The 10-Minute Article: Time-Saving Tips for Fast Article Creation

18 Responses to “The 10-Minute Article: Time-Saving Tips for Fast Article Creation”

• writing4angels
  March 22nd, 2009 at 4:02 am

  That was a very good article. Apart from beginners even pro writers will benefit from this article.

• Mr Ghaz
  March 22nd, 2009 at 4:44 am

  Excellent! very helpful indeed. Thanx for sharing this informative article.

• kate smedley
  March 22nd, 2009 at 4:46 am

  Good advice in this for everyone, thank you.

• Susan Keeping
  March 22nd, 2009 at 6:30 am

  Thanks for writing this. Most of us know the basics but we get carried away with meaningless details.

• Phil Watson
  March 22nd, 2009 at 7:37 am

  This is kick-ass advice.
  thanks.

• Glynis Smy
  March 22nd, 2009 at 8:44 am

  Sensible advice.

• Athlyn Green
  March 22nd, 2009 at 9:21 am

  Hello Everyone,

  Thanks for all the positive comments.

  Internet readers prefer articles that get to the point quickly.

  This makes our job easier because creating articles for the online market is easier in some respects, over creating articles for print publications. Usually word counts for magazines are higher.

• Dee Gold
  March 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 am

  great article,athlyn

• Paul Corvus
  March 22nd, 2009 at 7:08 pm

  Yup, the good ol’ topic-body-conclusion. Its good to be conscious of the format your article is taking, and a lot of online writers need to be more aware of their structure.

• jo oliver
  March 22nd, 2009 at 11:55 pm

  Athlyn –
  You know that I agree with you about the five paragraph article, but I must respectfully disagre with the 10 min article. Yes, some people are versed enough on topic, gramatical style, etc… to compose in 10 minutes, but most people need to slow down and do some fact checking, proof reading, and put a lot more effort into style. I think that there are more poorly constructed articles on Triond, than good ones. Most likely because people are in too big of a hurry to publish and make money….instead of creating quality content. One quality article that takes an hour to write is more valueable than 6 okay articles in an hour. But, that is just my opinion.

• CutestPrincess
  March 23rd, 2009 at 12:13 am

  oh my, 10 minutes? i dont think i can do that…

• Athlyn Green
  March 23rd, 2009 at 12:20 am

  Hi Jo,
  I agree that quality should be key because this is what results in attracting readers over the long-term and makes the time we invest worthwhile.

  In this article, I had mentioned writing the draft in the first 10 minutes. Now, not everyone will be able to do this out of the starting gate but with practice, it is achievable–especially if you use the 3-part article format and if you are writing a simpler article.

  I had suggested to use this to create the draft but had also cautioned that writers go back and polish their articles before publishing them. Unless someone is very good, it is not realistic to expect to have a complete article written in 10 minutes.

  To recap: write your intro, body, conclusion, without editing. You do this to get your ideas down. With practice you can do this in about 10 minutes. You have now created your rough draft. You then go back and polish at your leisure. Polishing takes longer but the neat thing about trying this approach is that you can create a number of article drafts which you go back to when you are in the mood to work on them.

  This is just one technique, however, and while some will find it works for them, others won’t because of their particular writing styles.

• Athlyn Green
  March 23rd, 2009 at 12:30 am

  Hi Cutest Princess,
  Ha ha, it’s certainly fun to try it. So, far, I can do it in 11-15 minutes, which, I believe I’ll have whittled down to 10 minutes with practice.

  This only works, though, if, as I’ve mentioned in the article, you have a article idea in mind. Basically you are sketching an outline–the ideas that you will turn into an article. If you already know your subject inside and out, your article body (the most challenging section) will more complete; if you need to research the subject, as Jo rightly touched on, you’ll simply sketch the points you plan to cover (and will need to research them and add them later).

• fossa
  March 25th, 2009 at 6:18 am

  I will practice. I currently spend about 2 hours.

• John McDonnell
  March 25th, 2009 at 2:20 pm

  Wow, a 10 minute article! I don’t think I can match that yet, but you gave some very good tips for speeding up the writing process. Thank you, Athlyn!

• Athlyn Green
  March 25th, 2009 at 3:24 pm

  Hi John,
  It’s rather fun to time yourself and see how much you can write in 10 minutes. It’s surprising how, with practice, your writing can be whittled down.

  I used to wonder how some writers produced so much in record time, but since I’ve been practicing these techniques, my own writing has accelerated.

  Even if these tips help someone to halve the time it takes to write an article, they will have become more productive in their article writing.

• Chris Stonecipher
  May 7th, 2009 at 9:46 pm

  Athlyn,
  School is done know, yeah graduation day is here. Now, starting Monday I can focus on more writing. I will give this a try. Thank you for the tips.
  Chris

• Athlyn Green
  May 15th, 2009 at 10:56 am

  Congratulations, Chris!

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