Lots of writers (and would-be writers) recognize that, but have yet to get started on their own ebook. Perhaps you’re one of them: you’re not sure where to begin, or you’re worried about how you’ll find the time.

I’ve been writing and publishing ebooks — for myself and for clients – since 2008, and I’ve helped lots of writers get their own ebooks finished. I’m focusing here on nonfiction ebooks, but many of the tips will also work for fiction writers.

These nine tips will help you come up with a great idea, do your research, and get your first draft written.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Choose a Topic
2. Identify Your Unique Expertise
3. Survey Your Audience
4. Allocate Time for Research
5. Read Similar Books
6. Fact Check
7. Develop a Full Outline
8. Write Distraction-Free
9. Prepare to Sell/Market Your Book

9 Tips for Writing an Ebook for the First Time

The biggest mistake new writers make when figuring out how to write an ebook is picking an idea they think is good, without exploring whether there’s actually a market for that topic.

Tip 1: Choose a Topic

Some topics might sound like great possibilities because you know there’s a big market out there. But don’t decide to write a “dieting book” or “self-help book” (or any other type of book) just because you think it will make money. You may find that the market is saturated, and only established big names are currently selling well.

Instead, choose a topic that (a) you already know a lot about and (b) you’ll enjoy writing about. This saves you doing lots of research just to get up to speed, and it substantially increases the chance that you’ll see your ebook through to a final draft.

Tip 2: Identify Your Unique Expertise

If you’re not sure what your specialist topics are, take a look at your magazine subscriptions or the blogs that you visit frequently. These should give you some clues!

Once you’ve settled on a topic, dig deeper into these resources. You’ll probably find certain articles crop up again and again (with a different spin each time); these indicate perennially popular topics, and the core idea they cover could be a great topic for an ebook.

Tip 3: Survey Your Audience

If you’ve got a blog or an email newsletter, then you’re well ahead in the ebook game. You not only have a ready-made audience for your work, you also have a great source of ideas.

Two simple ways to do this:

• Come up with three to seven possible ebook titles or topics, and survey your audience to find out which they prefer. SurveyMonkey is great for this or even a Google Form.
• Go through comments or emails you’ve received. What questions or problems crop up again and again? Could you write an ebook addressing those?

Tip 4: Allocate Time for Research

Many writers find it’s easy to get stuck at the research stage, gathering more and more articles and resources, thumbing through books again and again, jotting down great quotes, facts and references.

Avoid this by giving yourself a limited amount of time for research. That could mean setting aside, say, two weeks purely for research before you begin writing, or researching for a certain length of time as you come to each new chapter of your ebook.

Tip 5: Read Similar Books

This may sound obvious, but some writers are overly reliant on blog posts and articles, and don’t necessarily turn to other (e)books. Whatever your topic, it’s likely you’ll be able to find some similar books and ebooks. If you can’t, you may have to consider whether it’s too obscure to focus on.

You won’t need to read every word of every book you choose; instead, use the table of contents or index to help you find the parts most relevant to you. These can also help throw up extra ideas on aspects of the topic you might not have considered yet.

Tip 6: Fact Check

If your particular topic area has a few oft-quoted facts or statistics, it can be tempting to repeat these without double-checking them. Be careful, though: other authors won’t necessarily have verified the facts themselves.

Between 2008 and 2011, I wrote a lot of material for personal development and self-improvement blogs. One popular “fact” in this area is about the “Harvard Goal Study.”

One excellent blogger in the area, though, debunked this in a post Writing Down Your Goals — The Harvard Written Goal Study. Fact or Fiction? This helped open my eyes to the sad truth that some authors make up facts and statistics to suit them, so you do need to look for original studies, government publications, and other reputable sources of information where possible.

If you come across something presented as fact which seems odd or hard to believe, Snopes.com is a great place to turn for an initial check.

Tip 7: Develop a Full Outline

One of the simplest ways to make writing easier is to have a clear outline before you begin. Otherwise, it’s easy to get stuck a couple of chapters into your ebook.

Your outline should include, at the very least:

• A title for each chapter. Don’t spend too long agonizing over the exact wording at this stage. It’s usually better to have, say, 15 short chapters instead of five long ones. If your ebook deals with a broad topic, it may also be appropriate to also split it into three to five different parts.
• Subheadings or subsections for each chapter, with a list of points detailing information you want to cover. You could produce this as a linear list, or you could create a mind-map to help you come up with new ideas and link them in different ways.

Tip 8: Write Distraction-Free

For most people, writing is a demanding, high-energy task, and it’s often easy to give in to distractions.

Don’t put temptation in your path: create a distraction-free environment by using a program that allows for full-screen writing, like Dark Room, Write Room, or Scrivener. Turn off your phone. Sign out of your email account, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and anything else that might make sounds or pop alerts up on your screen.

Set yourself up for success by creating an environment that supports your goals.

Tip 9: Prepare to Sell/Market Your Book

Once the writing is done comes the hard part: selling and marketing your book! Check out our list of resources for doing just that:

• The Best Way to Sell Books
• How to Use BookBub to Sell Books
• Get Offline and Meet Your Readers IRL
• 3 Simple Tricks to Sell More Copies on Amazon
• 9 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

If you’ve got any tips of your own to share about how to write an ebook, or any questions about the ebook-writing process, just pop a comment below.

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you’re supporting The Write Life — and we thank you for that!

Photo via G-Stock Studio / Shutterstock 

Online, it’s tough to keep readers’ interest. They have lots of distractions at their fingertips, plus reading on their device is tiring. An attention-grabbing image can draw them in.

If you’re writing for your own blog, finding, modifying and using images appropriately is completely up to you.

If you’re a freelance writer producing blog content for your clients, then they may want you to suggest images. Some clients will even ask you to upload your completed post, including images, into WordPress for them.

Best practices for using images in your blog posts

Here are nine best practices for using images in your blog posts, whether for your blog or for your clients’ blog.

1. Always make sure you can legally use an image

When you’re looking for images, it’s very tempting to go straight to Google’s image search, type in what you want and pick an option.

