Writing as a career option has gained popularity in India in the last few years. From journalists to freelance writers, there are plenty of opportunities. However, to be successful one needs to know the various avenues and follow a few guidelines, says Vikrant Khanna
Quality writing not only adds confidence but also speaks about your personality. If you have command over writing, you are considered more qualified and reliable. And then there are careers specifically to hone your writing skills. let’s look at some jobs where good writing is the foundation to a successful career and how one can improve one’s skills.
Copy writer: Copy is a phrase or a small work of writing to illustrate something. Copy writer is a key position in any creative team whether it is a part of an advertisement agency, Public Relation firm, and newspaper or magazine. This post is also very crucial in online media; such as for the post SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), Internet content writing, catalog writing and many such marketing fields.
Scriptwriter: There is a lot of scope for script writers in television and films segment. For this profile, along with good writing skills, you also need to have good imagination and story-telling power.
Journalist: The job profile is a very dignified and responsible position. You need to write about all kind of situations happening around you. Your write up could be in news format, article, interview, feature story, reviews, etc. Writing needs to be unbiased, accurate, factual, and oriented towards your target reader.
Public Relations Executive: A PR person acts as a front face of organisation in media and thus writing skills are must to be above a certain level. One might need to prepare various press releases, draft articles, prepare pamphlet content, brochure content, advertisement content and a lot more. Writing has multi-facets opportunities here.
Author: Can you imagine becoming an author without any good writing skillsIJ You can have your own style of writing depending upon how you want to target and influence your audience, but need to know good writing at the baseline.
Paralegal: A paralegal works in a legal firm or within a legal environment of commerce, industry or public sector entities. He needs to be a qualified and trained person who assists lawyers and judiciaries. Writing and comminution skills need to be above average.Having an idea of writing specific job profiles, let’s now look at how can improve writing skills. Before penning down anything, one needs to understand what one wants to communicate, how well one understands the subject, who the reader is, and how effectively one’s writing can influence the target readers. Content flow is very crucial. Co-relations between consecutive lines should be effective and should concisely convey the message.
Identify your audience: One needs to identify the reader for whom one is writing. Is one writing for a larger audience, or attempting for one on one interactionIJ Is one writing for a professional purpose or for personal useIJ Is one writing to one’s seniors or colleaguesIJ
Objective: Define an objective for the write-up. It helps a lot if one is writing any long documents, presentations or proposals. Identifying the objectives helps mark important key points and to manage them effectively, bringing more clarity in in the content.
Attention, interest, desire and action: The write-up must draw readers’ attention. It should create interest and create a desire to know more. At the end it should lead to action oriented steps. One should always write in two way communication forms. In formal writing, it should always be objective specific.
language: It should be simple with short lines and without jargons. Be precise and don’t lengthen your sentence structures. For good writing, it’s always advisable to read more.
Whether one is in any work profile, command over your writing skills can reduce the competition and may also lead one to a better and successful position. Building skills need time and as one grows in one’s career, good writing helps one form one’s own identity.
The remunerations scale up, and the recognition brings in new rewards. Yes, for specific job profiles, the beginnings could be slow. Nevertheless a pay package of Rs1.5 lakh per annum can be considered as the minimum towards starting one’s career. If one can focus and practice well, then sky is the limit.
(The writer is the author of the book love last Forever and a Merchant Navy Captain)