I wrote a few slideshows in the past two months for the first time in ages. Here’s what I knew from doing these in the past but had forgotten until I started working on them again: writing slideshows is hard work.
Slideshows sound easy. There’s a tendency to think that because they’re not based on interviews or other primary research — many slideshows are not — they’ll be simple to pull together. They’re anything but. It takes time to comb through articles or studies on a subject, look up information on a company or organization’s website, or curate material from the archives of the publication you’re writing for.
Here my tips for taking some of the pain out of researching and writing slideshows, picked up from these and other slideshows I’ve created:
1. Give yourself extra time.
Whatever the amount of hours or day you think you’ll need, bump it up by at least 30 percent. Even if you’re not doing interviews, you may need to contact organizations to ask for screen shots or to verify product data or other facts. Getting all of that information pulled together takes more time than you anticipate.
2. Set up Google News alerts.
To take some of the legwork out of researching information to put in slide captions, I set up Google News alerts on the subjects of my slide shows. I also set up a Gmail folder for everything that comes in on the subject. When I am ready to start work in earnest, I can flip through the material that’s accumulate in the file to start my research.
3. Learn to love writing leads.
If you think about it, creating a slideshow comprised of an introduction and 10 slides means coming up with 11 leads. That’s a lot of leads. When the time comes to sit down and write, channel your inner editor and let those leads fly.
4. Include sources.
If you really want your copyeditor on your side, include sources of data you include in slideshow text that he or she can use for fact checking purposes. I use Word to write slideshows. In Word, I turn on Track Changes and then create a Comment when I need to add a link to documentation to back up facts in the copy.
5. Write tight.
When you don’t have much room for copy, every single word counts. Stick to facts. Cut out extraneous adverbs or adjectives. Don’t use quotes — unless they’re short, sweet and utterly amazing and on point. Read more: A few words on writing short.
6. Aim for the slideshow word-count sweet spot.
After doing two slideshows in as many months, I’ve discovered that a 75 to 100-word caption for a slide is a lot easier to write than a caption of 125 to 150 words. The former is two paragraphs, three max. The latter is usually four paragraphs. Since I try to include one source per paragraph, it’s the difference between two or three sources and three or four. Multiply that by 10 slides, and that’s a lot of sources, even if you’re just pulling data from reference works or articles rather than conducting interviews.
7. Find images.
Some publications require that writers submit images along with their slideshow text. Make sure you build that time into the number of hours you’re estimating it will take to get the project done. When I source images for slideshows or other projects, I give myself about 30 minutes per image, more if I have to handle securing rights to the image. For a 10-slide slideshow, that could mean spending up to five hours looking for images. Even if you aren’t required to provide images with your slideshow copy, it’s a good idea to include suggestions for images. Your editor or the publication’s art director will love you for it.
8. Use slideshows to land other work.
Compiling slideshows is a great way to give yourself a head start on research for other stories you’d like to pitch. If you stumble onto interesting material that’s not an exact fit for the slideshow you’re working, use it as the basis for a pitch on a separate story. Maybe the subject of one slide in the series is broad enough or timely enough to warrant exploring in more depth in a separate story. If you write for a publication on a regular basis, pitch them the follow-up story, and mention that’s you could link from it to the slideshow (editors love that).
What to see how I did? Here are links to my latest slideshows for MSN Money:
What have you learned from writing slideshows? Share your experience by leaving a comment.