Don’t do this. The images you find are very likely protected by copyright. Using them can land you — or your client — with a whole range of problems. At best, you might get a polite email asking you to remove the image. At worst, you might end up facing a hefty fine: in a few cases, images have been deliberately used to lure unwitting victims. 

The best places to find images that you can legally use on your blog, or a client’s blog, are:

• Sites that explicitly offer free images. Pixabay and Pexels are great sources of these: there are some other recommendations in this list of places to find free stock images for your blog.
• Stock photography sites like iStock and Shutterstock, where you pay for images.

2. Come up with several different image options

When you’re searching for an image to use in a blog post, it’s tempting to simply pick the first one that you think will complement your work well.

Sometimes, looking a little longer can give you a much better range of images to choose from. Plus, if you’re using popular stock photography sites, digging a bit deeper than the first handful of images is likely to give you something more unique.

If you’re finding images for a client to approve, they may well appreciate you suggesting several options to choose from.

3. Use images that represent your audience and brand

Some stock photos can seem a little “cheesy” or overused and it’s important to keep searching to find an image that’s a good fit for your audience and personal brand.

For instance, perhaps you’ve written a blog post about how setbacks can help you grow and go further. You could illustrate this with a photo of a seedling growing… but that might not resonate with your audience of sporty college students. Maybe a picture of a race track would work better instead.

You may also want to keep in mind the color palette of your blog (or your clients’ blog) when you’re choosing images. Perhaps you want to use images with lots of bright primary colors, or maybe soft, pastel shades would suit your site better.

4. Crop and edit images to suit your piece

Sometimes, you might find a great image that needs a few adjustments to work. If the image is landscape and you need it to be portrait, you might be able to crop it at the top and bottom to make it work. If the image is too dark or light, you could adjust the brightness and contrast.

You don’t need to have expensive graphics editing software to perform basic image editing tasks. Free tools like Paint.NET can work just fine for simple edits. 

Note: Depending on where you sourced your image, you might be able to use it freely but not edit or modify it in any way. Check the site’s terms and conditions if you’re unsure.

5. Resize images to the correct width for your blog

Whether you’re adding images to posts for your own blog or posts for a client’s blog, you want those images to be the right width before you upload them. Otherwise, they’ll need to be resized by the blogging software, potentially making them look fuzzy or take longer to load.

It’s a good practice to have a standard width for all images on your blog. This should be no more than the width of the post content area. For many blogs, somewhere from 500px-800px works well.

If you have a lot of images to resize, you can do them all at once using an online tool such as Bulk Resize Photos.

6. Compress images before uploading them

Each image in your blog post takes time to load. If you have several images that have a large file size, your website will be noticeably slower.

Readers will be impatient with slow websites and may leave before your content loads up on their device. Plus, search engines like Google are increasingly favoring fast websites, ranking them more highly in search results.

This is why it’s so important to compress your images before uploading them. Your image will stay the same size and should look the same after compression, but its file size will be smaller.

The easiest way to compress images is to use online tools like TinyPNG and Compress JPEG.

Tip: Use the .jpg format for photos. Use .png for images with only a few colors, text or a transparent background: this includes most screenshots and logos.

7. Name your image files using keywords

Let’s say you’re writing a blog post about libraries and their importance in local communities, titled “Why Libraries Matter And How You Can Protect Your Local Library.” 

When you download a typical image, it might be named something like this:

books-1617327_640.jpg

That file name doesn’t include much useful information. Before uploading the image to your blog, you should rename it using useful keywords:

why-libraries-matter.jpg

Search engines can read image file names, so using keywords here can give your SEO (search engine optimization) a slight boost. 

8. Add alt text for your images

All images on your website should ideally have alt text (“alternative text”). This can be read by search engines, but more importantly, it can be read by screen readers. These are used by people who are blind or partially sighted.

Alt text makes your post more accessible, particularly if the images are important to the meaning and you write good, descriptive alt text.

For instance, here’s an image of library books from Pixabay:

Using the alt text “books” wouldn’t be very helpful. Instead, something like “Library books displayed on shelves” would work better.

Note: Alt text isn’t the same as title text. The title text for an image will be displayed when the user runs their cursor over the image. The alt text won’t be seen by regular users, only by search engines and users with a screen reader. It usually makes sense to use the same phrase or sentence for both the alt text and the title text. For help adding these, check out this post on image alt text vs image title.

9. Consider using arrows or other elements on screenshots

If you’re demonstrating a technique using screenshots, it’s helpful to add arrows or boxes to point out particular parts of the image. These are sometimes called “callouts” or “markup.” 

For instance, here’s a screenshot that shows you how to add an ‘Image’ block in WordPress’s block editor. The red boxes show you where to type in the search box and what to click on:

If you’ve got a screenshot with multiple different elements, using arrows or boxes can help readers quickly take in the relevant parts.

You may well feel, as a writer, that words are your thing. But using images in your content isn’t hard — and the right images could make a real difference to how engaging and useful your posts are.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

If you’re a novelist, you don’t want awkward word choices or repetitive sentence structures to distract your readers from the story.

As a freelancer, you don’t want your work to seem sloppy or poorly edited.

When you blog, you don’t want readers to switch off because you’re far too wordy.

Want the good news? Even if your writing skills aren’t as strong as you’d like, there are plenty of straightforward techniques you can use to improve them.

Here are some suggestions on how to write better.

How to improve writing skills: 10 new ways to clean your copy

No matter how much of an expert you are, all writers can stand to pick up a few tips to learn how to write better. The same way a piece of writing is never “done” being edited (there’s always something), the work to improve your skills doesn’t end. 

Whether you write articles, blogs, social media copy or research papers, here are 10 techniques to use to help you write anything well.   

1. Cut unnecessary words

Here are two paragraphs that say the same thing. Which one is stronger?

Example 1: In my opinion, the majority of freelancers should probably avoid working for free (or for a nominal sum) unless they are at a very early stage of their career and as yet have no pieces for their portfolio at all.

Example 2: Freelancers shouldn’t work for free unless they’re just starting out and don’t have any pieces for their portfolio.

The second clearly states a stronger case, especially since it reaches the main point with fewer unnecessary words you don’t need in a sentence.

