You might write the most compelling news story in the world, but without an appealing headline, it won’t even get read. From stripping it back to extracting the novelty, these three tips will help you craft a headline that your story deserves.
Create a Longlist
Start by writing several possible headlines; don’t dismiss any of them at first. Then, take some time away from the list, ideally sleeping on it. Return back to your list the next day with fresh eyes and the best headline will often show itself immediately.
Introduce Novelty
An excellent news headline would be both unique and novel; the whole point of a news story is that it’s giving readers ‘new’ information. Your piece may be related to a long-running story, but even still, it will have a new angle. Whatever it is that’s new in the story should feature in the headline. The more novel, unique, or new it is, the better.
Kill the Fillers
Headlines should be short and punchy, so that means removing filler words that don’t add any meaning. Extra adjectives such as ‘very’, and adverbs like ‘actually’, are often not needed. This might seem obvious, but many of us are not aware of how many redundant words we include in our writing. Conciseness is a key writing skill and one you can hone on journalism courses such as those available at https://newsassociates.co.uk/journalism-courses/.
Start by working out what it is about your story that is novel, before you write several concise headlines to choose between.
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