The frustrating task called writing headlines

For me, this assignment was rather difficult. After reading all of the stories, it was challenging to pull out the most significant information. In some stories, there was more than one significant point. It was also important to remember that a headline needs to be interesting and draw the reader in. So how do you get all of that into a short headline? Well, it took a lot of time and practice. Some of the information that helped me the most was:

Headlines absolutely cannot be long.

Well that only makes sense, when you think about the average person’s attention span. With a headline, the point is to grab attention. You cannot do that if you bombard your reader with too many words, information or statistics. KISS, meaning keep it simple stupid. 

Headlines can only be a little short.

You don’t want to be too vague when writing a lead. You want to provide your reader with enough information that they are interested in reading on. If your headline is generic, or pointless why would anyone want to read the whole story?

Headlines need to read well.

This is obvious, yet difficult to do. You need to watch how your lines break and how that reads. If your lead is choppy or difficult to understand, it will not read well.

Headlines need to look good.

These days, people are very visual. If something doesn’t look pleasing, readers will move on. You need to be conscious of how the words will look on the page.

My husband and I watched a movie over the weekend and I realized an error. Can you find it?

The title should be The 40-Year-Old Virgin.