Being original seems to be the hardest thing when it comes to writing. You see the same messages being doled out to you day after day in so many ways. After a point you get tired of reading the same things packaged differently.
Originality is being true to self. That is where copied, rehashed material differs from the original. I could deliver the same message but when I add my experiences, my understanding, my expectations and disappointments to the basic idea and tell you something from my point of view it becomes a original story. Let me pull out an experience from my kitchen to make this clear to you.
It's like what I do with left overs at home. If I reheat and serve leftovers I don't find many takers for it. What if a take some roast chicken shred it up chop some onions, garlic and fry them lightly with some ground black pepper and some spices and serve the same thing, it is a new dish. Even though the basic ingredient was the roast chicken no one thinks of it as such. They are happy and consumed it without a murmur. This is creativity. I take what I have, add new ingredients to it with imagination, style and understanding, gave it a new name here it is my called Chicken pepper, garlic fry and serve in style. What do you think restaurants do?
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When it comes to food I never follow recipes. I do my own thing. I have years of experience cooking, sometimes I have been forced to cook with what I have in the pantry (as I have to take a 15 minute walk in the sun to get what I need before I cooked in the heat of my kitchen). So what do I do? I just come up new dishes by throwing in ingredients which I think work well together and cook up a meal. This means that I use my experience to come up with new, different and palatable dishes.
Why not use the same kind of technique in writing? I don't mean write about the same things over and over again. what I mean is when you have to write about a much written topic use this technique. Besides, no topic is truly original, I would like to think everything on Earth has been written about in one way or the other.
You may have a problem getting started with something. However, as you go about adding your experiences, your opinions, what you loved, enjoyed, hated or maybe just put up with, you give your subject a unique voice. It is not so hard believe me. You are being you, real and true to yourself.
There are lessons to be learned everywhere, be open see beyond what is the obvious. you'll will have so much to say about everything. You will have no dearth of subjects to talk about.
Personally speaking I have a problem with researching. My memory retains a lot of what I read word for word especially if I read something just before writing. To avoid sounding like a plagiarist, I avoid read just before I write. I just write down words/ points I want to focus on and give my own examples. Sometimes I avoid research completely especially while writing in social media sites. Anyways, I read a quite a bit and I have the information I need before I start writing anything.
Another point to note is, if people wanted accurate information with statistics, figures, pie charts and data they should not be looking at social media sites in the first place. They should probably depend on news media (which is supposed to do a good job of verification of details before they throw it out there like they do today) and other scholarly research papers.
When they are here in a social media sites they are looking for stories, informed opinion, rather than facts and figures. They are looking for local information (which may never reach the news media), experiences and infotainment.
You could make what you write sound absolutely original by asking yourself what you would I like to read as a consumer of content. Would I like a bit of humor, serious stories or something just light playful while being informative and go by it.
Develop your own style; copying someone never turns out well. Unconsciously you tend to act like someone who you are not and you could sound rather fake and unconvincing. Most importantly you are not being true to yourself.
Being true to yourself has its advantages, you learn to acquire your own writing voice. You have discover own style and you are your own persona online, distinct and unique from the million others who write there.
When you are original you don't have to bother checking your writing with plagiarism detection tools. You don't have to put a banner saying this content has been checked for plagiarism and found to be original. You know in your heart that you have been true to yourself and your content would stand the test of time.
Just a small reminder I thought would be in place here, you need to understand that your content in the blockchain is 'forever'. So if you plagiarize or borrow stuff from others without rightly acknowledging you are a plagiarist forever.
Not just that, when you are true to yourself and the times you live in you become the researcher's nuggets of knowledge for posterity. Let's say someone comes looking for information about life on Earth during the pandemic 200 years later, your information even if it isn't about the pandemic will give them a glimpse of how life is right now.
Have fun right, be the unique you, original and absolutely stylish as only you can be.
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