Fundamental Elements of a Good Article
Discover more from The Writer's Guide
Fundamental Elements of a Good Article
Plus a Quick Tip: Let your stories simmer before you publish
Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Writer’s Guide newsletter, in which I offer advice and coaching on the fundamentals and the secret sauce of successful writing. It’s aimed at writers of all backgrounds and experience levels—academics, professionals, entrepreneurs, journalists and bloggers—who write non-fiction articles for a general audience. See the About Page to learn about me, the mission, and the subscription and coaching options. You can subscribe for free, and I’d love it if you share this with other writers who could use a little mentoring (which is all of us!). —Rob
To kick things off, I’ve thought about the most basic writing fundamentals that I find missing from many of the articles I review as an editor, as well as stories I read for pleasure. These elements of good non-fiction writing aren’t by any stretch everything you need to know about good writing, but they’re underlying principles that good writing depends on.
If any of these seems superficial, that’s because they serve as an intentionally brief introduction. I will be exploring each of these topics, and a slew of other best practices for crafting successful general-interest articles, in much greater detail in the weeks ahead.
Compelling lede. You have about 30 words, probably a lot fewer, in which to hook most readers into your story with the first sentence or two (the lede). Don’t waste a single word. Start with something amazing, something surprising, something your readers did not know. Could be an anecdote (personal or otherwise) that backs into the main point of the story. Or a straightforward fact or new study finding or an obscure historical reference. It is original and compelling, and if you can’t come up with such a thing, then either you don’t understand your story, or it’s not very interesting.
Straightforward nutgraph. Craft the original, compelling and important point of your story in strong, clear, concrete language high up, sometimes in the lede but often in the 2nd or 3rd or 4th graph after some setup. Called a nutgraph, it’s one or two pithy sentences that state clearly and succinctly the key thing that sets the story apart, reveals why it exists, and sells it to anyone who might want to read it. If it’s effective, I cannot not read the story now. (How is this different from the lede? The lede can take many approaches; there are countless ways to start a story effectively. The nutgraph has to accomplish a very specific task and there’s only one right way to do it.)
Strong outline. If you don’t outline before you start writing, you’re likely digging a hole that’s hard to write your way out of. Information in any story—a short popular article or longer feature or an academic journal paper or book—needs to be organized. Subheads can serve as a great outline. They define the story, break it into logical sections—like chapters in a book. They must be logical, powerful, distinct, purposeful, necessary, and so on. Craft them with care, let them be the bones on which you hang the muscles, nervous system, and skin of your story.
Simple words. That big fancy word you just learned? That complex jargon from your field of expertise? Those are great ways to… turn readers off in droves. Put a big word in there when a small one would do, and it’s bye-bye to common folks like me. String together a complex thought that only people in your area of expertise can appreciate, and we’re gone. Nobody ever stopped reading a story because they understood all the words. (If you write remarkably deftly and with a phenomenal grasp on big wonderful words and when and how to use them, have at it. I don’t mean to belittle higher-level prose. Just know that every writer needs to stay within their skill set.)
Professional punctuation, grammar and spelling. As an editor, I see so many stories submitted that have obvious punctuation, grammar and spelling issues—mistakes that are clearly underlined or otherwise flagged by any decent spell-checker. As a reader, bad grammar or spelling errors are a cue to bail. How can a writer be trusted if they don’t care to use a spell checker? It’s the easiest thing to do. I have a ton of tips on how to get beyond spell-check to improve the nuts-and-bolts quality of your writing—spell check is just one of many steps in the self-editing process—but those are for another week. Meanwhile, paid subscribers have access to my Punctuation Guide: The Rules & How to Break Them.
Throughlines. The nut of your story needs to be reflected in every section, referred back to tacitly or overtly. Your ending, when all goes well, will be the final throughline stamp, perhaps circling back to the nut and putting a bow on it, without merely summarizing or stating something obvious.
A strong ending. You need a zinger, a surprise, or at least a fitting end that puts the package in insightful perspective. Please don’t summarize the story. I just read it!
This Week’s Quick Tip
When you think a story of yours is done, if there is no time pressure, no urgent hook, let it sit overnight, longer if you can stand it, to simmer while you stew on the next piece. I do this routinely. With fresh eyes and the poor short-term memory I’m blessed with, writing that at first seemed brilliant often looks like it was written by a moron. Heds and ledes often get totally rewritten, whole passages clarified, tangential stuff slashed.
I hope you’ve found something useful in this first edition of the Writer’s Guide. We’re just getting started, you and me. Subscribe to enjoy weekly explorations of topics like these, each in greater depth and with practical advice and examples illustrating how to execute on fundamental best practices sprinkled with the secret sauce I’m eager to share. You can learn more about me, the mission of Writer’s Guide, and the benefits for subscribers here.
Cheers,
Rob
“It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.”
—Jack Kerouac