The writing world tends toward a neat division between various forms of professional writing — journalism, business writing, advertising copywriting, academic writing — and those kinds of writing that we think of as literary — novel and short story writing, poetry writing, creative nonfiction, et al. All of these types of writing, professional and literary, are meant to be the kinds of things that a person studies, develops techniques for, becomes proficient at. That is what being a writer is to most people — developing that proficiency and being able to say that you do one of those kinds of writing for a living. Outside of that sort of “serious” (air quotes) writing, there is hobby writing — journaling, blogging, weekend poetry writing, etc. Often, in this division between serious and non-serious writing, one group of writers gets left out: freelancers. We freelancers are clearly not hobbyists; but, making much of our living writing what people might think of as “non-serious” writing (web content, for instance), we fail to be recognized as writers in the fully fledged sense of the word. But this is a mistake. Freelance writers are writers too.

Freelance writers are writers too because we have spent time — years or even decades — training ourselves to be writers. Writers, most often, in some “serious” (air quotes) sense. It isn’t uncommon for a freelance writer to have a degree in journalism, for instance. In my case, my undergraduate and graduate training is in philosophy and literary theory. My publication and conference history has trained me to be what people would largely regard as a “serious” writer, and that is most often the case with freelancers.

Freelance writers are writers too because freelance writing is writing. It is real writing; it is earnest; it is bonafide. Freelance writing, whether it is ghostwriting for a book project, blogging, or writing web content for a startup company, is more than filling up space on a page. It is more than writing a stock ticker. More than merely informing. Writing is never transparent, not really, and good freelance writing does more than speak clearly. It is affective and not merely effective. And being affective means being written affectionately.

Affectionate affective writing moves its readers in the direction you want them to go. Philosophers have known this for millennia. There is a reason Plato wrote dialogues, Spinoza wrote in the geometric form, contemporary French philosophers write so obliquely. Form mirrors content. Affectionate affective writing moves a reader in total, their whole person, the way that art always has. Is it possible to read Byron without feeling the air around you change? Don’t his words seem elevated — more than mere words? That is the effect of good writing, and literary figures have known it for a very long time. Melville’s Moby-Dick could have been half as long if it was written on a telegraph — Call me Ishmael, stop. There is whale, stop. It is very big, full stop. — but surely his particular voice made the writing sing in a wholly different timbre. The effect of affective writing is to make the words move on the page; and dancing words move a reader. It stands to be said that a reader moved, however moved, is a reader more likely to hear what you have to say (and perhaps, do what you would like them to do).

What does it mean that freelance writers are writers too? Does it mean that clients should only hire writers who can channel Proust for their homepage? Perhaps not, but it ought to mean that we hold freelancers to a higher standard. It is better for writers if they have the freedom to write the way they were trained to, and it is better for clients to have copy that affects its audience on multiple levels.