Our theme for the month of March is “How to.”

It’s really easy to overcomplicate this opening line, in my opinion. All you really have to do is start with a little momentum, and set the stage tonally for what you’re going to talk about. If you go on for too long before getting into the real substance, you risk boring your reader.

But striking the balance between engaging and approachable is a bit tricky, so I wouldn’t recommend starting with that first sentence. In fact, before you write any words at all, you have to pick your topic. My articles tend to fall into one of three occasionally overlapping categories: the review/listicle, the fluff piece, or the time-honored classic of the post calvin, the Earnestly Reflective Piece, a subgenre that serves as a sort of default and still allows for plenty of flexibility.

Of course, you also have to contend with the assigned theme sometimes, but this shouldn’t present too much of an obstacle if, like me, you keep a running list of article ideas in a note on your phone. When there’s a theme, you can scroll through and see if any of my previous schemes fit the bill well enough to work with, and most of the time you won’t have to start from scratch.

Once you’ve settled on an idea, you might get a few lines that spontaneously pop into your head. It’s helpful to begin drafting an outline around those lines, jumping around to whatever comes most easily. These sentences don’t usually survive untouched to the end of the process, and that’s fine! You just need to start with some structure. It’s okay to ‘kill your darlings,’ as it were, sometimes even crucial in order to make the piece fit together.

Assuming you’ve chosen the Earnestly Reflective Piece, your early paragraphs should be spent exploring your subject matter a little bit, describing in some moderate depth whatever recent life event or philosophical conundrum you’re working through. If you have jokes to make, they should mostly go here, and it also doesn’t hurt to throw in a few links to past posts—yours or others’.

At some point a little past halfway, you should take a more serious turn. You’re approaching the emotional heart of the piece now, and you’ll have to land on some sort of takeaway by the time you’re done. Sometimes the takeaway appeared already, coming along naturally with the topic; but a lot of the time you won’t know it until you finally get to this point in the process. To me, this is both the most difficult and most gratifying step, and when it turns out the way you hoped, it makes the effort all worth it. Any good artist will tell you that their best work doesn’t happen as a result of creating when inspirational lightning strikes; rather, it comes as a result of consistent repetition, of practice and artistic discipline. I’ve reached some surprising personal insights through these articles, and it’s difficult to overstate my gratitude for this simple monthly deadline in getting me there.

Finally, you’ve made it to the last paragraph. The most intense part of the piece is over, and you can turn it a little lighter here, saying something poignant and somewhat uncertain, but ultimately hopeful. You should probably at least allude to the future, and close out the piece by bookending the same overall tone you established at the beginning, whether that’s serious or silly or anything in between. Now you can give your piece some key edits, hand it off to another reader, pick a thumbnail photo, and send it off to be published. This month, you’re done, and in a few short weeks you’ll start the process all over again.

Philip Rienstra

Phil Rienstra (they/he) (‘21) studied writing and music, and since graduating has developed a deep interest in labor rights. They currently work at a unionized Starbucks and volunteer with Starbucks Workers United. They’re an amateur chef, a perennial bandana wearer, and an Enneagram 4. He lives in St. Paul with his spouse, Heidi.