5 Ways to Draw Readers Into Your Articles

A guest post by Linda Formichelli from the Renegade Writer blog

Readers are short on time.

So when someone starts reading your article, you have just a few seconds to draw her in and convince her to keep going. The same applies to a query letter — you have only a sentence or two to grab the editor and make him want to finish reading your pitch.

Remember, your articles and queries are competing with TV, Internet surfing, chores, administrative tasks, meetings — not to mention hundreds of other pitches and articles. To help you draw the busy, distracted reader into your writing, I’ve compiled my five best tips.

1. Start with a quote.

Imagine starting an article on infidelity like this:

“I knew I never should have trusted my best friend,” says Sarah Johnson of Lawrence, Kansas.

A quote that surprises readers, entices them, or leaves just a little to the imagination is a great way to keep their eyeballs on the page. Just be sure not to overuse this tactic: It’s so easy to use that many writers are tempted to rely on it for all their articles, and editors do notice if you’re a one-note.

How to get this magical quote? The more you practice interviewing, the better you’ll get at eliciting great quotes from your sources. Write up a list of questions, but don’t stick to the list — use it as a guideline, but ask other questions as you think of them during the conversation. You’re more likely to get a source talking freely if you approach the interview as a conversation than if you fire questions at her from a list shotgun-style.

2. Jump into the action.

Too many writers start off their queries and articles by hemming and hawing, giving too much background, and generally boring the reader. One trick professional writers use is to simply lop off the first paragraph or two of their piece so that it starts right in the middle of the action.

For example, say you’re writing about your experience having a heart attack. Instead of explaining what happened to you starting at the beginning or describing your health status previous to the heart attack, start with yourself being wheeled into the emergency room with medical workers swarming around you. For example:

“Code Blue! Code Blue!” Those were the last words I heard in my delirium before I went under — and when I woke up, I found myself in a hospital bed, tethered to machines with tubes sprouting from my arms. I’d had a heart attack while I was getting ready to leave for work that morning.

3. Use a startling statistic.

If you were shocked by a statistic, chances are your readers will be, too. So if parents of only children and five times happier than parents of multiple kids, or bullying victims are 8 times more likely to commit suicide (I just made those up), be sure to put that somewhere in your opening paragraphs.

4. Find a compelling anecdote.

This is one of the best ways to start an article, and is related to my tip to jump into the action. Many women’s and health magazines start a good portion of their articles with a personal anecdote as a matter of course.

An anecdote can come from someone in the magazine’s target demographic, or from yourself if you’re part of the mag’s demographic. They’re easy to find, too…think of what kind of anecdote would best illustrate your topic, and ask around on relevant forums and source-finding services like Help a Reporter for people who have been through that experience.

Here’s the lede I used on an article about perfectionism for Oxygen magazine:

Elisabeth Andrews, a fitness instructor in Bloomington, Indiana, used to get anxious before every class and worry that she would forget her routine. “Then one day, when the class was especially packed, we were doing a stretch with our arms in the air and I loudly told everyone over the microphone to ‘Keep your head between your ears,’” Andrews recalls. “Everyone laughed so hard, including me, and it turned out that a lot of people felt more comfortable asking questions after I had shown my imperfection. As a result I was able to be a better leader and connect with my class.”

A personal anecdote like this helps the reader relate to the situation you’re writing about and makes him want to keep reading.

5. Use specific language.

Readers are drawn in by precise language and strong phrasing that gets your point across — not vague generalities. For example, when I pitched an article about health-hazard clothing, I didn’t write:

If your shoes are too small, they can hurt your feet.

Instead, I wrote:

If you’re teetering around in too-tight Manolos, you can get hit with foot woes ranging from simple soreness to bunions.

See how many specifics I used? A brand name instead of the general “shoes.” “Teetering” instead of just “wearing” or “walking.” “Soreness” and “bunions” instead of merely “hurt.”

Here’s another example: This is the lede to a query that led to an article in the now-defunct $1/word market Zillions:

It can happen to even the savviest shopper: The Levis you bought disintegrate after just one washing, or maybe that Game Boy cartridge isn’t nearly as exciting as it looked in the ad. Don’t toss your new purchase and hope for better luck next time — write to the company and tell them what you think!

