Challenges of Freelance Writing

Writing freelance has its ups and downs. Sometimes we get many assignments, at other times we get none. Keeping ourselves alive and supporting our dependents in such a way is not only unreliable, but also unsustainable. Unless we have lots of savings to spare, working freelance or providing editorial services as a full time job may not be the best option for livelihood.

Nonetheless, working freelance has many advantages. Among some of the greatest benefits of working freelance is flexibility—we get to choose to take on an assignment or not, depending on our timing and availability. We can spend more time with our family and do the things we like or choose to busy ourselves earning money. However, if there are not enough requests for freelance writing and our finances are tight, we may be left in jeopardy. For some of us, such a free and casual lifestyle may not be viable.

Observing from past trends, editorial service requests seem to come periodically. In certain months of the year, requests can be overwhelming, and if we are alone doing the work, we can only do as much as we can, and drop the rest. Unfortunately, by dropping the rest, we face the dilemma of not earning enough to sustain during off-peak.

One of the best ways to work around having insufficient funds during times of low editorial requests is to have multiple source of income or a contract with a corporation or organization for an ongoing project. Such a project may be to write for a monthly or bi-monthly newsletter or in-house magazine, or an arrangement with a publishing house to write for its periodicals.

Contacts and connections, however, are crucial if we hope to get writing contracts. Unless we know the right people, if we plan on going full time into writing freelance, we need to consider carefully all the aforementioned pointers before we jump in.

Two Facets of Freelance Writing

Writing for freelance entails two facets, one as a professional providing service to the customers, the other as servicing customers to provide them what they want. The former assumes as professionals, customers should accept and go with our style or way of writing, proofreading, and editing. The latter does not assume anything, but goes with customers' planned agenda, which often involves many rounds of re-writing, proofreading, and editing.

Of the two facets, the first approach is usually much sought after by freelance writers because of its clear cut relations with the customer. The second approach, however, is what most customers seek today. Customers want to be able to maximize their invested cost to put their engaged freelancers to work for them, not as slaves of course, but much like employees or people who owes them a living.

Sadly, reality often dictates how freelance writers should decide on which facet to go with. Either we are worth something to our customers, or we may end up always waiting, but never receiving.

If you are a freelance writer or someone who is providing editorial services to customers, feel free to share your thoughts on this subject here.

All About Writing

Some of you may find it difficult to search through my blog for specific topics on writing experiences and tips in the archives, so I have created this entry to help you navigate:

• A Writer's Nightmare
• Editorial Style Guide
• Fee or Free?
• Writers' Block
• Live to Write
• Ghostwriting
• Copywriting
• Feature Writing
• News Reporting: The Inverted Pyramid
• Contemporary Fiction: Genres and Beyond
• International Journalism: Freedom of Press
• International Journalism - A Book Review
• Online Journalism
• Photo Journalism
• Reaching the Readers
• Writing a News Feature Story
• Writing Beyond Cultures
• Writing Dialogues
• Writing Press Releases
• Writing Simple
• Writing Techniques

Feel free to share your views on writing at this blog!

Academic Writing Services

As a writer in the business of providing writing services, I frequently get requests by people who are willing to pay me to write their academic theses and assignments for them, which I of course refused. The reason is obvious—it is not only ethically wrong to cheat, but also against my professional principles.

The fact that it took me years of hard work studying part-time before I received my degree makes me abhor anyone who cheats or take a shortcut to get his or her certificate, diploma or degree. The value and worth of achieving one's own by one's own effort and knowledge is paramount to any future success. I have learned much through serious study, not pay someone else to write for me. In the real world, there is no way for anyone to be useful to the society if that someone paves the way to success through dishonesty.

While my belief is never to take up any paid academic writing assignments requests, I recently found out there are those who do the exact opposite and seize this as an opportunity for earning money. In fact, some even advertise to encourage students to pay them to write their essays and theses!

I am appalled by such practices! Although writing academic assignments for requestors can earn much, it questions the integrity of the achiever. It is no wonder some potential employers doubt the credibility of potential employees when they read résumés that state academic achievement through part-time courses. Such a practice can cause significant damage to many who have really studied, of whom I was one of them.

If you are a student seeking help for assignment writing or an academic writing service provider, I pray that you would quit such unethical practices. Students who need help should seek friends or others, share information and come up with their own ideas, not pay someone else to write for them. Academic writing service providers should consider other writing services rather than just writing ‘on behalf’ of students.

May we all agree to join hands to walk the straight path in building our own integrity and credibility!

Writing a News Feature Story

When writing a feature story, one of the first things you must consider is the target audience. Is it for the general public or is it for a specific group of readers? If you are writing for the readers of a lifestyle magazine or for the lifestyle section in the newspaper, for example, you would need to consider whether you should write from the view of a third person or second?

Most feature stories are written from the third person. Exceptions where the second person is used instead is when the story is about 'what you should get', say, for an occasion or a festive season. Seldom is the first person used for feature writing except when the author is the narrating his or her own experience.

Take for example the first paragraph of a feature story on entrepreneurship written in the third person:

John lost his job two years ago due to the economy downturn. Believing it to be only temporary, he actively seeks employment while upgrading his skills through short-term courses. Today, he is still unemployed. Now at the age of 41, he is forced to consider self-employment and entrepreneurship but is hesitant because he has been an employee his entire working life.

If this first paragraph is written in the second person, it would read:

You have been an employee your entire working life. Two years ago, you lost your job due to the economy downturn. Believing the downturn to be only temporary, you actively seek employment while upgrading your skills through short-term courses. Today, you are still unemployed.

