ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING TECHNIQUES
and ineffective prose, but can you explain it to someone who just can’t see the difference between showing and telling? It’s a different set of skills, but potentially within your abilities. Copywriting Apart from ransom letters, this is probably the most lucrative form of paid writing. A copywriter typically produces a huge array of professional texts for business that could include, social media posts, website copy, adverts, video scripts, reports, product descriptions, taglines and the rest. In addition, you’re expected to be able to write on almost any subject: cybersecurity, crossborder taxation, video games, sexually transmitted diseases . . . OK, so you don’t know about some of these things. But you do know how to quickly and effectively research them. You do know how to structure a message or a story. You know how to make even the most boring subject more interesting with simple vocabulary and good prose modulation. When you know these things, you can write virtually anything. And did I say it can be lucrative? A pro copywriter can easily earn £300-£500 a day based on experience, often working remotely from home. Ghostwriting You can only write so many of your own novels each year. During the months and decades of waiting for agents to reply, you could use your time and talent to write books for other people.
I won’t pretend it’s easy to get into ghostwriting. You normally need to have an impressive ghosting track record, a successful book or be a recognised journalist. Nevertheless, writing books for other people is another option if you understand what’s required. Your clients will usually be non-writers or wannabe writers who have no idea how books work. Your job is to interview them and elicit the information you need to create a workable narrative.
Ghostwriting is one part writing skill and two parts interpersonal skills. You have to coax and please your client,
who may have unrealistic expectations or excessive ambitions to shape the text using their lack of talent. Often, their books will be memoirs or frankly uncommercial stories that will never sell. The job is giving them what they want: a book they can call their own. Your work will be as professional as you can make it, though you may personally dislike the result. It’s strange work and not for everyone. Reviewing The world arguably already has too many reviewers. Everyone and their neighbour seems to have a Twitter or Facebook reviewing channel, But wait – how many of these people are genuine reviewers in the old-fashioned sense? A synopsis of the plot, a personal opinion and a star rating is not a review as we used to see in the Sunday supplements, the TLS or the London Review of Books.
The professional review is a dying breed but still highly prized. As an advanced writer, you’re in a position to review books comprehensively. That means assessing a title in its own context, in the context of its genre, its market and its antecedents. Your personal opinion is by the by; a reviewer’s job is to assess how a book meets the demands it has set itself. Does a thriller thrill? Does a horror horrify? Is a literary work up to the standards it has set itself? How is the language? Can you give considered examples?
Print media has lost a lot of its professional reviewers. Some have migrated online to YouTube, where you can still find detailed and thoughtful extended reviews. Again, remuneration is sketchy and competition is stiff, but high-quality content is always appreciated. Make a name as an intelligent reviewer and who knows what other offers may be around the corner? Teaching The world’s universities are full of novelists who make more money teaching Creative Writing than they do from their fiction. Unlike coaching, which is typically done online, teaching will see you in a classroom with real people. It can be daunting if you’ve not taught before, but also very rewarding. One of the pleasures of being an advanced writer is explaining the techniques to students and watching as they learn. Articles like this one can be helpful, but there’s nothing to compare with the back-and-forth of classroom teaching, discussion and questions. Many career teachers will admit that they learn a lot from their students – not necessarily in terms of knowledge but in the questions that make teachers think in a different way about writing techniques. Many of the articles I write come from specific student difficulties.
Teaching opportunities tend to grow out of publication. You have to show that you can do what you teach. Students and institutions are looking for proven knowledge and experience rather than theory.
Above all, being an advanced writer is a way of thinking. The techniques you have spent years learning have changed the way you process and produce information. Your mind has become a sophisticated filter. When a new job comes along, you ask the same questions: How many words? Who is the audience? What is the platform (magazine, website, social post)? With this information, you immediately begin to flesh out a structure and a narrative line, the headings and the journey your reader is going to take. You know the style you’re going to use and how the reader should feel while reading the piece. If the editor decides you now have fewer words, you immediately reconfigure the piece to have the same effect.
I recently wrote a 1,300-word post in Facebook and someone commented that they normally never read anything that long to the end. I replied that it’s not about the length; it’s how you use it. Facetious, perhaps, but with some truth. An advanced reader has the skills to make the average reader enjoy whatever is put in front of them, no matter what the subject. Readability is king.
www.writers-online.co.uk
OCTOBER 2024
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