You wrote your article, you know what you mean, but ... will your readers understand your message?

You have retouched the paragraphs and put them in the right order. You have polished each sentence well. After all this hard work, you are still not sure whether your article is fluid and digestible. Will your readers stumble upon a paragraph? Or will they glide effortlessly along your text?

write an article "Hypnotic" on your blog doesn't have to be that difficult. 🙂

Let's try to see two methods that will help you create content that you can only hang on to.

Imagine spirit to cook for un feast

You have a delicious entrée to prepare. Maybe appetizers too. You have a large number of dishes that must all be placed on the table in a period of time. In addition to that, you have dessert, coffee, cognac, and different chocolates ...

  • Are you going to start cooking without a plan?
  • It would be truly disastrous, wouldn't it?

You know that you must plan everything in advance so that your grilled steak does not cool while you prepare the sauce that goes with it and the chili that must accompany the whole.

When you cook for a party, you avoid the experiments. You just follow recipes that have proven their quality, and you strive to follow your plan to the letter, step by step.

So what do you do when you write? Are you following proven recipes?

Writing, of course, is something different from cooking… but not so much! 🙂

You can use models that work, or try more experimental methods. Once you have chosen your method, you will inevitably make a plan for each item, and try to stick to it as much as possible while developing a constant pace of publication and quality.

I can't stress consistency enough.

But no matter which method you use, you will need to rate the flow of your item, to reassure you that your content is easy to read, engaging, and persuasive.

Let's take a look at the two types of methods mentioned above:

Start by making a sketch for your article

Starting with the sketch is like following a proven recipe. Before sketching, you do some brainstorming or mind-mapping to evaluate what might be included in your article. You freely make associations, taking into account ideas that are getting closer.

Personally, for brainstorming, what I prefer is the paper and the pen (I have an agenda for each of my blogs 🙂) I do not really like mind-mapping software. I still prefer to write by hand.

sketch means bring out the structure of what you count write. You decide which ideas you will develop, and which ones you will ignore. Then you define a logical flow (A logical).

A common article outline covers the following points:

  • The opening paragraph that describes of which and speak your article Why your readers should make an effort to read it. How will you make them happier?
  • The body of your article talks how to : it will be a series ofTricks or steps, with or without examples;
  • The final section includes a call to action, which will encourage your reader to implement your hint.

Sketching an article helps you write faster. You already know what you have to go through as ideas, and most importantly, you have already decided what you will leave out. You will avoid writing paragraphs that you will have to cut afterwards.

Your sketch is the checklist that will allow you to verify that you are covering all the points in the correct order.

But I'm not always sketching ...

Why not ? A sketch may seem restrictive.

A blog article is relatively short, and using a sketch can throttle the flow of writing. Writing becomes more mechanical when you use a sketch. You do not have the opportunity to escape a little, to discover something new.

« Writing freely forces our internal editor to play a subordinate role, leaving room for raw, sincere and unusual thoughts. It is from such thoughts that big ideas will tend to stand out Mark Levy (in Accidental Engineering)

When you write your blog articles freely without sketching, you still need to reassure yourself that they follow a logical flow. That's why " the reverse sketch " Is usefull.

An inverse sketch is a sketch that is written after you finish writing your article. Instead of using a sketch and thus restricting your writing, you instead create a sketch to evaluate the throughput of your article.

You make a list in which you state the central thought for each section (a series of short paragraphs after a subtitle). Then you check: do these key thoughts logically follow each other? Is there a thought that deviates from the logical sequence that you need to remove?

How to make your message heard

What you write is as important as what you leave out.

Do not distract your readers with funny coverings, if they do not go with the rest. Do not slow down your readers with your beautiful sentences if they do not contribute to your argument.

Whether you make a sketch or not, every blog post needs a key message. A big idea. A call to action.

Your blog post is good when you make your readers feel something, when you make them think, smile, or take action.

Finally, whether you sketch or not is not so important

The important thing is that your information passesno matter what style you use, and it's also important that this style goes with you.

Also do experiments! Try a hybrid approach.

Above all else, it's about having a pleasant experience word by word ... because your readers are well aware when you're having fun in your text.

Did you like this article ? Tell us a little about how you do it. Rather free writing or well calibrated writing according to a precise model? Or both?

I am waiting for your comments !