Step Two: Make a list. Blog writers, and presumably readers, like structure. To use Daniel Coyle's phrase: "Chunk it up." In The Talent Code Coyle writes persuasively about how good learning comes from breaking things down into bite-sized chunks. If these chunks are simple, achievable steps towards making a change that at first appeared out of reach then bingo - a winning blog post. Think you can't run a half-marathon? No problem: here's "10 steps to your first Half".
Step Three: Use formatting effectively. Blog readers scan through the stuff they don't need to read. They like that it's there. It gives them the evidence they need to trust the list, but what they want to walk away with is the list, so highlight the take home message. Make it clearly distinct from the stuff that supports the take home message.
"...what they want to walk away with is the list, so highlight the take home message."
Step Four: Be short. People are busy. They want crisp, clear sentences. Today information can be obtained on-demand virtually anywhere at any time. For most people reading a single sentence that doesn't relate to what he or she needs to know right now is useless and a waste of time. We live in an age of distraction and immediate gratification. The result is a lived experience of stressful demanding urgency or exciting spontaneous variety, depending on your point of view. But either way, today's audience doesn't have the time, energy, training or desire to read useless information, so cut it out. In "the old days" (so the story goes) people had time to read the entire bible to work out how to be good. Then it was summarised into the 10 Commandments. But Jesus - a proto-blogger of the highest order - realised that even that was too much for time-pressed Christians, and came up with The Golden Rule. (It goes something like: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "Treat others the way you'd like to be treated yourself.") So today the Bible can be succinctly printed on a t-shirt. Blogger-world perfection.
Step Five: Grab their attention, and create an emotional response. If you create curiosity then your reader reads; if you create emotions then she remembers.
Step Six, which is another rule to keep in mind - and throw out - is that as a blogger you need to refocus - or re-grab - your reader's attention every now and then. A twist. A jarring change in direction. A new approach to the game.
Of course, everything I've just written is a lie.
What if this were true? You've read this far, only to be told you've been misled. Are you worried? Curious? Confused? Frustrated? Feeling cheated? But intrigued? Re-interested?
But yes. And no. Things can, of course, be true and yet not the whole truth. Some parts of these ideas are rubbish - but judging from the blogs on a number of the "best blog" lists it's very popular rubbish. So what's wrong with it?
First, the brain doesn't work this way. Memory doesn't hold onto lists. You may think you do, but that's either because the list is really short, or because your brain has made a story out of it.
John Medina, in the book Brain Rules describes the unusual fact that the brain's memory system works almost exactly the opposite to the way you might expect.
Sure, you may be able to remember four or five random numbers. Seven or eight is generally not too hard. But when you start trying to remember the 16 digits of your credit card number it can get a bit tricky (which is why you start to remember it as 4 sets of 4 numbers, rather than one 16 digit number). Familiarity makes sets of single items (say letters) into chunks (words), so that compared with recalling 16 random numbers, remembering 16 letters is easy if they are arranged this way: MAKE THIS LIST EASY. But try repeating the letters above now. How did you go? (If you hadn't noticed already - and therefore come up with a way to remember the first list as easily as the second - the letters are the same, only backwards.)
So what? The point is that our capacity to remember lists is very low. Our capacity to remember stories, on the other hand, is high. Stories, with all their extra detail, are easier to remember. This seems counterintuitive: how could it actually be easier to remember more stuff rather than less? Simply: that's the way our brains work. We like things to be in a meaningful sequence; we like things to relate to one another as many ways as possible; and we like things to have emotional content. We like stories. Narratives give us more hooks with which to hold onto a memory. So a story, not a list, is what sticks.
The second and most critical reason that writing self-help lists using clinically short sentences and attention-grabbing highlights is bad is that it is engaging in a process that is pushing both writers and readers in entirely the wrong direction.
Try remembering this random series of letters, then read on: YSAETSILSIHTEKAM.
John Medina, in the book Brain Rules describes the unusual fact that the brain's memory system works almost exactly the opposite to the way you might expect.
