How To Write A 500 Word Magazine Article

Some Basics on Magazine Writing

by W. Terry Whalin

Bare page. You roll the newspaper into the typewriter and sit in that location poised with your hands on the keys. Or maybe you turn on your computer and sit with an empty screen. What practice you write?

Many writers and would-exist writers have told me how that bare page petrifies them. In this article, we'll explore my technique for putting together a mag commodity from idea to finished product.

Getting over the Hump

It's a rare day that I have trouble putting those initial words on paper. I ever do some preparation ahead of fourth dimension, then utilize a slight trick. Ideas for magazine articles are everywhere and the places to write are just as plentiful. Maybe you have an interesting personal experience story that you can capture? Possibly you take been involved in a ministry and created some unique materials that y'all'd like to tell to others through a how-to article. Maybe you've compiled some teaching on a topic from the Bible and would similar to get that into print.

Or if y'all don't accept whatsoever textile from your own experience to write about, consider interviewing some interesting people effectually yous and writing their story for publication.

The commencement question to ask is: who is my audience? What publication will use this article? The possibilities are end-less: adult, women, men, children, teenagers, or youth. Are they in a specialized occupation such as pastors or school-teachers? Are they a certain age? The important thing is to be certain to target a specific audience--not simply Christians in general.

Every author meets with rejection and projects which are never published. In fact, I have files of material which has circulated and never been published. I caution you that rejection and unpublished articles is a function of the writer's life and the route to consistent publication.

Increase Your Publications Odds

The bulk of my magazine writing is done on assignment. How do you lot get an assignment? Which magazines exercise y'all read on a consistent footing? Your familiarity with these publications and the types of articles that they publish, gives you some needed background.

Pull out the magazines that come into your dwelling house.

Organize them with several months from the same publication. And then study the contents. What types of articles practise they publish? How-to articles? Personal Feel? For example, at Decision almost every article is a beginning-person, personal experience story. If you transport them a how-to commodity which is not written in the outset person, you lot are asking for rejection. Or if you write a story nearly someone else in the third-person, yous volition over again invite rejection.

After you take studied the publications, then write the publication for their writers guidelines. Almost every magazine has guidelines for their author. Write a unproblematic letter asking for guidelines and enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope for the response. Yous tin can find the address for the publication usually on the masthead of the magazine nether editorial offices. Or use The Christian Writers Marketplace Guide by Jerry B. Jenkins. This guide is a critical tool if you are going to write for the Christian marketplace. After reading through the guidelines, you lot will have some additional information. Does the publication have query messages or prefer full manuscripts? Some magazines have a query only system. This means that yous have to write a query letter and get a letter of the alphabet of request from the editor, before sending the full manuscript. Other publications similar Conclusion do non look at query letters but only completed manuscripts.

What's a query letter? Unabridged books take been written on this topic and one of the best is Irresistible Query Letters past Lisa Collier Cool (Writer'due south Digest Books). A query is a unmarried-page letter which sells your story idea. It has a four paragraph formula. The first paragraph is a creative beginning for your commodity. You lot don't write the entire article--only the first paragraph which captures the reader's interest. The purpose of this first paragraph is simply to capture the editor'southward attending. I won't walk you through the solar day of an editor but since I've been i for years, I know they are involved in a multitude of tasks. For editors to read query letters, it is often done at the end of the day, late at dark or in a car pool on the manner home. It must be interesting.

The 2nd paragraph includes the main points of how you will arroyo the commodity. The tertiary paragraph gives your personal qualifications for this topic and your writing credits (if any). It basically answers the question, why should you of all the writers get this consignment? Highlight your own area of expertise in this paragraph.

The terminal paragraph says how soon yous could write the article (give yourself enough fourth dimension for example, "iii weeks from assignment") and says yous are enclosing a cocky-addressed, stamped envelope and looking forward to their reply. I often send the letter to as many as ten unlike publications at the same time.

Within the magazine concern, there is an on-going discussion about simultaneous submissions (where you transport the same finished article to several publications). If you practise this, you may cease up on the blackness list of authors. Each publication has a list of people that they volition not work with. You don't desire to be on that list. Besides each publication has a list of authors they use regularly and call with ideas. Your goal is to go on this particular list of regular contributors.

From my perspective, a simultaneous query is not the aforementioned equally a finished commodity. Go ahead and query several magazines at the same time on the same topic if y'all think you tin write several different articles on the same subject field. One magazine may ask for 500 words on the topic while another may approach it from an entirely unlike viewpoint and inquire for 2,000 words. Your illustrations and information will be considerably different. If you send it to ten magazines, you may get x rejections. On the other hand, perhaps you will become an acceptance or two, or at least a request to encounter the entire commodity on speculation. "On speculation" means that the editor is non under obligation to buy your article if it doesn't encounter the periodical's standards or expectations.