I could just as easily have written:

It can happen to even the savviest shopper: The jeans or toys you bought aren’t good quality. Don’t toss your new purchase and hope for better luck next time — write to the company and tell them what you think!

Do you agree that the second version is weaker and more likely to cause the reader to give up and move on to more interesting things? In the first version, by using brand names and giving concrete examples of what happens to those products (“disintegrate after just one washing” and “isn’t nearly as exciting as it looked in the ad”), I help the reader form a clear vision of the situation in her mind — and keep her reading.

Have you ever used these tactics, and if so, how did they work? What tricks do you have for drawing readers in to your articles, and editors into your queries? Please post your tips in the Comments below so we can all learn from them!

Linda Formichelli, a WTD Top 10 finalist for 2011, is the co-author of  the Renegade Writer blog. Together with Carol Tice of Make a Living Writing, Linda is offering their popular Freelance Writers Blast Off group mentoring program in January  to help new writers skyrocket their earnings in 2012 [aff link].

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Categories: Craft, Journalism

5 Actions to Take to Bring Your Blog into the Spotlight

A guest post by Bamidele Onibalusi of YoungPrePro

As a writer looking forward to using the internet to grow your business, you’d probably have come across several articles telling you to start a blog, update it regularly, give the best of your content and expect results to come.

Times are changing, and it is important to face the reality that new times call for new measures. Creating great content alone, even if it is the best in world, won’t help your blog grow for one simple reason; anything multiplied by zero will always be zero. While great content is important, it will hardly help you get in the spotlight without you taking any other action.

While there have been people who were lucky and suddenly went viral online, those are only one in a million, and as the average person you probably won’t experience the same kind of success. Instead of waiting to be hit by a stroke of luck, you can start taking active measures to put yourself into the spotlight, and you can do your “audience” a favor by letting them know about your existence.

As a writer who has been blogging for almost 2 years now, I’ve had my struggles with building an audience (I still do), and I have learned a lot of lessons along the way; some of these lessons I learned the hard way, and some of them I learned by studying very successful people in my field. In this article, I will be giving you 5 unique tips to help you bring your writer blog into the spotlight.

1. Have a Clearly Defined Point of Difference

This is probably the most important lesson I’ve learned in my entire blogging career, and it took me so long to learn it.

Take a look at your blog and ask yourself one simple question; what is the first thing I want my readers to think about after landing on my blog? Take a look at your blog and ask yourself the same question. Can you come up with an answer for this right away, or is it taking you so long to determine what really makes your blog different from the others?

Sometimes, you will notice that your blog is just so lost that you have to start again, but you should also know that it is better not to have an audience than to have an audience without a purpose. It is one thing for readers to visit your blog, and it is another thing for them to have a purpose for visiting your blog.

The first step you should take to bring your blog into the spotlight is to have a clearly defined USP that makes your blog different from every other blog online; without this your blog will hardly move forward, but with the right USP you will be able to go places.

2. Develop a Strategy to Help Fuel Your Blog Growth

How do you actually get people to visit your blog? Guest blogging? Article marketing? Doing interviews?

Actually, those are just tactics, and without the right strategy to back them up you will be lost.

A major mistake most writers make when it comes to marketing their blog is running after tactics such as guest blogging and SEO, but what I have realized over time is that the best way to get results is by making those tactics a part of your overall strategy.

While using tactics like guest blogging to build your blog is important, what makes tactics like that work is the strategy behind them. In fact, I suggest you don’t come up with tactics until you have a strategy; instead, create a strategy first, and start using tactics you think will favor your overall strategy.

Examples:

So that you get what I mean by developing a strategy in comparison to just using tactics, I’ll be giving an example below.

Tactic: Everybody is using guest blogging and they say it works; let me start writing a few guest posts every once in a while and see how my traffic improves.

Strategy: What I want is to create a  blog that is visited by thousands every day. I want to achieve this in a span of 1 – 2 years, and my strategy is to use focus on building a strong subscriber base that ends up seeing my content repeatedly. My approach is to create a landing page focused on getting people to subscribe, publish around 5-10 guest posts on big blogs in my niche every month, and nourish the relationship with my subscribers to make them consistently engage with my brand.

