Every now and then, I run a workshop on making blog content interesting at a local high school. The workshop always kicks off with a session on generating ideas for blog posts – though of course the ideas apply to all writing.
Here are thoughts on how to generate content ideas that I share (with the addition of some that have been shared by participants over the years):
I’m on record as saying that I think the most important thing to do in writing is structuring your text – and that grammar is something that people can worry about once they have organised their thoughts.
I am aware, though, that that is an easy thing to say when you are writing in your mother tongue. In that environment, we all have an innate understanding of how our language works, and what feels wrong and what feels right.
But for people who need to write in a second or third language (as so many people are in our English-dominated world), fear of getting things wrong can be confidence-sapping and inhibiting.
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My working life consists of words.
Writing them, editing them, loving them.
And yet, words themselves are not as important as the places where they fit.
Here’s the thing: faced with an editing job, I hope for one thing, and one thing only. And that is not that the writer has a good grasp of grammar and spelling.
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Long ago, at school, there was an English lesson about how and where to break text into paragraphs.
As I remember it, we were taught that that one thought or subject should be contained within the same paragraph.
The wonderful Grammar Girl agrees. She says:
Paragraphs represent ideas, and ideas come in many sizes. The most important point should be at the beginning of a paragraph — often, that point is called a topic sentence — and you use the rest of the paragraph to develop the point further.
Here’s an example, in a story from the Guardian:
“The Gambia is in financial distress. The coffers are virtually empty. That is a state of fact,” Fatty said. “It has been confirmed by technicians in the ministry of finance and the Central Bank of the Gambia.”
There are two sentences there, but they both relate to the question of how much money may be missing in The Gambia, and so they form one paragraph.
Compare that to the same thought in the Daily Mail:
But amid growing controversy over the assurances offered to Jammeh to guarantee his departure, Barrow aide Mai Fatty said the new administration had discovered that millions had recently been stolen.
‘The coffers are largely empty,’ he told reporters in the Senegalese capital Dakar.
Here, the Mail is applying a particular way of dividing text into paragraphs, particularly in online articles. In this way of doing things, the end of every sentence is a sign that the writer should hit the enter key and make a paragraph.
That makes for fast and easy writing, and editing. It also makes the text easier for readers to scan – and there is nothing wrong with that.
But the one-sentence-one-paragraph rule can be counter-productive, particularly in other forms of writing – think for instance of scientific articles or fictional writing. In these formats, making every sentence a new paragraph could be jarring for readers.
The real trick is to vary long and short paragraphs through your writing.
This bit of interesting text (again from the Mail) is in the online, one-sentence-one-para style:
She said: ‘I was introduced to naturism in the South of France when I was on holiday with my partner.
‘We turned up at a beach, and realised in was a naturist beach. I looked at him, and he looked at me, and we thought ‘let’s do it’.
‘It turned out to be a really enjoyable afternoon. I think people are starting to embrace naturism more and more.
‘It’s interesting, because in this day and age you have on one hand pop-stars wearing scantily-clad clothing, and that being seen as quite sexual behaviour.
‘And on the other hand you have things like naked bike rides. The idea behind naturism is that it is your natural body, and there is nothing sexual about it.’
And with varying paragraph lengths:
She said: ‘I was introduced to naturism in the South of France when I was on holiday with my partner. We turned up at a beach, and realised in was a naturist beach. I looked at him, and he looked at me, and we thought ‘let’s do it’.
‘It turned out to be a really enjoyable afternoon. I think people are starting to embrace naturism more and more.
‘It’s interesting, because in this day and age you have on one hand pop-stars wearing scantily-clad clothing, and that being seen as quite sexual behaviour. And on the other hand you have things like naked bike rides. The idea behind naturism is that it is your natural body, and there is nothing sexual about it.’
I have taken the text and made one long paragraph, one short and one quite long one.
I think that’s easier to read, and also shows a more sophisticated grasp of language by the writer.
Writing tip: One way to practice this would be to write your text with every sentence as a new paragraph. Then, go through it again, and find the sentences that relate to each other, taking out paragraph returns as you go.
Note: This is an updated version of a post written in 2017.
Contact me if you would like to chat about how I can help with all your communication needs (writing, editing, coaching and training, social media).
I write a post every week, alternating between talking about my professional life and work (The Content Guru) and reflecting on personal or broader issues (In Safe Hands). You can get either of those, or both, in your email, by subscribing here.