If you write a blog post, most readers will assume it gives your opinion, so you don’t have to state that. Mastering brevity is an easy way to improve writing skills. Simply be clear, firm and direct.

2. Avoid well-worn phrases

Some phrases are so familiar they’ve lost their impact: they’ve become clichés.

For instance, “In my opinion,” from the previous example is a phrase you can always cut. Here are a few others:

• At the end of the day…
• Like stealing candy from a baby…
• For all intents and purposes… (sometimes miswritten as “for all intensive purposes!”)
• Let the cat out of the bag…

It can be tricky to spot these in your own writing, so take a quick look through this huge list of clichés to avoid here on the Be a Better Writer site.

When you edit, you don’t need to cut every cliché…but check whether it might work better to rephrase.

In dialogue, or in a first-person narrative, clichés can be a helpful way to characterize someone’s speech or thought patterns — but if you want to improve your writing skills, make sure you’re careful and deliberate.

3. Write directly to “you” (in nonfiction)

Although this isn’t appropriate for every form of nonfiction, bloggers and freelancers often write directly to the reader as “you.”

This is a great way to make your writing better, direct, conversational and stronger.

Blog posts and articles quite often use “you” or “your” very early on, in the title and/or introduction. For instance, this post on The Write Life:

Freelance or Full Time: Which Journalism Path is Right for You?

Want to work in the media industry as a writer?

You generally have two options: You can seek employment as a staff member of a publication, or look for freelance writing opportunities.

(Emphasis mine.)

Or this one about book formatting: 

How to Format a Book: 10 Tips Your Editor Wants You To Know

Unless you prefer your friends to be story nerds or those who lean toward obsessive-compulsive tendencies when it comes to grammar, you shouldn’t necessarily seek to befriend your editor.

Similar to these examples, use the singular “you” and avoid phrases like, “Some of you may know”. Yes, you (hopefully!) have more than one reader, but each reader experiences your piece individually.

You can also use “I” where appropriate (e.g. to give an example from your own life) — though, usually, it’s best to keep the focus of your piece on the reader.

4. Vary sentence structures

What’s wrong with this paragraph? 

You should write regularly (not necessarily daily). You should aim to write at least once or twice a week (I recommend a total of 3 – 4 hours per week). You may find it difficult to keep this up at first (especially if you’ve not written much before).

There’s no question the advice it shares is sound and reasonable. Plus, there’s nothing wrong with the actual words used. Still,  the structure of each of the three sentences is very similar: each one starts with “You” then a modal verb (“should”/“may”), and each one ends with a phrase in parentheses.

When you have several sentences in a row that follow the same pattern, they stand out…in a bad way.

Sometimes, it’s appropriate to structure your sentences like this — e.g. in a bullet-pointed list — but in regular paragraphs, it’s often unintentional on the author’s part, and it seems artless and poorly edited to the reader.

For more help with sentence structure, check out, “It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer’s Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences,” by June Casagrande.

5. Use subheadings as signposts

If you write blog posts, articles or sales copy, subheadings are crucial.

They break up long pieces and help readers stay focused; they also offer “signposts” to readers who may skim for specific information.

When you craft your subheadings, think about how to:

• Make them clear and direct (just like titles/headings) – Don’t try to get clever!
• Keep them short  – Subheadings have a larger font than regular text and don’t generally look good when they wrap around the end of a line.
• Be consistent with the structure – For instance, each subheading might start with an imperative verb (as in this post).

6. Use direct, straightforward language

It’s rare that you’ll want to write something deliberately indirect! That would be the opposite of better writing. Instead, you’ll want your words to come across clear and strong to the reader.

This means avoid the passive voice like the plague — advice most writers have heard before as they learn to improve their writing skills.  In case you need a recap, here’s a quick rundown:

Active voice: John threw the ball. ➜ Succinct and clear.

Passive voice: The ball was thrown by John. ➜ Wordier and less direct.

The passive voice omits the agent (the person who performs the action) from the sentence altogether: The ball was thrown. See?

This small detail can be useful in many ways to make your writing better; for instance, you might write about something where the agent is unimportant, or where you want to conceal the agent. (“Mistakes were made” is a classic example here.)

A good rule of thumb is to always write in a direct, straightforward way.

Make it as easy as possible for readers to engage with your ideas or your story.

7. Read aloud (or edit on paper)

No one’s first draft is perfect, and the above six suggestions should help you rework yours.

Often, it helps to go through your piece at a slow and methodical — many writers find it helps to read aloud since it highlights the cadence of your words.

If you prefer not to read aloud (or if your colleagues, family or cat would give you funny looks if you tried it), then print out your draft so you can edit it on paper.

Use a different format to make it easier to spot typos and repetitive phrasings.

At times when it isn’t practical to print, I’ve also found it helpful to convert my draft digitally: that might mean I turn a Word document into a .pdf, put a novel manuscript onto my Kindle or preview a blog post so I can get closer to the reader’s experience.

Confident, powerful writing will help your message (or your story) have its full impact on your reader.

8. Use a grammar checker

If you have a serious desire to learn how to write better and don’t have access to an in-person editor, consider using a grammar checker tool.

It’ll help you fix grammar and replace common words with more unique options. Some tools even tell you why you should make a certain change, which is an added bonus because it helps you further learn and improve your writing skills.

(But remember, don’t write and edit at the same time!)

9. Liven up your writing with descriptive verbs

Adverbs are the pesky parts of speech that can be tough to eliminate from your writing.

Because they’re descriptive words that modify verbs, adverbs that end with -ly constantly find their way back into sentences. Since people use them so commonly, they sneakily manage to influence our vocabulary. 

Did you notice all the unnecessary adverbs? Here’s another way I could’ve written that sentence: 

… adverbs that end with -ly always find their way back into sentences. They’re easy to use in conversation, so adverbs are sly in how they influence our vocabulary. 

To improve your writing skills, tighten your copy and clear your blog, novel or article of -ly adverbs you can replace with more descriptive verbs. The first way I wrote the sentence isn’t incorrect, but the second version is less wordy and complex in comparison. Plus, it contains less fluff. 

