Imagine you could write about the thing you loved most. Would you do it? For a lot of people, that’s the dream, but alas, it’s one that never comes true. Many resign themselves to that and settle for just writing about their passion as a hobby. The tips below will help you to write better and, in time, may even lead to a full-time writing gig if you write well enough.
Write with personality
The best way to develop your own style is to bring your own personality into the writing. You’ve got to express yourself how you’d express yourself normally, but within reason, of course. You don’t want to litter the high-quality pieces you’ve written with lots of profanities if you tend to swear a lot. You want them to sound like you, though, especially if you’re writing a personal blog about a subject, so it’s okay to use slang from time to time, but not so much that you alienate your audience.
Part of this is just about being yourself. Writing is an art, and it involves a bit of introspection. You’ve got to really look inside yourself and examine your thoughts, feelings, and experiences — and then bring them to your writing. Dig deep. Learn new things about yourself.
Read as much as you can about your subject
Reading up on your subject matter as much as you can is vital to make sure you can write from an informed perspective.
The more you read about your niche, the more you’ll understand. You’ll start to grasp how other writers use words and sentences when writing about the nice for their audience. You’ll see how they structure their blog posts or articles and gain insight into how they view the niche. All of this will build your knowledge of the subject matter, help you to form your own perspective, and develop your own style.
Practice every day
Many of us will be familiar with the “10,000 hours rule” which observed that people who made it to the very height of their profession practiced for 10,000 hours. Research may have debunked the rule, but to be a better writer, you’ve got to hone your skills by practice writing, editing and proofreading every day. Doing this will help you to see what makes your writing stronger and what weakens it. Gradually, you’ll steer clear of certain devices or ways of writing that don’t fit in with your style of writing or work well for engaging your audience.
Keep your language simple
You might think it’s cool to use obscure language and dazzle readers with your vocabulary. Sounding clever might feel good, but it’s not the way to go if you want your audience to understand your writing, let alone enjoy reading it. That means you should use simple but effective language so that you can get your meaning across and really engage the audience in what you’re saying.
Subjects you might like to write about
Everyone has different passions and interests. Some may be more mainstream. Others may be more niche. Either way, the world is your oyster when it comes to subjects. To give you a few ideas, here are a few niches you could explore:
· Fashion
Fashion is always changing so it’s a great topic to be inspired by and means you’ll have plenty of fresh content.
When you’re writing about fashion, there are two major rules you should follow:
1) develop a distinctive voice
2) stay true to your personality
You have to write about something that you’re truly passionate about to keep your writing engaging. Although part of fashion is keeping up with trends, if you write about the trend of the moment but without any real heart, sooner or later the real you is going to come out. Keep your voice and your interest in a theme authentic.
· Sport
When it comes to sports the huge variety of games and number of fans out there means you’ll be sure to get an engaged audience.
You could write about English Premier League soccer, American football or about some other sport. There’s sure to be some sports fans out there who’ll read what you write. If you’re writing a sports blog, make the headings of your post catchy and, if possible, insert some keywords or phrases into it as well as into at least one of the subheadings, based on the searches people are making in Google.
· Gambling
People with a passion for gambling share many of their top tips through popular blogs and websites.
There are lots of people out there that love writing about playing poker and other casino games — and there are tons of people that like to read about them, looking to pick up some tips so they can win big next time they visit a reputable casino. At leading UK sites like 777 Casino, you’ll find a range top quality games to brush up your skills on before putting pen to paper, such as live poker, blackjack and online roulette. Find something you love about the games (or about gambling in general) so that you can make your writing more interesting and write from a genuine perspective. When writing about gambling topics, you should always be looking to appeal to fans of the games.
· Films
Writing about movies means you’ll get to have tons of fun going to the cinema to see all the new releases.
If you’re writing a film blog, the first thing you need to decide is whether you’ll write about a specific genre, such as horror or comedy, or whether you’ll write about films in general. Consider more than one genre because further down the line you could get sick of writing about the same type of movie all the time.
Another thing you should do is avoid writing only film reviews. You might miss movies or not have the time and, possibly, not the inclination either, so mix things up. Write some more general, keyword-oriented articles. You could write about specific directors. You could write about a certain recurrent theme in films. You might even like to write a top ten.
Summary
Perhaps writing full time might not be on the horizon for you just now, but it doesn’t mean that dream will never materialize. Brushing up your writing by learning everything there is to learn about your niche, using simple language to make your writing more comprehensible, writing every day and sprinkling your work with your personality are all straightforward ways to become a better writer. Apply these tips to your writing and that dream of writing full time about your passion may become less of a dream and more of a reality.