In other words, a strategy is your long term approach aided with tactics; a strategy is a goal with a system designed to help achieve that goal. When it comes to tactics, most people just do what others are saying works and ignore it over time, but with a strategy you already know what you want to achieve and how to go about it, and you already have a long-term system designed to help you achieve your goals; your tactics will be a part of this system.

3. Create a System to Help Bring Visitors Back to Your Blog Again

The next step is to have a system.

Your system could vary depending on exactly what you want to achieve, but its main purpose will always be to drive visitors back to your blog again.

It is one thing to market your blog to people, and it is another thing to get them to visit your blog consistently. The system designed to bring visitors back to your blog could be an email list, it could be an active RSS subscriber base, and it could be a huge following on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. One thing is important, though; don’t just direct visitors to your blog and leave than hanging. Let your main aim be to convert them and make them repeat visitors.

4. Focus on Building Connections with People that Matter in Your Field

While it’s cool to have huge social media followings and a large subscriber count, one thing you need to realize is that the effectiveness of mediums like these diminish every day, and the only one thing that will always be profitable is relationships. Mind you, I’m not saying you should rush into relationships with other writers and expect them to send some traffic your way. Instead, focus on contributing value to them and gaining their trust, and they will be there for you when you need them

New tactics will always evolve, and strategies will gradually become obsolete; but, over time, quality connections will prevail even over sound tactics. The reason for this is simple, people will always adapt to the times, and by building the right relationship you won’t have to worry about starting from scratch; you just need to start utilizing your relationships.

5. Be Everywhere

Don’t just stick with one approach; use a combination of 2, 3, 4 or more – if people start to see you on every blog, on every forum, on every portal, and on various social media sites in your field they can’t help but pay attention.

The previous 4 tips are like the foundation you need to develop for your blog to ensure you achieve your desired results. The main thing that drives results is being everywhere. Use as many tactics you can use effectively, and try to be everywhere your audience can be found. The more of your work people see in various places they frequent, the more likely they will want to know more about you, and the more likely they will convert to be your fans.

Getting Into the Spotlight Isn’t that Difficult…

It just requires you to be smart, and it also requires you to be willing to put in the hard work needed. The first 4 points in this article are like the foundation your blog needs, and the real results starts to happen once you start appearing everywhere.

The most important thing, however, is that you take action. Implement the tips in this article and you will start to reap the results over time.

Bamidele Onibalusi is a finalist of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers Contest. He’s a young blogger and writer with one main aim; helping writers get traffic and income online. If you’re a freelance writer looking to grow your income, make sure you checkout his 7 series freelance writing eCourse.
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Categories: Blogwriting, Craft

Three Words You Should Eliminate from Your Writing

A guest post by James Chartrand of Men with Pens

Every good copywriter will tell you that you should write concisely. Eliminate every unnecessary word. Be bold with your choice of nouns and adjectives. Choose precise words, not common ones. Cut all the fluff, the clutter and the jargon.

And if you’re a copywriter, you probably follow this advice – or think you do.

Unfortunately, several words are so common that you often don’t even realize you’re using them. These words sneak into your writing all the time, and they contribute nothing to the content.

They damage your credibility. They bring down your writing. They make your work look amateur.

If I pointed those words out to you, you’d probably shuffle your feed and shamefacedly admit they don’t need to be there. You hadn’t even noticed you’d put them in.

Those words are like condiments in your fridge. You open the door a dozen times a day and never see them. It isn’t until a friend comes over and asks why you have two-year-old mango chutney that you realize you should probably clear some of that out.

You should. Here are three words you can clear out of your writing.

Word #1: Really

No, really. Take a look where this word might show up and clunk up a sentence:

  • It’s really important that you sign up for this.
  • This is a really valuable product.
  • You have to check this out – it’s really interesting.

I’m specifically talking about instances where really is an intensifier. In grammar, an intensifier is like a modifier, only better, and its job is… well, to intensify the emotional context of words like “important” or “valuable” or “interesting.”