Rather than write, “She drove quickly down the street,” focus on the action to help your reader: What’s the driver doing? Speeding, so you could write, “She raced down the street at lightning speed.”

It’s a small change to swap out adverbs, but the impact is huge when you do so to better your writing with powerful verbs and less fluff.

10. Make your sentences flow

Your amazing story won’t reach your readers if it’s not composed with sentences that pace well, have proper punctuation and vivid details to enhance the reader experience. 

If someone has to read your sentences more than once to grasp the main idea, that means your writing lacks flow. 

To improve your writing and create more flow, incorporate this checklist of sentence structure elements in your writing routine:

• Contractions – Despite the old-age advice, a lack of contractions — didn’t, can’t, weren’t — dampens your writing with stiff informality. Smooth sentences that flow require the use of contractions to make them less uptight, plus they make your writing more conversational, personable and easier to comprehend.
• Punctuation – Take risks with punctuation to add rhythm to your writing. Without semicolons, em-dashes, apostrophes, periods and more, our stories would fall flat with no diversity in tone, cadence and feeling. For example, you can use ellipses to add mystery… Or, allude to a somber tone with shorter sentences; the kinds that create tension in your story, one word after the word. 
• Imagery – Paint a picture for your readers that lures them in page after page, or scroll after scroll. You can make boring sentences all the more exciting with vivid details that create visuals strong enough to ignite your reader’s imagination. Don’t go overboard and paint the entire picture — just enough to keep them going.

Besides these 10 effective tips to use to be a better writer and improve your skills, the one thing you have to do is write. (Then, don’t stop.)

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via Alissa Kumarova/ Shutterstock

Whether you’ve heard of it before or not, you’re using the concept of “register” in your writing.

Register is the level of formality in a piece of writing. It’s slightly different from what we might call tone or style.

You could see it as a sliding scale, from formal language (for example, a legal document) to informal language (for example, a text message to a friend).

Examples of formal register vs. informal register

For instance, compare the following two pieces of text:

“Access to our email services and to some areas of the Site is restricted to users who have registered their details with us. You must not use a false name or email or provide any false information nor impersonate another person when registering for use of the Site and our email services.”

(From The Telegraph’s Terms and Conditions)

“CONTENT COPYRIGHT WRITERS’ HQ ©. PLEASE DON’T USE OUR STUFF WITHOUT ASKING, BUT DO ASK AND WE’LL PROBABLY SAY YES BECAUSE WE’RE NICE LIKE THAT.”

(From the footer of Writers’ HQ’s website)

The first is in a formal register, with words like “impersonate.” The second is informal, with phrases like “we’re nice like that.” Note that both pieces of text have a similar context — they each instruct users on what they can and cannot do — but they’re written very differently.

Why register matters

There’s no “right” or “wrong” register — only the right (or wrong!) one for whatever you’re writing.

By being aware of register, and noticing how your choices of words, phrases and sentence structures tie in with register, you can adjust your writing as needed.

When you get it right, it feels good. Natural.

But the wrong level of formality can be jarring for the reader. It might even undermine their confidence in your ability to provide what they need.

Imagine, for instance, researching lawyers in your area. You find a website that’s written in informal, chatty language with lots of swearing. It might be a refreshing change and encourage you to hire the person…but chances are, it’ll put you off! You’re expecting a certain level of formality from this type of person or organization.

On the other hand, imagine you’re posting on Facebook to encourage other writers in your local area to meet up for coffee. If your post is formally worded, it may sound intimidating or off-putting, and not attract the right people.

How to adjust your register for different types of writing

Here are a few suggestions for what types of register to use in different writing scenarios.

Blog posts: Most blog readers are used to an informal, friendly, conversational style. If you run a corporate blog, however, it might be appropriate to write in a slightly more formal register.

Emails: Some of your emails will be more formal than others. If you already know a client fairly well, it might seem a bit distancing or cold to address them formally (“Dear Mr. Jones…”)

Copy for a client’s website: This could be at almost any level of formality. Look at other websites in their industry, and think about their own corporate style. Some companies are known for being unusually informal and this can work well, but only if it’s what your client wants!

Formal or legal agreements: These will almost certainly be written in formal language (though there’s no reason that can’t be in plain, straightforward English). You might want to use standard templates. Invoices could fall into this category.

As a writing exercise, it can be interesting to rework a piece at a different level of formality. For instance, you might draft quite formal copy for a client’s website or blog, and also present them with an example of how it could be more chatty.

What exactly does formal writing involve?

Good formal writing is not unnecessarily convoluted, and while it may use long, Latinate words, it doesn’t use them unnecessarily. It might, for instance, use a more technical or precise word where appropriate.

When you’re writing in a formal register, stick fairly rigidly to grammatical rules. For instance, it wouldn’t normally be appropriate to have extremely short paragraphs, or to start a sentence with “because” or “and.”

In an informal piece of writing, like a blog post or email, short paragraphs and sentences that begin with conjunctions can work well to keep the pace and hold the reader’s interest. You should still avoid embarrassing grammatical mistakes, though: remember, your writing needs to be clear and easy to read.

Don’t use slang terms in formal writing — they’re informal pretty much by definition! — and don’t swear. (The exception here is if you’re quoting someone. Then it’s fine to reproduce the words they used, though depending on where your piece will be published, you may need to asterisk out all or part of any particularly rude words.)

Online, you’ll find plenty of lists of formal versus informal words. I’d use these with some caution: Don’t feel that you have to constantly second-guess your word choices, and don’t use big words for the sake of it.

As I mentioned earlier, you’re probably using register without even thinking about it. From childhood, you’ll have adjusted the register of your spoken language to different situations (compare talking with your friends to talking to a teacher, for instance), and you’re probably adept at shifting between different registers in your writing, too.

Truly understanding register, though, can help you become more aware of the word choices you make, and more able to tweak and adjust as appropriate.

As you read different things today, perhaps blog posts, emails from big companies, emails from friends, newspaper articles and text messages, think about the register of each, and how appropriate (or not!) it is for the context.

