5 “whys” To Craft an Unforgettable Article

1. Why should they care?

What is the secret to successful writing?

Articles that garner thousands of views, how do they do it?

What trick take writers into the Top 1% spots on this platform?

These five whys will show you what gets people to click and read your articles to the end.

As we go through the five whys, hold in mind that big publications only give you better publicity. What gives better results is better writing.

1. Why should they care?

We talk a lot about grabbing attention, but what we fail to focus on is what really makes people give you their attention. A better way to ask this is, would you give your attention to that which you do not care about?

When I started, I focused on grabbing readers' attention, I made a study of it, and what I found was, something like this;

• Good introduction.
• A story — an anecdote.
• Compelling questions.
• Powerful quotes, etc…

While these are good ways to start your piece, they are not enough to get your audience hooked to the end.

The key I discovered is that, no matter what your introduction says, if it fails to make people care about something within your piece, they will move on. I say something for a reason. Something could be an idea or a character.

Once your readers invest emotionally or connect with something you say or some character you introduced, you've just made them invest their emotions, that way, they become curious to know how it ends, or how you came about the idea. You've gotten them to care.

2. Why should they click?

There are hundreds of thousands of articles, if not millions, published on this platform every day. Readers are literally suffering from mental paralysis, trying to decide which article to read.

Your focus, therefore, is to hone in and answer the question of why they should care to click yours, among the hundreds of thousands of others.

This is where you want to nail your title and image. To increase your reads, you must increase your click rates. Let's face it, how will anyone know how good your work is if they do not click to find out?

You don't want to go lazy on finding a very good title and image for your piece. It will determine your click success.

What I have found to work for me is a thought-provoking title, a little bit of clickbaity, and also a bit evergreen. Take for example the following titles, which would you readily click on?

If you look closely, you'd discover that one immediately arouses your curiosity. And the other? You probably can't seem to be bothered. The desire to know what is hidden behind the claim on the title is what pushes you to click.

Click here to read how to write strong attention-grabbing titles.

3. Why should they read?

This is where you want to make sure your title isn't actually clickbait. You want to make sure you deliver on the promise of the title.

Why should they read my piece? This is the question I ask myself each time I open up my notepad or Medium editor.

I started working on a book recently. The idea came to me while I was having a conversation with my partner. So I quickly jotted down the idea and title based on the mood at the time.

When I revisited it later to draw more on it, I discovered it was unfounded. I had simply gotten inspired by the moment — by an emotion. But I could feel there was a good idea behind it. So I asked myself this question, why should anyone read this book?

It took me a few hours of pacing and pondering over what caused that emotion and what it can lead to. And then, viola, it came — the why. Why do I have to write it? The theme and message of the book turned out to be; what are the signs and how does genuine love really affect a man’s life? A good message, isn't it?

Find your message and your why. What would your reader get from your article? How can you deliver on the promise of your title?

4. Why can’t they leave?

I planned on writing a piece about Michael Thompson if ever I come around to structuring the piece properly. And I plan to because, when I read his piece, I can’t seem to log off. I read an article, and the first paragraph has me hooked, and not only that, it has me hooked until the end.

As a matter of fact, this piece was inspired by him. When I realized I find it hard to not finish an article he wrote, and I kept coming back for more, I had to analyze why that is. And the result is this article.

I have studied his style of writing and made him my writing career role model. He is good — too good. He is a master in not just the art of writing but in the art of hooking an audience to the end.

Do you want to make sure readers get to the bottom of your article? Then get them hooked with a story or dimly lit idea. What do I mean by a dimly lit idea?

In my article, Life is not just the passing of time, I wrote the following lines;

Life is not just the passing of time, it is a collection of experiences, their frequencies and the intensity of those experiences.

What I did was introduce an idea of the concept of time. It wasn't complete, which meant it was dimly lit.

Now that stands as a grabber, to get the reader hooked, to want to find out what the heck the idea is about and what it means.

Getting your audience hooked, as I learned from Michael Thompson, could also start a story emotionally intensely. Look at the following lines, from Michael Thompson’s piece titled, 3 Questions to Stop Wasting Valuable Energy on Meaningless Arguments.

“Laia!” I shouted. “What’s a bad word for a woman that starts with a K and ends with an N?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” my wife shot back. “English is your first language, not mine!”

“I’m not sure. Someone just left a comment on one of my articles saying I was a K that ends with an N. Any clue what she’s talking about?”

I’ve come across very few articles with such a great hook. Do you want readers to start from the top and get to the bottom? Then get them hooked from the beginning.

5. Finally, the last why

If you get all these right, it will automatically answer the last why — why should they come back?

They'll come back because they know you know what you are doing. They will come back because they know you made them care, which means you engage their emotions. They will come back because they know you gave them something to remember.

They will come back because you make them feel they are not alone. You showed you're human too, and they related to that.

Ultimately, they will come back because you gave them a moment of literary experience.

7 years ago I sailed the Mediterranean in search of a meaningful life, follow me to read the stories and lessons from my journey here.