But an intensifier actually adds no particular contribution or value. Take it out, and the whole sentence still works just fine, thank you very much.

The problem with really is that it’s supposed to enhance the word it’s modifying and amplify its meaning. But really has become so common that it doesn’t actually make us think more of the item in question. It makes us think less of it.

Watch what happens here:

  • Sign up. It’s important.
  • This is valuable.
  • Interesting.

All those words have weight and heft when they stand on their own. But add really to them, and it sounds like you’re trying hard to convince someone that you mean it.

“This is interesting.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, it’s really interesting.”

Unless your reader has some reason to doubt your statement of the facts, really is unnecessary – AND it gives your reader the impression that you don’t believe your own words.  Not really.

Word #2: Very

Really and very suffer from similar maladies; they’ve become so common that their original purpose has been flipped in the opposite direction.

It’s uncommon for us to say a house was big. We say it was very big.

We do this automatically, without thinking, and so much so that the word very doesn’t even register in our brains. It’s not as if we think big and by adding very we think even bigger.

We hear very big and we think big. We stay at the same level of perception, without anything being added to our mental image.

Very sweet. Very tall. Very nice. Very interesting.

It carries far more power to drop the word very and allow the word it intensified to stand alone.

The man entered the room. He was very large.

When we read this sentence, we get the impression that the man is fat. That’s usually what we mean when we say someone is very large. But when we simply say:

The man entered the room. He was large.

Now we have the impression of the man’s actual size. Maybe he’s fat, or maybe he’s broad and tall. Either way, there’s a lot of him. He is large. (And probably intimidating too!)

Word #3: Totally

Totally means ‘in total.’ As in, the sum of all. The whole. The entire shebang, completely. Like this:

Are all the boxes here? Totally.

That’s an old-fashioned version, but it still works for emotions:

Can I confide in you? Totally.

You can tell me the sum of all your confidences. Hold nothing back. I’m prepared to listen to the entire shebang of what you have to say.

The problem is that in common language (probably thanks to the explosion of Valley Girl talk in the ‘80s) totally became a placeholder word, modifying that which does not need modification.

Example: I was totally shocked.

Being shocked implies totality. You’re either shocked or you aren’t. Your ears can’t go into shock while your leg stays casual about it all. Your entire body and mind go into shock. That’s what shock means.

Totally, here, is redundant.

Here’s another example: This is a totally great price.

It’s great or it isn’t. A price is about as totaled as you can get – so the extra word serves no purpose.

Take it away. Take all three of these words – really, very, totally – away. And your copy will suddenly stand a bit taller, ring a touch prouder and come off like it was written by a pro.

Have any more unnecessary words to add to the pile? Bring them on in the comments!

About the author:

James Chartrand is a finalist in the 10 Top Blogs for Writers Contest 2011/12. Discover more great writing tips, tricks and techniques with her innovative writing course for business owners, Damn Fine Words. This game-changing course is open right now to new members. Register today and start writing words that get results for your business.[aff link]

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Categories: Craft, Freelancing

What Bad Movies Teach us About Good Writing

A guest post by Jennifer Brown Banks of Pen and Prosper

Have you ever shelled out good money for the show and then felt cheated when the movie was over?

Maybe it was a low budget flick that you held high expectations, or a box-office favorite with high ratings that was low on entertainment value.

Most of us have.

Being a frugal freelancer, I was determined, after having this happen too often as a “sequel”, to gain something redeeming for lost time and money.

When I did a rewind and reflected, I discovered that there was much that bad movies can teach us about good writing, if we are attentive.

Here’s what I discovered.

1. Good writing starts with an awareness of your audience’s needs and expectations. Whether you’re penning a blog post, a play, or an article for an online publication, it’s crucial to consider the motivation of audience members. Are they on board to be entertained? Enlightened? Empowered? Does your content deliver on your title’s promise? Assess then respond accordingly.

2. Insulting your audience’s intelligence is a dumb thing to do. One of the biggest critics of movies, plays, and books happens to be other writers. We can’t help but dissect dialogue, rewrite scenes, and see the oversights that others miss.

