Finding your focus

There are six ways of finding the focus of your piece:

1. Zoom in on one aspect of your topic that you want to write about.
2. Combine two separate ideas to make an unusual slant.
3. Take an unusual stance: find an angle that is unique and new and develop it.
4. Look for Chalk and Cheese. See if there are any perceived conflicts or contrasts between your topic areas.
5. Answer a question in your article.
6. Finally, test your chosen focus by seeing if you can write a title based on it.

So, for this topic our focus could be any of the following:

• Was it something you ate? The growth in the number of adults suddenly developing food allergies.
• Food allergies in children: how to spot them and what to do if you think your child has an allergy.
• Food allergies versus food intolerance: what is the difference between the two?
• Do plants hold the secret of curing food allergies? A look at the research into possible cures being undertaken around the world.
• Are food allergies a western affliction?
• Is cleaning killing our children? The link between the hygiene hypothesis and the increase in food allergies in the western world.
• Food allergies: what teachers/restaurateurs/youth leaders need to know?
• Why teenage years are the deadliest. More children with food allergies die in their teenage years than at any other stage in life.

Stay focused. When you've found your focus, stick to it. Ruthlessly discard anything that doesn't fit the focus. Read your first finished draft carefully. Does it stick to the focus? Does it deliver what it promised to do? Does it go off on a tangent anywhere? If it does, then take that bit out and start again.

Do your readers have to jump gaps? Read these two paragraphs:

In pagan Europe eggs were decorated in spring colors of red, yellow and green and given to friends as part of the spring festival to honor the spring goddess Eastre from whom we get the name Easter.

The Romans invented the Easter Egg Hunt and a game called the Easter egg roll: whoever rolled his or her egg the furthest without it breaking, won. In Switzerland today, families roll their eggs down the mountains.

There is a transitional gap between the first and second paragraph. These facts are related, but not that closely. The reader has to stop a second to get back on track with where the article is going. They thought they were reading about the pagan origins of Easter and suddenly they're reading about Easter Egg Hunts.

Now read this version:

Easter eggs have been around a long time. The ancient Britons used to give each other brightly decorated eggs at their springtime festival called Eostre. And for thousands of years before that the ancient Egyptians liked to give and receive eggs too.

The Romans in second century Britain took the pagan festival and turned it into the Christian celebration of Easter. They kept the eggs and used them to invent the now-traditional Easter Egg Hunt. They also invented another Easter Egg game, the less popular Easter Egg Roll: whoever can roll his or her egg the farthest without the egg breaking is the winner.

This time, there are no gaps for the reader to jump. The paragraphs have been linked by the repetition of the 'eggs' theme and, as a result, the piece flows better.