Breakdown of a good blog (says a noob!)

#writersofinstagram – 74, 53, 634 posts

#writer – 98, 28, 689 posts

#writers – 27, 61, 494 posts

Given the above results, the amount of “writer(s)” across the globe seem to be extensive. It seems like anyone with a decent capability of designing a grammatically acceptable sentence in English is out to become a content writer or a blogger.

But is that what blogging is all about?

Do you think that the only skill needed for a good blog is your craftsmanship to put two syllables together in a logical manner?

I’m afraid my friend, I beg to differ.

I strongly beg to differ from your belief that writing is a soulless craft which is not reliant on expression.

It’s heartbreaking to see such capable and talented writers lost in this abyss of creativity and articulation. When I began my career as a writer, I was 16 years old and I had no experience or platform to nurture extensively on my skill. I lacked the basic elements of a creative person which are not just the finesse of language. There were so many loopholes in my works and I was, like I mentioned, lost. Even after 5 years of writing, I am far from calling myself a writer and I’m still learning how to go about new things every day.

There are no rules for writing a blog or generating productive content. You cannot add a paragraph and eureka! your entire blog will turn into a magnificent piece of art which will be quoted in history. There’s no fork in the road where one is the right one and the other is the wrong one. There’s no path to a good blog because creativity bounded by rules is the preliminary definition of an oxymoron.

A good article will make you believe in it. If it’s a food blog, you’d feel the drool in your mouth. If it’s a travel blog, you’ll feel the breeze on your face as if you’re sitting in the car towards that destination. If it’s a tech blog, you’d want to own that device. If it’s a fashion blog, you’ll scroll down.

I’m no writer and heck, I have nothing to offer you as an advice other than a few tips which I prefer using on my blogs. So, I apologize for providing mundane information. Here are some of the tips and guidelines which can help you enhance your piece of work.

Glam up the title

I cannot stress enough on how important it is to have a beguiling yet modest heading. A title is the face of any blog, bring out your M. A. C. and NYX here. I’m not talking about clickbait and if you do it, don’t. But your heading should be interesting enough to intrigue your reader. Keep it expressive and simple.

I have met so many writers who consider starting their blog without a heading which is not a good idea unless you have a theme or a few ideas in your mind. If you’re starting to write a blog entry, you have to understand that every word you’re writing has to complement your title in one form or the other which is why it is very important to have a title or a heading decided for your blog.

(Hah! I made you scroll!)

Compliment your header

You cannot leave your home in a four-wheeler and reach your destination in a two-wheeler (unless you choose to change it or the vehicle explodes into two pieces because of Ajay Devgan’s Nitro Boosters).

Your paragraphs should complement your header.

Your sentences should complement your header.

Your words should complement your header.

You have to make sure that the content you’re writing is in sync with the title all the time. If you begin as a tomato and end up as a banana, you really just wrote everything and nothing at once. The best way to do it is to divide your content into segments and pointers which you intend to elaborate.

Divide and rule

Yes, it’s a very helpful and simple trick which I prefer using for all of my writing pieces. Prefer preparing a blueprint of your article beforehand. It’s better to divide your blog outline into subheadings and pointers which you can use for your reference or design your blog. That way, you’ll have smaller bites and it’ll be easier to chew. You divide the article into easy chunks and rule the presentation. Create a written skeleton for your entire content and mention the things you want to talk about so that you can elaborate during the chiselling of that baby-blog of yours!

Nobody cares about you

I started my own journey and here I am, talking about how irrelevant it is. Hear me out! What I meant by the subheading was that nobody truly wants to know what you’re trying to say. Your readers are your guests and deserve and expect a privileged article. They’re more concerned about which problem in their lives are you going to solve or ease with your article, including the factor of relatability. Whether it is an addition of information to their reservoir of knowledge, strengthening their already existing belief, changing their perspective about an existing belief or mere catering to their entertainment, your article has to be selfless and for the audience.

But you should care about yourself

I love contradictions! On the other note, no matter how audience-driven your article is, you have to stay true to yourself. You cannot present dish you yourself won’t eat to your customers and expect a good response. You have to believe in what you write and the best way to do it is to write what you believe in. As much as you have curated and treat your article according to your audience, your own views should not derail from what they are.

When I wrote about, say the top five shopping websites to go to, I didn’t mention the websites because they were trending on google, I mentioned them because I have had my own personal experiences with them. I preferred keeping it informative to make sure that my readers (lovely readers!) don’t leave empty-handed, yet I didn’t let my own belief dither from my own positive ventures with a less trending website.

Your article should speak from your perspective because you are behind those beautifully curated sentences.

Speak you, keep it your own. If you’re quirky, express it. if you try to instil failed humour like me, go ahead and do it.

Believe in your content and generate the content you believe in. If you want to keep your article biased, by all means. People love to read opinioned articles which aren’t existing because of the mainstream.

Read and read and read and do it all over again

Did I mention read? Oh, wait!

Do you know everything? No. Do you agree with me? I thought so.

Read everything you can get your hands and anything you get your eyes on. Limiting yourself to what you think you know is a portrayal of arrogance and conventional mindset. Gone are the days when you had to travel in order to send a message someone and researchers and discoveries took ages to get discovered. In this age of information and internet, you can gain access to anything the government wants (because if you want to access what you want, you’ll need Tor and VPN).

Jokes apart, the world is growing smaller and turning into a global village which is connected to and through the internet all the time. Information is easy and instant. Be intelligent and use that vast portal to expand your horizon of knowledge.

Do you have any idea how many books are there that you haven’t read? You don’t have time to read them all and that’s depressing. Go ahead, read shitty books, read good books, read a fan-fic, sci-fic or Chetan Bhagat. What matters is that you’re growing your capacity of knowing things. Here’s how you can go about it:

Read the newspaper every day. It’s not only to gain knowledge and awareness but to help you enhance your linguistic skills.

Write something every single day. It can be a diary, non-sensible paragraphs, or anything you want but make sure you contribute something to your practice every day.
Learn at least two new words on daily basis. It can be from thesaurus or dictionary but do it.
Make sure you read at least one book in three months.

Challenge your limits every time you take up a new assignment. I don’t mean overcommit yourself but push yourself to write about something which isn’t your interest. It will help you gain extra knowledge which will never go in vain.

Keep it short and crisp

Would you really prefer dwelling on to your innate capability of weaving extravagant sentences which may not serve the eternal purpose of expression? I don’t think so either. Keep it simple because it’s “Big Brother” and not “Enormous Sibling” just for the sake of showing off your vocabulary is not impressive. I’m not asking you to compromise on the expression or trim the creativity. But don’t waste your syllables on unnecessary scenarios which can be expressed in a simpler manner. If you don’t want your readers to be confused, don’t confuse them; keep the chair blue, not depressed.

Use short sentences and keep them equally expressive. If a sentence is too long, cut it short if you can. (I’m working on this one though!). If your sentence is not adding to the purpose of the holistic comprehension of your paragraph, delete it while you can. Do not repeat the information with different words. Do not use the same set of facts to extend your paragraphs. See? It is annoying.

Like I said, it’s “Big Brother” and not “Enormous Sibling”. Dive in the sea of creativity and lens out the rarest and prettiest pearls of thoughts, but do not bejewel an already beautiful thought with overgenerous and gaudy words; you don’t paint on jewellery made up of gold.

So, these are some of my go-to pointers which I use while working on my article. These are just suggestions and not rules. But then again, what the fun of being creative if you’re not breaking a few of them.