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What makes a great ghostwriter? Talking to your clients

You need to be an organized person. Because your clients will not.

If you start like I did, as a freelancer, offering your services online for a variety of people and can't refuse clients, you will be dealing with a lot of confused people.

Confused because most of the people who want to write, but can't, will only have vague ideas. If you are lucky you will get a client who gives you a whole outline of the story, with all the chapters detailed, and all you have to do is expand on it.

But if you are like me, these clients are rare. But the common ones? The clients with one rough idea, maybe two characters' names and one genre in mind.

One of my favourite clients was the owner of a glassblowing shop in the desert. He wanted a horror short story about a glassblowing shop in the desert, pretty fun. He allowed me to be free with my creative choices, and that's the best side of being a ghostwriter. When your client tells you to go wild with your mind.

They gave you a prompt, and the rest is on you.

You have clients who give one simple prompt and clients who give you everything ready to go. So, what type of client do I prefer?

The middle man. The person who gives you everything but nothing at the same time.

Everything for them, but nothing for you. The details you need for the story are not there, the small things. And those are the things they don't want you to be creative with. So what do I do?

I talk to them. It takes time and it can be a dragging process, but in the end, it works out.

Being a good ghostwriter is also about the way you talk to your clients, about the questions you ask about their projects. They need someone who will instigate the story, who will create more details and give life to their ideas. Not someone who will write plain words.