What Not To Do In Author Blogs
I need to take a minute to air some grievances here. Apologies if this comes across more curmudgeony than usual.
Since I've started blogging again and trying to learn social media, I've cruised through a lot of author blogs. As far as the "everyman" sort of blog goes, those written by my peers in similar situations to myself, I'm getting awfully disillusioned. There are, of course, some very helpful and inspiring blogs out there, and I'm also not talking about the websites of agents or extremely successful authors, like, I don't know, Neil Gaiman or somebody. But a lot of the I'm-an-aspiring-or-newly-self-published-author type of blogs do a very good job of making sure I don't come back.
I won't touch on layout or ease of navigation today. While that's a big factor, it's not what made me angrily mutter to myself and trudge over to blogger to complain.
My two major gripes are these:
1. Long strings of paragraphs full of inane thoughts are boring no matter who you are.
2. Don't patronize me!
The first is what usually sends me packing, and makes me immediately forget about a blog and never return. The second is what makes me irritated and want to go write angry blog posts.
Point #1
I'm sure I'm guilty of this, so sorry if I'm a hypocrite. I used to be part of a co-operative writing blog many moons ago, and I've recently gone back to steal material for this blog. I get bored reading my own posts half the time, so I feel your pain.
Thing is, long streams of paragraphs about inane thoughts, and why you wrote the post, and what you did yesterday, are uninteresting no matter who you are. If your post is about something, give me a 2-3 sentence intro and then make your point. I've abandoned posts that had a good topic, but took 3 paragraphs to explain why they felt the topic was important to write about. I understand the temptation to explain all the background and inspiration behind a post (and definitely don't catch myself every time), but that stuff really should be edited out.
Brevity is a vital skill in any writing. Writers should already know how to trim, tighten, and edit. So if your author blog is full of fluff and waffling, that makes you look doubly bad. Is your creative writing equally as full of fluff? Are you holding your blog writing to a separate standard?
Point #2
Who's the audience supposed to be? I cover a few overlapping demographics. I could count as a fellow writer, or a fellow sci-fi lover, or a fellow literature and reading lover. I imagine there's a lot of room for me to like an author blog for varying reasons, hypothetically speaking. Yet, so often, I feel completely excluded. A lot seem only targeted at writers (or not targeted at all, in the case of "here's 10 paragraphs about what I was thinking about at the park today"), but not only that, they're only offering extremely basic advice.
I can certainly commiserate over the trials of writing, editing, querying, and publishing. I can agree that endings are tough to sort out, or share my two cents on plotting vs pantsing. Even though those subjects appear on pretty much every author blog ever written, everyone has a take on them. But what really puts me off is when the blogger doesn't treat me as if I know anything about writing. If I'm your target audience (that is to say, a peer learning the ups and downs of the business), please don't explain things to me at a high school level. I know what POV means, I understand the Hero's Journey, I have my own opinions and ways of doing things. (Not counting posts targeting beginner writers/ESL speakers etc of course)
Here are two examples of recent experiences that frustrated me.
In SFF (and writing in general), it's encouraged to trust the reader. Sure, you need to explain new, world-specific concepts, but you're supposed to remember that the reader isn't stupid. They can pick up on subtle clues without much prompting. That's why so often beginners' writing feels heavy-handed--in an effort to make sure nuances are absolutely super-clear, the narrative beats you over the head with explanations. Here again we have another writing skill that's important in creative writing, yet frequently neglected in blog posts.
I know I'm probably being overly judgmental; a writer earlier in their journey is likely to get a lot of value out of basic and/or simplified advice. But that's not a demographic I'm part of. I want the deeper writing struggles, the more nuanced writing advice. Or appeal to the sci-fi lover in me, or the voracious reader. If every post is talking about principles of writing 101, there's no reason for me to stay.
Well written blogs suggest well-written books. As an educated reader, I won't be sticking around if I feel bored or patronized. As a writer looking to make connections, I won't be sticking around if I feel bored or patronized. Sometimes it seems like amateur author blogs don't know who their audience is. I probably don't, either. I'm sorry if I bore you sometimes.
There, I feel better. Let the grievances be aired.
Since I've started blogging again and trying to learn social media, I've cruised through a lot of author blogs. As far as the "everyman" sort of blog goes, those written by my peers in similar situations to myself, I'm getting awfully disillusioned. There are, of course, some very helpful and inspiring blogs out there, and I'm also not talking about the websites of agents or extremely successful authors, like, I don't know, Neil Gaiman or somebody. But a lot of the I'm-an-aspiring-or-newly-self-published-author type of blogs do a very good job of making sure I don't come back.
I won't touch on layout or ease of navigation today. While that's a big factor, it's not what made me angrily mutter to myself and trudge over to blogger to complain.
My two major gripes are these:
1. Long strings of paragraphs full of inane thoughts are boring no matter who you are.
2. Don't patronize me!
The first is what usually sends me packing, and makes me immediately forget about a blog and never return. The second is what makes me irritated and want to go write angry blog posts.
