Winging It Vs Knowing What To Write About

The Blogchatter Half-Marathon has ten commandments, of which the fifth is:

Thou Shalt Know What Thou Write About

Does this line mean: That I should only write what I know? Pretty limited – it’ll probably fill less than 300 words…

It’s up for interpretation. Need to ask the A-Team exactly what they mean by this line. But meanwhile let me think…

Maybe they mean you should know what you are talking/writing about?

As I write this, it’s making more sense. Be an authority in your niche. Do your research, write it accurately and present it so the reader can understand it. I’ve come across many websites with inaccurate subject matter. Things that pop into the writer’s mind are in the webpage.

If you write accurately, readers will keep coming back for more. Imagine you’re writing an article about gardening and recommend your reader to dig up their prized rose bush and sub-plant it someplace else. It dies. So does your readership…duh…

So, what I’m getting at is, know what you are writing about.

• Do your research
• Understand what you have read
• Make points or headings based on the learning
• Do your keyword research – if you want to be found by search engines.
• Think up a good title which should in itself create curiosity.
• Have a great hook that’ll keep your reader there.
• Become an authority in your niche and Google will find you (not as simple as that, but you get the picture!)
• Make it interesting and easy to read so readers/followers come back for more.
• Find a suitable image or images – they can also be used for your social media posts later when you market your blog post.

Plagiarism/Copywrite

Do remember that ‘research’ does not mean copying from another website. That’s Plagiarism! Do not copy word for word. Instead read up from books and authoritative websites, research articles and journals. Connect all the major points, note down points and then create your own unique post. If you have some experience in the topic then by all means, incorporate that into the post.

Check Your Facts:

Remember all those journalists who got fired for reporting the wrong information? Well no one is going to fire you BUT you will lose follwers/readers if you post wrong information. Just one error will cast doubt on all your other posts. Do take your time to fact-check, before you write or create graphs and diagrams. Of course, if you are writing fiction, well, you can make up any fable.

Let me qualify that.

Even in writing fiction, if you place a scene in a period of time in history or about a place; then you will need to be accurate. After all, Paris is in France and not in Slovenia. World War II happened in the 20^th Century not in the 1800s… get my drift?

Now that everything is down on paper, what next? Editing.

Cut out repetitive words, misspellings, grammar mistakes, edit boring paragraphs. Use tools like Grammarly to correct mistakes you may not have noticed. Get fresh eyes to look for mistakes. Get it as close to perfect as possible – it will never be that of course, but we can get it close.

Conclusion

These are just a few major points in writing properly. Just a small taste of where you should be heading. There is still flow and SEO to look into. These points are for another blog post on another day. The important thing is that you need to be thorough in your research and write intelligently. Write what you know – which should be a lot – before you start to write!

This blog post is part of the Blogchatter Half Marathon