(Journalism 4.)
If you tell a joke, or a story with a surprising ending, you won’t relate first the end, right? Or, in case of a crime related novel, you don’t tell at the beginning already, who was the murderer. By blog posts or news, analysis, articles, you can do it in reverse order, and often, I think, you should.
Don’t let them go so soon
Why? I wrote in previous parts, you have to lure your readers to your page. First, with a good headline (title). Next, with an interesting beginning, the first couple of sentences have to be interesting, too. Otherwise, people will quickly turn away. A simple click on the “back” button in the browser, and the reader has gone.
You have to explain first why they should stay and finish reading your post, article. To do so, you have select the best parts to the beginning. You can spare some interesting parts for the end, or for the middle, though.
That’s the reason why a classic type of article structure looks so:
Interesting headline
Interesting lead, or introduction, 2-3 phrases, trying to wake even more attention (red circle on the first photo). Mostly a conclusion, the main message of the article. But sometimes it leaves open questions to incentivize the reader to keep reading.
Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text
Internal heading
Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text
Internal heading
Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text Body text
Conclusion or synthesis, summary.
Only 2-4 phrases, mostly.
The internal headings (subtitles) are also important. If you write too much text in a continued section, or block, the page will look very boring. The reader can be lost, or get tired. Some interesting internal titles help maintain the interest, give a nice look to the article. It helps to understand why the reader should continue reading.
My thoughts, your thoughts
I know, it is not easy to give so much interesting titles and subtitles. It can help you a lot if you make some sort of list, draft about the things (tips, interesting facts) you want to tell. The entire post can maintain this list-style structure, every one of your tips can be a subtitle. If you make a good draft list, eventually you won’t touch it later, you only have to explain every item with 1-3 phrases.
If the “lead”, the introduction is a summary, you can write it last, after finishing the main part of the post. Smaller posts (I would say, with less than 1200-1500 characters) have mostly no lead, or only a very short one, one sentence. By shorts posts you can also omit the internal subtitles.
The list before the list
Ultimately I like the structure of articles on SeekingAlpha and some other sites. They use short lists instead of the classic introduction, as you see an example on the picture:
At last, I think, it is a good thing if you try to convince you reader at the end to stay on your page and read other articles from you. If the reader was interested in this post, may want to read similar ones. So, if you like to read more about writing, you find the previous parts of my series here:
1. Do You Want To Be A Brilliant Blogger or Journalist?
2. The Sexual Life Of The Wandering Ants
3. The Attack Of The Lesbian Nazi Zombie Vampires
(Cover photo, dividers: Pixabay.com)