For example, even in a fictional piece of work, the scenarios and actions of characters have to be credible. If a play has a setting that takes place in the 1940’s, having the main character use a cell phone to call in an accident would be ridiculous, because they obviously weren’t being used back then.

Get my point?

In my opinion, writers of horror movies tend to be the biggest culprits here. Many will write scenes that are more comical than scary, often times leaving viewers shouting at the TV screen.

Put yourself in your readers’ shoes.

Try to fill in any missing gaps in information. Seek to answer questions that might be potentially posed. Make sure that two plus two equals four. Keeping in mind that articles and blog posts are not supposed to have cliffhangers.

3. Pacing is important to the overall experience. Think of it like a good kiss. If it’s too fast, it won’t engage. If it’s too long, it loses momentum. Good writing starts with an opening that’s brief and straight to the point, and ends with a satisfying closure that feels finished, yet leaves audiences wanting for more.

4. Good writing evokes emotions. Whether it’s the passion that’s felt from Barrett-Brownings, “How do I love thee?” or the giggle we get when we read Dr.Seuss in Green Eggs and Ham. Good writing connects and inspires a response.

5. Good writing, (regardless of genre) has timeless appeal. Consider the works of Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Harper Lee, or even Melville. When writing is quality, old stories still draw new audiences.

To illustrate my point, I’d like to offer a movie made decades ago that continues to excite audiences, young and old. Remember Saturday Night Fever, with John Travolta? I believe it was made back in the ’70s. Last month, a local network aired a rerun, and I was stuck like Velcro, even though I’ve seen it a dozen times.

Why?
Of course the fact that Travolta was the ultimate in eye candy, didn’t hurt. But on an artistic level, I really appreciated the “craftsmanship” that went into this movie.

The attention to detail was great. This movie combined drama, humor, suspense, family dynamics, friendship, conflict, uncertainty, loss, religion, and all the messy elements of life. The script made sense, the characters’ lines were convincing and well-suited, and even the sound track (by the Bee Gees) was amazing!

Another more recent example of a well-written movie is “It’s Complicated” with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. Warning, this is not a P-G movie, folks!

The moral of the story here? Don’t cheat your audience. Give them value for their time.

As writers, if we neglect to observe these outlined practices and principles, we run the risk of losing our fan base. And at the end of the day, good writing really makes good business sense.

So next time you’re at the keyboard composing, use this as a checklist for the “write results”. Doing so will insure that your work will be worth the price of admission.

Jennifer Brown Banks is a WTD Top 10 Blogs for Writers Contest finalist for 2011. Jennifer is a veteran freelance writer, pro blogger, and relationship columnist, and helps writers and businesses turn their passion into pay at her blog Pen and Prosper.
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Categories: Craft

Memoir Gets its Own Back: Kapka Kassabova on how an Idea Morphed into a Published Book

Kapka Kassabova

A guest post by Kapka Kassabova

‘If you want to work on your art, work on your life.’ – Chekhov

Ten years ago, I was a single East European émigré living in Auckland and caught between Old and New Worlds, two passports, the end of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the 21st century.

How timely, then, that one night I should walk into a bar and see a couple on the dance floor, moving to what sounded like the soundtrack to my life. Their chests were glued together, their hips rigid, and their faces lost in some fantasy of a better world. They were, of course, doing the tango. And that fantasy soon became mine. The soundtrack to my life turned out to be Astor Piazzolla’s ‘Oblivion’, tango’s most existential tune and a must for all melancholics.

I say ‘timely’ for two reasons. One, because you can already tell from the above sketch that the young émigré took herself very seriously in her culturally dispossessed predicament. And what dance is better suited to the culturally dispossessed than the tango? I could have taken ceroc, salsa, or any other happy dance where I could have drank mojitos, shaken my hips, and grinned with all my teeth at the uncomplicated blokes partnering me in our three basic steps. Cha-cha-cha!

But I didn’t. I took up the world’s most complicated and nostalgic couple dance. Which brings us to reason number two: in the next couple of years, I joined a world-wide tango community made up of hundreds of thousands of people of every colour, neurosis, and cultural complication under the sun. People like me.