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via Dean Drobot / Shutterstock 

Here’s the start of a BBC News article, for instance, with the quotes marked up:

By including quotes in your blog posts, you can:

• Add authority to your own words. Perhaps you’ve got some great thoughts about parenting toddlers…but you’ll have more impact on the reader if you also include some quotes from other parents, or from experts in child development, to back you up.

• Break up your post. Quotes can be set apart from the rest of your text, creating extra white space and making your post look more interesting and engaging. If you want readers to stick around, you need to make your post easy to read.

• Add different voices. You might have a peppy, upbeat style – but you might want to quote someone who’s more forthright or who’s prone to going off on a rant. This can help you bring in a perspective that might not fit easily within your own voice or brand.

Selecting quotes to use in your post

You can quote almost anyone in your blog posts. You might go for:

• Fellow bloggers. This makes it easy to include and attribute quotes – you can just link to the original blog post – and also helps you build strong relationships.

• Subject matter experts. Perhaps you write about personal finances and you want to quote someone who’s worked in debt counseling, for instance. Try HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to find great sources, or simply ask around on Facebook or Twitter.

• Famous people. There are thousands of great quotes out there from well-known figure (historical and contemporary). If you choose to go down this route, (a) try to select quotes that aren’t too well-worn and (b) make sure you attribute the quote correctly. If you’re not 100% sure about whether a quote is accurate and/or attributed to the right person, check Quote Investigator.  

In general, try to keep quotes relatively short: readers may not read a long quote, and if you end up quoting most or all of someone’s blog post, they may well object (as at that point, you’re essentially stealing their content).

How to put quotes into your blog posts

There are two key ways to use quotes in your blog posts:

1. Use blockquote formatting (for quotes of two or more sentences).
2. Use inline formatting (usually for quotes of one sentence, or less than a sentence).

If you’ve written essays in school or university, you’re probably used to both of these.

How to do blockquotes

Here’s a quote in blockquote format:

The highest grade I ever achieved on a school paper was 104% on an essay entitled The Fatal Flaw in William Shakespeare’s King Lear. I have not yet read William Shakespeare’s King Lear.

– 25 Things You Didn’t Know About Naomi Dunford From IttyBiz, Naomi Dunford, IttyBiz

(It’s up to you where to place the attribution. I like to put them immediately after the quote, within the blockquote itself; some people prefer to lead with the attribution, then begin the blockquote.)

To create a blockquote in WordPress, simply highlight the text of the quote and click the blockquote button (which looks like quotation marks):

If you prefer to work with the “text” (HTML) interface in WordPress, type the opening tag <blockquote> just before your quote begins and </blockquote> just after it ends, like this:

Another option, if you’re quoting a tweet, is to embed the whole tweet in your post. (This can potentially cause difficulties if it later gets deleted, though.) For instance, The Guardian’s article How did an Amazon glitch leave people literally in the dark? includes a tweet from Stuart Thomas part-way through:

How to use inline formatting

Using a quote “inline” simply means making it part of your normal paragraph, as we saw with the BBC News example:

This is normally done for very short quotes: one sentence or less. It’s possible to break up the quote to make it more like dialogue (as the BBC does in the second paragraph here).

You don’t need to do anything unusual for inline formatting: simply put the quote in quotation marks and make sure it’s clearly attributed.

Can you alter a quote?

If a quote doesn’t quite work when taken out of context, it’s OK to change or add a word or two: just make it clear what you’ve done.

For instance, here’s a long quote that might need cutting down, from Kate Parrish’s post How a Writing Residency Helped This Woman Return to Her Craft:

The literary world was foreign to me at that time, abandoned as soon as I’d graduated college. I was working in healthcare marketing, promoting outpatient surgical solutions for incontinence. Based in Nashville, I traveled the country meeting with urologists, OBGYNs and colorectal surgeons touting the benefits of an implant (“the size of a Peppermint Patty!”) proven to eliminate certain kinds of incontinence. I was 28 and at a professional crossroads.

Here’s the cut down version, which might work well in an article incorporating several quotes about 20 – 30 something women returning to writing:

The literary world was foreign to me at that time, abandoned as soon as I’d graduated college. […] I was 28 and at a professional crossroads.

When you alter a quotation, use […] to show where you’ve made cuts. If you need to change a word to help the quote make sense (e.g. to use a name instead of “he”), then put the change word inside [square brackets].

Incorporating quotes into your posts makes them more engaging and more authoritative – and can even help you with inspiration and structure.

If you’re not already using quotes, think about how you might bring them into your next post…and share your ideas, or your tips, with us in the comments.

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 

Whatever type of fiction you write, you’ll almost certainly need to include some dialogue.

Even non-fiction writers may want to use dialogue occasionally (perhaps in an anecdote, or as part of an imagined conversation with a reader).

Some writers, including me, love writing dialogue and hearing their characters come alive on the page. But if letting your characters speak in your stories is a struggle for you, check out these tips on writing dialogue.

Setting out dialogue correctly, though, can be tricky — and even some experienced writers make mistakes.

While the exact layout of your words, and the difference between using a comma and a period, may seem fairly academic…correctly set-out dialogue makes your reader’s life easy.

Getting it wrong will make you look less competent, and may put readers off altogether.

The basics of using dialogue tags correctly

You’re probably getting most or all of this right already; you’ll have read plenty of dialogue, after all!

In case you need a quick refresher, though, here are the basics for using dialogue tags:

• When a character speaks, their dialogue should be on the same line as their dialogue tag or action beat.  
• When a different character speaks, start a new line. (It’s also often helpful to start a new line if they act or react — e.g. if they shake their head, even if they don’t actually speak.)
• Punctuation at the end of dialogue should go before the closing quotation mark.
• You can use single or double quotation marks (double are standard in the US, single are standard in the UK) — just be consistent!

Here’s an example of how to format dialogue, laid out on the page:

John closed the curtains. “It’s so gloomy out.”

“It’s been like that all day,” Sarah said, “and the sky’s such a weird color, too.”

What are dialogue tags and action beats?

You’re almost certainly familiar with these, and using them, even if you’ve not heard these terms before.

• A dialogue tag looks like “Sarah said” or “he whispered”. It “tags” the dialogue to a particular character.
• An action beat can be almost any sentence! It might be an action (“John closed the curtains”) or a thought or description.

