Archive for May, 2009
Writing About What You Know
The best advice any writer can receive is to write about what they know. When you write about a subject matter that you have knowledge in you are going to find that the task of writing becomes much easier. There is excitement in the writing when it is on a topic that you are comfortable with. However, it is possible to get tired of writing about the same thing time and time again. There are many writers out there that are writing about what they know, they have a new spin on the same topic each and every time they sit down and “put pen to paper.” Not all writers are like that, we need variety… we live to create new things.
So what are you suppose to do then to make sure that you maintain that excitement about what you are doing?
The answer is research. Not a fun word, that is true, and not all people are cut out to do research. It is important though if you are going to be a respected writer. This doesn’t mean that you have to spend hours a day at the bookstore, library or online studying some obscure topic. That is unless you want to. See the point is that you pick other topics that are of interest to you. You may not know everything you need to know about a topic in order to write about it intelligently, so take some time to read up on it.
It is far easier to research a topic that you are already interested in. As a writer I have written on numerous topics. I have covered everything from the obscure to the mundane, for me it is all fun. It is true that I didn’t know enough about many topics to write about them without doing research, but it was fun for me to learn new things.
The point of writing about what you know is that you can write about anything. It doesn’t matter what the topic is, what is important is that you know about what you are writing. So you need to do research so that you can write intelligently. This is important whether you are writing for yourself or if you are writing as a ghostwriter. You don’t want to sound like an uneducated idiot, especially if you are writing to persuade someone to do something. I have read numerous ebooks written by people that obviously either didn’t know what they were talking about, or they didn’t bother to read what the writer they paid wrote.
Look, it doesn’t matter if you are a fiction writer, a non fiction writer… a technical writer, legal writer… the list is endless. The point is that regardless of the type of writer you are you need to take the time to learn about the topic you are writing about so that you can write about what it is you know.
Neil Bartlett is the founder of ProArticle.com. Pro Article provides writers with Tips and Techniques for improving their writing skills. To learn more and INSTANTLY grab his FREE report “10 Tips For Successful Online Writing”
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