
As a copywriter, use people’s fears and pains to lead them to products that will actually help them.
Using fear to gain trust is more important than cheap quick fear-mongering gains.
Having a large number of people trust you is more important than making quick gains and losing trust.
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This 1 Key Trait Can Tell You Whether You Will Succeed As An Entrepreneur Or Fail
Abraham Lincoln. You might remember him as honest Abe or you might not know who he is at all.
But his story is a powerful and persuasive one.
Abraham Lincoln
You see, Abe wanted to get into politics. We would imagine he didn’t like the way things were being run and wanted to make some changes of his own to the country’s political landscape.
The only problem was he wasn’t a very good politician.
He was running for state legislature and kept losing. His life wasn’t going anywhere except failure.
He became immensely depressed in his failures. So much so that his friends took all of his knives and razors away from him because they were afraid he would Jill himself.
He broke off is engagement to the woman he loved.
His life kept getting worse.
He ran for the senate not once but TWICE and lost BOTH TIMES.
You would think someone would think, “I’m not made for this,” and choose a different career path at this point.
But in 1860 Abraham runs as a “dark horse candidate” for the presidency and WINS!
He failed so many times for so long in his life but never quit and ended up winning the presidency instead of those lesser goals he tried for but it would seem that all the hard times he went through prepared to be the president of the United States at a very pivotal time in history.
He didn’t allow loss and adversity to prevent him from moving forward.
Teddy Rosevelt
Teddy’s story is a bit different.
Teddy was a well educated young man planning on becoming a naturalist but when everyone least expected it he suddenly ran for state legislature and to everyone’s surprise he won.
At this time his wife is pregnant with their first child and his mother who is only 49 comes out to his house in New York to help take care of his wife while he’s working in government.
This is when tragedy strikes.
For a brief moment everyone is elated as a telegram arrives for Teddy.
It says his child is born.
Everyone celebrates with cigars.
But not many hours later a second telegram arrives.
It says, you must return immediately. Your wife is dying and your mother is dying too.
It turns out that his mother had contracted typhoid fever upon arriving in New York.
Teddy arrived at home in time to see his mother before she died and about 12 hours later his wife dies too.
Teddy thought his life was over.
At this point he essentially runs away. He quits the legislature and moves out to the Badlands and rides his horse for reportedly 15 hours a day.
During this time he falls in love with nature and becomes quite a conversationalist.
He gains a deeper perspective on life and eventually goes back to run for the presidency.
Sometimes getting an outside perspective on things can lead to a deeper understanding of the big picture we need to move forward. And breaks aren’t always bad, but if Teddy has decided never to run again he might not have accomplished all that he did.
He did indeed quit for a time but ultimately he got back up “on the horse “ and kept going.
Rejections
You might not know it but MANY of your beloved authors have been rejected many times before finally being published.
Chicken Soup for the Soul: rejected 144 times.
Canfield once wrote, “If we had given up after 100 publishers, I likely would not be where I am now,”
“I encourage you to reject rejection. If someone says no, just say NEXT!”
This 1 Key Trait Can Tell You Whether You Will Succeed As An Entrepreneur Or Fail
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Lisa Genova, Still Alice: rejected 100 times (some of those were just non-responses)
She eventually decided to self published. It got picked up after that.
Kathryn Stockett, The Help: 60 rejections.
She wrote, “In the end, I received 60 rejections for The Help,”
“But letter number 61 was the one that accepted me. After my five years of writing and three and a half years of rejection, an agent named Susan Ramer took pity on me. What if I had given up at 15? Or 40? Or even 60? Three weeks later, Susan sold The Help to Amy Einhorn Books.” The book was on the New York Times bestseller list for over 100 weeks.
It sold over seven million copies, and has been made into an inspiring award winning movie.
Heidi Durrow, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky: 48 rejections.
“When I was trying to publish my book, it received some 48 different rejections from publishing houses mostly because people said to me that there was no market for a story about a half black half Danish girl. There was no Afro Viking demographic to sell this book to.”
Dispite the adversity her book was the winner of the 2008 Bellwether Prize for Socially-Engaged Fiction. The award came with a publishing contract and it became a bestseller.
One of my favorite authors James Patterson: James Patterson, The Thomas Berryman Number: 31 rejections.
Patterson’s first book was turned down by 31 publishers and he kept a list.
31 publishers turned down Patterson’s first book. The first of many in his extremely popular Alex Cross series. Now, of course, he’s one of the most successful authors in the world, arguably in history.
