Sharpen Your Writing With Structure
Sharpen Your Writing With Structure
At some point, every serious writer is forced to sit down and conclude that there is something seriously wrong with their work. It wanders; it is pretty in some spots and horribly ugly in others. It doesn't always make sense, and is uneven in places. Even though every sentence is grammatically correct, there is something fundamentally broken about the piece.It lacks structure.Structure is what holds a good piece of writing together, the material reflection of the reader's psychological need for order. It is the quality that makes the best writing appear seamless, conjured whole from heaven itself. Structure is the logical mind's contribution to a creative process, and a primary difference between professional writing and amateur scribbling: a conscious decision and a learned skill.Being in many ways the very essence of writing, structure isn't mastered overnight. But here are a few rules of thumb that can help you improve the organizational readability of your work:Establish a logical order to your presentation.Ignore all the popular advice to "write like you talk"; that's a misguided appeal to conversational tone usage and a shortsighted encouragement for people who are terrified to put pen to page. In order to master structure, you must learn to write deliberately and with forethought. Plan what you're going to write and how you're going to write it: don't make it up as you go along, particularly when you are writing nonfiction of any kind.In nonfiction writing (which means anything that isn't fiction), the room for art is small. Don't set out to create art - build a sturdy framework, as a skilled attorney would build a legal argument. Make your supporting points early and establish the logical flow to consequences and conclusions. Don't loop back and make points at word 800 that you should have made at word five.Make your points quickly - write in 300-word chunks.That's the magic number: 300. Books are typically printed with about 300 words to a page; magazine articles will usually be structured into roughly 300-word segments. An effective press release, page of website copy or newsletter article won't run much above 300 words. Any longer and your reader will notice that something is off about your piece. Too much longer and your reader will get bored. For some reason, the human mind seems to be most comfortable reading at the 300-word length.That does not mean that everything you write must be short, only that long pieces should be built out of short pieces put in order. If you can't make your point in 300 words or less, then you are trying to make more than one point. Simplify the whole piece: break the manuscript down into single-point segments no longer than 300 words in length, and then put your points into a logical order that builds towards your final conclusions. The final product will seem to flow with a gentle rhythm that your readers might notice, probably won't be able to identify, and so will most likely attribute it to your talents.Try it: you'll be amazed.Take the entire piece down to a single thought, expressed in a single sentence, and then rebuild it from the ground up.When in doubt, strip the piece down and rebuild it from its primary components. The greatest threat to structure is diffusion; rather than trying to communicate one thing well, you end up saying lots of things badly. Good structure requires that you have a very clear idea of what you are writing, how you are doing it and why. Do one thing, and do it very well.Set the piece aside and attempt to make your final point in a single sentence, losing as little important detail as possible. Do not use compound sentences; keep it simple and limit it to a single direct thought. If you can't do it, then you do not have a clear enough idea of what it is that you're trying to accomplish - reorganize the piece or split it into several separate ones.An English sentence has a natural internal structure all its own. Look at your one-sentence summary and use its structure to inform yourself on how the overall piece should be structured. Once you've reduced your writing to its bare essence, you can reconstruct it on a much more solid foundation.In the end, professional writing is all about understanding the psychological needs of the reader. If you are writing purely for your own pleasure, with no intention of ever letting anyone else read it (and what a boring life that would be), then it doesn't matter because you're not really writing: you're keeping a diary.But if instead you want your writing to be appreciated by readers, structure is one concept that you can't live without.About The AuthorRobert Warren (www.rswarren.com) is a Florida-based freelance copywriter specializing in the unique marketing needs of independent professionals.writer@rswarren.com
Interviews with Well-Known Ezine Writers #2: – John Colanzi – Writing-Articles
Interviews with Well-Known Ezine Writers #2: - John Colanzi
MS: John, you must be one of the most prolific Ezine
Writers on the Web - I see your articles nearly everyday in
the article lists and in dozens of Newsletters. How long
have you been writing Ezine Articles?JC: I first started writing ezine articles around 1999.MS: What are the main topics that you write about in your
Ezine Articles?JC: I mainly write two types of articles, (i) Marketing and
promotion, (ii) Success and motivation.MS: John, how important have Ezine articles been in
promoting your website?JC: I sometimes use paid advertising, but my main method of
promotion is writing and submitting articles.MS: John, what sort of Articles have you had most success
with? In your experience, what kind of Articles are most in
demand?JC: I get the most feedback on articles about success and
motivationMS: Some Ezine Writers promote a product or service in
their Resource Box, while others aim only to get a
subscription to their free Newsletter. What would your
advice be for getting maximum results from your Resource
Box?JC: I usually promote my newsletter and free ebook in the
resource box. Sometimes I promote a product, but mainly the
newsletter.MS: What have you found to be the most effective ways of
getting your Articles published?JC: Persistence. I've set up a weekly mailing to
publishers. Most publishers get a lot of submissions, so
getting them to notice you article will take some time.
