Writing For Magazines
There’s more to writing for magazines than getting your name into Cosmopolitan. Thousands of new magazines are launched every year and it’s a big market for freelance writers. In fact, it’s even bigger now that so many magazines have an online presence. So, how do you go about writing a magazine article that will sell?
What Magazine Articles Do
I admit, I didn’t know this when I wrote my first magazine article, but most magazine articles do one of four things. They inform, adding to your knowledge about a subject. They help you to solve a problem. They persuade you about a particular viewpoint. They entertain you. Some articles do more than one of those things at the same time.
How To Structure A Magazine Article
When you’re ready to write then you need to think about structure. With magazine articles, you can move beyond the inverted pyramid of news. Instead, you can build to an important point or scatter important points throughout the article.
Tell A Story
The key thing to remember is that you’re telling a story to your readers. That means you need a beginning, a middle and an end. It also means you need to think about where you’re taking your reader and create a logical path to that end point.
Beginning Your Magazine Article
The first thing you need to do is get people to read your article, so you need to find a way to grab them. When I interview people, I often start the resulting article with a quote or an anecdote from their life. However, you can also set the scene or use anything that will get attention.
The Middle
With most magazine articles, you talk to a person or people. People like reading about other people, so if your interviewee says something good, use a quote rather than reported speech. This makes your magazine article more interesting.
Ending Your Magazine Article
Finally, end with a bang. This could be an important point, a revelation, or another anecdote or quote. The idea is to satisfy your reader and to get that reader interested in your other writing.
Extra Credit
When you research an article, you often have information left over that didn’t make it into the main piece. Don’t get rid of this. Use it to create a sidebar or table (editors will love this), or as the starting point for another article.
Sharon on October 10, 2007 
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Related Articles
Bookmark
4 Responses to “Writing For Magazines”
- magazine subscriptions » Writing For <b>Magazines</b>
- Writing Tips October 2007 : Get Paid to Write Online
Got something to say?
Sponsors
Popular Articles
- 6 Foreign Expressions You Should Know
- The Impotence of Proofreading
- Let the Word Do the Work
- 10 Rules for Writing Numbers and Numerals
- 8 Proofreading Tips and Techniques
- 40 Yiddish Words You Should Know
- TV's War on "Me" and "I"
- 34 Writing Tips That Will Make You a Better Writer
- Gross Writing Errors on the Web
- Creative Writing 101
- Latin Words and Expressions
- Usage That Provokes “Blackboard Moments”
- 44 Resume Writing Tips
Recent Articles
- Say What You Mean
- A Novel IS Fiction
- English Grammar 101: All You Need to Know
- Short Story Competition: Sixth Batch Is Open for Voting!
- Word of the Day: Bourgeois
- The Scandinavian Connection
- Five Reasons Why Blogging Leads to Writing Jobs
- How to Address Your Elders, Your Doctor, Young Children… and Your CEO
- Short Story Competition: Fifth Batch Is Open for Voting!
- Cockney Rhyming Slang
[I'm revisiting this page today while planning a forum post that will resemble a magazine article.]
The idea of “telling a story” is a good one. I happened upon it last year when I visited a site offering advice for fiction writing. The “three-act” form seemed like an interesting model for structuring a short non-fiction piece, so I tried it and it worked pretty well for me.
Act I identifies the ideas that will be considered. If they may be new to the reader, they need an explanation. By the end of the act, readers should see a problem, conflict, or opportunity–something that needs resolution. This will be the article’s main “character.” They should also know if the rest of the article is even worth reading.
Act II explores the problem, showing examples, describing subtleties, maybe analogizing to a similar but more familiar problem. If it’s a conflict, readers want to know how it came about and why it remains a conflict. If it’s an opportunity, they need to know if taking advantage of it is harder or easier than it seems. And, the march toward resolution progresses as helpful or limiting new ideas are introduced. The transition made by the main “character” (the problem) in the second act is from defined but poorly understood to well understood. Readers see the deeper texture of the problem/conflict/opportunity and have developed their own ideas about resolution.
Act III resolves the problem. The pieces are lined up, and readers have at least an inkling of how it will play out. The main character–the question at hand–is understood, and auxiliary characters–available devices and limiting constraints–are known. Now the writer puts it all together. “Here’s why the California wildfire season was so devastating this year.” “Here’s how to achieve world peace.” “To make a perfect cup of coffee every time…” BTW, your advice to end with an important point, revelation, anecdote or quote has helped me past the awkward feeling of “how the heck do I end this thing?” a few times.
english tenses