Bloggers on blogging

Ann Althouse wrote a post today criticizing the quality of blogging on a new celebrity blog at The Huffington Post.

She says, "Nothing particularly clever or pithy coming from the celebs, and there's too much verbiage to give them all a chance. No one seems to have given much thought to how to write a blog. Have they even read other blogs?"

Surprise, surprise. Most of the first posts by people who have never blogged before are written like--a first post by someone who's never blogged before.

I responded by suggesting that if this bothers her, maybe she should write a tutorial on blog-writing for new bloggers.

Ann Althouse said...
Purple Kangaroo: I don't think there's one absolutely correct way. I myself do several different things, depending on the material. But I do think bloggers should think about how to write for a blog and try to come up with good ideas about how to blog. I have some rules of thumb:

You need to post at least once a day.

You should write in a conversational style -- assuming you're not a boring conversationalist.

Write short sentences, unless you've got a reason not to. Try to be as readable and concise as you can.

Try to say something new or unusual or interesting.

Be funny. Be fair.

11:56 AM

Hmmm, I think I need to work on the short sentences thing. Conciseness is not my strongest point.

I would add these points:

Be honest. Be genuine. Be yourself. A unique approach is always interesting to readers, so if you can capitalize on something different about the way you think, your posts will stand out from the crowd. There's nothing more boring than a gazillion posts all saying the same thing in just slightly different words about the same topic. (Oops--so much for short sentences. :) )

Don't use all short, simple sentences--variety of sentence structure and length is the spice of writing. Try to minimize your use of sentence fragments. It's ok to start sentences with the word "and" occasionally if you know how to make it work, but IMHO this device should be used very sparingly if at all.

Proofread before you post. (This is one I need to work on. Whenever my two preschoolers climb into my nearly nonexistent lap--usually both at once--my first impulse is to quickly hit the "publish post" button before they bump the keyboard and accidentally send my hard work into some black hole of cyberspace. :) )

Encourage interaction and discussion from your readers.

Whenever possible, link to what you're talking about.

Here's one of my pet peeves--if you link to something, try to go directly to the original source. There's nothing more annoying than trying to check a source only to find a chain of links from blog to blog to blog--none actually pointing to the original source where it can be found. There's nothing wrong with linking to someone else's discussion of it, but PLEASE link to the original source as well.

Know your audience and try to write about things that will interest them. For most of us, we'll probably develop a readership that's--surprise!--interested in the same things we are. So write about things you find interesting.

Variety is good. This is something I've been working on since moving from Xanga to blogger. I think I lost some readers who didn't want to slog through nothing but endless articles full of technical information and analysis--especially when almost every single one was on the same topic as the last. (I still think medical law and ethics, PVS and Terri Schiavo are fascinating topics, but I apologize to those of you who would have liked to read about something else once in a while for those couple of months.)

Don't just tell us what's happening in the news--we can read that anywhere. Tell us what YOU think about it and why it's interesting to you.

Use details that give insight into a situation or personality beyond the bare facts. Appeal to the reader's senses. Use words that create a visual picture, describe a scent or sound, or evoke that "other" sense--the sense of humor.

For those of us who aren't celebrities with built-in hype and advertising, gaining a readership is a bit of a challenge. You can, of course, tell your friends about your blog via e-mail and word-of-mouth, but what about the rest of the WWW?

An important point to remember is that the blog world is really an online community. One of the best ways to get to know people and for them to become aware of your blog is simple: visit and post on other people's blogs. When someone posts on my blog, I usually look to see if they have a blog. I like to read the comments on other people's blogs, and often find blogs I enjoy reading by following signature links from comments on other blogs. Like any other community, you can't be known without socializing.

Of course, once you get people to visit your blog it's your writing skill that will keep them there and draw them back. It's your unique take, choice of topics and interesting writing style that will get them to link to your blog and recommend your posts to their friends.

Sorry, no shortcuts here. As Ann said, you actually have to read other blogs, improve your skills, and work hard to write a good blog that people will want to read.

What do you think makes a good blog, and what are your biggest blog-related pet peeves?