Life brings each of us strange personal experiences. This spring I traveled to visit my mother in Kentucky. When I checked into the airport, my suitcase had four wheels. When it came out of the baggage claim, this same suitcase only had three wheels. In transit, the airline had broken my suitcase. During that trip I learned to immediately file a form with the airline and they repaired my suitcase. My personal experience has some lessons and insights for the reader and is ideal for a personal experience magazine article.
What is the difference between a regular person who has “different” personal experiences and a published magazine writer? Some people save the story for small talk at their next party. A published magazine writer will make some notes about the details, the feelings, the sights and sounds plus maybe pieces of real dialogue for the story. These raw notes become the key points to write a personal experience magazine article. Almost every magazine publishes personal experience articles. In fact, the 2017 Christian Writers Market Guide lists over 50 publications where you can submit your article.
Here’s several key action points in this process:
- Begin with a simple outline. Do you have an interesting title and an engaging opening paragraph? Every personal experience story needs a logical beginning, middle and ending. You can’t tell everything so use your outline to narrow the key points for your article.
- Make sure the end of your article has a single point which is called a takeaway for the reader.
- Review the submission guidelines for each publication before you fire off your submission. Maybe the editor prefers a query letter. If so, learn how to write one. Or does the publication prefer the full article? Do they take simultaneous submissions? Do they take reprints? Do they pay on publication or acceptance? Answers to these questions will help you form a list of possible publications and a game plan to submit your article.
As writers, we need to take action with our personal experiences, write them down and craft them into magazine articles. As you submit these articles, it will increase your visibility in the market and you will have the opportunity to help others through your writing.
Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing, lives in Colorado. A former magazine editor, Whalin has written for more than 50 publications including Christianity Today and Writer’s Digest. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams. His latest book is Billy Graham, A Biography of America’s Greatest Evangelist and the book website is at: http://BillyGrahamBio.com Watch the short book trailer for Billy Graham at: http://bit.ly/BillyGrahamBT His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/terrywhalin
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