How to Write A Beginning and an End

Dear @dottie,

You wanted to know how to write openings and endings. So here goes.

There are several factors that are consistent through all writing.

All writing has a beginning, and an end.

Beginning

The purpose of good writing is to be interesting enough.

Interesting enough to make the reader want to read the following word.

The following sentence. Paragraph. Page. Chapter. Book.

There is a lot that has to go into the beginning of a piece. Research. Outlines. Research. And more research.

When you begin writing, you should already have a strong understanding of your audience.

• What do they fear?
• What do they desire?
• What's their life situation?
• What do they enjoy?
• Where do they hang out?

Obviously not all of those are going to be relevant to your particular piece. But knowing them helps.

You can always open with a shocking statement. Or a call-out to a particular group. Yet always, always arouse curiosity.

It's a great idea to study great copywriting for openings - these are principles that work, and have worked, for decades.

"The one-legged golfer." "They all laughed when I sat at the piano, but when I started playing!"... you get the idea.

The biggest problem which people struggle with is the segue from the headline into the actual body of the text.

The most common way to solve this is to remove the first paragraphs, or sentences. Dump people straight into the action. The story. The emotions.

Everyone loves stories, and everyone tells stories. Whether to themselves, or friends. Or masses of people.

Ending

The ending of a text is generally tougher. If you're writing fiction, it's completely different from writing content online. And we'll not go into that.

The easiest way to end your content is with a simple phrase. "Sincerely, [signature]"

Before that comes the call-to-action. Such as "If this has been useful to you, upvote, comment, resteem, follow!"

Before that comes the recap. You want to restate the core ideas, the purpose of your writing.

And before the recap, you simply end the story. Your presentation of the plot, or the product/service you're talking about.

This is to make people have the thoughts you want in mind while reading your call to action. If you can make your recap involve emotions and storytelling, that'll improve your results as well.

Writing posts as if they're letters makes everything significantly easier - you're writing to a friend. And if it's a post online, suddenly everyone who reads it feels as if it's written specifically to them.

You might even drop some interesting ideas into your post-script, too! It's an excellent place to add guarantees, testimonials, and additional resources.

This is a little bit of a bare-bones response, however I don't feel like I have enough time in the day to address all the questions which might spring up on these topics.

I hope this satisfies your curiosity at least a little bit. If so, upvote, comment, resteem, follow!

I'll gladly elaborate on any questions in the comments, too.

Sincerely,
Phil
The Copytist

PS. For more on headlines, check out Neville Medhora's post on them. Also a short overview of how important they are.