Reading blogs can be a lot of fun. Reading blogs can also be a great big bore. You know the kind?--Open the page, full of hope, that maybe there's even just some dirt on this person's life... But alas, none of it makes any sense and it's not even interesting. I suppose this is the reason for the success of Soap Operas: real life is often boring.
And so, not in any attempt to classify myself a calibur or even a veteran blog writer, I hereby present to you, my lovèd readers and perhaps fellow bloggers, a list of a few tips to help you in your quest to write a better blog.
1) You know you're reading a
horrible blog when the word "life" is the subject of any phrase. Example: "Life is great" or "Life sucks" or "Life is an interesting journey" or "I have no life" (note, in the last phrase, "I" is the subject, and not life, but the example is as equally horrifying as any of the above). Avoid this at all costs.
2) Know the
purpose of your blog. Is it a gathering place for people to say stupid things and make comment of said stupid things (perhaps ranDOMinion is such a place). Is it a medium for recording feelings, thoughts, anecdotes? Do you point fun at the world through a creative format (I love
Stopfive).
3) Always,
always consider your audience. Do you want so-and-so to read what you're writing? Well, if it's on the internet (really, I should say "when" and not "if" since every blog is on the internet), you've got a fat chance in hell that they're
not reading it. If you want things to be kept private, don't write it. Also, perhaps many of your readers don't have a flipping clue of what you're talking about. Feel free to indulge, make us understand.
4) Don't substitute telling people about your issues for writing about your issues to satisfy peoples' curiosoty. I mean that to say this: blog all you want, but make sure that you actively pursue your friends and that they actively pursue you. A friend who passively seeks information as to your well-being is perhaps one who is not friend enough to see the pain in your eye. Once you have real conversations, you'll find you have different things to blog about... Unless ofcourse you want it that way.
5) This piece of advice is very personal for me, so feel free to disagree. However, grammar is huge. I mean you can't escape it. If you want people to read properly, then write properly. It's very difficult to read a blog when you have to re-learn to read before you can do it. I tend to skip these blogs.
6) Lastly, I give you the words of my grade 8, 10, and 12 English teacher: "Show, don't tell". This advice falls in the style by which you write, and goes to account for 478 posts here. You can say, "I went to bed," or you can say, "After I slept..." The difference is subtle, but the effect is enormous. Going to bed is rarely a highlight event, so why do you give it its own clause? Make it a semi-clause only to introduce your whole point; "After I slept, I found out etcetc." We still know you went to bed.
Anyways... I don't mean to discredit any blogs or any specific person in their writing, just that I have pet peeves about reading as much as I do about breathing. I suppose I'm irritable.