Copyright 2005 Mark MeshulamMost web-marketing experts tout the power of articles for
their ability to create inbound links and enhanced
credibility for websites. But what they don't tell you
is... how the heck do you write an article?
You need two important elements for a great article:
something to say and the means to say it. First let's
discuss "something to say", otherwise known as content.
It is impossible to write something of interest to others
without good, meaty content. Content comes from your
interests and experiences. To generate content you need to
look at yourself and your life in a new way. Look for
situations in your day which "hit home" in some way. If you
are intrigued, frustrated, thrilled, challenged or
otherwise awakened, then pursue the topic in greater depth.
As you work and play, have an extra mental circuit running
which observes your life. Let's pretend this circuit is a
separate person, the Observer. Now when you go along your
way, occasionally become the Observer and try to cultivate
a new point of view. The Observer is not mired in your
day-to-day struggles. Instead, the Observer watches you
struggling, with clear unemotional vision yet with humor
and an interest in patterns and themes.
Becoming the Observer will help you discover the
interesting parts of your life which you can then bring to
your reader. You can develop your golden nuggets of
experience further by expressing them aloud to others (or
even just to yourself). Through verbalization, you will
find additional points of view and experiences of others to
enrich your topic.
Then, research your topic by word-searching on your
favorite search engine.
Eventually a theme or pattern will emerge. Go a step
further and try to create a solution, position or attitude
with regard to the theme. This will become your unique
"take" on the subject.
Example: A while ago a consultant hired by one of my
customers was irritating me by getting visibly excited
whenever a small problem or issue appeared on our mutual
project. I developed this into a more universal theme and
wrote "Beware the Chicken Little Consultant".
The theme is consultants who use fear tactics. The position
taken in the article is that such consultants should be
dismissed and their users should educate themselves from
less emotional sources. The attitude of the article is
lightly humorous and mocking. Calling the consultant
"Chicken Little" in the title is an example of this.
So far we have covered how to find and develop content,
including arriving at a position and an attitude about the
central theme. When you have come this far, start writing
immediately.
First, jot down a few sample titles which will help guide
you in your writing. Write some key points you want to be
sure to cover. Then, get started writing the article.
When you write, imagine that you are sitting by a campfire
with a smart and interested friend. You are comfortable and
lighthearted. Your unique personality is shining through.
You have a lot to share and this excites you. Tell that
friend your story. What is the first thing she needs to
know? Lay the groundwork step by step. Toss in a wry
comment or two but don't lose the central path.
Tell your story in an order which would be most
understandable to your listener. The order might be
chronological or logical, building from one point to the
next. Keep going until you bring it to a satisfying
endpoint.
During this part of the writing, which I affectionately
call "puking", try to refrain from second-guessing your
words. You spent much time filling yourself with ideas. Now
is the time to puke them all out. There should be a feeling
of "flow". The words should want to come out. Let them. You
will feel empty and good when you are finished.
After I "puke", I do a few quick re-reads and fix obvious
problems such as reorganizing the order of certain
paragraphs, or making the "person" consistent. This article
is written in first(I) and second(you) person. In it, I am
talking to you. It could have also been written in third
(they) person. Example: "Experienced writers organize their
ideas chronologically or logically".
You can mix the "person" for a lively article. Just be sure
it's not awkward.
Look also for time consistency. Is your story written in
the present? This article is written in the present. Things
are happening right now. In one portion I refer to an
article I wrote in the past, however the analysis of the
article was written in the present, because the article
still exists.
You can mix past, present and future in your article.
Drawing from the past and projecting into the future are
powerful presentation methods. In your re-read, make sure
that this is being done correctly. Inform your readers
without confusing them.
Check to make sure you are consistent with regard to
singular and plural. Example of doing it wrong: "We want to
inform our readers without confusing her".
Make sure each idea has its own paragraph. When writing for
the web, remember that your article may be displayed in
narrow newspaper-like columns. Paragraphs should be short.
Avoid paragraphs with more than six sentences. Keep
sentences short. If you must have a long sentence, follow
it with a short one to perk up the reader and keep her
motivated to continue reading.
Here is a big one: cut out all extraneous words. Don't
repeat. Pretend each word is worth $5 and you are paying
the tab. When you finish slashing words, go back and do it
again. You will be surprised that you had so much filler.
When giving a list of points, do your reader a favor and
write the points in a list with numbering or bullets. Don't
make the reader cherry-pick your ideas out of a blob of
text.
Avoid reusing words. Keep them varied and fresh.
Check your spelling!
Now that you have done your re-reads, save your work. Leave
it alone for a day or two. You need this time to forget
what you wrote. Next time when you edit, you will read with
fresh eyes. Weaknesses in your article will jump out. Time
to clean again.
Now read the article out loud. Speak every word clearly and
not too fast. A good article should not only look good on
the page, but it should also sound great when performed.
When I arrive at this point, I will typically publish the
article on my blog. This is a low risk activity because I
can always edit it again later. After 5-7 days, if I can't
find anything else to fix, I will submit the article for
syndication. This is the point of no return. Once the
article is out there will be no more fixing.
Writers write because they feel a need. When they write,
they feel fulfilled. It's possible that you could be a
writer. With effort you can experience the gratification of
seeing your words in print and your ideas spread across the
internet.
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Mark Meshulam offers Poingo Productivity Suite, unique &
inexpensive software which speeds your work and makes it
more fun. Email tickler reminder system. Create JPGs and
PDFs. Edit images in Outlook. Timestamp filenames. Hotkey
shortcuts. And great resources for syndicating your
articles.
http://www.poingo.com
