Vanya Wryter Consulting Services

Tag: writing

  • Powerful Persuasive Writing Tips You Should Know

    Powerful Persuasive Writing Tips You Should Know

    Updated post

    When was the last time you saw an ad or read an article that persuaded you to buy something you didn’t even need? Well-crafted words can be powerful enough to influence your decisions. This writing skill is worth developing in your professional and personal life.

    Here are some powerful, persuasive writing tips you should know to convince your reader to buy from you. First, let’s define persuasive writing.

    What’s Persuasive Writing?

    Persuasive writing convinces your reader to side with your point of view. To achieve this, you need facts, statistics, and other research from credible sources. When your point of view is backed up with strong and credible evidence, your reader is more likely to agree with you.

    What Makes Persuasive Writing “Persuasive”?

    Persuasive writing has three key elements. First, includes the beliefs of a group of people or a culture. If the writer seems to understand the reader’s beliefs, then the reader is more likely to agree with the writer. Second, the writer must appeal to the reader’s sense of logic by providing scientific evidence and facts. Third, the writing must appeal to the reader’s emotions.

    If you can’t appeal to the reader’s beliefs, sense of logic, or emotions, then it’s difficult to persuade the reader to agree with your point of view.

    How Can You Use Persuasive Writing at Work?

    If your job is to influence people through the written word, then persuasive writing will be an extremely handy skill to have.

    Persuasive writing will persuade your audience to follow your social media channels because people value the insights they get from your blog posts or articles. 

    Persuasive writing persuades customers to buy products and services. Advertising and marketing copywriters, for example, write copy for web content, email campaigns, marketing brochures, ads, and corporate brochures.

    Persuasive writing skills are also necessary for press releases, copy for fundraisers, and articles about government policies.

    How Can Persuasive Writing Help Your Business?

    Persuading your customers and clients to invest in your products and services is key to your business’s success. Dr. Robert B. Cialdini’s research on the psychology of persuasion has had a tremendous impact on marketing.

    One concept he has proven is the principle of reciprocity. Humans naturally want to return favors and pay back debts. An example of this in marketing is a business that provides advice to website visitors through free blog posts, training courses, and PDF downloads. The informative, free content increases the likelihood that people will pay for the company’s products and services in the future.

    Another principle is social proof: whatever most people do, someone joining the group will do the same, even if the behavior doesn’t make logical sense. Consider how a worker may work a little longer just because everyone else in the department works late. And think of the last time you decided whether to give a new restaurant a try because of how busy it looked. If you read about a popular trend with your age group, you’ll be more likely to try it.

    Scarcity is another persuasive tactic. An ad for “the last available room,” “30% off your purchase today only,” and “offer ends at midnight tonight” will create a fear of missing out (FOMO).

    Persuasive writing will give people the push they need to decide to subscribe to your email list, buy two for the price of one, sign up for a course, or invest in your consulting services.

    How Is Persuasive Writing Useful to You?

    Persuasive writing can help you to get a job when you’re writing to a prospective employer. It can help you to get a promotion or raise.

    Persuasion is also critical when speaking during an interview or conversation for a promotion. Whether spoken or written, words can be used to appeal to others and convince them to agree with your point of view.

    Key Takeaways

    Persuasive writing uses psychology to give people that nudge to make a decision now. It wins you over with logic and appeals to your emotions. It may even play to your fears (FOMO) or convince you to make a purchase because of the free value you have already received. Persuasive writing creates action through the power of words.

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    Powerful Persuasive Writing Tips You Should Know
  • What’s Something You Used to Believe as a Kid That Seems Ridiculous Now?

    What’s Something You Used to Believe as a Kid That Seems Ridiculous Now?

    When I was growing up, my teachers often told me there was no money to be made in writing. As a child, I accepted that as fact. Writing was something you did for fun, they said, not as a realistic career. Looking back, that belief seems both ridiculous and surprisingly accurate at the same time.

    My teachers were partly right. Most fiction writers never become household names. Very few achieve the success of writers like J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Charlotte Brontë, or Neil Gaiman. Most novels never end up on school reading lists, in public libraries, or on bestseller shelves. Making a living solely from fiction has always been difficult.

    What my teachers failed to mention was that writing careers extend far beyond novels. There are writers who earn a living through journalism, technical writing, copywriting, grant writing, and corporate communications. Many of these fields pay well and offer opportunities that my teachers simply didn’t mention (or maybe they hadn’t thought to). Had I known about those options, I might have pursued a different career.

    Of course, the writing profession has changed dramatically. Artificial intelligence has affected the profession in ways nobody could have predicted. AI tools can help generate articles, outlines, and even entire books. This has lowered barriers to entry (so it’s easier to become a writer), but it has also created new challenges. Talented writers are sometimes accused of using AI when their work is entirely their own. Others face pressure to lower their rates because technology can produce content more quickly.

    In the end, my teachers were neither completely right nor completely wrong. There’s money to be made in writing, but you need to choose the job carefully. Today, the challenge is not just writing well—it’s proving the value of human creativity in a time when anyone can generate words at the click of a button.

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s something you used to believe as a kid that seems ridiculous now?
    View all responses

  • What’s a moment that made you question reality?

