How to Write a Great Article in 30 Minutes.

Articles are the easiest form of writing to get your hands on and this means if you’re an upcoming writer or a writer who wants to write more professionally, you should definitely attempt to write one.

Now, before experienced writers come for me (in various subtle ways varying from taking a screenshot of that statement alone, sharing on their personal platforms or in chat rooms to calling me a joke in the DM) I want to back up that statement with the observations that led to that conclusion:

Articles are usually educational, informative, clear and written to drive a change.

They are usually written out of the need to shed some light on how something can be achieved, ways to get better results using a product or a service and are usually wrapped in valuable information that are universal and true to a sector, concept or industry.

This doesn’t mean that no level of creativity is required or that storytelling is thrown out of the window; it’s just that it’s a more structured kind of writing – the flow is linear, the mission is defined from the onset and the conclusion is already in mind.

It’s reality writing. It’s marketing writing. It’s value writing.

Now that I’m done clearing the debris around the introductory statement of this article, let’s get to how to write a great article in 10 minutes. You might think this is a bluff but it's how I wrote this article and the numerous ones here.

Of course, this might be different if it's a topic you know nothing about because you would need to read and research to be able to do this. This is for writing articles on things you already know about or a brand you've interacted with countless times.

These are seven steps to writing an awesome article in 10 minutes:

1.      Note the value you want to give. Let’s assume a content writer needs to write an article for a luxury fashion brand. The best form of marketing (most especially content marketing) is to provide value for the audience. The reason it seems difficult for him or her to write something relevant and engaging is because they are thinking SELL not GIVE. The best thing to do is to highlight the services and products the brand provides and ask questions people might already have about them. If one of their services is ‘wardrobe styling’ for example, the writer can decide to educate their audience on how every piece of clothing they have in their wardrobes matter and how the brand can help put things together for whoever gets to read it. Another awesome tip I’ll give here is to state many possible titles. Just write them down and you’ll come back to them once you’re done writing.

2.      List the most important points you must make. At this stage, you already have your idea and you need to highlight the most important things that would drive your points home. Don’t worry about flow here, just pen down the things that would lead to the conclusion you want. Highlight the steps, the processes and the journey to get there. Here, you'll need to highlight the research you'd need to do and the exact facts you'd need to make your point.

3.      Decide what style of writing you want to adopt that’s suitable for your audience and that would best communicate your value to them. Sometimes, you might need just one style and at other times, it’s a blend of two or more.

4.      Get to writing linearly. Just go straight to typing your ideas, the points and the conclusions. Don’t tell the joke yet. Don’t make the analogy yet. Don’t share the facts yet. Just state those points to the last sentence.

5.      Start to fill up. Now go back to the beginning and fill things up. Write your introduction (remember that this is one of the most important parts of your article. Ensure to grab their attentions from here); then fill in the body. Evaluate each point in a specific, defined, factual and simple manner. Then when you reach the conclusion, drive home that point with the action you’d like them to take.

6.      Read it out loud. Make edits. Simplify sentences, correct typographical errors, do better justice with a point. Read it again. Make a few changes.

7.      Publish and distribute.

The challenge with most of us (young and upcoming writers) is that we want to write masterpieces all the time but we forget that the best masterpieces didn’t come out of a determined writer desperate to write one, it was born out of a writer who had something to say and had the courage to say it the best way they could.

I hope that this would help your writing as you continue writing and if you have any questions about writing or would like a one-on-one consulting session, send me a message here or on Instagram.