He told the New York Times that he kept a list of all the editors that turned down his first novel. “Sometimes they send me books and ask for blurbs. Mostly, though, they’re dead.”
Stephen King, Carrie: 30 rejections.
30 publishers rejected his first novel Carrie, the one that started King’s legendary novel journey.
One day he received a short letter from Bill Thompson at Doubleday:
“Congratulations. Carrie officially a Doubleday Book. Is $2500 advance okay? The future lies ahead. Love, Bill.”
And what was at that time their future is now our history.
The one thing that makes or breaks a successful entrepreneur is perseverance.
This key trait can be used in so many different avenues and career paths.
The thing is that most of us won’t be handed success in our endeavors so easily.
We inevitably will meet adversity and when that adversity comes what will we do?
I believe you have it in you to persevere and keep going despite adversity coming your way.
And as many we’ll have gone Beckies is would most likely admit that the adversity helped mold them into who they are today and who knows where they would be if they didn’t persevere and remain persistent despite many challenges.
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3 Mental Muscles You’ll Need to Flex to Be a Freelance Writer
If you’re interested in becoming a freelance writer you’re not alone.
Many aspiring writers are looking to join the freelance movement, work from home, make money online, and be their own boss.
If you’re going to take this journey though and be realistic about it. You’re going to want to keep some things in mind.
It’s not for the faint of heart but if you’re willing to do these three things you’re much more likely to succeed then those that don’t.
Be fearless
Being fearless sounds hard because let’s be honest, who isn’t a little intimidated to try new things?
I tend to believe that almost everyone is but those that do it usually tend to try new things and take on some risk feeling the fear but doing it anyway.
If you’re serious about freelance writing, you are definitely going to have to go out of your comfort zone to find work, make pitches, and hopefully fulfill projects handed to you.
Sometimes it’s easier to find the work and get the job.
Then all the sudden you realize, “oh crud…I actually have to deliver something good to them…” as you stare blankly into outer space.
It takes a bit of fearlessness to hand over your writing to an editor in the hopes that they don’t call it absolute trash and fire you.
But that’s a part of the freelancing game. You are always a little at risk of your client not liking what you deliver.
But not to fear, if you don’t give up you are likely to make it in the freelance business.
Don’t fear failure
You are going to fail.
It is almost inevitable.
You might be thinking, “gee Jeremy, thanks for the inspirational confidence booster.” Just follow me here.
You are going to fail, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. No.
The bad thing would be to quit after a failure thinking fallacy that you aren’t good enough.
Of course you are good enough. You just need more time, practice, and study.
Don’t be afraid to fail and don’t be so quick to quit.
Ask for help
Humility is hard.
It is hard to admit that we need help on something.
The opposite of this is pride. Pride will tell you that you don’t need help. That you’ll be better off figuring it out on your own.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. There are many people that have done this first and you can avoid their mistakes by asking for help.
Here are some ways you can ask for help:
– Do research
– Buy a course
– Buy a book
3 Mental Muscles You’ll Need to Flex to Be a Freelance Writer
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I personally have bought several courses on things like copywriting, affiliate marketing, and running ads.
Sometimes it will accelerate your progress if you just invest in yourself and buy that course you’re thinking about.
To go along with that same thought, books are very helpful.
And just a bonus tip: learn the skill of skimming well. Being able to skim large sections of books and articles will save you hundreds of hours.
Conclusion
Most people aren’t actually “fearless”, but pushing through the fear of failure and rejection will be paramount in a freelancing career.
And every freelancer should look for ways to avoid the mistakes that others have made before them.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Even here, don’t let fear stop you from posting a comment and asking for advice. Someone that’s already gone through what you’re going through might read it and be able to save you some trouble.
You’d be surprised how many people enjoy helping others 🙂
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4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible
Writing fiction is fun.
C.S. Lewis hits the nail on the head when he says,
“You can make anything by writing.” – C. S. Lewis
It is so true. Anything your imagination can dream up, you can write, and if you can write it, then it can come true in your reader’s mind. Even if just for a moment.
Walt Disney said “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.“
That’s the wonderful side for the writer is we get to have fun creating the impossible.
But there’s a down side too.
Creating the impossible takes a ton of work, discipline, stress (at times), and know-how.
And our work isn’t necessarily an art form as much as it is a work of building entertainment.
Fiction is supposed to be entertaining; otherwise, readers wouldn’t read fiction.
So how do we help our readers gobble up every page?