Sure, you may be able to remember four or five random numbers. Seven or eight is generally not too hard. But when you start trying to remember the 16 digits of your credit card number it can get a bit tricky (which is why you start to remember it as 4 sets of 4 numbers, rather than one 16 digit number). Familiarity makes sets of single items (say letters) into chunks (words), so that compared with recalling 16 random numbers, remembering 16 letters is easy if they are arranged this way: MAKE THIS LIST EASY. But try repeating the letters above now. How did you go? (If you hadn't noticed already - and therefore come up with a way to remember the first list as easily as the second - the letters are the same, only backwards.)
So what? The point is that our capacity to remember lists is very low. Our capacity to remember stories, on the other hand, is high. Stories, with all their extra detail, are easier to remember. This seems counterintuitive: how could it actually be easier to remember more stuff rather than less? Simply: that's the way our brains work. We like things to be in a meaningful sequence; we like things to relate to one another as many ways as possible; and we like things to have emotional content. We like stories. Narratives give us more hooks with which to hold onto a memory. So a story, not a list, is what sticks.
The second and most critical reason that writing self-help lists using clinically short sentences and attention-grabbing highlights is bad is that it is engaging in a process that is pushing both writers and readers in entirely the wrong direction.
"...the kind of blog I'm describing helps people become more self-centred."
The kind of blog I'm describing helps people become more self-centred. The path towards community, empathy, social cohesion and connectedness is not through people reading lists about how they can get what they want. Social cohesion comes through relationships built on connection and empathy. At a social level, these connections are with other people. On a deeper ecological level these connections include those we have with plants and animals and the earth. And whether we are talking about people or plants, pigeons or parasites, connection comes from listening to each other's stories.
"...whether we are talking about people or plants, connection comes from listening to each other's stories."
So write blogs that tell stories. Read blogs that tell stories. Your stories, the stories of your friends, your children, your garden, your pets, your connection with all things.
The final twist; chuck all THAT out as well. Bloggers who write about themselves and their friends are the most self-indulgent and boring of bloggers. At least those who produce lists and answer the questions they think might be of use to their readers are thinking about their readers! Most bloggers who write about their day-to-day lives, who "share their stories", do so because they have a bizarrely egotistical desire to be heard - to matter. They seem to believe that by thrusting their dirty laundry (whether that means their sex-lives or dirty sock piles) onto a largely uninterested public they begin to count - to matter - even to exist. This is complete bullshit.
You, me, us... we already matter, but what really matters is our capacity to connect with others and create a world that is more than just our isolated selves... This process of transcendence and connection makes our own lives bigger and our communities stronger. Those two processes are utterly entwined - the double-helix of personal and community growth.
Make your blog reflect this desire to reach out, to expand yourself and really connect with others. It's possible to reach towards something without really reaching out. This is simply the act of searching for what you want and once you've found it: of taking. (Weirdly, even in acts of service, of giving support and care, we can avoid reaching out and sharing ourselves - so giving becomes self-less in a way that doesn't create a connection.) It's also possible to reach out without reaching towards, by being self-centred in wanting others to acknowledge that you matter! This is the existential crisis of living in a crowded world.
When we do both, however, we honour our own stories and those of others, and seek connection and expansion. That's when - in my opinion anyway - we've got it right.
The end.
You, me, us... we already matter, but what really matters is our capacity to connect with others and create a world that is more than just our isolated selves... This process of transcendence and connection makes our own lives bigger and our communities stronger. Those two processes are utterly entwined - the double-helix of personal and community growth.
Make your blog reflect this desire to reach out, to expand yourself and really connect with others. It's possible to reach towards something without really reaching out. This is simply the act of searching for what you want and once you've found it: of taking. (Weirdly, even in acts of service, of giving support and care, we can avoid reaching out and sharing ourselves - so giving becomes self-less in a way that doesn't create a connection.) It's also possible to reach out without reaching towards, by being self-centred in wanting others to acknowledge that you matter! This is the existential crisis of living in a crowded world.
When we do both, however, we honour our own stories and those of others, and seek connection and expansion. That's when - in my opinion anyway - we've got it right.
The end.