Write Stories, Not Articles

The seemingly subtle distinction becomes huge when you realize exactly how it will change your writing

I often treat the words story and article as roughly synonymous in nonfiction writing. But there’s always been a difference in my mind. I knew it intuitively and employed it in my own writing, but I haven’t done a great job explaining the difference to other writers. Then in a remarkable coincidence recently, two writers whose work I edit sent me drafts that rendered the distinction crystal clear, and I realized that the advice I gave them should be shared with you all.

Article is a broad, generic term that can mean a lot of things. It’s a fine word. I have nothing against it. But for most of what I write, and what I teach, and what I think you want to be writing, the word misses the mark.

If you think of your creation as an article, you’re likely doing it a disservice. It’s not as bad as being a content creator (don’t get me started) but articles, as I’m defining them, exist in a tier below where you want your writing to be.

Wikipedia pages are articles. Some are very good, and often they provide exactly the goods that information consumers are looking for, in a perfectly acceptable style and tone, answering a common question or providing some frequently sought-after background.

But readers aren’t just information consumers. They want stories. Unlike a mere article, a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it has an arc. It’s about something more than the facts and perspectives contained within.

And now you may have a glimpse of where I’m going with this.

What’s the difference?

I have written and edited many non-fiction articles in the past—lots of important reference pieces that fulfilled the promises of their headlines and were apt for their publications (science, health, tech or biz). We called them reference articles, and they were designed largely to capture search traffic to what we called an online Reference Desk. People can make a living at article writing. But it’s largely about churning things out, more assembly line than hand-crafted.

Most of us want to write stories. And that means we must tell stories, not just crank out articles.

So let’s examine the difference, and see exactly how to serve readers by embracing the distinction, and I’ll share the specific advice I gave my writers…