The problem is that sometimes, people don’t read past the headline.
People decide to read the article or not, just from the headline. A bad headline won’t get the reader to give the story a chance. If the headline is misleading, readers may react to that and not what the article or story actually says – because they didn’t get past the headline and actually read the story. A poorly written headline shoots everything down.
A perfect example for me happened when I wrote for a FanSided web site called Climbing Tal’s Hill (a site focusing on the Houston Astros.) My headline was: Is It Time To Fire A.J. Hinch?
At the time, in 2016, the Astros were emerging from the leanest years in franchise history. After several terrible seasons, the team was looking better, with a good core of young, promising players, and A.J. Hinch in his 2nd year as manager. In May 2016 though, the team was in last place. Often, a losing team’s front office tries to halt a skid by firing the manager, so I decided to explore that angle.
The article focused on the problems the Astros were having at the time. My conclusion in the piece was they should not fire Hinch; they should allow him to work through the problems. (Hinch was fired a few years later in the wake of the Astros cheating scandal, but that’s a different story.)
Within hours of publishing the story, I began to receive a ton of angry emails, containing comments such as:
“Are you stupid?”
“What kind of idiot are you?”
“How stupid is that?”
“Stop writing and find a new line of work.”
It was obvious from the comments that too many were not reading the story – the headline stopped them cold. That was the first time in my writing career that it was obvious to me that many people don’t read beyond the headline – even if it is a good one and/or a good story. Some readers decide whether they agree or not without even knowing what the article/story actually says. Although my headline got a lot of attention, it was for the wrong reasons, and very few people even realized that my opinion on the topic was the opposite of what the headline seemed to indicate.
Most of those who sent me angry emails failed to note that the headline was a question and not a statement. Maybe readers should have caught that, but what it came down too is that my headline was not a good one – it was my mistake. Many people never got to the part of my story where I indicated I did not think Hinch should be fired. The headline not only turned people away from that story, but possibly from any future stories I would write.
What I realized is that a catchy headline that attracts attention doesn’t always result in the story actually being read. Obviously, you can’t force anyone to read beyond the headline. What a writer can do is to compose a headline that compels the reader to read on.
Since then, I try to compose headlines that capture the reader’s attention and make them continue on to read the story. I don’t want readers to react to the headline alone, and not bother to read the story itself. But if they read beyond the headline, at least they have the information they need to make a more informed decision on whether what I wrote makes sense or not. If they don’t like my story or my conclusions, they are, of course, free to tell me so.
Effective headline writing is a critical component of the writing process.
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Larry Manch is an author, teacher, guitar player, freelance writer, and columnist. He has written 24 books; available in paperback and e-book on Amazon.com.
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