Headline Frenzy
January 11, 2008 · Written by Melissa Donovan
Writing for newspapers, magazines, and blogs requires a unique approach in terms of creative writing, and it all starts with the headline. Magazines use enticing headlines prominently displayed on the front cover to entice customers. Newspapers use them to draw readers into a story, and bloggers, as many of you know, use them to generate buzz and link bait.
The best headlines are catchy. They impart a teaser about what a reader can expect to find within the article. Therefore they tickle the curiosity of the target audience. They are also often memorable and include familiar phrases:
- The top ten…
- How to get…
- Everything you need to know about…
- The twelve best… ever
- What [someone] never told you about…
Other common headline strategies include the use of words and terms that quickly capture people’s attention. Examples include sex, money, lose weight, and a host of celebrity names, especially the names of anyone who’s currently in the spotlight and generating a lot of news, or rather, gossip.
For this week, the exercise is simple: write some headlines. Wait - there are a few catches.
- Write at least three headlines each for five different publications.
- Focus on newspaper and magazine headlines.
- Identify your target publication for each of your sets of headlines.
- Include at least one publication that you would never read. If you’re a swinging, childless, single person, do headlines for a parenting magazine. If you’ve never left your home state, write some headlines for a travel rag.
- Come back and post a few of examples here in the comments section.
This is great exercise for anyone who blogs or wants to get into article writing, online or off. For inspiration, check out Brian Clark’s advice on the Cosmo headline technique, or visit magazines.com for ideas about which magazines you might want to write for.
You never know, maybe one of those headlines will kick off a whole article.
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Here are my headlines:
- You don’t have to be a natural born writer in order to write.
- Freelancer, Free your writing.
- Freelance Writing can be easy.
I love writing headlines but it always takes more thought than one might expect. We might labor over the first sentence, the first paragraph; as much time should be spend on planning our title.
Different publications have differing purposes for the title. Newspapers summerizes then expand. The title should tell you all you need to know so that if you’re interested in more information you can read on. In magazines they are designed to be more captivating. They WANT you to read regardless of your interest in the topic originally.
When it comes to blog titles we need the greatest pull of all. We need to entice readers without falsifying claims. Tell them why they MUST read this entry and once hooked, deliver.
Great exercise, Melissa!
Writing Freelance, do you have a name? Only three headlines? I’d be interested to read the articles from all three that you came up with!
Good summary Rebecca, and I completely agree. I wonder how blog headlines will evolve over time. Maybe they’ll develop their own approach, a bit different from either magazines or newspapers. I think as of now, blog headlines usually reflect one of those two methods. Is there a third waiting to be discovered?