Ten Tips for Good Blog Writing

One of the sessions at BlogPaws West is Writing Essentials. I'm presenting it. The reason we added this to the agenda is to help our bloggers create professional content that reflects their own voice. Today, our blogs are more than ramblings or musings. Our blogs are being recognized as a voice for a cause, whether that cause is raising funds, supporting shelters, connecting to our community, even offering product reviews.

The session at the conference will be more educational and informative than this blog post, but I thought I'd share some tips here, now, to get everyone thinking about the quality of their writing.

My Top 10 Blog Writing Tips

1. Check your spelling. It's easy to confuse "it's and its" - The first stands for "it is"... the second refers to an object (note: you do not use 'its' for people - people are referred to as "she" or "he".) Other words that sometimes get typed incorrectly (fast fingers, perhaps?): you're (you are) for your - possessive pronoun; their (belonging to them) for there - a place, or even they're (they are).

2. Be specific. When describing a scene, a person, a product, an event, be specific. Don't say, "This doggie outfit was a good fit for Brisky. She loved it." Instead, say, "The overcoat is red and blue and comes with four booties, also red and blue. The booties have white ribbons to tie them on and a hat that makes Brisky look like a detective!" The goal is to create an image in the reader's mind. 

3. Online, create short sentences and paragraphs. Write at will - then go back, reread, and break your writing into shorter chunks of text. People do not like long paragraphs online. They skim to get at what's important.

4. Tell a story. You can create a story around anything. Even a product review. People enjoy a good story.

5. Don't overdo the adverbs. One of the first lessons in creative writing is to remove all adverbs. Adverbs are often a crutch used to prop up the verb. To quote a favorite site, Grammar Girl, "...for a brief list of very, very useless adverbs: the ones often used carelessly as intensifiers. You really should cut these out: “extremely,” “definitely,” “truly,” “very,” and “really.” You can totally use them in dialogue though, especially if your characters are surfers. Otherwise, avoid them mightily."

6. Don't bury the lead. Start at the beginning, tell me what you're going to tell me, then tell me why it's important, and close with a recap. If I have to read and read and read to figure out where you're going with your blog post, I'm outta here! And less likely to come back to see what else you might have to say another time.

7. Write in active voice. This is tricky because when we write blog posts, we're most often using a conversational tone. That often lends itself to passive voice. Active voice is focused and less wordy. Grammar girl does a good job of describing the differences in voice. For instance, "Steve loves Amy," is active voice. "Amy is loved by Steve," is passive voice. Reread tip #2 - the description is active voice. As opposed to, "The outfit was red and blue and came with booties that had white ribbons on them."

8. Spend less time explaining yourself and more time getting to the point. This is something I do on a regular basis. I want the reader to know exactly what I mean, so I write several sentences supporting the opening sentence in my paragraph. It makes me feel better but it drives readers crazy. (like this tip - too long!) Point is: say what you mean and mean what you say. To quote Mark Twain, "If I'd had more time, I'd have written a shorter letter."

9. Read and reread your blog post before clicking "publish." Become a good editor. Writers who strive to excel at their craft read their writing out loud. It makes a difference. Try it.

10. When speaking in anipal-speak...please review and ask yourself, "Will my readers be able to understand what I've written, the first time they see it?" I don't mind anipal-speak, except when it gets so complicated I have to read it over and over to figure out what you're telling me. Confuse me and I'm gone.

I'll have more tips and tricks at my session this week. Yikes! It IS this week! See you there!

Comments

[Lorie Huston]

Great tips, Yvonne. Some of them I need to concentrate on more, especially the terrific adverbs (sorry, I couldn't help myself) and the explaining part (I'd go into a longer explanation but...LOL).

I do like the Mark Twain quote. Hadn't heard that one before :-)

Looking forward to hearing more at BlogPaws. See you there.

BTW, I love the photo of the dog with the eye glasses..so cute!

[Vicki Cook]

Thanks for the tips Yvonne! I'm still working on the anipal-speak. ;-)

[Yvonne DiVita]

@Lori - I love the Mark Twain quote because it's so true - if we take the time to review our work, we can always make it stronger and better by cutting it in half.

@Vicki - yes, anipal-speak is challenging. We need a dictionary! Cute and fun is fine, but not when the reader can't figure out the message.

[Joan DeMartin]

I'm so proud that you used my picture:-)!

Bocci

[Max the Quilt Cat]

Great article and thanks for including links. I'll tweet this to fellow pet bloggers.

[Kelly]

Thank you for sharing these great tips!