So you want to pursue a career in professional writing? Dazed by all the advice and suggestions you get?

You must have gone through a plethora of books, guides, and blogs to find the right inspiration and the proper set of instructions to convert your mediocre writing into something phenomenal.

First off, if you are opting for this career out of the sheer pleasure of writing, then congratulations, not many people are able to convert their hobby into a career. But you can’t treat it like a hobby anymore; after all, it will define your future career. Secondly, if you are looking for ways to improve your writing, it’s hard to find out a starting point. You might have subscribed to numerous magazines and blogs on writing and tips.

However, if you have the will and dedication to do that, all you need is a clear plan of action. Where delivering well-written and composed content is undoubtedly one of the most crucial components of every marketing strategy, creating ah high-quality content comes with a lot more challenges than you can anticipate.

Writing might seem like an easy job, for all that you have to do is to compile a few words into well-punctuated, readable and sensical paragraphs. But in reality, structuring high-quality content requires expertise in writing mechanics, a comprehensive set of writing skills and a clear understanding of writing concepts.

We live a world where content marketing has become a business essential, without a well-constituted content marketing strategy and well-composed content, success in business and marketing world is an impossibility. For that, marketers and business owners need content that is less predictable and more thought-provoking.

Where every great writer feels like his greatest creation is yet to be written, being a writer is all about how you experience things around you. Your writing journey doesn’t have to similar to others. Where rejection is one of the most degrading aspects of this profession, content saturation is a prevailing problem which often leaves the writer a complete word block.

When you are at word block, the sole objective is to escape content mediocrity while maintaining the highest standard of writing in your articles and blogs. Where content saturation creates a blockade for your creativity, stress plays a major in the degradation of content quality. To elaborate on that, you will never see the results you wish to see if your writing is not up to the mark and the highest standards of content marketing.

Writing 101: The Comprehensive Guide To Your Writing Career

The question is, what you can do to overcome this blockade? Where success is the result of consistent and ceaseless efforts, here a few things and tips to consider to become an effective writer and communicator:

1. Work On Writing Technicalities

Whatever your field is the most important thing you need to consider about becoming professional in the same is to understand its technicalities. It makes you consider the better ideas and enriching your performance in the field. Generally, writing is a non-technical job and requires no such particular set of expertise, but being aware of writing technicalities is what can distinguish you from amateur writers. Thus, this is what we have kept above everything else in this list of improving your writing skills.

2. Work On Increasing Your Vocabulary

The perfect writing is where words are able to express everything and to get the same done you must have a vocabulary that does not leave you clueless. The best idea to work on it is to go through a thesaurus and get the words to be remembered with their context.

3. Make Your Weaknesses Your Strengths

Know your writing weaknesses. When it comes to writing, your weaknesses are not your weaknesses rather just some area of writing which needs improvements. If you can’t form simpler and shorter sentences, work on choosing the right words and vocabulary to make your sentence structure precise and content brief.

4. Get Inspired By Others

Inspiration doesn’t come off naturally to the writer. Read the works and pieces of some of the best writer that you know and analyze their ways of applying and using different writing styles and techniques. If simplicity is your writing strength, there’s no better inspiration better than Hemmingway. However, if clever word choice and strong verb usage are what you are looking for than Zen in the Art of writing by Ray Bradbury is your ultimate dose of inspiration.

5. Practice, Practice, and Practice

Determine your writing style and method and practice regularly to refine your writing skills. Compare your work with your previous written creation, analyze it and find out which area of writing needs further improvements.

6. Gain Experience

Practice makes a man perfect but experience makes a man wiser and this is what you are required to have as a writer. You are expected to be wiser than your readers and making them know how a thing could be looked at. Experience in the field of writing is a great way to turn the mediocrity around.

7. Foster A Mindset Of Growth

Sticking to your expertise and showcasing your skills in it does make you a professional of that particular writing style. But to diversify your skill set and to enhance your expertise, you need to get out of your comfort zone. Practice different style and methods, challenge yourself every day and benefit from the learning experience.

8. Know Your Readers

The sign of a good writer is that he is well aware of the interest, likes, hidden fears, unspoken dreams, untold wishes and dislikes of their readers and targeted audience. Because in the end, your reader is the ultimate judge of you.

9. Know The Problems Of Your Readers

Address your readers’ problems and try to come up with the appropriate solution for it. Determine the aims and objectives you are trying to accomplish through your composed piece. Every great content this one sole purpose and that is to inspire the readers, convince them of your advice and suggestions and compel them to implement your piece of advice to resolve their problems and issues.

10. Define A Clear Roadmap

The major blunder which is usually attributed with an amateur is that they don’t determine a clear strategy before composing an article. Before start jotting down words and inking out pages, define a clear plan. Know the requirements of the content, have an understanding of the content tone and style and then write to solve the reader’s problems.

11. Be Whatever Your Reader Wants You To Be

As a writer, you are not just someone sitting behind a screen, typing the word on keyboards. When it comes to becoming a professional writer, you are what your readers want you to be. Be it a mentor, a teacher or a motivational speaker. If they need guidance, solve their problems and provide them with solutions, encourage them, advise them, urge them to implement your solutions.

