3 Article Types Nudge Inspiration

A lot of people who blog, or who want to blog, have a problem thinking of blog topics. When someone asks me how to blog more effectively, my first piece of advice is always this:

Create an editorial calendar with a set number of topics about which you can write endlessly.

Today, I'll talk about another way to approach the problem of creating content consistently, and that is to work from a list of article types. From my days of freelance writing, I know that using article types nudges a writer's imagination.

Here are 3 tips that will help you quickly and creatively create new content.

3 Article Types To Add To Your Repertoire

Explain

Explain how to do something. My friend AnneMarie Novark often writes articles explaining how to do simple things that most of us think everyone already knows. AnneMarie is smart enough to realize that not everyone knows how to insert a hot link or how to use simple HTML to make text appear bold.

Deconstruct

This is the kissing cousin of Explain. You're explaining here too, but you're breaking down big concepts into bite-size chunks.

Learn to look at complex ideas and processes and figure out how to break them down for mass consumption. I do this a lot. I tackle some subject that many see as overwhelming and break it into manageable steps.

That's what I did when I was learning how to turn my books into audio books using ACX. I ended up writing 10+ articles about the subject for Writing Hacks, my subscription newsletter. (I'll be compiling all that content into an ebook for publication this month in case you aren't a subscriber and missed that.)

List

Make lists of things. Readers love lists. It's easy to put together a list that will be of help to your readers. Here are a few I've done:

1. 8 Rules for a Happy Writing Career

2. 10 Ways Not To Write A Book

3. 12 Steps To Success

You can do the list from a positive or a negative standpoint. Sometimes, the negative "not to" list is even more effective if it helps the reader to identify their own shortcomings.

Takeaway Truth

It's a lot easier to accomplish a task when you have a plan.