How to Craft Compelling Subtitles that will Captivate your Readers

When I first started writing, I used to never use subtitles for any of my work. That’s due to the fact I didn’t understand them. 

It was about a year later that another author friend of mine, whom I used to work with, explained what they were used for. 

It’s simply a very short description of what the article is about. 

It’s tricky as you only have a few words to explain. 

The good news is once you get the hang of subtitles they are pretty easy to write. Try and keep them as short as possible as it’s meant to be a very concise summary and not a long explanation. 

Sometimes even one word will do like this example below.

Title: How one deadly sin is hurting your finances

Subtitle: Envy

Most of the time you’ll be using more than one word but don’t exceed 2–3 lines on your page. 

You can have 2+ short sentences and it could work or you could have to par down one sentence. 

The majority will be one line so don’t worry too much about that. Subtitles aren’t always a summary but a guide into the article. This article, for instance, suggests that subtitles are important. 

Yet, it doesn’t explain how to write them. You need to read the article to find that out.

Two places I learned how to write subtitles

The first was from other authors online. 

I wasn’t on Medium at the time so I scoured articles that were well written and examined their subtitles. I’d suggest looking at Medium writers that you respect and see what headlines they used. 

See how concise they are and how they portray their article.

The second way to learn is by putting your title into an AI program and asking it to write a subtitle. 

Now a word of caution here. 

AI is goofy, to say the least when it comes to writing so don’t blindly follow that. I’d also suggest using it only to learn at the start as your subtitles will be much better.

“Unlock the Power of Engaging Subtitles to Enchant and Engage Your Audience”

An AI wrote this subtitle, and you can see how weird it sounds. 

I asked it to shorten the subtitle to see if it was better and it spits out this:

“Enchant Your Audience with Subtitles”

Still pretty weak. If you’re new then you can use the AI to help get you started with ideas and how to write some. 

The best and only way to get good at writing anything is by practicing. I look back at some of my older works and I’m mortified by the writing. That’s human nature so don’t beat yourself up over it. 

Write and you’ll get better. It can’t get more simple than that.

Thank you for reading :)