The little things

Writing for money is sometimes less about the writing.

People who want to write for money get caught up on the idea of writing. But in some ways, the writing—cultivating a flexible style, getting the tone and voice right, putting coherent sentences together—is the least of your worries.

Frequently, much more pertinent are the other things. The little things.

Taking a brief, for instance.

This isn't about filling in a neat proforma. It's not about stroking your client's ego. It's about amassing the information you need to write something that not only pleases the client sufficiently for them to use it, but, most importantly, will succeed with the audience to achieve the client's goals.

What about researching?

Wait, what? Yes, research. Research that goes beyond Jimmy Wales's Wikipedia is a bit of a conundrum for many would-be writers. Whether it's your own personal experimentation, or research you do through interviews, reading, and observing the subject of your writing, research is essential.

Without research, what will you have to say?

Then there's writing to deadlines.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well, try writing to deadlines for a week, or a month, or a decade, and let me know how you go.

Actually, if you get to a decade, you'll be peachy: over time, writing to a deadline becomes a doddle. Why? Because at some point, the writing—the putting of words on a page—becomes a natural and necessary precipitate of all the other things in this list.

Once you can write to deadlines, step up to the next challenge: writing to budgets. It's one thing to get paid to write. It's another to make writing pay.

Understanding that writing is communication? Also a big deal.

In these days of blogs and content marketing and banner ads and print mags in their bajillions, it's easy to see writing as creation—work whose point is the production of sentences: something to publish, something to sell.

That might be "writing" but it won't make you worth paying.

What will make you worth paying is the results your writing produces. And to produce results, your work has to communicate with actual human beings. To do that, you have to:

1. have something to say
2. know who you need to say it to
3. know why it matters to them
4. have the sense and sensibility to formulate that message in a way that speaks to those people.

Providing a rationale: critical.

Being able to explain why you've done something the way you've done it is essential. Only then will you be able to give the client factual reasons as to why you don't believe a particular change should be made—and give them in a way that makes sense to the client and has more than a shadow of a chance of convincing them.

This point could probably also cover weird grammatical and cultural hangups your client wants to apply to the copy.

Oh, and taking and making amendments. That's a thing too.

There are worthy amendments, and there are poor ones. How will you tell them apart? By intuitively using your "art"? See the point above. Once you've mastered rationale, how will you make sure that the amendments you do make protect and enhance what you believe to be the integrity of the client brand's communication with its audience?

These aren't lofty pro writing goals; they're the little things. They're what make a writer worth paying. Anyone can put a sentence on a page. The question is: why that sentence? Your facility with most of the items on this list will enable you to answer that question with competence and certainty.