As you can read from the two approaches, the third person's voice draws the readers into the story better than the second person because there is no need for personal involvement in the story unless it is a call to action. It works fine to use the second person if you are writing for a lifestyle magazine showcasing shopping goods, but not quite fine for a news feature story that aims to convey a message containing facts and advices.

When writing for a news feature story, four components should be considered: anecdotes, quotes, facts, and statements of theme.

An anecdote in a news feature story should be written from a third person as the narrator. The purpose of this is to use content 'pull' to attract readers to a sense of reading a novel or a storybook. For a feature story to be successful, at least one anecdote should be included to help readers visualize the 'reality' of a situation or the life of the person being told in the anecdote.

A feature should also include facts and quotes for angles of human interest. Facts may be research finding that quantify the content of the story, official statistical figures, or actual events witnessed by people:

According to official figures from the manpower department, unemployment is now at 4.5 percent.

Quotes are actual account of events by witnesses or spoken comments of people interviewed. Quotes can be direct or indirect. For a feature story to be credible and interesting, both direct and indirect quotes are necessary.

A direct quote is the actual spoken words by persons interviewed:

"I have been an employee my entire working life," said John Doe, 41, a retrenched worker.

An indirect quote is a paraphrased or rephrased writing of actual words spoken by persons interviewed:

John Doe, 41, said he has been an employee his entire working life.

Statements of theme are sentences that links original theme of the story to various parts of the feature. This is especially useful when there are multiple sections or story points that need to be expanded in different areas of the feature. The objective of statements of theme is to draw the readers back to the main theme of the story.

The feature story is usually written with each paragraph pulling the readers forward to read on to the point of closure or a conclusion or instructions to proceed further. It is usual to end the story by drawing the readers' attention back to the points being told at the lead paragraph, but with added knowledge on the subject.

Writing Press Releases

If writing press releases is a part of your job, then among the first things you must remember is although your final target audience is the readers of the news, the media as the vehicle for getting the news published is just as important.

The media need not and usually do not publish a large part of what you write in the press release. Catching the media's attention or interest to your piece of news therefore should be your first objective, and that will require the news to be noteworthy.

If the news is about a new product or service, then you as the writer must highlight what is different that makes it stand out from the rest. If there is nothing worth highlighting, such as a unique selling point, then there is unlikely any news going to get published. Journalists always seek out only what is newsworthy.

One of the greatest mistakes vendors of products or services make is to have press releases contain too much technical details or the over emphasis of numerous features or functionalities. If there is nothing different or outstanding among the many things mentioned, then there is nothing much that will attract or draw the journalists' attention to write about it.

Vendors often think that information in the press release is what the end users want to read about, but frequently such details are not newsworthy for publish. Even if it does get published, it will often be placed at the end of the story. Information or text placed at the end of the story, depending on the space available in the newspaper or other media, may be lifted off by the editor or gatekeeper to give way to other more noteworthy news.

When writing a press release, therefore, a good approach is to use the 'reverse pyramid' methodology, where the most important is placed at the top and the less important at the bottom. The first paragraph, as the intro of the press release, should summarize the key points of the entire story to answer at least three of the 5Ws and 1H—who, when, why, what, where and how.

Within the press release, at least one quote or two from a spokesperson should be included as a standard practice. This is because journalists in general prefer to have someone say something within the story so as to eliminate the monotony. This is especially true for a feature story.

In short, it means when writing press releases, always remember the media plays an important role of what gets published, therefore, the content must be newsworthy.

Ellipsis and Em Dash

Ellipsis is represented in any piece of writing by a row of three periods or full stops (...). At times, it may overlap with the use of em dash (—).

Ellipsis is useful for omitting certain words in long speech writing, citations or quotations. When using ellipsis, however, the writer must be careful not to change the meaning of what the speaker is actually saying. This is a basic journalistic rule and ethical practice for any kind of writing. When ellipsis is used at the end of a sentence, it usually signifies something is 'to be continued ...'. If used somewhere between a sentence, it is considered an omission to shorten a sentence, often to remove words that are not critical to the objective point at hand. For example:

Before
Jane went about looking for the dog again and again, but was unable to find it.

After
Jane went about looking for the dog again ... but was unable to find it.

According to the MLA and AP style guideline, ellipsis should precede and proceed with a space for correct usage as shown above. There is a tendency for many writers to omit the space after a word, and this is not a correct usage following the standard style guides.

Em dash is represented by a longer dash (—), and should not be mistaken as figure dash (-) or en dash (–). Figure dash is used as a hyphen and en dash in a range, for example 'three to ten people' or 3–10 people.

Em dash is used in two ways, one as a break between a continuing sentence and the other at the end of sentence.

When used as a break between a continuing sentence, it sets off from the parenthetical information to indicate a break in character thought or speech. For example:

Every single thing we do — big or small — is significant in the sight of God.

When facing tough situations, the best thing to do is to first know God’s will through His word — the Bible.

When used at the end of a sentence, it usually refers to an aposiopesis — a sentence deliberately broken off and left unfinished which ending is supplied by your imagination or to give impression of unwillingness or inability to continue. For example:

"Get out, or else —!"

Em dash is frequently used without a space around it. Even with universities and various educational sites, many in practice advise no space before and after the use of an em dash as a house style. Certain newspapers use a dash in place of em dash or en dash because of the limited space within the columns.

According to the MLA and AP style guide, the em dash should precede and proceed with a space in all uses except at the start of a paragraph or for sports agate summaries.