How To Go About Writing An Article

Original article written by Jaycey Rae posted 13 years 2 weeks ago

As many of you new players (I included, of course) know, articles are the fastest way to inflate your bank account. Unfortunately, for some of the players on this game in need of money, writing doesn’t come too naturally. Lets be honest, not all of us are published authors, right? I felt the need to write this article so that new players who are on the fence about writing an article may get some inspiration, and get some money.

At this point in the game you probably have a few horses, maybe $100,000, maybe more if you are lucky. You have entered a horse or two in races, maybe even won a few, and if you are anything like me… You are hooked. One of the bonuses for writing an article is that we can use it as a chance to learn something new about the SIM, its history, breeding, and sales, etc. When deciding on an article to write, it is VITAL to chose something that in some way interests you! There are no authors out there who write good books about things they hated, and you won’t be successful at writing a good article unless you care about it. So that’s the first rule you need to keep in mind!

The easiest first article, in my opinion, is an article to other new players about your struggles in your first weeks on the game. Hopefully, if all of the new players write ONE article about their own struggles, then other new players will learn from the mistakes of others, and not have to go through those issues themselves, therefore making the game more fun and easy for those players. For instance, I wrote my first article “Just Take It from Me!” about the process I went through in choosing my first horse (that I bought). I discussed in the article: the pros and cons to my decision, looking at millions of horses and having to determine what would work for me, choosing what ‘type’ of horse I wanted, doing the research on the horse until I was truly satisfied that I wanted to make this purchase. This was an extremely easy article for me to write because I had personally experienced it, and that is important in getting those creative juices flowing. I also hoped that in writing that article, it would entice other players to do their research rather than making snap decisions.

Another type of article that I suggest you try out is a breeding article. For your first breeding article I suggest that you look in YOUR horse’s pedigree, and find a horse or two in it that interests you. In doing this, you learn something that could help you with your own horse, and in future purchases and you make twenty grand doing it! An example would be my second ever article “Satelite and Status: A Match Made in SIM Heaven”. In this article I looked at two horses in the pedigree of one of my horses (which my first article was about). It is not hard to do this research at all, actually its quite easy, simply go to the horse you are interested in and look up their race stats, their progeny, what crosses worked best on them, etc. You could also choose an article like mine where I looked specifically at a cross of two horses, and didn’t elaborate, which is an easy article to write. You can also do an article like my most recent one “Awake As I Am – The Living Legend” where you simply delve into the racing and breeding career of one horse, try to pick on that interests you and it comes much easier.

Another article that would be a good one to start on right about now is an auction article. With the recently ended auction by The Steward and another one on the way by The Steward, there are sure to be some quality horses to write about, what they sold for, what their bloodlines are, etc. Of course, you can write about any auction, I’ve just found that because Steward bred horses are so good, its generally easier to find on of them that is intriguing. The third article I wrote “Sleep Soundly: What’s The Hype? An In Depth Look…” is an example you can use on an auction article. In this article I focused solely on one horse, who was selling for high money in the Trial by Summer Select Yearling Sale, and whose pedigree was very interesting to me. I will warn that to write an article on one horse, and it be good, you have to do a good amount of research, and then do some more research. You must look at sire and dam, what they did as racers, and what they are doing as producers, and then look further back to the paternal grandsire and dam sire. It isn’t easy but they are fun to write and you learn a lot and have a horse to watch in the future, that you know a lot about.

The most popular type of article would be a racing article. This can be as simple as a race review, or preview, and as complex as a multi race overview. An example of a race preview would be my article “The Baltimore Oaks: Preview” where I looked at the upcoming (at the time) Baltimore Oaks and took an objective view of the horses. One important thing is to decide if you want your article to be from your point of view or objective, for instance, if you want an objective article you are not going to come out and say who you think will win the race, you are simply going to give the facts, and possibly ideas of your own on the horse. In an article from your point of view your are going to give predictions. An example of a race review would be my article “Land Of The Gods Fights For Derby Mile Victory”. In that article I gave a play by play of the Derby Mile, how the race played out, who won, the winners breeding, etc. Possibly the easiest racing article would be to look at one individual horse, possibly on the heels of their greatest victory, and look at what they did in the past leading up to that race. I did this in my article “Flame and Smoke: His Career Up To The Louisville Derby”, where I, as the title suggests, took a look back at Flame and Smokes career until his victory in the Louisville Derby. These are all easy articles to read, but all of them will require a bit of research on your part.

You can also do interviews on other players, I personally have not done any because I have had plenty to write about without it, but it would be a good learning experience if you can get one of the better players to spare you some time to answer questions. You will find that the majority of the SIM community is very nice and more than happy to answer your questions.

Writing articles is an effective way to earn money, and you will only get better at it with time. One thing I try to do is read other players articles, especially those that veteran players write, and try to learn from what they say. I used my own articles to give you examples, but, trust me, there are many many articles that are a million times better than the ones I’ve given you, so please go read them, don’t just read mine. Try to put your own artistic spin on your writing; don’t be a clone of someone else’s writing style. Do what works for you and what you are interested in and you will be bringing home the dough in no time! Good luck and happy writing.

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