Every year, people spend thousands of dollars on writing courses, but today I want to teach you a few of the same lessons you will find in these classes for free.
Here are three writing rules you need to create awesome blog posts every time:
Rule #1: Keep it simple
Eliminate extra words. Remember the maxim, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Apply this during the editing stage. Be ruthless. If it isn’t essential, delete it.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. Click To TweetSimple writing is more persuasive. That’s why Twitter became so successful. You have 140 characters to get your point across. It is also why Myspace died. Too much clutter. It numbed the brain. So keep it simple, Stupid!
Rule #2: Use active voice
One of the most marvelous features about the brain is the way it translates groups of words into images. Once we advance beyond basic phonetic reading, we stop reading each word and instead, our mind takes collections of words and forms pictures. That is, if the sentence is structured properly.
The best way to take advantage of this is to write in the active voice. For example, “the man chopped down the tree” activates the imagery in your mind in a way that “the tree was chopped down by the man” just doesn’t. This is because the brain gets to grab the image of the man, and then the tree, versus the other way around, which it then has to quickly rearrange.
Rule #3: Write great titles
Interesting blog titles get people to read the post. In the noisy world of social media, catchy titles are of utmost importance. Apply the 50/50 rule for writing blog titles – spend 50% of the time writing the post and 50% writing the title. You can use a tool like Google Adwords to research long-tail key phrases, but don’t over-optimize, or your title will end up sounding forced.
Beware, I’m not advocating for click-bait like “5 Fascinating Life Rules All Billionaires Live By. Number 5 Blew us Away!”. I hate that stuff. Thankfully, so does Facebook, who earlier this year updated their algorithm to punish those articles.
Before closing, I highly recommend checking out this classic post by Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert.
Love the tips, Reade. They’re great for any level of blogger to follow. You are right in that the title has become extremely important.
As I am known for saying, “Truth is truth, no matter when, no matter who says it.” I think that if something seems too simple in theory, or if they’ve heard the advice before, people tend to avoid it, feeling like it’s old hat. But the principles you’ve laid out here are as true now as they’ve ever been.
As a writer and writing teacher (as well as an overall lover of words and language), I’d add to your second point by saying that you can achieve an active voice with a passive object by using figurative language; and this is a very good thing. For instance, in your example of the man and the tree, we could try something like this in order to elicit active voice from the object’s perspective: “The tree shuddered violently as each swift blow landed, biting deeper and deeper, gouging out bark and pulp.” Using figurative language allows more options, since we are not forced to start with the obvious subject or agent.