There are certain literary techniques that have been used in storytelling for a long time that are powerful and should continue to be used in the stories we create today.
There are many literary techniques to make your fiction more digestible, but these four have been used uniquely throughout literary history and have become pillars.
Parallelism
What is parallelism?
It is the state of something corresponding or being parallel to something else.
Example,
“He came. He saw. He conquered.“
Story details can parallel too.
In the Star Wars Saga, Finn, Poe, and Rey parallel Luke, Leia, and Han Solo.
So you too can add parallelism to your story by adding characters that parallel each other.
Events can parallel.
You can have a story within the story that parallels what will happen to the main characters.
In Stranger Things, we see the boys playing Dungeons and Dragons. The game adventure they are playing with the “Demogorgon” parallels what will happen with them in real life very soon.
How is Parallelism used?
Parallelism is a way of leaving dynamic clues or breadcrumbs for your reader to follow. It makes the material more magical and creates powerful “re-readability” with your story.
Meaning, if they pick up your story a second time they may notice the parallelism in a way they didn’t before. This instantly makes your story more interesting to pick up again than stories without this technique.
I personally love “re-watchability” and “re-readability” in the stories I get into. It makes the difference between whether a story is good or amazing for me.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing and parallelism are very similar.
What is foreshadowing?
It’s a warning or indication of a future event.
In Stranger Things, the “Demogorgon” is also a foreshadowing of what’s to come.
A common “foreshadowing saying” that has been used a billion and one times in storytelling is the famous line,
“Be careful what you wish for…“
This usually happens after the character has lost her temper and said something like,
“I hate my life. I wish I was never born!“
Then some mentor or well meaning older character says “be careful what you wish for.“
And then the next day nobody remembers them as if they were never born and the main character learns a life lesson through the events that follow.
We see this happen to Macaulay Culkin in the Home Alone movies.
Foreshadowing is a powerful way to build a relationship with your reader.
By giving them foreshadowing once you will have shown them that you are clever and thoughtful about your writing and the foresight of where your story leads.
They will be looking forward to this same cleverness in all your stories henceforth.
Thus giving you “re-readability.” 😎
Repeating Important Details
The repetition of details whether it is about objects, people, or events will get your reader’s mind pumping.
It will alert them that something very important is happening in the repeated details and they will try to figure it out before you flat out tell them.
They might also be the sort of reader that just loves a good build up to a reveal.
So repetition is appealing to most readers.
The main character could be trying to remember something about a certain day so you can take the reader into your character’s imagination as they try to remember certain details about the past.
Or you can bring up an object several times. Something as simple as a keychain will do.
But is there more than meets the eye about this keychain?
In Men In Black, we see the cat Orion many times before it is revealed to be wearing the thing that everyone is looking for.
We see the most important piece of the puzzle time and time again before we could ever guess just how important the cat is. And even more important the little keychain looking world dangling from its collar.
4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible
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4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible
Symbolism
Symbolism is a great writing skill to learn how to use well.
What is Symbolism?
Symbolism is when you have an object, person, animal or thing that represents something else.
To many Americans the bald eagle represents America and freedom.
That’s symbolism.
The epitome of symbolism can be found in the book Animal Farm.
A story about personified animals on a farm where a group of sinister animals manipulate and convince the rest of the animals to work for them instead of being free to work for themselves.
The story represents the early years of the Soviet Union and how socialistic minds took over and took away the freedoms of the common people.
Symbolism is a wonderful literary tool to take from real life and create a story that is easier to digest than a documentary or history book.
For example, allowing animals on a farm to represent the Soviet Union allowed many readers to learn how the Socialist Soviets took the freedoms from their people.
It made the historical event more digestible for a wider audience.
One flaw with symbolism is that it almost always has to be explained outside of the story, it’s difficult to reveal in the story without the writer leaving notes behind that otherwise explain the symbolism. Symbolism almost always has to be explained.
The upside to this is people being able to have open conversations with each other about hard topics that might not otherwise be open to discussion.
Symbolism is definitely a great teaching tool and a way for a writer to share their views about real-world times, events, economics, societies, laws, religion, politics, etc.
Topics that are otherwise harder to talk about openly.
Another creative outlet for symbolism is the writer is able to write about things that happened in their own life without writing an autobiography or saying “hey, this happened to me.”
For example, Stephen King explains some symbolism for IT.
He explained that the story came from the troll under the bridge and the bridge represented the passing from childhood and adulthood.
He also explains that Derry, Maine represents his childhood home Bangor, Maine.
