Five Ways to Hit your Readers in the Head

Note: This post is a two-parter, the first half: Five Ways to Hit your Readers in the Heart, can be found at Blogging Tips. This part of the article and will focus on affecting your readers intellect with your posts.

Writers often instinctively know when a story is full of pathos. We imagine our readers’ eyes welling up or smiles lighting their faces as they read the touching tale we have penned (or typed). On the flipside, when we break a news story or synthesize some fascinating data, we are just as excited to know that our readers will be mentally stimulated and, perhaps, impressed by our knowledge.

These situations apply to the extremes, but the vast majority of posts or articles that we write will most likely not sit at such opposite extremes. It is these stories that make us decided: Do I aim for the readers’ heads or their hearts? Which target will get the most out of the story and give the most to my readers?

In this article, I will discuss five tactics that will help you aim your posts right where you want to aim them.

1. Just the Facts, Ma’am (or Sir)
   
   If you are aiming your article at a reader’s head, don’t fill it up with a bunch of fluff. Serious, newsy articles are all about facts and figures. For example, I would not say: “Four score and twenty-seven dozen soldiers were shipped off to Iraq today.” I would say 404 soldiers.
2. Go Right to the Source
   
   If you used a source to gather information, quote the source. A quote from an expert holds much more clout than whatever you would choose to write about it. It also helps you, as a writer, appear much more objective.
3. Widen Your Scope
   
   In order to present a clear and truthful picture, you often need to look a bit farther than the original focus of the article. If I said 404 soldiers were shipped in a heart-based article I would quickly zero in on one or two particular soldiers and let my readers get to know them. However, in a head-based story, it would be more useful to talk about the war in general, the number of soldiers already interned and the state of the battlefield.
4. Keep it Simple, Scribe
   
   Since you are not writing your post to make people feel any particular way, do not use words that may do so. Don’t call the soldiers sad, tired or dusty. If you want to show that they are one of those things, quote one of them saying so. As a “head” writer, your job is to simply report the facts.
5. That’s Not Funny!
   
   I strongly discourage you from using of humor in a post aimed at the head. Not only will it distract from the overall seriousness of the piece, but it might be entirely inappropriate and subjective. If something funny happens, you can include it, but don’t push readers toward a decision about the incident’s levity. Whether they find it funny or not is completely up to them.

It is not strictly necessary to choose if the story you are writing is better as aimed at the head or the heart. However, if you do make this decision part of your writing, you will find that your posts become more powerful and more memorable.

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