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Last updated on
8 September, 2007

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Magazine Articles
with Stephen Morrill

REGISTRATION:

COST, LENGTH, PREREQUISITES:

No prerequisites.

Standard course: $150 / 6 weeks. Click here to register

Extended schedule: $188 / 12 weeks. Click here to register
Extended course gives you two weeks to do each lesson but contains NO additional material.

For questions about this COURSE, e-mail Steve Morrill at

I teach five course modules for freelance nonfiction writers. This is the magazine articles course, with hands-on help and more than twenty years' worth of advice.

Like my other courses, this one centers upon extensive written materials in a private library. Students download these at their convenience and interact with me via e-mail.

This course is intended to teach you how to write a standard nonfiction magazine article using research and interviews. I will tell you how to do this, and will guide you through a short sample article, which you will write, word by word. I will be critiquing your work. I do not criticize; I critique--gently and informatively. The class consists of two parts. Each week I upload, to our private library, materials you should read before the next week. Each week you also receive an assignment to carry out before the next class. The homework will be a magazine article. You will write a manuscript for me and then rewrite it to incorporate into it any suggestions I might make.

Week 1:
What magazine editors look for in articles. What magazine editors look for in writers. Cultivating an idea. Why a brief outline is a good idea even if you hate the outlines. How to write the Lead and the Hook.
HOMEWORK: Download material for Classes One and Two. Think up idea and an outline for your 1000 to 1500-word sample article. Send this to me for approval.

Week 2:
Research. Interviews. Magazine writing styles and style manuals. Common grammar, spelling, syntax errors. Point of view, voice, tone. Cheap tricks.
HOMEWORK: Write your article lead and hook. Send this to me for critiquing.

Week 3:
Writing the body of the article, covering all points, satisfying all reader questions, writing to length and editing/cutting. Quotes and statistics. Where to get them. How to get them. How to use them. How not to misuse them.
HOMEWORK: Revise lede, start on body of article.

Week 4:
General critique to date. I will have done a quick read of the ideas and leads and will have comments on those. This is also the "open" week of the course, where I can put in anything I want in the way of additional information, as you continue to write your article bodies.
HOMEWORK: Continue with body of article and send that to me.

Week 5:
Writing the ending to tie up the package and leave the reader satisfied. Notes about use of graphics and sidebars.
HOMEWORK: Start your final revision as soon as your article is returned with comments. Add the ending.

Week 6:
Editing, cutting, polishing, making every word count in order to pack the most information into the mandated length--whatever that length might be.
HOMEWORK: Polish that article one more time. Send in the final version for my approval. Read over my final comments as soon as I return your article. Go forth and sell that article or use what you have learned to write another article. And another. And another. This is a course where the homework never ends until you want it to.

This is not a course about writing an essay, or writing a humor column, or writing any form of personal statement. This is a course in how to write a standard research-and interview-based nonfiction article. You will learn to be an investigator and reporter, and to report to the reader on what you have learned, or what the experts you have spoken with say.

For those planning to start a part-time or full-time freelance writing career. Takes approximately 24 work-hours to complete all reading and homework.

Stephen Morrill has been freelancing full-time since 1984. During that time he has written more than 1000 articles for national and local magazines and for newspapers. Nationally, his work has appeared in such magazines as Horizon, World Wide Shipper, The Robb Report, Vista, The New York Times Magazine, and Business Age. In Florida his work has appeared in Changing Homes, Florida Business, Southern Homes, and in a variety of city magazines and local newspapers.

For ten years he wrote a biweekly column about maritime trade for Florida Shipper magazine and he has written about maritime shipping for other trade publications. As a Reuters News Agency correspondent for the west coast of Florida, his writing has been used by newspapers, radio and television around the world.

In addition to general-interest articles, Steve has written extensively about wine, humor, international shipping and trade, business and finance, architecture and the outdoors, and military affairs. He was the founding editor of Know Tampa Bay, a 25,000-circulation quarterly relocation guide to the Tampa Bay area. Steve has been honored by the Florida Magazine Association for his short humor and by the Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects for his writing about architecture. Steve is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

In addition to his ongoing magazine assignments and the occasional brochure or other non-magazine work, Steve wrote St. Petersburg: City in the Sun, a history of St. Petersburg, Florida and a ghost written history of Pan American-Grace Airways, Flying the Andes. He's working on two more books: a mystery (almost finished) and a handbook of businesslike freelance writing practices.