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JE Myers is a premium How To writer for eHow. JE’s article How to Kill a Facebook Bot is one of our flagship examples for Premium How To’s and can easily be applied to any how to article.

 
All of us who write for DS regularly have been beat into submission by now about writing "For A Style."  I mean, when you first start writing for DS, you're petrified of writing "the wrong way." Your first six weeks of "How To" articles is humiliating. Really. It's hard. So once you start to break through the crust and feel some confidence that a CE is not going to bat your ears flat about going out of the lines of a DS style, it is really hard to "let go" in Premium How To’s.  I am a very bold person, but even I was downright timid on my first article - and the second. The cricket on my shoulder was whispering "Oh, Jay...Mr. Lally wouldn't like this..."

But it’s okay to lighten up a little bit.

When I taught acting and directed stage plays long ago, I always told actors to "Go there. All the way. Trust me: I'll pull you back. But you have to put it all out there first."  I think it's easier to pull back on an artist than it is to get them to "go there." That’s what you have to do with these articles.

Articles written for the “inside” pages on eHow.com means exposure to potentially thousands of readers. While writers should always strive for an outstanding product, a good How To can follow these suggested steps and potentially be promoted to premium How to articles.

Here are some more tips:

The Writing Process

•    Humor helps, when appropriate. But written illustrations are even more vital to this kind of writing. If length permits, provide written snapshots of what you’re writing about.  Help the reader “see” the content with rich descriptions and examples. Don’t hold back the paint brush. Paint.

•    Clarity is everything. This is a “quick” medium.  Get to the point, nail the fundamental steps in a process, reach the bottom line fast - and make it all crystal clear to the reader. Confusion and murkiness are the eHow reader’s worst enemy - and the writer’s too. It’s very important to read and reread your own copy several times through, step by step, to be sure the writing is “tight.”  If a chosen word doesn’t contribute to the story in a meaningful way, cut it or find a better word.

•    Finally, envisioning the reader as a real presence is important.  It may help to imagine a stranger asking the question of you, The Expert, hoping to get a really helpful answer that saves them time, trouble, money or a loss of some kind. Consumers need information and answers and they need expert help at no cost - now more than ever. Start writing with the reader’s needs in mind. Be generous with what you know and share it. Give good advice or information that you feel personally certain will work for them. Don’t let any reader walk away with a sack of Wrong. Serve them. Be aware they are there, on the other side of the computer monitor, and serve them as you write.

The Overview

•    The opening paragraph of a How To should be like the first two minutes of a good motion picture: it’s got to grab the reader, intrigue them and get them to follow you into the meat of the article. You have to give the reader a reason to continue to read.  Foreshadow a benefit they will gain, paint a picture of a threat coming their way, promise to make them chuckle, something that not only makes them want to read but need to read the article.  The Overview should contain the standard “Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How,” briefly, but then pull them into the body of the article as well. 

Bulking Up the Steps

•    Research is important, not only about the “facts” of the topic, but the potential cultural context flowing around it. If the article is about how to combat a virus on Facebook, the writer needs to not only know how to fight the virus, but also understand where Facebook is in its development and how people have become enamored, if not dependent on it. This is especially true if you’re not personally “into” the Topic.  A Premium How To should begin with a well-rounded understanding of the topic from many angles. Make the reader feel you are “into” it with them.

•    If you are generous with illustrations and examples, you’ll have no problem filing out steps. While some steps are facile or obvious, and adding empty “bulk” would be disingenuous, you can easily “feed” other steps so they are packed with clues, hints, extra help and demonstrations.  Cite the step, tease it out with necessary detail, and then illustrate it with an example.
 
Finding the Unusual

For me, the fun of writing is finding ways to say things that aren’t common or expected. I search for them gladly. How can I explain or state this idea in a way the reader won’t expect? How can I catch them off guard, or attract their attention by using words or anecdotes that are different?  How can I throw a bucket of colorful words on a white wall? Many times, I draw on my own unusual life experiences that, thankfully, I’ve archived in memory over 55 years, to come up with that magical “different way.”  Every writer, at least he or she who cares about being read and making a connection with a reader, has to find that “trick” that unearths the unusual in what they write. Caring enough to rise to the challenge, sentence by sentence, is most of the secret. The rest is, well, a secret!