Your Guide to Writing Articles that Readers Love
By Cassandra Butler
"I've written you a long letter because I didn't have time to write you a short
one," Oscar Wilde once quipped. The notorious author and playwright struck
right to the heart of the difference between good writing and simply the
laying down of consonants and vowels in succession separated by spaces
and dots.
Good writing communicates efficiently. Pick up any quality
newspaper and you should find that the first paragraph of every news story
tells you five things: who, what, where, why and when something happened.
Your articles should do the same.
'Who' refers to the main protagonist - perhaps yourself
or your company. 'What' means just that, what of significance has happened
to whom? 'Where' should put 'Who' and 'What' into context. You might refer
to an event happening in a physical location like a shopping centre or
a more abstract place like the communications industry.
'Why' can be hard to answer succinctly but you should make
a start in your first paragraph or two. Finally, 'When' is easy. Was it
yesterday? In the late 1980s? The future? For example, Over the next
decade the number of women starting their own businesses is expected to
increase dramatically due to government incentives.
Prioritising your Information
The rest of the article is then a process of expanding on what you've
said in the opening paragraph, however, you may not get the chance to
'tell them again' at the end because editors typically cut articles from
the base. This means you should write in what journalists think of as
an inverted pyramid, where the most important information is placed in
the first few paragraphs and the rest very quickly becomes expendable.
To give those middle paragraphs some bite, you should seek
to present a range of views on the issue and maybe even throw in a quote
or two. This might be hard if you're writing about yourself but you can
either create your own quote or get one from a customer or relevant expert
to give the piece credibility. For example, "Until now, women have
found it difficult to obtain capital for their ventures, but with these
new government incentives they will be able to follow their dreams," said
Mrs Jane X, co-founder of internationally renowned Company Y.
Another thing that makes any article more substantial is
statistics. No matter how dubious, statistics always add an air of scientific
certainty. You'll notice that the business people and analysts that get
quoted often in the media always seem to be able to put a number on every
situation. For example, Recent research from the Department of State
and Regional Development indicates that 60% of all small businesses in
NSW are started by women.
Remember the Reader
Finally, always be sure to put yourself in the reader's shoes before you
set fingertip to keyboard. Who are you writing for? Why would they read
your article? What new piece of information are you going to tell them?
If you do that, then the rest should look after itself.
Cassandra Butler is co-founder of Sydney-based editorial
services firm, Editor.com Pty Ltd (www.editor.com).
Editor.com provides proofreading, editing, writing and website content
management services to individuals and companies. For help with newsletters,
magazine articles, press releases, website content etc, please call (02)
9499 5944 or email cbutler@editor.com
