Make your writing easier with my fill-in-the-blanks approach for structuring articles

Smart financial professionals often struggle to convert their ideas into compelling prose, losing readers in the first paragraph.

Photo: Joe Mud

If this sounds like you, you can benefit from my fill-in-the-blanks approach to write your introductory paragraph and structure your article, blog post, or other writing.

Step 1: Identify three keys to your article

This approach depends on your identifying three pieces of information:

1. Your target audience

2. Their problem

3. The solution

Step 2: Write your fill-in-the-blanks intro

To craft a compelling introduction, take the key information from from Step 1 and drop it into the blanks highlighted in yellow in the illustration below.

In other words: Name of target audience struggle with brief description of problem. You can solve this problem with brief description of solution.

Does this structure seem familiar?

It should. I used it in the first paragraph of this blog post. Name of target audience: smart financial professionals. Brief description of problem: struggle to convert their ideas into compelling prose. Brief description of solution: my fill-in-the-blanks approach.

Introducing your topic this way quickly shows your audience that you’re speaking to them and their needs. Plus, they’ve got an incentive to continue reading because you have a solution for their problem.

Step 3: Flesh out the formula in the remainder of your article

You’ve set expectations in your introduction, so follow through in your article. If it’s a brief piece, such as a blog post, dive in to explaining the solution. If it’s a longer piece, such as a white paper, you can first describe your audience and its problem in more detail to show you grasp their challenges. This enhances your credibility.