He ultimately decided that the bridge would be the city of Derry and that something terrifying lived under the city, IT.
When you think of the story in light of the terrifying nature of the journey of childhood passing into adulthood and all the problems that could follow, this makes sense as to why he had the story so woven between the two major themes of their child lives and there adult lives and the 27 year gap he chose to put in between.
We can use symbolism to write about parts of our own lives or stories that inspire us or that we find intriguing, or and especially hard events in our lives.
Most of us in our lifetimes will, unfortunately, go through hard times and traumatic events no matter what background we come from, and writing about those events is a way to share whats going on inside us with other people.
Use these 4 literary techniques to help your readers digest your stories and enjoy them and come back for more.
Hope this helps!
Happy writing!
4 Literary Techniques to Make Your Fiction More Digestible
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The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes NOT BORING While Revealing the Story to Your Reader
Master writers and editors know what it takes to make scenes not boring while revealing the story.
Let’s talk about what makes a scene boring.
There is one major thing you don’t want to do to your readers when writing a scene and revealing the story.
Don’t make it work for them to read it.
Period.
If you make it a ton of work for them to get through chapter one scene one, they are going to put down the book and probably never want to pick it up again.
Here is how you make it a ton of work for your reader to make it through your scene.
Chapter 1: I tell them about the world, the shops in the world, the streets in the world, the mountains, the trees, what the birds look like, the cool and exotic plants. I tell them about the characters and every tiny detail about them. I tell them about her hair and her eyelashes. What she thinks about the flowers…
Do you get where we are going with this?
We are being a bit exaggerated here, but let’s be honest, it happens. And stuff like that used to work, but not today.
To make a scene “too much work didn’t read” (TMWDR) aka (TLDR) we give them a million descriptive details to read through without once moving the story along!
And our reader is left feeling like, “let’s get the ball rolling people!”
We can give them the details about the beautiful world in our imagination, but give it in small doses and allow them to use some imagination.
Move the story forward
We can give them some descriptions and we should, but great authors know that in order to be allowed to explain what a character looks like we have to earn the right to talk about them and why they are important.
The way that we earn the right to tell the reader anything while revealing the story, is when they are thinking this one secret thought.
We have to put this one thought in their minds and keep it there, the moment we’ve lost this thought that we’ve put in their heads, they’ll put down the book.
That secret thought is the same one all great writers use across all mediums, whether it’s story, freelance, copywriting, blogging, or marketing.
The secret thought is: “If I just read a little bit further, I’ll find out what I want to know.”
When we are so into reading anything, a story, an article, a blog, we have this same thought too. It’s really more of a feeling. But we read on intently looking for the answer to our questions.
Questions like, “What will happen next?” “What is going to happen to this character now?” are what we want our readers to think as writers in any medium.
The way we plant the secret question in their head using story
The way we create the secret question is simple.
Keeping it in their minds is the hard part about writing a story and writing one that readers can’t put down until they’ve read every last page.
The way is simple but executing takes time, practice, and insight.
How do we create the secret question in their head?
We create a problem that must be resolved.
The way we make scenes not boring
The way to make scenes not boring is to move the story along. (I know we said this above but go with me here as we explain further.)
We need to give the reader something to be curious about and look forward to.
Along the way we slowly but surely reveal characters and scenery and explain little bits and pieces of the world and bring them into our world and share it with them.
But to make a scene not boring and to move the story along we must create curiosity about what happens next!
How to get your reader thinking what happens next?
It is the coveted moment. The reader can’t stop reading page after page, chapter after chapter all because they keep thinking, “what happens next?”
But how do we get them thinking this through every chapter?
I already told them about the hero and the bad guy and he wants to destroy the world, what else keeps them curious?!
The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story
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The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story
The journey.
Moving the story along is the journey it takes to get from the introduction of our characters to the main problem that faces them to seeing it out to the end and all the misadventures in between.
But how do we make the journey interesting?
Let’s ask a more detailed question.
The one we’ve been asking all along.
How do I make each scene interesting?
Give each scene a purpose.
If every single scene we bring the writer into doesn’t have a purpose in moving the story forward then why on Earth are we telling them about the scene?!
So when you plot your outline be thinking of each scene and the “why” behind it’s necessary existence, because if your reader reads one or two scenes that seem to be not purposeful, that is, there is no “pay off” for them taking the time to read it they will likely put down the book.