    What’s a moment that made you question reality?

    More than once these days, I watch a video about something that seems to defy reality and I question what I’m looking at. Is it even real? Can my cat cook me dinner? And then I go to the comments and someone says, “This is AI.” What a trick! It’s scary, the speed at which AI has slipped into everyday life. One minute it was science fiction, and the next it’s everywhere. 

    You can’t even write an email without a recommendation for AI to write it for you. How about doing something more useful? (Please, AI, make me my lunch. I’m too lazy to cook!)

    It’s both fascinating and unsettling.

    AI is Good

    AI can be incredibly useful, especially if you run your own business and you don’t have the funds to hire three staff members without giving up your child’s college tuition. It can handle repetitive office tasks faster than people. It can also analyze data if you prompt it correctly. But you still need human oversight, or it can reach some oddball conclusions.

    One way AI makes you question reality is by generating scenes that never happened. Not fake news. But reenactments of scenes from the past. Reading pages out of history books can be boring. Hiring actors and creating sets can be expensive. So using AI to recreate the past, such as a scene from the Ice Ages, is educational. I call this a benefit.

    But there’s another side to it that makes reality feel a little unstable.

    AI is Bad

    AI systems can “hallucinate,” confidently giving wrong information that sounds completely believable. That means people still need to double-check the AI’s work, even while depending on it more every day. AI once gave me advice to do something real humans wouldn’t do. That really made me question this new reality of AI assistance.

    Another scary moment was when I was watching a video by a creator I follow. Then I clicked on the profile and realized it wasn’t her. It was a series of AI-generated videos using her likeness and voice. I had been deceived!

    Key takeaways

    AI creates moments that make me question reality. Sometimes it’s for a good reason (accurate historical enactment) and sometimes bad (stealing someone’s work). Overall, we’re getting closer to living out those sci-fi movies we used to watch!

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s a moment that made you question reality?
    View all responses

  • When do you feel most productive?

    When do you feel most productive?

    When do you feel most productive? I find most people have a straightforward answer, like “morning” or “night,” but for me, the answer is, “it depends.” For me, productivity depends entirely on the type of work I’m doing, whether it’s creative work, routine office work, or routine housework. (I’m unpredictable.)

    Mornings are best for my structured, routine tasks like meetings, email, and office work. It’s not all that exciting but it’s predictable, and I like getting those tasks all done earlier in the day. Same with housework for some reason. If I finish dusting the room and I get to see how clean it is in the sunlight, there’s a wonderful feeling of accomplishment that gets me through the rest of the day. 

    Evenings are when my night owl personality comes out. That’s when creativity kicks in. Writing, brainstorming, and deeper thinking crawl out of the shadows and into the moonlight. My mind is free to wander and that’s often when the best ideas are born.

    This contrast is exactly why having flexibility in your schedule is important. Having control over your time or running your own business allows you to align your work with your natural body rhythms. Instead of fighting against your energy levels, you can work in sync with them.

    A strict 9-to-5 schedule can make this balance harder to achieve, and not everyone can have the luxury of deciding their schedule! I remember when I used to work a 9-to-5 and one time I was so sleepy that I forced myself to stay awake and type. I fell out of my chair, which jolted me awake – and this is my reasoning for a flexible schedule!

    Understanding when you work best—and adjusting accordingly—is the best way to handle productivity. You’re not fighting your body or doing embarrassing things like falling asleep at the keyboard. 

    Daily writing prompt
    When do you feel most productive?
    View all responses

  • Your life without a computer: what does it look like?

    Your life without a computer: what does it look like?

    Life without a computer would be drastically different, almost unrecognizable compared to what I’m used to now. So much of my daily routine revolves around instant access to information, entertainment, and connection that removing the computer feels like stepping back in time.

    For starters, there would be no more YouTube for entertainment. That means no endless videos to relax with, no tutorials to learn from, and no music playlists to stream. In fact, without a computer, I’d have no music at all, unless I went back to CDs or live performances. Reading would also be limited—I wouldn’t have easy access to articles, blogs, or ebooks.

    Staying connected overseas would disappear too. No more instant chats, video calls, or social updates with friends and family abroad. Immediate news updates would also vanish. Instead of knowing what’s happening almost instantly, I’d be stuck waiting for newspapers or the evening news.

    Research would be exhausting. Instead of typing a question into a search bar and getting an instant answer (like how historically accurate is that movie?), I’d have to make trips to the library. Worse, if I got home and realized I wanted to look up something else, I’d have to go back again. That kind of delay makes learning far less spontaneous.

    Everyday conveniences would vanish as well. No maps to check locations before going there, traffic updates to avoid traffic congestion, or online menus to help you decide if you want to go to that restaurant. No online shopping to confirm whether a store has what I need—I’d have to go there in person just to find out if they have what I’m looking for.

    Even hobbies would suffer. I don’t have the patience to handwrite stories. By the time I finish one sentence, my mind has already moved to the next idea. Computers let me type quickly, insert links, and organize research on the spot. Without them, creativity feels trapped in slow motion. So life without a computer wouldn’t be as exciting!

    Daily writing prompt
    Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
    View all responses