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How To Write An Article That Flows

January 02nd , 2008

by Marsha Maung

Have you ever come across an interesting article on the Internet and felt like you were really, truly interested in what the writer had to say on the topic concerned? And yet, as you went on reading, you kind of….lost the gist of the story and felt that you had to go back to re-read the first and second part to connect the dots? Then after the second attempt, you lose it altogether and say to yourself ‘Screw it!’?

A lot of my friends suffer from the same writer’s syndrome which is about ‘the flow of the article’. Be it a book that you’re trying to write, an article, an ebook, a newsletter, et al, it’s important to have flow in your article. A jerky story turns people off. I was reading an article written by an established author about a problem she had – she was writing a new book, a love story cum mystery story but somehow, when her friends pre-read it for her, they found that there was something missing. Their comments were, “It’s like trying to read a really huge, big, very high wall”. She didn’t take their comments to heart but she remembered it and tried to do something about it. The dots didn’t connect, she agreed. The story was choppy and the characters were not in tune with each other and their personalities were inconsistent.

Huge problem.

If you asked me what are the tricks to writing an article that had flow, I wouldn’t know where to start, really, because there are no tricks! Absolutely none….well, none that I know of, anyway. To me, it’s an intuitive thing, you know, the kind of thing you get after years and years of putting thoughts down on paper. So, the more you write, the better you get at making things connect and flow nicely.

But that’s not the end of the story here. The journey to writing good articles with a nice flow also includes practicing how to run through your articles over and over…and over and over again! Polishing it, editing, proof-reading things and trying to connect all the missing and left-out dots all the time. As you write, especially if the story or article is long, you get thrown off track once in a while. It’s common, not a disease. That’s why it’s something no one in this whole wide world can teach you. No one can hold your hand and show you ‘Here. Here’s how you write an article that flows flawlessly’. Nope. This is not the way article writing or book writing or any other form of writing works.

Reading your own article over and over again helps you too but if I put a gun to my head right now and ask me to name ONE THING that will really help, it would be to write a skeleton before starting to write the article.

Just put the ideas and points in point form. Then when you write, refer to the skeleton, pick out the points and connect them one by one. You must find a relationship between the points and start off the paragraph connected to the previously. Find a way to build a relationship between the two points. And if there are many points within the same article, what would really help make the article flow is to find a central issue that all the points have in common. That’s the main purpose of the article. Instead of derailing off the main point when writing the article, keep your focus on the main issue. The main issue could be ‘how to stop losing sleep over your kids’ school work’ or ‘how to build your business on the Internet’ or ‘how to find clothes that fit without putting a dent into your accounts.

That’s your focus and if you work around the central focus, all the dots automatically (hopefully….most of the time) connect itself.

Hope that helps.

Marsha Maung is a Malaysian-based freelance writer who has been in the search engine marketing business for more than 8 years. Today, she spends her time alternating between being a mother to her kids and mother to her clients' websites and blogs! Now, she is a popular SEO blog content writer and service provider. Visit her website http://www.marshamaung.com for more info and if you want dirty personal details, visit her blog at http://www.marshamaung.blogspot.com .