The possibilities for any given destination are endless, and so the onus is on the travel writer to offer a narrowed focus that will serve as the foundation for a story that entertains and also helps readers replicate the trip. Just because you are in a place isn’t a reason for a story — but how can you distinguish your story from all of the others? Here are four tips for doing just that.

Last time, I talked about 3 things that you can easily do to your query to bump it up to the next level, and this time, I’m offering 3 things that you can apply to your stories, as well, to show editors that you got this.

Why does an editor choose one story over another? It all begins with the query. The goal is to get an editor’s attention from the get-go and keep it through to the contract and a paycheck. Here are three things that you can do to your query right now that will help put your pitch on par with the pros.

It sometimes seems as though beginning travel writers want to throw in the towel before they have even finished a story — or they finish it and then send it to one editor, who isn’t interested or doesn’t respond, and then they give up. But here are four instances where I would encourage you to keep going, to find that part of you that wants this bad, and tell that part that you’re all in.

What your writing voice is and how to find it seems to be one of the great mysteries of becoming a writer. The tough part about voice is that it’s hard to explain adequately — most attempts at qualifying it come off as vague and mystical. Here are some tips for connecting with your own writing voice so that you can use it in your stories.

Knowing the correct way to set up a sentence and spending some time trying to figure out what words you will include can be critical steps toward helping a reader understand your story. In Part II of this series on sentence construction, I’ll offer more explanations of the concepts, along with a few more examples to follow.

The primary culprit in bad writing is sentence structure — every story needs to go through multiple drafts or revisions, and one of the first things you should be doing is scrutinize every single sentence individually to see if it is fulfilling its intended purpose. This is Part I of my fixes for bad sentences that will help to elevate your writing to the next level.