You think that you have come up with a great story, and your friend accuses you of Plagiarism. There are very few things in life, let me tell you, that can irritate you more than such an accusation.

I, naturally, asked my friend about the part of my story that sounded copied.

“All of it,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. Then he continued to tell me how my story was a copy of the so many stories he had read before.

“Your story has a hero, who gets into trouble with a few bad guys, and in the end manages to solve all of his problems easily. Isn’t that how all stories go?”

For a while, I was troubled by what he said, because what he said was true.

I had to ask myself how my story was different from the so many others that have been written before me.

Eventually, however, I saw light, and realised that the search for uniqueness is something that may have ended many a writer’s careers.

The Fact is: There is almost nothing that has not been written before.

Maybe, if you keep writing long enough, you may be able to write something truly unique, but till then you will have to make do with whatever you can write. If you keep waiting till you come up with something unique, your wait may well last forever.

Stories are like finger prints.

On the face of it all fingerprints seem alike, but the reality is that the six billion people on our planet have unique fingerprints, and no two people have the same finger prints.

Similarly, the basic ideas behind the stories we write may be similar, but each story becomes unique when we add our own touches to the story. These touches are a result of our life experiences, and our reaction to these experiences. All of us come across different situations in life, and the way we deal with these situations is also different.

When we begin to use these experiences in our writing, our stories start becoming unique. We may take a familiar plot, and add to it our own style, and the result would be unique.

An excellent example of this phenomenon can be seen in James Cameron’s Avatar. The basic premise of the movie is nothing special – the rogue hero infiltrates the enemy camp, falls in love with the enemy, finds true love, has a change of heart and, in the end, good defeats evil.

However, anyone who has seen the movie will definitely agree with me when I say that the movie was something that none of us had ever seen before.

So, stop worrying about trying to be unique, because whatever you write in your own style will automatically be unique. Wouldn’t you agree?

(Image: 7rains from sxc.hu )

Now, why one would want to be read is a question whose answer may vary from one writer to another, but, whatever one’s reason for wanting to be read may be, there is another question that needs to be asked by every writer:

“Why should someone want to read what you write?”

If we look at blogs, it is easy to see that some of our favourite blogs are those which educate us, in addition to entertaining us. In today’s world, there are more than enough sources of entertainment, but the sources of education are few and far between. Most blogs that are popular today are a great source of knowledge for people who want to educate themselves about the subject the blogger writes about.

In that sense, every writer is a teacher.

Different teachers use different techniques to hold the interest of their students, and so do different writers use different styles to keep their readers engrossed. But, however stylish your writing may be, it won’t attract readers unless you add substance to your style.

Adding substance to your writing is a matter of learning. Before you can teach others, you must first learn yourself. This is the reason why most writers, even fiction writers, research the subject of their work extensively before sitting down to write.

As Richard Bach has said, “You teach best, what you need to learn most.”

I couldn’t agree more with his words. So, if you want to be an effective blogger, you need to have a strong passion for the subject you blog about. If, like me on this blog, you, too, blog about writing, you need to have a strong desire to keep learning and practising.

You will only be able to teach well, if you, yourself, are willing to learn. Wouldn’t you agree?

(Image courtesy: cobrasoft from sxc.hu)

“That is alright, but what do you do to earn your bread and butter?” asks the first character again.

“I Write!” replies the exasperated friend.

The scene was meant to raise a few laughs, and it did so successfully.

On a serious note, however, the scene represents the truth for thousands of people who write. A large section of people who write are not sure whether it is a hobby for them, or is it something that they want to do for a living. This confusion is the biggest reason for writer’s block, and writer’s burnout.

Anyone who sits down on the table to write should know whether he is writing for fun, or for money, before he attempts to put the first word on paper.

Why, you ask, is that important?

It is important because writing as a hobby, and writing as a profession are totally different things, requiring different kind of inputs and producing different results. You can’t write as a hobby, and expect to make money out of it (that can happen, but you can’t expect it as a matter of right). Similarly you can’t write for money and infuse your writing with your personal writing quirks.

Once you know what you are writing for, you can change your style to suit your purpose, and you will find that your rewards are closer to your expectations.

For example, most people start a blog as a creative outlet i.e. to write as a hobby. But, when they see so many blogs out there making a lot of money, they begin to want to make money from their blog too. And when that does not happen, the blogger begins to feel a bit frustrated and the blog instead of being a outlet for your creativity, becomes a tool for choking that very creativity.

So, what is writing for you – a hobby, or a profession?

(Image courtesy:  kristja from sxc.hu)

Here, I have listed five things that a post must have to make it a great blog post.

1. Well Written - This one is a no-brainer. If you want people to enjoy your blog post and recommend it to others, your blog post should be well written. Your blog post should be without any grammatical or spelling mistakes, and its style and tone should be such that the reader stays interested till the very end.

2. Well Presented – The taste of food becomes even better if it is presented well, does it not? Similarly, a well written blog post will impress the reader more if it is well presented. A well presented blog post is one which is accompanied by an attractive and relevant image. You should use lists,  boldface, italics, etc.  to emphasise the message you want to put across in your post.

3. Great Content – Even if you have a well written, well presented, post, you do not necessarily have a great post on your hands. A great post  is one that has great content, and great content is that which provides value to the reader. A reader is spending valuable time reading your blog post, and your post should provide him with his time’s worth.

4. Extra links –  Another feature of a great blog post is that it contains links to older posts on your blog or other websites that a visitor can visit if he wishes to know more about the subject you are dealing with in your post. It is not possible to write everything about a topic in a single blog post, so if you there are other articles on the subject that you know of, you should point your reader in that direction.

5. Makes the reader think and comment – Lastly, your blog post should make your reader think, which in turn may make him comment on your post. Isn’t that what you want?

What do YOU think are the characteristics of a great blog post?