Guest Writer: Hanni Ross
Recently I’ve been thinking about how important it is to be able to get your point across well. I’m not particularly good at this myself so have been doing some research.
In my research I stumbled across a powerpoint presentation entitled “How to Write More Clearly, Think More Clearly, and Learn Complex Material More Easily“.
You might be wondering what this has to do with Successful Blogs, but I think that it’s important that you take writing for your blog as seriously as you would take writing a newspaper article or even a book perhaps. It’s important to have a reliable method and to be organised with both the planning and writing of the article and in conveying the message you would like to get across.
The presentation touches on the writing process itself and breaks it down into five steps:
- Planning (deciding what & how to write)
- Drafting (getting it on paper once)
- Revising (getting it on paper better)
- Editing (fixing spelling, grammar, typing)
- Formatting (choosing typefaces, layout, etc.)
You probably spend a lot of time considering your entries anyway, but perhaps it’s worth putting in just that extra minute or scrutinising your writing process just that bit more to see how you can improve.
If you have a good writing process then you’ll produce good work; you’ll start to develop a style which you’re readers will recognize and feel reassured by.
Further than that, take a closer look at the article itself, are you Writing to be Understood?
Great tips! One thing though, sure it is important to consider and plan your writing, but you must remember that most of us blog as a hobby, in other words for fun. I don’t think you always should take your writing and blog as seriously as writing a book, some will perhaps, some don’t – my point is have fun, then if you use this writing process I’m sure we’ll see some great articles as well.
Hi Johan,
Good to see you. You’ve got a point there. You’re right Hanni has put together a great post on how to approach writing a blog post. I think of it like planning a really short book, but then I come from publishing. 🙂
I wrote an entry a week ago about writing, called “Finding a Voice”, and basically my point is to write things that matters, that people want to read, that is interesting and intriguing.
Good points all Johan. Things that you find intriguing and interesting are often the same things your readers will find intriguing too. “Things that matter”–relevancy–is critical. Blogger-readers have so little time. Well, you know. So if the information isn’t relevant, they have a real reason to move on.
Thanks for reminding us.
Liz
I come from a journalism background so all the points are second nature to me and that’s the way I try to blog – but I do see the point that many blog as a pure hobby and too much process could stifle creativity.
At the end of the day, you have to write for your audience – and if they expect perfect journliasm-type posts then so be it, but from my experience most want relevant writing witrh lots of personality
I agree, Martin. Personality is very important. One of the things that makes blogs different from web sites and forums is that a feeling that real person wrote the text and sits behind the screen.
Liz