ORDER! ORDER!
Whatever you’re writing, you need to make sure that the final item has a good structure. It may seem obvious to say that articles need a beginning, a middle and an end, but I’m still surprised by how many features I see that seem to ramble around aimlessly. At the end, you are left thinking, “What was all that about?!”
Whenever I’m writing a work of fiction, I make sure that I have a skeleton – a rough map – of what is going to happen in the book. (Some authors, such as Jeffrey Archer, can apparently write without knowing what is going to happen in the rest of the book but such people are probably few and far between). Having formed my skeleton, I can then ‘flesh it out’ with details as I start to write.
Order in articles
This approach may be over the top for a short or medium length article – but it doesn’t hurt to have some rough notes of the structure of your article before you start. What are the main points you want to cover? (Write them down so you don’t forget any of them!) I’ve already mentioned the importance of good planning in Blog #6.
How are you going to start your feature? (I will be looking at this in my next blog!) How are you going to end it? If readers aren’t sure whether they’re going to be interested in an article, they’ll often look at just the beginning and the end – and if they’re sufficiently interested, they may go back and read the bits in between! That’s why you need to ensure that you put the important details first – and perhaps sum them up again at the end.
So, keep your writing in order and you’ll hopefully find that people are more interested in reading it.
Have a good week.
Phil
Freelance copywriter
Web: http://www.phila.co.uk
Email:info@phila.co.uk
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