Tango became my religion, my primary romantic relationship, a home of sorts. I learnt Spanish so that I could understand old songs like The Day That You Would Love Me (note the problematic conditional tense) and the title of electro-tango band Gotan Project’s hit album La Revancha del Tango. Tango Gets its Own Back.

It did, but it took ages. About three years into it, I knew I had to write a book about tango. After all, I was a writer first, and a tango maniac second. Dancing was no longer enough. Reading everything on tango I could find was not enough. As with everything else in life, I knew I could only truly understand tango by writing about it. But how do I even begin?

From the wrong end, that’s how. Which is to say, fiction. So, during  a year in Berlin on a generous Creative NZ writer’s residency, I plunged headlong into the researching and writing of my Big Tango Novel. It was going to be about Buenos Aires, Argentina’s Dirty War, Nazi War Criminals in South America, Emigration, Music, Poetry, Relationships, Jorge Luis Borges, and Tango.

There was no shortage of Big Themes. What there was a shortage of was characters. An honest intention. An authentic voice. A narrative focus. An actual story. At the end of my residency, I had to admit that My Big Tango Novel was a dud with a soundtrack.

My second doomed attempt took place a few years later. I was living in Britain now. A great brain wave came over me. This time, I was going to do the right thing. I was going to start with the characters. So, there is this lonely youngish British woman who gets hooked on tango. She falls for a mysterious guy she meets at tango. When he goes off to South America on a mysterious trip, she follows him. They get sucked into the underworld of Buenos Aires. Then something mysterious happens, involving tango. It was going to be a very Mysterious Tango Novel.

My agent read the first chapters. My agent is the smartest woman in the British publishing industry. ‘This reads like notes towards a novel,’ she said. ‘Some good stuff, potentially, but… Have you thought about writing a more personal kind of book about tango?’

No, I said, went away, and sulked for a year. Actually, I went away and wrote a childhood memoir for a year, signed up by the other smartest woman in the industry: my editor.

Then I wrote another novel. Nothing to do with tango. To hell with tango! Actually, tango was bringing hell into my life. In the space of two years, thanks to tango’s mysterious ways, I lost my partner of five years, my best friend, my place in the local tango community which constituted my entire social life, and very nearly my mental health. I pulled back from the brink just on time.

‘You know,’ I said to agent and editor. ‘I’m thinking of writing a more personal kind of book about tango. But I don’t know what the story is. And who the characters are.’

‘Really?’ said agent. ‘I think you do.’

‘I can think of at least two characters,’ said editor. ‘Tango. And KK. It’s a start.’

‘I think I know what I’m going to call it,’ I said. ‘Something about the average duration of a dance with the same partner…’

Between that distant Auckland bar and Twelve Minutes of Love, there lie the mangled embryos of two abandoned novels. But I had the time of my life writing Twelve Minutes of Love. It took a year. It came out almost perfectly formed. It had a voice. It had a story. It had a beating heart. It was populated with characters I knew well. It had poetry and music. It had emigration and history. Even Jorge Luis Borges managed to sneak in. And each chapter presented itself with a natural ‘tango lesson’ which of course meant a life lesson I had learnt in the past ten years.

1. Fascination
2. Infatuation
3. Revelation
4. Temptation
5. Disconnection
6. Connection
7. Tourism
8. Home
9. Homelessness
10. Ecstasy and agony
11. Freedom
12. Love

Tango, like literature, is a hall of mirrors. I had seen the true nature of my quest, as a dancer and as a writer, only after I’d had a few false starts. Bad things come to us all, but good things come to those who wait. And who use the paper bin.

My ‘tango novels’ had been built on clichés. I hadn’t been ready for my own book. I hadn’t had the necessary humanity. I had suffered too little, fantasised too much, and taken myself too seriously. I had lacked the lightness of touch it takes to treat dark matter.

This memoir is the most authentic thing I have written. As if it had been secretly gestating for ten long years. It had been.

 

Kapka Kassabova is a poet, essayist and travel writer who was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. After leaving Bulgaria as a teenager and living in England and New Zealand, she now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Image of Kapka © Gerry Walden/gwpics.com

Categories: Craft, Creativity, Fiction

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