Yes, in our scenes we may want to show a certain detail about character development or reveal a hidden artifact, but the easiest way to get the reader through it and on to the next page is to create mini difficulties for the characters.
Our main problem may be that the antagonist(s) wants to blow up the world but while our hero is on the way to stop the no good antagonist(s) they need to run into many challenging obstacles on the way.
Think of your story as more of an obstacle course
To get to the finish line our protagonist needs to run through the maze, climb the slippery slime wall, survive the dread log tumble, jump through the fiery hoop, and before they can even see the finish line they have to carry the weighted sack of fortitude up mount killmyback.
That’s a story.
And each obstacle is a scene. We see the obstacles and how the character handles them and each obstacle reveals more and more to us their true character. (“Show, don’t tell.”)
That’s how we move the story along, keep the reader interested, and reveal the true nature of our characters as we go 🙂
If we told the reader all about how each obstacle was made, how long it took, and about the nuts and bolts of it, that might be a little interesting (if you are trying to write a documentary about the story) but not if they haven’t seen it in action and seen how the course wrecks a character and is extremely interesting to watch.
Give each scene a purpose while you are revealing the story.
Make an obstacle around that purpose.
And your reader will be thinking that coveted question, “What’s going to happen next?!”
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The #1 Way to Make Your Scenes Not Boring While Revealing the Story
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But nobody wants arrogance and there’s a fine grey line between the two (is it grey or gray?).
If your character is too confident then it comes across as arrogant and your reader will start to loathe them.
But one main reason most people like the jerk is because she is confident.
Confidence is a very attractive quality.
What is the opposite of confident?
– Needy
– Clingy
– Whining
– Pathetic
– Self-loathing
“Ewww…”
If you’ve been reading and a character is too sympathetic towards their own bad situation it comes across as unattractive. This is self-loathing, the opposite of cool, confident, and collected.
These are simple ways that you can write your lovable jerk. Avoid the above list.
Part of the reason people love a jerk is because without shouting “I’m really confident!” they just are. They ooze cool and confident because they aren’t afraid to say what they are thinking because they could care less what the other character thinks.
If your character is too confident this plays the opposite and your reader starts to despise that character.
We have to let the confident vibes go a little but then play some other strings too to bring the whole song together.
#2 Can’t Keep Up With Him
Quick Wit
Something that helps our jerk be admirable and get away with being a little bit of a jerk is having a quick wit.
Remember all those comebacks you thought of a day later and said “Ugh! I should have said that!”
Your lovable jerk is quick and never misses an opportunity for a quick comeback.
What’s at play here?
People admire and love to be around a person with an entertaining quick wit.
There is a give and take though. (Just remember that to nail down the lovable jerk you’re always on a fine line between annoying and suave, attractive and not so much.)
This doesn’t mean your character is running around insulting everyone. That’s a jerk, not a lovable jerk. Everyone loves to hate the know-it-all jerk and they want to see them get their comeuppance.
That’s the opposite of what you want your reader to feel about this character.
You want your character to be a bit of a jerk but at the right place and time.
Timing is important.
Think of Sherlock. Extremely intelligent and a faster mind than anyone he interacts with. He could dance circles around anyone with his wit, but utterly rude the majority of the time.
Even though he can be insultingly rude at times we still love him and want him to accomplish his goals.
We love him and find him interesting because he is fun to watch and extremely intelligent.
We also like him despite his jerky side for another reason.
#3 Good Will
Slightly good intentions
This works with anti-heroes too.
You can love a jerk like Sherlock because he ultimately is looking to stop the bad guys and save the innocent.
His internal motives may be complex, but at the end of the day his actions save the victim and stop the villain.
In a scenario like this we excuse bad behavior because we experience mostly good behavior.
We as humans are very good at overlooking some bad if the good outweighs it in our opinions.
For instance, if you made a list of pros and cons about a character like Sherlock his pros would outweigh his cons for most readers. Not all of course, but most.
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How to Write the Lovable Jerk
#4 We are Hoping He’s not as Deep as a Puddle
Character Depth
A lovable jerk can be nothing but a Jerk at the beginning of our reader meeting them, but if they don’t change slightly or if more about their character doesn’t get revealed by you the writer, as time goes on, your reader will never like them.
For example, Finnick from Hunger Games is a jerk character that many fans love.
It helps that he’s attractive but let’s take a deeper look. We all know looks can give you an advantage, but they can only take you so far before you’re labeled as an attractive, stuck up jerk.
When we first meet Finnick he’s just a jerk. Pain and simple.