Once they start using your articles, they are more likely
to start reading your submissions.MS: Apart from getting your Articles published in
Newsletters, are there any other ways you use your Articles
to promote your website? (such as turning them into a free
E-Book)?JC: I created my free ebook Street Smart Secrets Of Success
from a collection of my success and motivation articles:
http://www.internet-profits4u.com/streetsmart.exe. I was
also contacted by a publisher who read the free ebook to
create a free e-course for his ebook Autoresponder Gold. So
from the articles I've created my ebook and the 7 Days To A
Turbo Charged Mind email course:
johncolanzi@freeautobot.comMS: Some people are discouraged from writing Ezine articles
because it seems that everything has already been written
about. What's your view on that?JC: Every writer brings their own style to a subject. You
may read about it 100 times, but a certain writer's way of
presenting the information, may be the article that gets
you to take action.MS: Yes, that's an important point. What's the single most
important style tip for writing a good Ezine Article?JC: Write to one person. Make the ideas personal to the
reader.MS: How important have Ezine Articles been in achieving
your success in online business?JC: Every good thing that's happened to me online has been
a result of someone seeing an article.MS: And finally John, what would be your advice to someone
who wants to write Ezine Articles but has never written for
the Internet before?JC: Write the same way you would explain something to your
best friend. Write to inform, don't write a sales letter
and try to pass it off as an article.MS: Thank you John.------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
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The Secret To Promoting Sites With Articles – Writing-Articles
The Secret To Promoting Sites With Articles
Publishing articles on the Internet is a tremendous way to increase the number of inbound links to your site. As articles are assimilated into search engine indexes, they also begin to act as landing pages generating traffic for your site. Whenever possible, you should publish articles to promote your site.Article ContentThe content of your articles should be directed to the most basic elements of your product or service. Whenever possible, try to write "how to" or "introduction to" articles. Topics like these will garner the biggest interest and be picked up by other sites. Articles that cover finer points of a subject work as well, but you should expect a smaller readership.Article ToneYour articles should be packed with information, not sales pitches. When writing articles, one tends to concentrate on how to get potential readers to visit your site. This approach is a mistake. You have to think of both the readers AND webmasters that will be looking for articles.Image you are a Webmaster that needs content for your site. You go to one of the article directories looking for material to add to your site. Are you going to select articles that are sales pitches designed to take your visitors to another site? No. You are going to select articles that provide your visitors with some valuable information. Don't write sales pitches!LinksArticles are a great way to quickly build the link counts for sites. The search engines universally appear to like them, a rare event these days. So, what's the best strategy for using links in your articles?The best linking strategy for articles involves putting not more than two links in your byline. This is admittedly a personal preference, but I find more than two links looks "clunky" and many depositories won't allow any more than two.Regardless, the two links in the byline of your articles should go to two distinct pages of your site. The first might be to your home page, while the second goes to a page that is related to the subject of the article. With each new article, you should change the links to new pages. This allows you to build link popularity for both your home page and internal pages of your site. I have found Google, in particular, heavily favors sites that multiple pages with high link counts.HTML v. Text LinksWith some depositories, you have the opportunity to place html code in your bylines. This, of course, lets you avoid typing out the URLs for your site pages, but should you? I would encourage you to type out the URLS for one reason. It is important to make it as easy as possible for Webmasters to republish your article on their site. Don't make them figure out the domains of your hyperlinked text, particularly sub-domains.In ClosingI have used article campaigns to market many sites. As long as you go about it correctly, you should be able to do the same thing for your site.Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com - http://www.marketingtitan.com - an Internet marketing and advertising company. Visit our article section - http://www.marketingtitan.com/internet_marketing_articles - to read more internet marketing articles.