Nov 10
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If you do some article marketing for a living then you probably know how to write a magazine article. If on the other hand you’ve just started and have never really thought of how to go about it, the process is actually far easier than you make it out to be. In fact you may not know this, but you learn the basics of how to write a magazine article in that special place called school. There are five questions that are used to ensure that you have all the elements needed in order to write a good magazine article.
1) Who? – When writing a magazine article it is important to be able to clearly show who is involved. Whether this happens to be an actor o a man on the street, you still have to give them time to shine in the spotlight in order to make a good magazine article.
2) What? – This is obviously talking about what happened and this is the most narrative and descriptive parts of the story or article. Remember to stay factual when you are writing about what happened and don’t lace it with to many facts.
3) Where? – Obviously if you have a what, it is just expected that you have a place for the “what” to have happened. Knowing where allows your readers to relate to you even more and to have a much better picture in their heads about the what happened.
4) When? – Writing the facts just isn’t the same when you don’t discuss when something happens. By nature people want to make sure that what they see or read is relatively new. You will be able to get a much better reaction the newer your story is because people will still remember the facts and associations to the story.
5) Why? – The why is typically the part where you are able to give out some of your opinions and therefore is your chance to shine. Though of course, formal magazine articles rarely give you the chance to actually give an opinion it’s still important for you to have some avenue where you can release an opinion so some writers write both formal and informal work on the same topic.
At the end of the day these five questions are the key to your article writing whether it is for a magazine, newspaper or even website. Understanding and knowing how to use them wisely is an essential skill to learn.