Guidelines for using dialogue tags

When you use dialogue tags, try to:

1. Keep them unobtrusive

The dialogue itself is what’s important: The tag is just functional. In most cases, the word “said” will do just fine — don’t try to come up with lots of fancy synonyms. This is one case where repetition really doesn’t matter. Sometimes, “whispered” or “shouted” might be appropriate. For obvious reasons, avoid having character “ejaculate” a line of dialogue.

2. Use a tag whenever it’s unclear who’s speaking

While you don’t have to attribute every single line of dialogue, do err on the side of caution. Avoid dialogue that goes back and forth without any tags — it can be confusing and tiring for the reader to follow.

3. Avoid using adverbs too frequently in dialogue tags

Sometimes, an adverb might suit your meaning better than changing the verb (e.g. “he said darkly” rather than “he muttered”)… but don’t overdo it.

4. Vary where you position your dialogue tags

They can go before, during or after dialogue: Changing them around can create a more varied and interesting rhythm for your writing.

How to punctuate dialogue tags

Here’s a quick guide on punctuating dialogue.

If the tag comes before the dialogue, use a comma straight after the tag. Start the dialogue with a capital letter:

John said, “It’s so gloomy out.”

If the tag comes after the dialogue, end the dialogue with a comma, even if it’s a full sentence. The first letter of the tag should be lowercase (unless it’s a name).

“It’s so gloomy out,” he said.

If the tag comes during the dialogue, end the first part of the dialogue with a comma then have the tag as normal.

Then, if you’ve broken the dialogue during a sentence, rather than at the end of a sentence, use a comma after the tag and start the next piece of dialogue with a lowercase letter:

“It’s been like that all day,” Sarah said, “and the sky’s such a weird color, too.”

However if the first part of the dialogue was a full sentence, you should use a full stop after the tag and start the next piece of dialogue with a capital:

“It’s been like that all day,” Sarah said. “Did you hear what they were saying on the news?”

Guidelines for using action beats

Dialogue tags are handy and quick, but action beats can add much more detail and meaning to a conversation. When you’re using them, keep in mind:

• They don’t necessarily have to involve actions! An “action beat” might be a thought or description instead.
• An action beat can often convey the way in which a line of dialogue is spoken: For instance, if a character slams his fists on a desk before saying, “Get out of my office,” you won’t need to tell the reader he’s angry!
• Even if the action beat doesn’t add a great deal of meaning, it may be a useful way to create a pause in dialogue — changing the rhythm of it subtly. It can also “ground” the reader in the scene (without any action beats at all, the characters can feel like disembodied talking heads).

How to punctuate action tags

Action beats are punctuated as normal, full sentences (unlike dialogue tags), so they always start with a capital letter and end with a full stop. This also affects the dialogue preceding them — in the following example, notice how that the first part of Sarah’s dialogue ends with a period, not a comma.

John walked over to the window. “It’s gloomy out.”

“It’s been like that all day.” Sarah had tried not to dwell on it, but she couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that something was terribly wrong. “Did you hear what they were saying on the news?”

Next time you write dialogue, or edit a piece you’ve already written, pay special attention to your use of dialogue tags and action beats. Are your tags unobtrusively making clear who’s speaking? Are your action beats adding variety and meaning to the scene?

If you get stuck, you might want to look at a few of your favorite books: Find a passage of dialogue and see how the author uses dialogue tags and action beats.

Hopefully this guide gets you off to a good start!

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

“Huh. I never noticed that…but now you mention it, I can see what you mean.”

My novel editor, the lovely Lorna Fergusson, has given me a lot of insightful feedback over the years. One issue she pointed out was this:

Too many of my sentences started the exact same way — with a character name (or pronoun), then an action.

They’d look something like this:

• He opened the door…
• She frowned…
• He backed away…

This was my “default” sentence setting — the type of sentence I produced when I was hurrying to get the first draft down on paper.

And I hadn’t even noticed.

But as soon as Lorna pointed it out, I could see the problem.

If all your sentences begin in the same way, or if they tend to all be roughly the same length, it can create a rather plodding — even soporific — effect.

Readers notice repetition: As an author, you may well use that to your advantage (think of the number of children’s books that employ repetition)…but it can also be a problem if you didn’t intend to repeat yourself.

Learning to vary your sentence structure can go a long way toward making your writing more interesting to read.

How to vary your sentence structure

Look at something you wrote recently — maybe your last blog post or a chapter of your book.

What patterns crop up in the sentences? Do you tend to start sentences the same way? How long are your sentences, on average? Is there much variation in length?

If you need to make some changes, you might:

1. Vary the subject of your sentences

Especially if, like me, you tend to start with a character name or pronoun.

2. Break up long sentences

Particularly complex ones: See if the new rhythm suits your piece better.

3. Use a subordinate (dependent) clause before the subject

Here’s an example of what that looks like: “Looking across the road…” or “As Mandy watched…”

An example of boring sentence structure

Here’s an example of a passage that isn’t quite working, and a suggested rewrite:

John ran down the street towards Mandy, shouting for her to stop.

She turned her head, meeting his eyes for a moment. He hurried forward, hoping she might finally listen. She strode away, ignoring him just as she’d done before.

These aren’t terrible sentences, and any one of these on their own might be fine. But packed together like this, they’re all far too similar:

• Each starts with a name or pronoun, then a verb
• Each has a main clause followed by a subordinate clause…and each subordinate clause begins with a present participle.
• There’s not a lot of variation in length (12 words, 10 words, 8 words, 10 words).

Here’s how I’d rewrite that passage:

John ran down the street towards Mandy. “Stop!”

She turned her head and met his eyes. Hurrying forward, he hoped she might finally listen. But instead, she strode away. She was ignoring him – just as she’d done before.

This time, there’s a much greater variety of sentence lengths — the shortest is the single-word sentence of dialogue, and the longest is the last sentence, at nine words.

The sentences have a variety of structures – e.g. “She turned her head and met his eyes” is a compound sentence with two coordinate clauses (the sentence could be broken into two sentences at the “and”).

While it may not be the finest prose, it now reads more smoothly: It sounds like the author knows what they’re doing.

