The Order of Your Writing; Chronological, Spatial and Logical

In "Using Basic Journalism Structure to Write Great Articles", I discussed using a journalistic style for writing your articles.  Writing should have 3 basic parts; introduction, body and conclusion.

The introduction and conclusion can be thought of like bookends; they hold it all together.  But if you remove one of those bookends the structure of your writing falls.

The body of the article is like the books between the bookends and should be in some type of order instead of just randomly placed.

At BloggingTips I discussed chronological and spatial order. I would also like to explain more about those and add logical order to the mix.

Chronological order is the one most often used.  It uses time as a reference by detailing what happens from beginning to end.  In fiction, straight narration mainly relies on chronological order.  It makes it easier for the reader to keep up.  A few authors do tell stories and skip around in time, but only a good writer can get away with this.

Spatial order also flows naturally like chronological order but the parts are arranged in reference to space.  The information can move from right to left, east to west, front to back, etc. as long as it follows the order it starts with.  If you were to describe people standing in line at a ticket booth, you would describe them from front to back or back to front, you wouldn’t start in the middle because that would make it difficult to keep up with.

Logical order is more like an analysis.  You break the subject down into sub-headings and write about each in an order that flows naturally and logically.  In using logical order you must decide which parts are major, minor, equal or subordinate.

If you’re trying to improve your writing skills, try using a basic journalism style incorporating the use of either chronological, spatial or logical order and make sure your introduction and conclusion are as strong as the body.

Write On!
Patti

Tags: writing tips, journalism style, writing basics, chronological, spatial, logical

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