How to Write an Opinion Piece on Substack
On Substack, most people doing any form of personal writing use three modes:
rumination,
narrative, and/or
opinion.
Your posts may be a mix of all three, but to write Substacks that draw readers and create engagement, we need to know which mode we’re in and how each works.
Opinion writing may be one of the hardest:
How do we do it without being moralizing, reactionary, or trite?
How do we establish authority?
How do we write something important to readers, not just ourselves?
By the end of this workshop, you’ll know the four keys to opinion writing online:
The difference between a hot take, a think piece, an opinion piece, and an op-ed
The ideal structure for an opinion piece that doesn’t come out dull, sloppy, or disjointed or harangue the reader
How publishing an opinion piece on Substack can perhaps take a different approach than writing an op-ed for a mainstream media outlet
The 10 keys to a successful op-ed
What qualifies me to teach this workshop?
(You should ask this of everyone you work with!)
The guidance I give you is based directly on the advice Substack gave me. No marketing tricks. No gimmicks.
I also share with you my experience as
- the creator of two bestselling, featured Substack publications (Writers at Work with Sarah Fay and Cured: The Memoir);
- an author at HarperCollins;
- a member of Substack’s Product Lab;
- a former advisory editor at The Paris Review; and
- a creative writing professor at Northwestern University.
No one else has the relationship with Substack that I do and specializes in the unique nature of the platform, how it can be used to earn an income, and how it complements traditional publishing and all aspects of a writer’s career.
For more, visit www.sarahfay.org and follow me on Instagram @sarahfayauthor (though IG is mostly my cats, who get tens of thousands of views).