Varying sentence structure in your writing

It’s incredibly easy to fall into the trap of having too many similarly structured sentences.

Thankfully, a few tweaks during editing can easily fix things!

Keep in mind, though, that you don’t need to change every sentence. Your go-to sentence structure might work fine some of the time.

If you’re struggling to come up with different types of sentences, or if you’ve got a sentence that isn’t working but you’re not sure why, you might want to check out June Casagrande’s book It was the Best of Sentences, it was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer’s Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences for lots of example and insights.

Next time you edit a piece of your writing — or someone else’s — pay close attention to sentence structure. Could a few minor tweaks make the whole piece work much better?

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

To gain more Twitter followers, try to tweet other people’s blog posts, take part in Twitter chats and replying to other people’s tweets.

To make the problem clearer, we can turn the sentence into bullet points and add some emphasis:

To gain more Twitter followers, try to:

• Tweet other people’s blog posts

• Take part in Twitter chats

• Replying to other people’s tweets

Here’s the problem: the third bullet point doesn’t match the introductory phrase.

All the verbs in this list should follow “try to” … but “try to replying” doesn’t make any sense.

You may well feel that the mistake is blindingly obvious…but when you’re drafting and re-drafting a piece of writing, errors like this can easily creep in.

What is parallel structure?

Parallel structure  — also known as parallel sentence structure or parallelism — means having matching elements of a phrase, sentence or paragraph.

It can be used for literary effect (as we’ll come see in a moment), but at the most basic level, it simply means ensuring your writing is grammatical.

Any time you introduce a series of points within a sentence or a bullet-pointed list, it’s important to ensure all the points are parallel. Often, this means starting each one with a verb in the correct tense.

Sometimes, it’s not grammatically essential to make the points in a list match…but your writing will still read more smoothly if you use parallelism.

Here’s another parallel structure example

Since the easiest way to learn is often to review examples, let’s look at another parallel structure example.

Before editing:

My favorite three tips for writing faster are:

• The internet can be a huge distraction: turn off your connection while you write

• If you haven’t tried it before, give dictation a try

• Keep writing: the more you write, the faster you’ll get and the easier it will be

After editing:

My favorite three tips for writing faster are:

• Turn off your internet connection: it can be a huge distraction while you’re writing

• Give dictation a try: many writers report hitting 3000 – 4000 words per hour when speaking rather than typing

• Keep writing: the more you write, the faster you’ll get and the easier it will be

The second version reads more smoothly and seems more assured, simply because each bullet point follows the same format. Each one starts with an imperative verb, then the instruction is followed by a colon and an explanation.

When you edit your work, look out for sentences and paragraphs that could easily be tweaked to bring each part into line with the others.

Going further with parallel sentence structure

Where possible (and it almost always is), you should aim to use parallelism for subheadings within a blog post or chapters within a book.

For instance, here’s how to use parallel sentence structure in a blog post.

In 4 Ways to Cope When Your Freelance-Writing Pitch Goes Unanswered, Leila Mooney uses the following subheadings (emphasis mine):

1. Make sure you did your research
2. Follow up
3. Recognize a dead end
4. Get tough

Each one starts with an imperative verb, creating a polished, coherent effect.

Let’s look at an example in a book, too. Because parallelism can also be used for literary effect: to create a link between two concepts, or to create an echo within a sentence or paragraph.

Perhaps one of the most famous examples is the opening of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Even if you’ve never heard of “parallelism” before, I bet you’re already using this technique as a natural part of your writing. Look out for it next time you write a list. This is a great way to improve your grammar.

Watch out for parallelism in other writers’ work, too: think about how they’re using it, and how it affects you as a reader.

Getting this wrong is a sure-fire way to look like a beginner. But if you get it right, your writing will read smoothly, and that’s always a step in the right direction.

Then I got pregnant.

This was, of course, a lovely and joyous occasion. It was also – as you might imagine – the start of my writing career grinding to a halt.

A couple of years on, with a nearly two year old daughter and a newborn son, a great writing day involved 15 minutes of writing while their naps (briefly) overlapped.

If you have young children, I’m sure you know what it’s like. Kids take up a huge amount of your time and energy – not just with feeding, changing and playing, but also all the extra laundry and food prep. Not to mention the broken nights.

You might well wonder if you should just give up on writing all together, at least until they’re in school.

Some writers do: For them, it may well be the right choice.

But the majority, I think, want to keep up at least a bit of writing.

The hard truth about being a writer with children

Becoming a parent is probably the biggest change you’ll ever go through in your life.

When my daughter was born, I had the vague idea in my head that (after a brief spell of maternity leave), life would just…carry on as normal.

But of course, once you become a parent, you simply won’t be able to carry on working at the same pace as before. A great deal of your formerly free time is taken up by caring for your child – and doing all the extra chores that children create.

I’m someone who likes to move fast, and it’s been hard to realize that I simply can’t write and work in the same way as I could pre-kids. It’s also been tough to watch other writers, without kids, zoom on ahead of me in their careers.

If you’re fairly new to parenthood, I’m sure you’ll have been through many of the same emotions. Some well-meaning friends or family members may tell you to “enjoy every moment” of your kids being young, or that the most important thing is to just focus on your children right now.

Please don’t let that sort of advice become a massive guilt trip.

Don’t give in to writers’ guilt

When I’ve surveyed the writers I know, or looked at the discussions cropping up in writing-related Facebook groups and forums, there’s often a lot of guilt associated with writing.

Writers feel guilty for taking the time to write…and parent writers can be particularly prone to this. It may seem self-indulgent, even selfish, to take the time to write when you could be playing with your kids (or putting on the third load of laundry that day).

On the other hand, many writers also feel guilty for not writing – even when things are really hectic. They feel that they should be writing a certain amount per day, or per week, and they berate themselves for not achieving that.

Today, let go of the guilt. You’re not just a parent – you’re a person in your own right, and there’s nothing at all wrong with taking some time for yourself to do something that you find fulfilling.

At the same time…if you need a break from writing, don’t feel at all bad about taking one. There’s honestly no “rule” that says you should write every day, or write a certain amount each week.  

