The 5 Things Aspiring Writers Don't Know About Writing Online
What you learned in school won't help you
Your old college English teacher is livid. Although she has a teaching degree, she can no longer show you how to write well.
Because you insist on writing online.
And she wasn’t trained to guide you in this space. (I know, in another life, this was me).
Sure, she can still help you write academic essays, name the clause in a sentence, and think critically. And if you’re an academic or professional, you thank her. These are invaluable skills.
But if your goal as a writer is to attract and connect with readers online, you’re in for a surprise. Now you must start unlearning much of what you learned in her classroom.
Because the online writing world (OWW) is another planet.
Welcome to the Online Writing World
The OWW is vast, stimulating, and competitive, and a writer must stand out and deliver.
Because, like it or not, we all become excitable children when we go online. It’s a spring fair, a Saturday market, a Black Friday sale. There is so much to explore and fascinate us. Where to now?
Picture your reader navigating the best possible immersion library. It’s full of fabulous imagery, games, and soundscapes. A storytelling session is happening in a cozy corner; she can sit and stay wherever she wants! Then she can move on, the minute it’s boring.
Online readers expect to be captivated. We’ve become aliens to ourselves on the OWW planet, and our needs and attention spans are not the same as in real life.
So, when writing your post, don’t waste time on
past participles
long lead-ins
perfect paragraphs.
Instead, obsess over these five.
1. Take time crafting the headline.
There’s a reason great writers spend 80% of their time just on the headline.
If you fail here, you’ll lose your readers and waste the other 20% of your writing time.
Headlines that work are clear, claim a benefit for the reader, and entice them to read on.
Some examples that never fail:
How to Achieve…Without Needing to Give Up…
A Guaranteed Method for Achieving/Avoiding….
The…Things Most People Don’t Know About…
9 Out of 10 People Make This Mistake. Do You?
Start with proven templates like these, known to catch readers’ attention, and grow and experiment from there in your own style.
2. Grab the reader’s attention
The headline has made a promise.
Now, you must make your opening punchy. Can’t-look-away-because-I might-need-this-captivating.
Yes, it taps into FOMO.
Make it clear.
Make it stop me in my scrolling tracks.
Make me curious about what it offers.
What works?
Questions
Facts
Controversial opinions
Experiences
Quotes
For example:
Are you afraid to…?
When it comes to…, there is only one right answer.
If you’ve ever wanted to get fit, save money and work less…, read on.
3. Plan to be read on a small screen
90% of readers are on their cell phones. And possibly in motion. For sure, distractable.
So catch their attention with a relevant image.
Give them plenty of space around the words and paragraphs. Keep the paragraphs short.
Mix it up and make it musical with short and long sentences.
Keep to the length of post that’s expected on that platform. Don’t go overly long.
Understand that reading your post has to be easy on the eyes, or they’ll leave.
And that each sentence needs to lead to the next to keep the readers with you.
4. Engage with anecdotes
Personal stories draw us in.
It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. It can be what happened to you yesterday.
Don't feel you must start at the beginning of the story. Try starting strong with the big dramatic moment and working your way back.
What can you tell us about what happened to you and what you learned from it? Who were you before and after?
How does knowing that help us, the readers?
This is where your uniqueness meets your insights and wows us.
We see you better, and ourselves too. And the lessons from the everyday life that we’re all living.
And you’ll never go wrong with creating the human connection and meaning we all crave.
5. Read the room and know the platform
If you’re in a bookstore, you usually make a beeline for the shelves with the kind of book you’re looking for. So, if you want business advice, you’ll be a bit peeved to see a gardening book there. It looks like someone misplaced that book.
The shelf name determines the kind of books shelved there.
It’s the same online.
The platform determines the kind of posts there.
For example, a reader on LinkedIn is there to learn about work-related topics. Writing about networking, commuting, and office etiquette fits here. So if you want to write about parenting on LinkedIn, no problem, but be sure it somehow relates to work.
Or write about it elsewhere.
There are expectations and traditions on each platform, including:
length of a post
number of images
topics covered.
Spend time reading and researching platforms to see what posts perform well there. Which writers are popular, and why?
Think of it like visiting another culture. The more research you do, the more respect you’ll show, and the more welcome you’ll be.
Once you put some time into mastering these five techniques, you’ll start attracting a tribe of readers who resonate with your outlook on life. And want to gobble up whatever you post.
Who knows. Maybe your English teacher will find her way back to you and be impressed, finally?