Published October 7th, 2008 by
'How To Improve Your First Fifty Words Using Slicing Techniques' by Sean D’Souza
Sean D’Souza’s latest article is titled “How To Improve Your First Fifty Words Using Slicing Techniques”. [Article]
Sean D’Souza’s latest article:
How To Improve Your First Fifty Words Using Slicing Techniques
You might like cake a lot.
Yet, even the most adventurous of us, would kinda hesitate to eat an entire cake.
This is because the entire cake becomes too much to eat.
And even if we did eat that mountain of sugar and frosting, we’d feel sick.
Article-writing is like eating too much cake Most of us are utterly convinced that starting up an article is extremely difficult.
That the first fifty words are pure hell.
But you see, the difficulty doesn’t lie in the opening. Or the writing of the opening.
It lies in the getting the clarity of your thought down to a slice And this clarity of thought must come way before you put pen to paper (or before you clatter away on your keyboard).
So what I’m suggesting is that you don’t write the article at all.
Instead you first clarify what you’re thinking.
So how do we clarify our thoughts?
Step 1: You first write down in about 4-5 lines what you think is the general theme of the article you’re writing. This is your mini-explanation.
Step 2: Choose three or four words that sum up the article.
Step 3: Choose one word that is most relevant among those ‘four words’
Step 4: Find an every day object or situation that relates to the ‘four words’
Step 1: Here are my four-five lines
The article I’m about to write, is about how you can alienate the audience by using certain examples. For instance, examples like baseball.
Or cricket. Or use mother-in-law jokes. Or political issues. These examples are inappropriate, because of several reasons, which I will list in my article.
Step 2: Choose Four Words (or less)…yes less is better Alienate.
Audience.
Certain Examples.
Step 3: Reduce those four words down to just one Alienate
Step 4: Looking for everyday objects or situations that involve ‘alienation.’
Example 1: Excommunication from a group.
Example 2: Punished in the classroom.
Example 3: Not invited to a party.
Now without much trouble you’re getting situations or examples from where you can focus on a slice, instead of the entire cake.
You’ve got a good opening. And your article is starting to get some momentum.
But which factor would kill the momentum?
Choosing too many words would kill our momentum.
So instead of just one word like ‘alienate’, if we chose two words such as ‘alienate audiences,’ then our brain already starts to go down a path that may be too restrictive.
So ‘alienate audiences’ would bring up thoughts and examples such as:
Example 1: Talking down to an audience.
Example 2: Talking about yourself.
Example 3: Don’t make eye contact.
Where as a single word like ‘alienate’ would bring up a variety of situations
Example 1: Excommunication from a group.
Example 2: Punished in the classroom.
Example 3: Not invited to a party.
One-word clarity leads to a whole bunch of concepts and ideas These concepts and ideas then form the basis of your opening.
They create drama, because you can see the story unfolding, when you describe examples like ‘not being invited to a party, or ‘being punished in a classroom.’
It’s the slicing that has led to the example.
And the example that’s then expanded to create a powerful opening to your article.
And all of this occurs before you write a single word of your article.
As you can see, you can have your cake and eat it too.
As long as its in tiny slices.
©2001-2008 Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Sean D’Souza is chief executive of Psychotactics and is an international author, speaker and trainer.
*IMNewswatch would like to Sean D’Souza for granting permission to reprint this article.