12. A Strong And Catchy Headline

Nothing makes headlines more eye-catchy and powerful than power words and numbers. Use numbers to attract the audience towards your content. As most of the readers are busy streaming on social media platforms, using numbers benefit you with increased numbers of readers. Smaller number tend to attract more attention than larger ones.

13. Attention Capturing Introduction

With such an increase in video content, readers and internet users now prefer to watch a video for finding a solution for their problems than to read a blog or an article. So you only have a few seconds before the reader moves on to another piece of the article make the most of it by using captivating introduction. Promise the user that you will surely provide him with the right solution. This way, you keep the reader encouraged, and their attention hooked.

14. An Informative Body Content

If you are writing a guide, then make sure to provide them with a step by step procedure. Or if you are writing tips and tricks, make sure to provide the readers with valuable insights and techniques to solve their problems. Your content should be user-targeted and solution-oriented.

15. Have A Crispy End

Most people do like happy endings but crispy endings are what all of us seek for and this is what makes your writing to be complete

16. Leave Them Inspired

In the closing, make sure that the reader is inspired enough to act upon on your advice. The characteristic of a great writer is that he is authoritative enough to make a difference to the reader’s point of views and perspectives.

17. Always Prepare A Draft

A draft is a perfect idea to kill the vagueness out of your writing. It is essentially used in most of the creative fields. It lets you brainstorm all the ideas that you have, list them down and prioritize the points all at once. The draft is like a guide that you have prepared for your own self.

18. Concreting The Workflow

Just as for chefs chopping and cutting are an everyday thing, for writers editing and re-writing are a regular thing. For that, you need to pay attention to every detail. Come up with a logical workflow and stick to it to avoid all types of distractions and interferences.

19. Idea Generalization

When it comes to capturing the attention of the readers, go for simple and vivid language. Making your content verbose decreases the interest of the reader, and there’s a high chance that he might leave the blog without even reaching the ending part.

20. Sentence Structuring

Sentence structuring is the heart and soul of great content writing. Keep your sentences short and to the point. However, make sure that the sentence maintains its meaningfulness and understandability. Just as properly chopped onion is the core ingredient of a stew, a well-structured sentence is the crucial element of great content.

21. Content Transitioning

There’s nothing more annoying than content with improper and ill-timed content transitions. An effortless glide from one sentence to another and one paragraph to another is what smoothens the content flow. A content without such transitions only confuse the readers rather than providing them with useful information.

22. To The Point Writing

Whether you are a wiki writer or freelance writer, concise writing is not an easy skill to master but a necessary one to become a professional writer. Practice concise and clear writing to convey your message effectively.

23. Usage Of Power Words

Avoid using clichés, weak words, jargons, and balderdash. Add a little dash of power words, spice up your content with sensory phrases. Enliven the content with catchphrases, idioms, and expressions.

24. Keyword And On-Page Optimization

Having a comprehensive set of writing skills won’t cut you the deal, you need to learn the basic of keyword research, SEO and on-page optimization to bring your wordy creation into the eyes of the public and targeted reader.

25. Be Creative

The massacre to mediocrity is creativity and this I guess defines it exactly for what I mean by being creative. The more creative and different you are the more your readers will like you and this is what all of us want as a writer.

26. Manage Time Effectively

Time management has a lot to do with productivity in most of the fields and the same is the case with the field of writing. Managing your time will make you work on things that are important and this will be a great way to have time for working on your writing skills.

27. Set Tiny Goals

A book in days could be hard to see at but one paragraph daily will help you achieve it easily and this is why writers do usually set the long term goals but only focus on achieving the short term goals. Step after step in this field is possibly the best measure to conquer mountains. A big jump might be proven costly.

28. Be A Critic For Yourself

When you don’t reflect on how your work is others will. And probably when you give others a chance to reflect on you it shatters your confidence. Thus, before anyone else starts to point things out become a critic for yourself and make the same to be corrected on your own.

29. Find Motivation On Your Own

Often the writing that you do goes unnoticed and unappreciated and this is the most implicated reason of why writers quit. But you need to hang in there. You need to be a motivation to your own self and this will give you the confidence to comeback with something better and something productive.

30. Practice How To Focus

Distraction might kill your focus and focus is the key to good writing. This is something that you have to actually work on. Practicing on how to focus will give you a superpower to be productive in each of your writing and what else would be a perfect joy for a writer?

31. Cut Your Writing Down In Steps

Chopping your writing down in steps increases your focus and makes you identify your strengths and weaknesses and lets you work with a better approach. This is a great idea to work on your writing to improve it and make it more effective.

32. Take Breaks When Needed

This is a pro tip that only a few people would give you. Writing could be something that can make you frustrated or irritated and if you are a writer you already how it becomes when you don’t feel like writing. Then your words are nothing but just words and this is not something that people would like to read. They want to read emotions, feelings, thoughts, and ideas. When you think you are only bringing words out know that it is time to take a healthy break to keep your mental health at a balance. Come back when you feel like and then kill it!

These are just 32 hacks that are easy but at the same time they are worthy, they are worthy enough to keep you in the cards of being an amazing writer.