A word about rejection of your queries and manuscripts

An article or query may exist rejected for many different reasons. Perhaps the publication has already purchased an article on that topic. Perhaps they've recently assigned it to another author. Possibly they take an article on that topic coming in an issue which is already in production just not printed. There are many different reasons for rejection which are out of your control as a writer.

Sometimes fifty-fifty out of rejection comes an consignment. Several years ago, I had queried a number of magazines most writing on listening to the Bible on tape. I targeted the January bug of publications for this curt how-to article. Every magazine rejected it.

Several weeks after, I received a phone call from a new editor at Christian Life magazine. They too had rejected the idea earlier. "We're sorting through some old queries," she explained. "Would you be able to write 500 words on the topic in the side by side three weeks?" No problem. That little article turned into ane of my near popular manufactures for reprint in other publications.

After Deciding Your Topic

You've decided what publication and what type of article you are going to write. What adjacent? Research. I word of caution virtually enquiry. Brand sure you have a specific catastrophe to your research. Some writers spend huge amounts of time in research and never sit down and write the article. How volition you lot collect the data for your article? Will it come from your personal experience? Volition yous need some stories from other people? Volition it involve library enquiry for statistics?

At your local library, brand friends with the local librarians. They are a gold mine of information and resource.

Sometimes a story will crave interviewing several people or one person. While this article is non well-nigh interviewing, make certain y'all prepare as much ahead of time earlier the interview with your questions. Also utilize a recording device for the actual interview. I have a pocket-size micro-cassette thespian which is virtually immediately forgotten by the person that I'1000 interviewing. Any number of times, I've had people lean closer to me (speaking closer into the machine) and say, "I've never told this to anyone."

For some stories, the interview doesn't have to exist very long--even ten minutes on the telephone can go some useful stories and quotations--provided yous're asking pointed questions.

Only remember for interviewing:

* no matter how famous the person, don't forget they are a existent person too with feelings and concerns. It will help you treat them naturally.

* if it is a telephone interview, y'all take to tell the person that you are recording the conversation for legal purposes and as well use a good recording device (try your local Radio Shack for ideas).

* if the person is well-known and seemingly unreachable. Try request their publisher to prepare up an interview. Explicate your purpose and the amount of time that you need. Nigh publishers are more willing to help you to schedule an interview with their authors. These publishers will furnish you with complimentary books as background for your research and schedule the interview time. After the article is published, make sure yous ship or arrange for the magazine to ship, a copy of the article back to the publisher. Publicists for book publishing houses, have dozens of projects going simultaneously. Your article will appear months subsequently you lot fix the interview. Some of these interviews consequence in articles and others do not. You want to found your track record with the publishers for following through on your ideas and getting the information from their author published. This step of sending them the article builds your credibility and reputation as a writer for future writing projects.

Later on the Inquiry

If you've written a query alphabetic character, and so you lot've already written the opening for your article. Otherwise, the showtime footstep in the writing is to create a motivating opening story. The key phrase is to make it motivating. The opening has to propel the reader into the rest of the article so they can't cease reading.

Hither's one example from my own personal story: "I've gone to church most of my life but I lived off my parent'southward faith until one-half way through my sophomore year in college." How is that? Would information technology propel you to keep reading?

Here's the way my story began in a published article, "I slapped the snooze alarm for the third time and finally opened my optics at Chi Phi, my fraternity house. Terminal night had been a late one. Afterward covering an evening spoken language and inter-view for the school newspaper, I worked frantically on the story until only earlier midnight, when I dropped it into the hands of a waiting editor."

Compare these two examples. Detect the detail in the second version. I am not telling you near the experience, I am showing you. Repeatedly the writing books and teachers say, "Testify don't tell." They are saying to include dialogue and the blazon of particular for a story which volition propel the reader into the article.

After writing the opening for the article, how do y'all continue? If you've done your research for the commodity, yous will not write ii,000 words for a publication that only takes 500 word articles. And so yous volition accept a target length for your article. This word count helps give some definition to your plan.

Besides if you've done your research, yous've idea near the article and focused information technology. Tin can you summarize the point of the commodity into a unmarried sentence? Complete the sentence: My article is nigh _____. After you've written this judgement, never wander away from this goal. Sometimes in manufactures, I saw at Decision, the author would begin well then wander around and finally conclude. The articles lacked focus and the sentence statement will help you keep the commodity on rails.

I write from an outline. Normally my article will take a number of points or illustrations. A standard outline would be the problem, the possible solutions and your solution. If y'all're writing about a person, your outline might include different aspects of the person's life such as childhood, life before Christ and life after Christ. Write out the different points for your outline. When I write a curt story, I use the aforementioned arroyo. What is the beginning, middle and ending? An outline keeps the writer focused on the goal of the article.