Three crucial steps for carrying on writing when you have kids

If you do want to keep up at least some writing while your children are young, here are three crucial things to do:

1. Negotiate with your partner

Unless your partner is also a writer, they won’t automatically know what you need. Tell them!

Be explicit about what you want: “I’d like to spend two hours every Saturday afternoon writing. Could you take the kiddo out to the park?”

(In return, of course, you might make sure that your partner gets a couple of hours every week to focus on something they really want to do.)

If you’re parenting on your own – first, I salute you; I can’t imagine how hard it must be. Can you rope in a friend or family member to help, even once a week, so you can get some time to write?

2. Make the most of the writing time you do have

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve actually written more fiction since having kids than I did before!  

Because I now have to schedule in my writing time, I find that I’m more likely to actually do it – before kids, it was easy to wait for “a free Saturday” or “a whole afternoon” to write.

When you sit down to write, write. You might want to switch off your internet connection and silence your phone.

Short writing sessions can actually be an advantage here: most of my fiction writing happens in 30 minute chunks, and it’s easy to tell myself I can focus for 30 minutes!

3. Don’t be a perfectionist

Writers, I’ve noticed, can have a tendency towards perfectionism. While this can be helpful at times (like when editing), it can also be seriously detrimental.

A couple of sayings that I find useful are, “Good enough is good enough” and “Finished is better than perfect.”

This doesn’t just apply to writing. If you’re struggling to find enough time to write, maybe you need to lower your standards when it comes to chores – or your children.

It won’t do any harm to use ready-made meals or to let them watch a bit of extra TV, if that means you can free up some more time to write.

If you’re about to start a family, or if you have young children, you can absolutely keep writing. You may even find, like I did, that you’re more efficient now that you have less time available.

If, however, you want to take a break from writing while your children are young – then do. It doesn’t have to be one-time decision, either: you might decide to have a year off, but if you change your mind, you can always pick up writing again.

Whatever you decide, remember that you are an important part of your family (just as much as your kids are) and you are absolutely entitled to arrange family life in a way that makes you happy too.

You get sick.

Maybe it’s a stuffy head and a streaming nose, or a stomach bug or a bout of depression.

Whatever your exact symptoms are, it’s a safe bet that if you were working for an employer, you’d call in sick.

But you work for a demanding (and sometimes unreasonable) boss: yourself.

If you’ve got deadlines to meet, or if you’re simply the sort of person who wants to crush your Most Important Tasks before breakfast…you might be tempted to grab some DayQuil and power through.

That’s rarely a good move.

You’ll probably drag out your recovery much longer than if you just stayed in bed for a day. Plus, you’re never going to be doing your best work when you feel like death.

With a little bit of forward planning, though, you can take sick days — and recover faster.

1. Recognize that you will need sick days

Even if you rarely get ill, a family member might. (My two-year-old came down with chickenpox yesterday, scuppering my hopes of ploughing through a pile of work today!)

If you have an existing health condition (like ME/CFS, or depression) then it’s particularly crucial to plan ahead. Even if you can’t predict ahead of time exactly when you’ll be unwell, you might want to only allow for, say, three weeks worth of work each month so you can take a week off if necessary — without falling behind.

There might be times when you can predict and plan for a fairly significant length of time away from work (or a period of time when you’ll want a seriously reduced workload) — if you’re going to be having a baby and taking maternity leave, for instance.

2. Allow some slack in your schedule

This is good practice whether or not you get sick: if your schedule has little or no wiggle room, even a relatively minor problem can throw you off.

Don’t fill every hour of your day, or every day of the week, with freelancing commitments.

Leave some gaps — even if that means telling a client they’ll have to wait for you to become available.

Personally, I try to keep Fridays clear for “catch up”, and when I put deadlines into my planner, I aim to get my freelance posts done a couple of days ahead of time. This means I’ve got some margin for things going wrong…and I’ve never had an editor object when I’ve sent in posts early!

3. Build up a network of contacts

Again, this is something you’re hopefully doing anyway. As a freelancer, you’re not a lone wolf — you’re part of a pack. Get to know other writers and editors: if you end up sick and need someone else to help you out with your commitments, you’ll have people to turn to.

While it may not be possible or desirable to outsource your freelancing altogether, you might be able to call in help with:

• Guest posts to keep your blog active while you’re out of action.
• Researching, planning or drafting your freelance pieces — you’ll probably need to do final revisions and edits to make sure it’s in line with your usual style.
• Social media shares to help sell any products you have (e.g. ebooks / ecourses), so you can keep bringing in money while you’re unwell.

In some cases, people may be glad to help for free (e.g. with a guest post and social media shares); other times, it would be reasonable and expected to pay them (e.g. for help putting together a piece for one of your clients).

4. Contact clients early if you can’t meet a deadline

Sometimes, however much you’ve tried to plan ahead and allow space in your schedule for emergencies, you simply can’t meet your commitments.

If you aren’t going to be able to meet a deadline, tell your client as soon as that becomes obvious. The more warning you can give, the better. Most clients will be kind and understanding: people get sick, after all!

If you’ve missed a deadline — maybe you were too ill to even glance at your diary and send an email — then contact the client as soon as possible. Apologize for missing the deadline, explain you’ve been unwell and let them know when you’ll have the work to them.

But if you do need to work…

Hopefully, you’re able to take a day off and recover when you’re unwell. If you really can’t afford to miss a deadline, though, or if you’re in the middle of something critical like a product launch, here’s what to do:

• Cancel or postpone anything non-essential. Your blog readers won’t riot if you skip posting this week. Your newsletter readers won’t suddenly unsubscribe if you don’t email for a few days. Clearing your inbox can wait.

• Work in short bursts. It’s hard to focus when you’re ill, so set a timer for 20 – 30 minutes and do as much as you can in that length of time. Then take a break.

• Look after yourself physically. I’m probably going to sound like your mom here — but drink plenty of fluids, take a nap, try to eat something plain, and stay wrapped up warm if needed.

We all get sick…and sometimes, illness seems to strike at the worst possible moment! Plan for it, allow room in your schedule for it, and you’ll be able to take some time off without worrying about everything crashing down around you.