It's 2 AM on a dreary weekday morning, and I'm scanning the web for something to read. Line after line of dead text falling like the green shimmering rain of symbols from one of the Matrix movies. Suddenly out of the blue, my eyelids snap to attention like a pair of Pop-Tarts escaping from a hot toaster. "Rat-a-tat-tat!" each letter a bullet spraying my lens with digital rounds, as a smile slowly creeps across my face.
Ever found a blog post like that? One that's "Fire?" That's what today's article is all about.
The most memorable blog posts are the types that speak to you in a conversational tone of voice, like two neighbors talking over the back fence. They might be discussing the latest neighborhood wife-swapping, or how big Betty Turner down the road likes to shower with the curtains wide open.
You know what I mean? ;)
They're "realer" and tend to stay in the mind much longer than a dry, old, rote note. This is what we usually get from a purely informational piece which isn't designed to stick in one's craw like a well-written digital earworm that you'll recall long after you've finished it.
I can still remember one of the first ones like that that I read way back in 2017. Thing read like he was talking directly to me with a snarly sense of humor thrown in for good measure. I chuckled here and there while gobbling that post up like a hungry man stranded on a desert isle. It was that damn good.
While we may not all have the gift of creating biting, crackling, prose suffused deep within the warm, moist nether regions of a meesterboom (still my favorite blogger on Hive, take a bow), we can germinate and grow our own unique style of voice.
One of the things that I do when I'm in the editing process is to read the thing aloud in order to get a sense of how it flows in the mind of the reader. If it comes off a little stilted, back it goes into the editing oven to bake a little more until it's done.
I find that good writing has a natural cadence to it, where you can almost count the beats of the words as you read them. I call it "paragraph play" and try to work it in whenever I can.
Not to drop names again (no @ sign), but when josediccus authors a piece, there's a certain pacing to the writing which makes it really stand out. It almost becomes a signature of sorts, a standard of quality that keeps you coming back for more.
When we find authors that can make even the most mundane subjects soar with outstanding wordplay, they become "keepers" to be returned to again and again. Like the French, they can even curse you out beautifully, letting you know in a noteworthy way that you just got got. And it even made you smile. :)
So when a bigger, better, blogger begets a brainy, barnstorming, blog post, it'll go down like the sweet taste of honey on a beautiful spring day. And you know what? If they can do it, so can you. Take a dollop of cheeky, a smidgen of snark, stir in a touch of whimsy, and add a pinch of soul. Do that often enough and your writing will feed the multitudes!
