One of the hallmarks of a great writer is the ability to create compelling content that immediately grabs the attention of the reader.

This is true in practically any type of writing, whether it is for magazines, corporate clients, or your own blog or website. The writer who fails to keep the reader intrigued will have a hard time finding anyone who will pay for his work. Not if he wants to earn more than $5 for 500 words. And you can’t build a serious writing business at those rates.

Flash fiction is a great exercise in writing engaging content that reels the reader in and keeps him hooked all the way to the end. It is a complete story in under 1000 words.Good flash fiction has to start with a bang, raise the level of conflict, and bring everything to a satisfying close as quickly as possible.

Here are some ways flash fiction can benefit the freelance writer

Any Writing Is Good Writing – Sort Of

The most common advice I see on blogs and writing forums for writers to improve their craft is to simply write. And write some more. This is good advice, but there is one caveat: You must approach your writing critically, looking for things to improve in your work with each new piece of content you create.

One of the best ways to do this is to put your writing where others will see it. Every bit of criticism you collect on your writing is an opportunity to get better, either by improving what doesn’t work or keeping what does.

Flash fiction is a different style of writing that will help you to stretch your creative muscles in ways that you aren’t used to (unless you’re already proficient at flash fiction writing). Allowing others to comment on your work will help you stretch these muscles even more.

You Will Learn To Hook Your Reader

Getting the attention of your audience from the start is critical if you want to create compelling content that achieves it’s purpose. You don’t want to lose your audience before they have a chance to take your Most Wanted Response (MWR).

This is also important in flash fiction because you only have so much space to get the reader invested in the story. This is important in longer fiction as well, but you have more of an opportunity to make up for a poor start. If your reader sticks with you long enough.

Stick The Landing

The end of a blog post, article, or sales letter is the time to amp it up and go in for the hard close. If your reader has stuck with you to the end you know he is probably interested in what you have to offer, so this is where you need to ask for the sale.

The ending is also incredibly important in flash fiction. Here, you are selling your ability to bring the story to a satisfying resolution. The ending is often the hardest part of a story to write. If you fail here your reader may decide to write you off, even if the rest of the story was excellent.

And please, stay away from the OMG it was a dream the whole time sequence. Seriously.

Have you tried your hand at flash fiction? Let me know your experiences in the comments.

And because one of my aspirations is to be a fantasy author, my next post will be my first attempt at fantasy flash fiction. Follow me on Twitter or G+  be notified when I publish it.

You’re doing it again.

You have wild dreams in your head of being an A-list blogger, who is able to put out epic content on command, with a huge and loyal audience of fans and customers who will eagerly pay you for your work.

And so you sit down to write.

But there’s a problem. You’ve read sites like Think Traffic, which insist that in order to make it online you have to produce Epic Content on a regular basis.

And you don’t think your ideas are epic enough.

So you procrastinate.

You have a dozen false starts, but can’t seem to come up with anything epic enough to meet your own standards. You give yourself a mental lashing, thinking that you should be able to do better. You do some Internet research, looking for the magic bullet that will turn you into an epic writer. Or you take a walk out in the nice summer sun, hoping for inspiration to strike you from on high.

You do anything besides actually writing that damn blog post.

We Are All Born With One Basic Desire

We want to make a difference. We want to fight for a cause. We want to change lives and inspire people. This is a basic part of the human psyche.

We want to matter. We want to leave a legacy for future generations.

This is why stories are so fascinating to us. The Hero slays the dragon and rescues the princess.

The rogue is actually a noble hero at heart, he just hasn’t realized it yet.

The ugly old hag is actually a beautiful enchantress.

The frog is really a prince, waiting for true love to break the curse.

These stories matter to us, because they speak to hidden truths. They speak to the reality of the human condition. We can deny it all we want, but the truth is, we all need a hero. We need an epic quest and a cause worth fighting for.

But Fear Holds Us Back

We all have our own personal heroes. Maybe yours is Brian Clark, or Corbett Barr. Maybe it’s Jeff Goins, or Jon Morrow, or James Chartrand.

Whoever your hero is, you judge your work against theirs. But when you feel that your work doesn’t measure up you hold back. You don’t write that post. You procrastinate.

Your stick with the status quo, because that’s what is comfortable.

You don’t put your best work out there, because you don’t think your best work is good enough. You are afraid of being judged and found lacking.

You think that if you put out sub-par work, you will forever ruin your reputation and your chances of ever getting noticed.

You think you have to produce at the level of a master craftsman, even though you are just getting started.

The Secret to Overcoming Fear

Do you want to know the secret? You just have to get started.

You are the hero, you just don’t realize it yet. And the hero always has to go through a journey before he learns what he’s truly made of. Or she, if you prefer.

But first, the hero has to decide whether to accept the quest, or just huddle in fear waiting for the world to fall apart.

And during the quest, the hero is going to make some mistakes. There will be botched battles and the hero will only barely escape tragedy. He will make a bad decision that holds the quest back.

But he keeps going, and eventually the hero emerges and the enemy is defeated.

If you want to be a top blogger with a loyal following, you’re going to have to pay your dues. You have to go on a journey and you have to be willing to make mistakes.

Before you can write 1000 words of epic content you first need to create tens or hundreds of thousands of words of content that is just good enough. But if you judge yourself too harshly you will never give yourself the chance to get there.

So write that post. Make it the best you can at your current level. Publish it.

Then do it again, and again, and again. Do it on your own blog. Do it with guests posts and magazine article pitches. Just find the courage to fail, however many times it takes.