But then we spend more time with him and find out he’s for the rebellion.
Further in we see multiple caring sides of him as he tries to protect all those around him. He carries an elderly handicap woman on his back to try to save her life.
His fiance is captured and turned crazy and he remains faithful to her. In the end he gives his own life for Katniss Everdeen and a cause bigger than himself.
Finnick may be stuck up and full of himself at first glance but with time we see his depth of character and that makes him a lovable jerk.
#5 Nobody Likes A Whiny Whiner
There’s a specific writing trick where you can add a sad incident or backstory to a character to gain some sympathy for the character.
Tread lightly with this one.
It can be easy to start with that or to drone on and on about how terrible and tragic their unfortunate event is, but don’t do this.
If you are going for a lovable jerk something bad or many bad things can happen to them, but they need to react correctly in order for your reader to feel positively for them.
Unless you use it as humor or a small arc in their story they can’t wallow in sadness for an entire chapter or two. Humorously they can wallow a little, but realistically it can push your reader away from that character if you’re not careful.
If you want them to be lovable they can only mourn for a moment or for a time that the reader can fast forward through.
For example, “he drank himself to sleep every night that year.” And done.
Okay, realistically we can give a few more fun facts about their depression than just that, but soon and very soon something that sparks change needs to take place.
You can use sadness for depth of character but if your jerk is to be loved, make it short.
Another way to use tragedy in your jerk’s life is to make him get over it quickly and to move on.
This can be helpful for creating character depth as well.
#6 “I’ve Been Looking at the Man in the Mirror”
Change
One really easy way to write a lovable jerk is to create a character that is about to make a BIG change.
We’ve seen this done many, many, many, many (if you didn’t know, it’s been done a lot) times and it works out equally well despite maybe being a little over done.
One of the major monarchs of this type of lovable jerk is Scrooge.
Scrooge is an iconic lovable jerk that starts out as… well… he starts out as a Scrooge (pun intended) but we see a transformation in his character and in the end he’s super generous.
Another good example is Jack in The Family Man.
Jack leaves his high school sweetheart for riches and success.
When we meet him he’s so high on the high horse that we couldn’t stand to be around him, but as the story goes on he completely changes into a really awesome character.
This type of transformation, redemptive story is a great way to make a lovable jerk.
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Stephen King is known for his horror writing, but if you’ve seen anything of his quotes or read his thoughts on writing.
You’ll see right away that he is blunt, straight to the point, and not afraid to say what he’s thinking.
That’s a big part of what makes his writing tips enjoyable and refreshing. He’s not political and he’s been in the business long enough to know that you just can’t please everyone.
So don’t worry about pleasing everyone.
No matter what you write, if you write, someone or some group will find you and try to discourage you.
For instance, full disclosure:
Just recently a member of a group on Facebook found our site and trolled How to do the write thing.
Something we said in one of our villains posts offended he or she who shall not be named and they went and reported it to the entire Facebook group.
The entire group nasty things about us and some of them commented on our site yelling at us and telling us how horrible we were.
To be honest at first I was worried and shocked, but I got some great advice from a blogger that I found while Googleing looking for advice.
They reminded me that even if you try your hardest to be kind, polite, and helpful no matter what, if you put yourself out there someone will find you and try to discourage you or take you down.
The best way to deal with it is to expect it and react with positive thoughts.
So that’s what we did. We didn’t retaliate. We moved forward. We changed the post so that it wasn’t perceived as offensive and we enjoyed the extra traffic we got from the Facebook group 🙂
That’s another lesson to be expounded upon later: “bad publicity isn’t always bad marketing”
So the first lesson is:
1. Don’t be afraid to put yourself and your writing out on the line
Some people will love it and some people will hate it. This is to be expected.
We don’t have to explain ourselves to every person that finds our writing and opinions offensive.
Personally I think we should do our best to be kind, polite, and live at peace with one another.
But if you don’t want to offend anyone or have anyone mad at you the only solution is to live in a cave and do nothing. Hah! Even then someone might find you and be offended that you’ve decided to live as a hermit.
Disclaimer: This doesn’t mean we’re saying writers should run their mouths and be purposefully offensive.
We’re just saying you need to go ahead and write and don’t sweat the small stuff 😉
“If you disapprove, I can only shrug my shoulders. It’s what I have.” – Stephen King
Stephen himself used to be ashamed because he would receive hate mail and was accused of very nasty things.
But at a point he learned that no matter what if you write, and write well, someone will find a reason to not like you.
