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Freelance Writers: How to Stay Focused on Developing Your Writing Career

This is a guest post by Suzanne Lieurance.

One question I hear over and over again from the writing students I coach is, "How do I get focused and stay that way?"

That's a good question. Even seasoned professional freelancers have trouble staying focused from time to time. And they usually find their writing careers start to suffer when that happens.

Here are some tips for getting focused on developing your freelance writing career and staying that way.

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Freelance Writing for Newspapers

This is a guest post by Amber McNaught.

For the full-time freelance writer, the newspaper industry is one of the easiest, if not always the most lucrative markets to break into. Think about it: newspapers require new content every day, or every week. They're often chronically understaffed, with publishers cutting back on jobs, but still demanding the same level of editorial coverage. Almost all newspapers accept freelance contributions, and use freelance writers on a regular basis.

But how do you break into the market?

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Seven Ways to Inject Suspense into Your Novel

This is a guest post by Lynette Rees.

Certain genres are renowned for being more suspenseful than others: horror, crime fiction and romantic suspense, but each and every book, no matter whether it's an Historical Romance or a Paranormal Fantasy, HAS to have a level of suspense interwoven between the pages!

All stories need to have this element, otherwise the reader isn't going to want to turn the page, it's as simple as that. So if you're interested in what makes a suspenseful page turner, then please read on...

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How To Bring Your Novel Alive Through Story & Self Editing

This is a guest post by Maxine E. Thompson.

As a story editor, when I work with new writers, I often find they tend to gloss over the painful parts of their novels. When a character gets cancer, two pages later, the character is dead. A woman has a child where the father has abandoned her. Three paragraphs later, the child is in law school. What’s wrong with this picture? No drama. In life we don’t want conflict or drama, but in stories we need it. It’s the oxygen of fiction. We need to be able to take a look at the darker side of ourselves, our characters.

I recently went on the "Oh Drama Show" (I was in the audience) at BET where they interviewed a young author with a book on "Macking." Why such a subject? Drama.

Fiction is about both drama and conflict, but it is also about healing. Readers want to know how the character made it through losing a loved one or rearing a child without the help of an absent father. People often use books as bibliotherapy - a way to heal themselves through reading.

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