Write Better

Sending your story or query to a publication without checking its guidelines is, simply put, a sad and annoying waste of an editor’s time – and yours. In the first of this two-part series, we’ll talk about why guidelines are so important.

When to send a story is one of the things that gets writers all in a tangle, but it doesn’t have to be so hard. There can be some immediacy required, though, and so it’s nice to have a sense of when the editor might be looking for stories for a particular issue or event. So, here are some other things to consider when deciding on the timing of a story or pitch

There often seems to be a disconnect between what we have experienced and what we think we should write about. But you can easily come up with 100 stories from any one trip, because as with most travel, there are almost endless possibilities for showcasing pieces of the trip, rather than trying to offer the whole enchilada.

Novice writers often display an insecurity about what should be included, and so in a “spaghetti against the wall” kind of way, they tend to throw everything up there to see what will stick. Ultimately, this takes away from a cohesive and coherent story. Here are three tips that will significantly cut back the extraneous stuff from your story.

When beginning writers suffer from “craminitis,” characterized by the overwhelming desire to ensure that nothing is left out by cramming absolutely everything into a story, it’s time to start thinking about ways to drill down to what the story should really be about. Here are some strategies for honing a travel story so that its intent is clear and appealing to readers.

Writers who are agreeable to working with a publication on requested changes are usually the most successful long-term – they get a reputation for being easy to work with and for striving to understand why changes might be necessary. Here are some tips for being the kind of writer who can take constructive criticism and use it to improve and prosper.

If you’re unwilling to try out an unfamiliar skill or add another competency to your repertoire, it can cost you – editors are famous for rejecting submissions from writers because a critical area of expertise is obviously missing. Here are five things every freelance travel writer should know how to do effectively.

Content agencies that follow the principles of journalism have proliferated, and many in the industry predict that this is a trend that will continue to grow. Here’s what you need to know about working with a content agency as a freelance travel writer.

Good grammar and proper punctuation usage is becoming rarer and rarer these days, but for those who work at it, the reward is often the attention of editors who are always on the lookout for good writers. Here’s the final installment in this three-part series that I promise will improve your writing, as well as your chances of getting noticed.

Writing without a rudimentary understanding of basic grammar is like cooking a meal without knowing how to use a knife: You might get the job done, but the result could be hard to digest. In this two-part series, we’ll explore the three most common grammatical errors from novice writers, and what to do about them.