Besides be realistic with yourself and your writing life. Can you lot merely write for 30 minutes a day or mayhap it is only x minutes? Are you motivated to write the unabridged article in one session? Maybe you write but one point from your outline during a session. Whatever your writing goal, the point is to write consistently and keep moving the article toward completion.

After y'all've written the article, put information technology away for a period of fourth dimension. If you are on a tight borderline, that might involve eating lunch and so returning to it. If yous have the time, it might involve several days or a week. When you return to your commodity, read it out loud. The ear is less forgiving than the heart. Reading it out loud, will betoken out areas for you to revise and rewrite.

Good writing is rewriting

Hither are some questions to consider: Does it make sense? Are at that place areas that are missing? Can y'all tell some of the stories with more than detail and emotion? Is the article focused and targeted for the assigned publication? How virtually the ending? Every bit a reader, how exercise you lot experience nigh it?

Try to look at your writing through objective and impersonal eyes. Consider the purpose of your commodity. Was information technology to motivate readers to action? Did information technology achieve it's purpose?

Sweep through the commodity and cheque it for spelling and grammar mistakes. Yous'd be amazed to know how many articles are submitted for publication with typing errors and simple grammatical mistakes. As a writer, you want to present the best article possible. Give information technology an boosted check.

If you have the opportunity, you might want to allow a friend or a fellow writer to read your article and give you feedback. One caution about this procedure. Ultimately y'all are in charge of the contents of the article that you lot will submit. Don't soak up criticism like a sponge just consider each comment. Does it accept validity? If so, change it and if not, ignore it.

The last step is to submit your textile to a publication. In your cover letter to the publication, explicate your familiarity with the magazine. If y'all've been taking it for years and faithfully reading it, say so. Don't exaggerate but this familiarity shows your professional stance. Likewise express your willingness to make changes in the direction and make revision. Maybe an editor will similar your opening illustration simply have a completely different management for the article. If you've expressed willingness to revise, y'all will have an opportunity for publication. If you've said, I wrote it and this is it, so you lot'll miss that opportunity. The professional stance is to show flexibility to the direction from an editor.

In that location are many excellent books on writing mag articles. They volition include greater detail than I tin provide in a unmarried article. You can go these four titles throgh the links on the titles. The ones I recommend are:

* Introduction to Christian Writing by Ethel Herr (ACW Press). This is a expert bones Christian writing text with easily-on exercises at the end of every chapter.

* The Magazine Article, How to Call up It, Plan It, Write Information technology by Peter Jacobi (Indiana University Printing). Dr. Jacobi regularly teaches at Folio seminars which is where editors of the major magazines get boosted preparation. He teaches magazine writing at Indiana University.

* Basic Magazine Writing by Barbara Kevles (Author's Digest Books). This book covers vii different types of articles.

* Handbook of Magazine Commodity Writing (Writer's Digest Books). Hither is a compilation of some of the best articles about magazine writing from past issues of Writer's Digest magazine in 1 volume.

A Concluding Word

Writing for magazines has no formula.

Each commodity is unique from a creative source--you the writer. But at that place is an expected format for articles. Your manuscript needs to exist in a professional manner--typed, double-spaced with good margins, etc. Some publications have a formula to be followed for a specific section of their magazine (word length, essential elements, etc.).

Each writer has to discover their place with words. The process of discovery takes initiative on your part to pace out and endeavour. Also it involves getting some rejection but persistence. Maybe you can't write educational activity articles but you accept a creative bent for teenagers. This process of cocky-discovery begins with a unmarried step.

Several years agone, I received a letter from a prisoner who had read my biography about Romulo Saune (1 Bright Shining Path). Other times, I have received letters from children who take enjoyed my books. We'll never know the touch on of our words and articles. As I read magazine articles and they motivate me to action and change, your manufactures can have the aforementioned impact.

Take the step and begin to fill that blank folio with words.

__________________________________________________

W. Terry Whalin understands both sides of the editorial desk--equally an editor and a writer. He worked as an editor for Determination and In Other Words. His magazine manufactures have appeared in more than than 50 publications including Writer'due south Digest and Christianity Today. Terry has written more lx nonfiction books and one of his latest books is Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams. See more almost Terry at:www.correct-writing.com/whalin.html. For more 12 years Terry has been an ECPA Gilt Medallion judge in the fiction category. He has written extensively about Christian fiction and reviewed numerous fiction books in publications such as CBA Marketplace and BookPage. He is an Acquisitions Editor at Morgan James Publishing and creator of www.right-writing.com. Sign upwardly for Terry'due south free newsletter, Right Writing News. Terry and his wife, Christine, alive in Colorado.