“If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all,” – S.K.
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If you didn’t know it yet your first draft of any story is trash.
It has to go through the editing process many times to become something that people will want to read and enjoy reading.
Authors have been using editors for a long time now. Don’t make the mistake of being the first writer in centuries that thinks they don’t need an editor.
And furthermore don’t expect that every story you write will be worth a reader spending their time on.
We should write in this way.
Does your story interest you? Would you buy it? Do you like it? Would you like to see it in a movie or TV show?
Most of us are biased. We love our stories like they were children, but if you don’t even like your own story you’ve got a real problem.
Why would I expect someone to read what even I don’t like?
But don’t let this fact get you down.
That’s not the point.
“Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.”
We should prepare ourselves for the hard long journey of writing.
We should react to it with optimism.
We should know the bumps along the way and be prepared to accept them and move forward.
So many writers have heard more rejection at first than acceptance and it is the ones that kept moving forward despite failure that succeeded.
Of course there are outliers, but this is not to be expected.
3. Expect to be rejected
Expect some failure, but just keep working and moving forward.
Speaking of failure. My first job writing was for $20 an hour. And I was excited.
I thought that was a lot to be paid for a writer and I thought this was a great opportunity!
I was fired after 3 hours.
It was a deep blow.
And to be completely honest with you, it was extremely discouraging.
The employer was at least very nice and cordial about it, but it was rejection and failure.
But I didn’t want to give up.
I continued moving forward and after A LOT of trial and error I made it to getting paid $150+ an hour before I took a break from freelance writing. To give some perspective it was over the course of 2-3 years that I worked my way up through the freelance market.
I don’t say that fact to brag, but I want people to have and see first hand that perseverance is important.
They say that most people’s “lucky break” happens after years of hard work and perseverance. Doesn’t sound so lucky anymore.
For sure, it’s hard and rejection hurts. (Whoever says it doesn’t is lying. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but rejection will never hurt me.” – lie.)
But don’t quit.
Stephen wrote “Carrie” in a trailer, very poor, and it was rejected many times, but he persevered.
And you can too.
Next we are actually going to disagree with Stephen.
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Disclaimer: (this is just MY opinion. You are welcome to have a different one :))
Personally, watching TV has fed my creativity, not hurt it. And watching movies has given me the ability to see how I want things to play out in my stories and writing.
It’s easier for me to imagine my character jump, flip, dance, and swing a sword. Or shoot a bolt of lightning out of her hand having seen it with me own two eyes on TV and in movies.
I don’t know why but that’s just my experience that watching stories gives me ideas, it doesn’t hurt them.
But here is a critical piece of advice.
Watch critically, not passively.
When I’m watching I’m not JUST enjoying. I’m thinking about
– Actions
– Acting
– Dialogue
– The plot
– Subplots
– Story
– Character arcs
– Character development
– Things they chose that I like
– Stuff they did I didn’t like
I’m learning and putting into practice while I watch.
For example, we just got done watching Colony on Netflix (recommend if you like dystopian sci-fi. 2.5 on family friendliness as there is definitely skip worthy scenes)
If you do plan on watching it, spoiler alert:
In Colony, one of the main characters Will Bowman is a good man who chooses to make compromising choices to save his family.
His character is however dependable and positive even though his life is chaos 24/7.
Instead of whiny or wallowing because of his problems he looks for and acts on a solution.
They maintain his faithful demeanor through all of season 1 and 2, but season 3 they did something that made me cringe.
They turned him into an emo version of himself where he was angry and wore black all the time.
I couldn’t stand it. I understood that he was grieving, so I waited to see how they would use it, but it was SO out of character for him. At some points he recovered a little but in the end he kept making choices that I felt were choices his character might not make but changing producers might…
This happens from time to time with TV and movies. They change producers or directors in the middle of a story and things go coocoo. But that’s beside the main lesson here. (Subpoint: be careful with your character arcs and don’t hand the story over to someone random in the 3rd season 🙂 )
So when we watch we as writers can see in stories what we like and what we don’t like.
We can watch and read with a critical eye and mind looking to see the way we want to do it and finding best practices.
This helps us create our own voice and style that readers will know they will get if they read our stories.
Stephen says TV is “poisonous to creativity”. I haven’t found that to be true for me but the opposite.
But he does say, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot,”
I agree with the sentiment. We MUST read a lot and write a lot to be writers.
There is no way around that in my mind at this point.
But I don’t think we have to “toss the TV out with the bathwater” if you know what I mean.
