Bear with me while I tell you a story.

Let me set the stage.

I live on several acres in the country in a nice, peaceful area. I can’t see any of my neighbors’ homes except my neighbor across the street. I have wonderful neighbors, but people tend to come to the country to do bad things. It’s happened several times before.

The other day while driving to work, I saw a man and a boy around the age of 10 or 12 cutting across one of my neighbor’s yards. The man labored to drag an elongated white bag or sack as it scraped across the grass. The sack fit the perfect shape of a body. I know the people who live in the house and neighboring house (who are all relatives), and those people don’t live there.

As I drove by, they watched me closely.

Remember that I live in the country. These folks were on foot. I live five miles from the nearest little community or ten miles from town.

My first thought (other than the dead body) was that it couldn’t possibly be a dead body because it was first thing in the morning. (I watch too many Law and Order shows.) On the other hand, what better time of day to dispose of a body than total daylight? No one could possibly think they were disposing of a dead body in daylight. (My husband said they probably weren’t that smart!)

Are you curious?

What questions are you asking yourself?

What was in the bag, and why was it so heavy?

Who are these people?

Why was the young boy with the man, and why wasn’t he in school? What was their relationship?

Why were they heading across the neighbor’s yard? Were they heading toward the field behind the neighbor’s backyard?

What were they going to do with the object in the bag?

Where had they been, and where were they going?

How did they did get to my neighbor’s yard? They were on foot, but did they walk there or did someone drop them off?

When did this crime (if it was a crime) happen? Or, when did they start out on their journey?

What was the object wrapped in? Was it a bag, a sack, a sheet, or what? What was the material?

Did it make a trail in the yard leading to where they were going?

Did the neighbors spot them? What happened then?

How can we use this experience to help us write a quality article?

A well-written article or piece of content needs to address the qualities of good journalism:

what

where

why

when

who

how

Look through the questions we asked ourselves in our “dead body” story. We were curious, and those were the natural questions to ask. If we were writing an article about that story, we would want to be sure to answer those questions, because our readers would want to know.

Your readers want to know the answers to who, what, when, where, why, and how in the articles they read of yours or in the content they read on your site.

In your sales copy (sales-related content), which is a different type of content altogether, are you telling your potential customers clearly what your product is; why they need it (making a “want” become a “need”); who will benefit from using the product; when it should be used; where (under what conditions); and how to use the products.

Depending on the article, it may not be necessary for you to answer each of these questions. However, your job, as a writer, is to anticipate the questions your potential audience will want to know about a topic and to provide those answers.

Good luck with your writing!

Robin