Lesson Three:
Digging Deeper
“Digging Deeper” suggests that there is a surface level of your blog that you can touch and never go beneath. Imagine fishing with a short line; if you keep casting into deep waters with a shallow line, most likely, you’re only going to draw the type of fish that would swim near the surface. So, it’s natural to assume that you’d keep catching this type of fish, unless you changed something, namely how deep you cast.
The internet is a broad audience; these are “deep waters.” And if you don’t go beneath the surface with your writing, it’s going to get lost with a bunch of other bobbers floating on the top of the water. What does staying on the surface look like?
Wander through some blog mechanisms to get a feel for this – maybe even your friends’ blogs. Meander through
Blogger,
Xanga, and
MySpace. It shouldn’t take long to see what most people are doing. They’re talking about themselves – what they ate today, which classes they’re skipping, what kind of music they’re listening to. Not only that, but they’re doing it in a way that often reflects a journal, with nothing very compelling to say.
To go deeper, you’re going to have to give your blog some weight – something of substance to hold it down. What I’d like to suggest to you – and beware, because it’s not the only way to captivate an audience but almost a sure-bet if done properly – is to tell stories. Why stories? Because almost everyone can practice good storytelling. Not everyone can write a Pulitzer-winning article on the problem of world poverty or the pandemic of AIDS. But you can talk about what happens to you and draw significance out of it.
I just saw a
YouTube series by Ira Glass, in which he explains telling good stories in the media. He says that there are two basic building blocks:
anecdote and
moment of reflection. An anecdote is a sequence of actions:
this happened, which caused this, and, in turn, caused that. No matter how boring the content may be, this type of storytelling builds momentum. In an anecdote, you want to constantly be raising questions and then answering them. This is how you will draw your audience back, asking, “What next?”
The second building block is a moment of reflection. This tells your audience why you’re telling the story. You may have something compelling to say (a great anecdote full of amazing events), but if you don’t give it any relevance, your audience will be left wondering why all of this should matter to them.
As you develop your voice (that is, how you tell a story), you should avoid two pitfalls Ira mentions: trying to sound like someone you’re not (i.e. pretension) and concentrating too much on one character. In regards to the first, be authentic; don’t try to copy or mimic the best writer you know. You’ve heard it a million times before, and it’s true – just be yourself.
In regards to the second, you don’t want to write too much about yourself, and this may be more tempting than you’d think, especially if your story’s compelling (i.e. traveling around the world). Also, don’t write yourself out of a story.
If you’re doing an interview, you can be a clear personality in the story, fueling questions, getting more information. And if it’s first-person, write about your interactions. There’s no drama if there’s no interaction; there’s no drama if there’s too much of you or the other person. You need characters to produce drama.
My quick suggestions for telling good stories in a blog are the following:
- Keep it short; break up into parts if necessary. I do this on occasion when I know a few hundred words won’t do the experience justice. My friend Stephanie Fisk just wrote about her experience with a family that lives in a landfill in Nicaragua here in a three-part blog.
Read it here. - Make sure that you tell it in your unique voice. Scott Molgard juxtaposes serious situations with hilarious metaphors and examples that often include bodily functions. Somehow, he manages to draw a deep spiritual parallel out of it, as well.
Click here for a recent example of this. - Spend the time finding a good story. If you’re using your blog to mostly tell about yourself, you may just have to wait for the story. Nonetheless, take notes and journal events, because you never know what may become a story.
- Spend the time writing the story. There is no good shortcut, and if you genuinely want to become a good writer, you’ll have to spend significant time writing. What I do is have a Word document available at any time I have a thought or something, write in it in my free time (usually in the evenings or weekends), proofread and cut out anything that’s extraneous and post to my blog once refined.