5. Expect the process to be rough
“there’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.”
Writing is not just tough because other people won’t always like what you write.
Sometimes we are our own worst critics and self doubt and self doubt can persuade us to go no further or that the story we have isn’t good enough.
But that’s not really up for us to decide.
All we can really do is put in the work and put it out there and see what follows.
It’s a risk for sure, but the question is “is it worth the risk to you?” Only you can answer that question for yourself.
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10 Writing Lessons From Stephen King
6. Writing can be very lonely
Stephen gives us a powerful image by saying that writing fiction is like crossing an ocean in a bathtub.
You’re not moving very quickly. The space is tight and you are very much ALONE in a sea of black depth.
Sounds frightening, and at times it is.
No one wants to be that alone for that long.
But if we are going to give our writing a chance to live and do something we have to be the ones to tell the story, or it might never be told.
7. Enjoy your process
Every writer has a space and a process.
If you don’t that’s okay, it just means you haven’t found it yet.
And sometimes we have to move and change our process and that’s okay too.
We move around a lot, but right now my process is to go out on our back screened-in porch and write outside. When I first wake up I have my morning routine I enjoy and reading is a part of it. Next, I head outside.
I love nature and the natural noises that come with it (birds, squirrels, breeze, leaves, etc). It’s a very peaceful environment for me with little to no distraction. I am really able to zone in and focus. When I look up the outdoor smells, the greenery, and the trees all give me a sense of happiness. (Sounds like a tree hugger)
I have a specific chair I sit in and depending on the day I either write on my phone or laptop. These days I’m enjoying my phone more.
It could be very different for you and that’s fine. You might hate nature. You might love writing in your closet or car.
I actually heard a story of a lady recently who was having trouble finding a place to write with no distractions.
With a family and tight quarters, this place did not exist in her home.
She started going out to her car and writing. It took her some time, but she ended up being able to finally finish her entire novel in her car!
So you may think you have nowhere to write but if you get creative you’ll find somewhere.
Enjoy finding what you like to be your space and process.
Maybe you like to write with pen and paper.
Maybe you like to write in your closet.
Maybe you want to write on your roof.
Whatever it is, find a space/ process of your own and use that to make a happy habit you enjoy.
If you enjoy 10 Writing Lessons From Stephen King, storytelling and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
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“Stories are found things, like fossils in the ground … Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.”
We have to unearthed our characters and our stories.
They have to be dug up from our own minds.
They have to be revealed from the world around us.
Stories are about the journey and they lurk around every corner waiting to be discovered. I’m not talking about some mystic thing here. I’m being literal.
If you watch the news or go to school or go to work, stories are happening all around you. You only have to be willing to see them, find them, and write them.
Fiction is so fun at times because we can take details from real life and throw them into a story for our reader to enjoy.
Sometimes the hardest part is doing the long tedious work of discovering our story along the way.
We have an idea and we love it but we don’t know how it ends yet and we don’t have all the middle pieces to get to the end. The only way to get there is to think fng start to write and see where it goes.
Another hard thing can be that we know we’ve discovered a really great story but sitting down and trying to communicate it to someone else through words feels like it just doesn’t do it justice.
These are all hurdles and hard work if one is to be a writer.
“The most important things are the hardest things to say,”
“They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings.”
Sometimes it is hard to put into words the drama that is playing in our minds, but that is to be expected and worked through. There is no way around it.
9. Don’t over-describe
“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s,” – S.K.
We really have to think more simply about description and telling a story.
It’s important to focus on getting what we see in our heads into their heads using just words on a page.
We don’t have to overthink it more than this. When we decide to over-describe we can often lose our reader to boredom.
“In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling,” – S. K.
If you enjoy 10 Writing Lessons From Stephen King, storytelling and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones,” – S. K.
It’s easy to make the mistake to think that the reader is bored of simple words. This is a BIG mistake
Writer’s get bored with limited vocabulary, not readers.
Now there are definitely readers that want bigger vocabulary and harder reading and if you want to serve that audience, that’s fine but for at least 90% of regular consuming readers the rule is write somewhere close to a 9th grade reading level.
The key is to know your audience. To whom are you writing?
– Children
– Teens
– Adults
– Academics
– Writer’s
– Etc
If we are writing to the masses and just trying to tell a good story, use simple words to give great imagery.
If you enjoy 10 Writing Lessons From Stephen King, storytelling and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
If you enjoy 10 Writing Lessons From Stephen King, storytelling, and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
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