Speaker 1: Hello, welcome to Revelator Jon. So today I'm talking about writing, the tips for writing an article, a column for a magazine, newspaper or for a blog or whatever. Now obviously you can submit your work to publishers or owners of sites and hope that they might like your word, might like your wording, turn a phrase, whatever, and whatever you've got to say and they'll take it on themselves to publish. Now whether you know you get rewarded for that is you know another conversation entirely but we're just talking about getting your work out there. Now obviously you can self publish as well that's a way to go so you know you can generate your own legion of fans just by writing your own words and publishing it somewhere and letting everybody know where you're writing it. But really talking about submitting your work elsewhere and then getting it published. Now first of all you have to write it. Whatever you're going to write about you have to write it. So I used to write, I've written a lot of technical literature, a lot of technical publications, whether for industry related topics but I've also written about well my passions really so motorcycling is one of my big passions so I've written for motorcycle magazines I've submitted articles over the years but I've also produced my and published my own motorcycle magazine obviously wrote for it and you know so they and edited the whole magazine as well. So I played both writer and also editor the way I can see, so I'd always look at both sides of the story and both sides of the writing process and also the editing process. From a writing process if there's any tip that I can give you it's this, that know your subject, write about what you feel passionate about or write about what you know about certainly as a starter before you even put pen to paper or you start tapping away on you know on the keyboard have an overall idea of what you want to say what you want to write about you know whatever that message is so if you have you're going to a potential story you want to talk about the new flowers in spring for example well if you have no interest in flowers or no interest in spring you're gonna find this quite difficult aren't you so you need to have some link with it have some connection with the subject matter now that's not always the case okay so for those of you saying well what about journalists they don't always know about whether you know right about okay that is a separate issue but you can write in a great piece for a newspaper or magazine but it comes down to research if you know your if you do your research then you can research the topic and then you become aware of the topic of what you're talking about and then you can offer an opinion it all research if you don't have any knowledge if you don't do your research then you're not going to be able to write a valid piece and you might be able to write a piece that people may read but they'll start picking holes into your argument straight away so you know have some knowledge have some background knowledge and research about what the top of you and talk about or write about. So first thing to do is formulate a basic idea what do you want to talk about have that as you know doesn't have to be rock solid but have the notion of what you want to talk about. Create a plan, create a sort of structure to the article you know whether you want to start off on a high point, on a low point, whether you you feel you're going to branch off in lots of different directions but you're going to have the main stem if you like you know running its way all the way through the article. Will it jump around from one point to the next point with the next one be like a you know a treasure map if you like going from one to the next to the next you know whatever it is try and create some formulation look at other people who are writing for the magazine or the publication that you want to write for see what they're doing and how they're writing. Now just I would err on the side of caution here, because what you don't want to do is start copying another person's style. You want to develop your own style of writing and you know I have my own very distinct writing style. It may not be to everyone's liking but writing is not about that. Writing is not about you know making it pleasing for everyone you know it's it's about bringing your own personality, bringing your own opinion and then you know putting it down on paper or you know in a file or whatever it is. So creating a plan before you start writing, then having the basic idea, know what you're talking about, know the research and then start writing it down and you know and and start you know in rough form, start with a few ideas, start linking the ideas together and then building up the the article as you go. So it really depends how you want to write it and and in what style. You may want to bring in quotes you may want to bring in references to other situations maybe similar situations maybe identically might be identical situations that have happened in the past you know to give it sort of credibility depth so on and so forth so you know look at that look at how you're writing the article and and how you can expand on it. Also look at how you can make your article relevant to possibly a person that's never read anything like yours before or doesn't really know your subject matter. Okay so are you are you writing for the initiated or are you writing for for those who are oblivious to whatever's going on so again you know know who you want your audience to be and who you know for example now I'm writing for for example a new West Ham United football blog I'm more than just a club well I'm not going to start talking about Arsenal or Manchester United or you know an NFL team or something I'm writing specifically about things related to West Ham United my target audience are going to be West Ham United fans they're not going to be you know Arsenal, Liverpool, Man United fans or whatever it is that's what I mean you know who your target audience is going to be and know maybe within that target audience who you may want to aim a particular article at. So you know there are lots of elements to writing an article, lots of elements to writing a column but you know as I say you know know what you want to talk about, know having your mind the basic idea, the basic plan, know the basic structure, know who your audience is, what your target is, and then just inject your own personality and your own passion into that, into that article. Now yes you have to look at the technicalities of writing, you know, the grammar and the punctuation, you know, you know be careful not to waffle on too long in you know huge paragraphs but you know get it bite-sized get people get the message across get what you want to what the message that you want to deliver let that be accessible to people to read and then you can start building on and once you've got a bit of an order you start building on and building on from there. So hopefully that advice will help you and certainly when I was publishing and editing I would always give this advice to whoever I was helping to write and also editing their work as well. Once you've written your article or your column or whatever it is do not submit it straight away okay it's very easy to say finished send okay do not do that that's probably the worst thing you can do what you need to do is reread it reread it reread it reread it still work on the column or the article after you've finished it look at all the the grammar, the punctuation, the flow of it. Does it really work? Give yourself some breathing space, go away from the article, come back. Can you bring something else? There's something else you can talk about? And then once you've reviewed it a couple of times, you've gone through it, then submit it, okay? Okay, so don't just jump the gun and think, yeah, finished, send, okay? Just be aware of how you're writing and then always check what you've written as well. Well I hope this helps and good luck with writing and if you got any comments down below you know please add some more comments you know more this video was more about just helping writers that are just starting out really the ones that are just starting out writing I've never really written before and would like to submit something but you know whether you want to submit an article or not whether you think you want to write or not just practice writing something get you know get on your computer your laptop or on a piece of paper and just write about something and practice writing you know whatever you do in this world you know practice is just need to keep on practicing okay cheers