Break into sections, then structure the parts
So you’ve chosen your organizing scheme. Here are some tips for pulling your story together.
1. Put your info in buckets.
As you gather and organize information, think of your material as “buckets” of like information. Depending on the scope of the project, your buckets might be physical file folders, files on my laptop, Word documents, even bookmarked sections within a Word doc.
until Aug. 31
For a marketing brochure, for instance, you might have buckets on how the product helps customers:
- Save money
- Make money
- Save time
Each bucket becomes its own section in the body of the piece.
2. Write a ‘lead’ for each bucket.
Master writers craft mini feature structures for each section, giving each section its own “lead.”
3. Label your buckets.
Your reader should be able to see at a glance how your piece is organized. To show them, place a meaningful subhead before:
- Each section of the body
- The conclusion
That will make your thinking visual and your structure clear.
What structure draws more readers?
Writers say, “We use the inverted pyramid because readers stop reading after the first paragraph.” But in new research, readers say, “We stop reading after the first paragraph because you use the inverted pyramid.”
If the traditional news structure doesn’t work, how should we organize our messages?
Want to master a structure that’s been proven in the lab to outperform the traditional news format. If so, bring Ann in to present Catch Your Readers — a persuasive-writing course — to your team.
There, they’ll learn an organizing scheme that grabs readers’ attention, keeps it for the long haul and leaves a lasting impression.
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