Eventually, you will hit your stride. You will find your voice. You will find the audience that appreciates your work.

As a new freelance writer one of my biggest hold-ups is the fear that my writing isn’t good enough to get paid good rates for it. If I stop to think about it for a minute I realize that this is complete rubbish.

For one thing, It’s very easy for me to be overly critical of my own abilities. This is a trap that many writers and would be entrepreneurs fall in to. We underestimate our value. In fact, this holds true for most people. We really are our own worst critics.

Of course, I should always be able to look at my work critically. There is always room for improvement. But this should not hold me back from getting my feet wet. Is it realistic to expect myself to perform at the level of an expert who’s been doing this for years if I am just starting my writing career? Of course not.

And that expert? He had to start somewhere, too.

But there is another reason why this should not hold me back.

What It Really Takes To Be A Well Paid Freelance Writer

Freelance writing success does not require mastery of the English language. In fact, some of the writers I follow and respect, and who make a full time career of writing, actually have worse English than me! Their blogs are filled with grammar and spelling mistakes that I can easily recognize.

Has that stopped them from getting paid for their work? Nope.

That got me to thinking about what it really takes to be a successful writer. I’ve come up with a small list that sums up what I’ve observed. If I can learn to do these things well, I know I can be successful as a freelance writer.

Capable at Writing in the English Language

As I said above, you don’t need to be an English expert to earn a full time living as a freelance writer. You only need to be good enough. Now, there are some people who shouldn’t be working as freelance writers. This includes people who have a poor understanding of the English language. There are quite a few foreign writers out there, writing articles for $5 or less a pop. Many of them have a poor grasp of English and need a lot of work before they should be writing for hire.

Marketing

Marketing is the most important skill to have if you want to be a well paid freelancer. In fact, I’m not sure that skill is the right word to use here. I think that bravado might be a better term. You just have to have the guts to put yourself out there and let others know what you do and how it can help them.

Other than getting word out, marketing is all about positioning. The better you position yourself as an expert in the field of writing, the better rates you can command. This is where skill and experience really helps, which you can develop over time.

Meeting Client Expectations

If you can get your clients to like you they will be much more receptive to the idea of hiring you again. This is why it is important to meet deadlines and communicate with you clients. You should be able to understand their goals and deliver a final product that fulfills those goals. Establishing expectations early on is critical in this respect, and the revision process will allow you to close the loop on this.

Getting Ideas Across in Writing

The last skill you need to be a successful freelance writer is the ability to get ideas across clearly in your writing. This is where the importance of clear and concise writing come into play.Writing that is redundant can be confusing to the reader. As long as you can get a message across decently well, you can get professional rates for your freelance writing.

And that’s it.

None of these skills require expertise. You only have to be able to do these things moderately well and you can make a full time living as a writer. That is all it takes to be able to get work at professional rates.

You don’t need to languish at $5 for 500 words until you master these skills. In fact, you can charge 10 times that if you can do all of these things at a basic level.

So what does it really take to be a well paid freelance writer? You just have to put yourself out there and charge what you’re worth.

Have you ever read a blog post and wondered what message the writer was trying to get across?

Many times a blog post will ramble on about irrelevant topics and will only serve to confuse the reader. Or, at the very least, the reader will lose interest and hit the back button.

Have you ever scrutinized your own blog posts to determine whether your message is coming across clearly? Or maybe you’ve put together a post without even having a message in mind in the first place? Here is a checklist that can help you to clearly communicate your message with your blog readers:

Is your title specific enough?

The title of your blog post is the most important element in effective communication. The title is the first thing a visitor to your blog or a searcher on the web will see. If you want them to read the post, your title must clearly tell them what they can expect to read about in the post.For instance, when I first sat down to write this post the title I had in mind was:

“3 Rules For Effective Communication On The Web”.

But I realized that a title like that was far too generic. After all, communication on the web comes in many forms, including email, social media, web copy, and even the images on your site.

By narrowing it down and focusing on business blogs I’ve made it much more specific. You know exactly which form of online communication I’m talking about. Additionally, your post title is the best place to tell the search engines what your post is about, as well.

Hook your reader.

Writing a great title that get’s clicked on is awesome, but what happens next? If you lose your reader in the first 5 seconds they will never subscribe to your email list or buy something from you. The first sentence of your post needs to hook your reader into reading further.

I’ve done that on this post by asking a question that many people will identify with. Another method is to connect with an emotion your readers may be feeling or have felt in the past.  Which of these would you be more likely to keep reading:

“Many people in this country are overweight. This can be a real problem and can lead to emotional issues. Overweight people often don’t feel very confident and can suffer from a lot of rejection…”

Or:

“When I was in High School, I was obese. I can remember walking through the hallways seeing all the jocks and how popular they were with the girls and feeling extremely jealous. If that wasn’t bad enough, I was constantly being called names like ‘Jabba the fat’ by kids with less imagination than a turd. Even my own parents seemed embarrassed by my size. I decided it was time to drop the fat or die trying… ”

I think the second option makes for a much more interesting read, don’t you?

Be clear and concise.

Just because you know CPME means doesn’t mean your target audience does. Avoid confusing your reader by staying away from industry jargon and acronyms.

Also, avoid redundancy and unnecessary words. Stay on topic and don’t ramble needlessly. Anecdotes are fine if they help you clarify your point. Talking about your cat is a big no-no unless you can make an object lesson of it. Even then, there’s probably a better object lesson somewhere.

What about you? What examples have you seen of blog posts that failed to get the point across?