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So, You Want To Be a Writer? - Dysartes | |
Writing an article, be it for this website or a magazine, isn't as easy as it sounds. You may think, given the numer of pieces we have on here, that any Tom, Dick or Harry can write articles. This, to an extent, is true, but writing an article takes preparation. In order to help people with this, I've taken the time to write this article, which aims to give advice gained from my experience in writing articles, as well of that of a number of people who have either written for this site, or for other sites. The advice given here is not totally specific to this site, and can be adapted when writing for other audiences, such as a magazine or other websites.IdeasBefore you even start to write an article, you need to have some idea what you're going to write about. It could be a tactics piece for a particular army, a guide to doing a conversion, or even an editorial on scale problems with miniatures. One thing is very important, however - you must be enthusiastic about what you are going to write about. If you don't want to write about something, what you do write will be of a lower quality than if you were enthusiastic about it. If you feel you are being forced to write something, this will come across in your writing style, and your audience won't read what you write. If this happens, all the effort you put in will go to waste.While you may have a number of ideas that you want to talk about in your article, they may not form a cohesive whole in your head. A good way to get around this is to make a bullet point list of what you want to say, or at least the main points of it - this will allow you to adjust the order in which you are going to make your points, which in turn will improve the mpact of your piece. If an article is logical, and makes sense, it is much easier to read than one which has its points in a random order. Also, should more ideas come to you while writing, don't be afraid to add them in - find a point in your article where they would make sense, and stick them in there. The final thing to remember is to research your material. If writing, for instance, a Barracks article for our Tactics section, make sure you have the appropriate Codex or Army Book to hand as a point of reference. If you're describing a conversion, make sure you've done it yourself beforehand, so you know it works. Theory is all well and good, but proof is often better. Important Points 1, Only write about something you want to write about. 2, Make a list of your points, and sort them into a logical order. 3, Research your material StructureA well-structured article is much easier to read than a jumbled mess of words, un-paragraphed and randomly ordered. If you've followed the basic ideas given above, you should have a list of points, already ordered and ready to go. The structure that you build from these is important, and will help you to keep your audience focussed on the points you have to make.The first thing you readers will encounter when they start your article is the introduction. It's a vital part of the article, and shouldn't just be brushed off as something that can be knocked up in a couple of minutes. On the other than, your introduction shouldn't be too long that your audience has gotten bored by the time they've reached the meat of your article. Something reasonably short, around a paragraph in length, is ideal. Your introduction needs to tell the reader a summary of what he is going to find in your article, without going any deeper than some of the main issues. Writing your introduction with that in mind will give the reader a reason for reading your article, as he may well be looking out for the expansion of one of the points you made in your introduction. While an introduction is important, so is a good conclusion to your article. The conclusion is where you should be looking to sum up the main poins from your article, giving closure to the piece. While your reader may not go straight back through the article, the conclusion will remind him of what you have had to say, and will hopefully give him pause for thought. Between the introducton and the conclusion, the structure of the rest of your article is important. With your list of ideas, try to look for areas where you can divide your article into sub-sections, to which you can give appropriate sub-headings. In the case of this piece, for instance, I've been able to split the article down to five main areas - Ideas, Structure, Writing, Photos, and advice specific to the sections of Dysartes.com. Once you've got your article divided down into broad areas, you can split it down to its individual points, giving each point a paragraph or two in which to be explained. This breaks down your article even further, making it that much easier to read and understand. Important Points 1, Don't make your introduction too long - it won't hook the reader in as well. 2, Include a conclusion as well as an introduction. Use it to summarise your arguments. 