How to Organise your Thoughts into an Effective Blog

byIamnIcan

343 followers

Updated 10 years ago

Writing a blog can present novices with a two fold challenge. You could either be going through the 'writer's block' where the muse that you would generally rely on for inspiration has abandoned you; leaving you stranded on an unassuming plane,offering no hopes of redemption.

Conversely, you may suffer from an over enthusiastic brain that spews forth ideas at a break-neck speed, overwhelming you enough to hamper your ability to form intelligible sentences . Eitherways, it can leave you guessing.

Having been afflicted with the latter syndrome, (you may read about it in my earlier post titled "Musings of a Blogger") and finding my way around it I decided to compile all the tips that I had discovered in the process into a handy guide. Hope it helps many.

Stage 1:

• Choose a topic you are passionate about. Conversely, you may choose from among any hot discussion topics,current news or a latest talk-of-the-town subject.
• Get researching on it. You could use google amongst other tools. Just try to broaden your perspective. Do not restrict your thinking to any one aspect. Get as many differing opinions as you can on it.
• Jot down points, and ideas; without regard for any laws of grammar or syntax for the moment, if u must. Just let the ideas flow unreserved.

Stage 2:

• Gather all the data.
• Analyze it to identify themes. I encourage you to highlight themes with different colored highlighters. It will assist you in the following steps.
• Organise the themes into categories .
• Use these themes as your basic guide . Now elaborate on each idea, combining themes where they interrelate. This step will give you your paragraphs.

Stage 3:

• Arrange paragraphs in an hierarchy of importance. Decide which will be the introductory para. Which parts will form the body and wrap up with a concluding paragraph where you leave the reader with some thoughts for their consideration. This potentially fosters reader/writer interaction.

Stage 4:

• Ruthlessly edit any unneccessary banter, or as literary coaches advise "kill your darlings". So all those invaluable emotions that got your pen flowing need to be carefully edited; removed where they become redundant or unrelatable for the reader and kept where they provide fodder for retrospection.
• Also know when to stop editing! It will come with practice and feedback.
• Finally, proofread for any and all laws pertaining to writing;including but not limited to structure, grammar, formatting and spelling .

Workng with these points in mind you will hopefully have penned a decent document.