3, Structure your article - use sub-headings and paragraphs to break it down to individual points. WritingNow that we've thought about our ideas, and how to structure the article, its time to look at actually writing the piece. Writing an article can take a lot of time, even after you've done the initial work. Choosing the right words to get your points across effectively can be tricky, even for people who have written many articles. The writing may be the toughest part of doing your article, but it is probably the most rewarding.Before you start writing, you should consider your state of mind - by this, I mean check that you aren't overly tired, annoyed or drunk, as none of these are good mindsets to start wrting in. I've found a number of times that trying to start writing an article at 2am, for instance, leads me to come back to what I've done the next morning and wonder exactly what I was thinking (assuming I was) the night before. The same applies at any point during the writing process, so finishing writing at 2am can lead you to be just as incoherant as starting it at 2am would do. I have often found that the hardest thing to do in an article is to write the first paragraph. There is something intimidating about a blank screen, or a clean sheet of paper that can make it tricky to get started. However, once you get past that, and actually start writing, the article tends to flow pretty easily onto the medium of your choice. Don't worry if you get stuck on the start for a while - sit back, put some music on, and think of something else, and pretty soon you'll have some idea of how to start your article. It is important, when writing an article, that you keep focussed on your point, rather than waffle on when it isn't needed. Keeping your paragraphs concise and to the point will make your article more hard-hitting, as your readergets point after point in short succession. While explaining what each point means is fair enough, going on for too long to no benefit is a bit pointless. In some cases, it is important to refer to material outside the article you are working on, be it a webpage, a book or some other point of reference. If you have to do so, make sure that it is clear that you are refering to outside material and, where possible, provide a link or a reference at the end of the piece. If needed, quote or paraphrase a section of the original material, explaining what you've quoted or paraphrased when you've finished. Possibly the most vital thing you can do, when writing an article, is to make sure your spelling is correct. It is immensely frustrating, as a webmaster, to have to go through articles and make sure they are spelled correctly. his is especially tiresome when most people have Word, or another word processor on their computer, which normally have a spell checker built in. Just using that tool can save you grief from your editor. While the Internet is a pool of ideas, jargons and lexicons, I find there are two things to avoid using, where possible. The first of these is 1337 speak; personally, I can't stand it, and can barely understand it. You shouln't be trying to confuse your audience, and using 1337 speak can do so very easily. The second thing to avoid are acronyms. Used correctly, these can save you time, but used incorrectly they will confuse the reader. While you can sometimes get away with assuming that people know some acronyms, such as LOL, IMO and WTF, others such as YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) may well cause confusion. If you are going to be using an acronym of a term throughout the article, the first time you would use it, write out its meaning in full, then put the acronym in brackets next to it. This, generally, will avoid the confusion acronyms can cause. When writing, be sure to consider the tone you are trying to create in your piece. You may have the best tactics or modelling advice in the world, but if you get your tone wrong, being it by being condescending, sarcastic or just plain dull, your audience will switch off and go to read something else. Mike Walker's articles in White Dwarf are a good example of how to get a humorous, self-deprecating tone to work, without offending your audience. My final point about writing articles is this: when trying to get humour, footnotes are your friend. For examples, I would give you Mike Walker's articles in White Dwarf, or Yellowfish's article for the A Tale of Three Gamers series. Using footnotes allows you to include your humour, without disrupting the flow of your article. Important Points 1, Don't try to start writing at 2am - or finishing writing then, either. 2, The first paragraph is always the hardest to write. 3, Keep focused. 4, If referring to anything outside the article, make this clear to the reader. 5, Remember to spell-check your work. 6, Avoid using 1337 speak and acronyms where possible. 7, Think about your tone. 8, For humour, footnotes are your friend. PicturesWhen writing for the Internet, you need to remember one thing: while a picture may say a thousand words, it will slow down the loading time of your webpage. Think about every image you use in an article destined for a website - if they aren't necessary, cut them from it. Surveys have shown that if a web page has loaded in around 30 seconds, people start looking for alternative sources. By cutting down on imaegs, you can make sure your article will load in time.If you do have to use images in your article, make sure they are optimised for the web. By this, I mean that the colour pallette used in the image is as small as possible, without noticable degradation of the image. The less colours, the smaller your file will be at the end. While I know Adobe Photoshop CS has a "Save for Web" option, where you can optimise the image as you save it, I'm not sure how many other graphics packages have similar options. If yours does, make use of it where possible. A final note, regarding photography. I'm not a brilliant photographer, but I will say that my standard of photographing single models has gone up since reading this article on CoolMiniOrNot. The techniques detailed in it should be able to help anyone take better photos. Important Points 1, Only use images if they are necessary. 2, When using images, make sure they are optimised for the web. |
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