Point #1
I'm sure I'm guilty of this, so sorry if I'm a hypocrite. I used to be part of a co-operative writing blog many moons ago, and I've recently gone back to steal material for this blog. I get bored reading my own posts half the time, so I feel your pain.
Thing is, long streams of paragraphs about inane thoughts, and why you wrote the post, and what you did yesterday, are uninteresting no matter who you are. If your post is about something, give me a 2-3 sentence intro and then make your point. I've abandoned posts that had a good topic, but took 3 paragraphs to explain why they felt the topic was important to write about. I understand the temptation to explain all the background and inspiration behind a post (and definitely don't catch myself every time), but that stuff really should be edited out.
Brevity is a vital skill in any writing. Writers should already know how to trim, tighten, and edit. So if your author blog is full of fluff and waffling, that makes you look doubly bad. Is your creative writing equally as full of fluff? Are you holding your blog writing to a separate standard?
Point #2
Who's the audience supposed to be? I cover a few overlapping demographics. I could count as a fellow writer, or a fellow sci-fi lover, or a fellow literature and reading lover. I imagine there's a lot of room for me to like an author blog for varying reasons, hypothetically speaking. Yet, so often, I feel completely excluded. A lot seem only targeted at writers (or not targeted at all, in the case of "here's 10 paragraphs about what I was thinking about at the park today"), but not only that, they're only offering extremely basic advice.
I can certainly commiserate over the trials of writing, editing, querying, and publishing. I can agree that endings are tough to sort out, or share my two cents on plotting vs pantsing. Even though those subjects appear on pretty much every author blog ever written, everyone has a take on them. But what really puts me off is when the blogger doesn't treat me as if I know anything about writing. If I'm your target audience (that is to say, a peer learning the ups and downs of the business), please don't explain things to me at a high school level. I know what POV means, I understand the Hero's Journey, I have my own opinions and ways of doing things. (Not counting posts targeting beginner writers/ESL speakers etc of course)
Here are two examples of recent experiences that frustrated me.
- A post on writing well-rounded characters. Always a complex topic, and something I work on constantly. Too bad the post was about answering a list of basic "interview" questions like what is the character's occupation, age, hobbies, and dislikes.
- A post on POV switching. I have a lot of POVs in Pull of Gravity, and often struggle with deciding which to keep and which to cut, whether to have multiple POVs within the same chapter or not, or how often to cut to a certain character. I honestly, genuinely, wanted some advice. The post ended up explaining first vs third person POV, how to recognize limited third vs omniscient, and minding character names and pronouns to avoid head-hopping.
In SFF (and writing in general), it's encouraged to trust the reader. Sure, you need to explain new, world-specific concepts, but you're supposed to remember that the reader isn't stupid. They can pick up on subtle clues without much prompting. That's why so often beginners' writing feels heavy-handed--in an effort to make sure nuances are absolutely super-clear, the narrative beats you over the head with explanations. Here again we have another writing skill that's important in creative writing, yet frequently neglected in blog posts.
I know I'm probably being overly judgmental; a writer earlier in their journey is likely to get a lot of value out of basic and/or simplified advice. But that's not a demographic I'm part of. I want the deeper writing struggles, the more nuanced writing advice. Or appeal to the sci-fi lover in me, or the voracious reader. If every post is talking about principles of writing 101, there's no reason for me to stay.
Well written blogs suggest well-written books. As an educated reader, I won't be sticking around if I feel bored or patronized. As a writer looking to make connections, I won't be sticking around if I feel bored or patronized. Sometimes it seems like amateur author blogs don't know who their audience is. I probably don't, either. I'm sorry if I bore you sometimes.
There, I feel better. Let the grievances be aired.
I'm guilty of not knowing who my audience is when blogging. Heck, finding topics to share is the hardest thing about blogging.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I try to be relatable when I discuss writing (comics & graphic novels) or what the craft has taught me. The last thing I want is to patronize my audience and turn them off.
I think audience is always a tough question with author blogs. It's a lot easier with some topics (like travel blogs or something). And totally agree finding consistent things to post about is tough especially in the long term! I think trying to be relatable is always a good goal.
DeleteWell, I'm guilty also of not knowing my audience. Only last week I mentioned in a Goodreads forum that my blog is all over the map - it has all the consistency of a rice pudding. I get fed up with writing 101 advice posts too, and am looking for deeper insights.
ReplyDeleteHehe consistency of rice pudding. Sometimes I feel that way, too, since I try to do several different angles. Feels organized in my head, but then not so much in practicality.
DeleteTo be fair, it's not so much that bloggers don't know their audience, it's also the fact that when you put out a link on, say, Twitter, you can't very well say "Don't read this if you feel you're not a beginner", or "If you think you know everything, then you won't find anything of value in this post". It's possible you're stumbling across blogs that are aimed at beginners anyway, and everyone has their own perspective on a topic.
ReplyDeleteI only post about writing once a week, and I try to make sure it's something that other people might not normally cover. So instead of 'how to design characters' I might do 'How you might use different types of transport to show what your character is like AND improve your world building'.
But then the rest of the time I like to blog about stuff relating to my genre. It's more interesting for me, and from what I can gather from Google Analytics, it's more appealing to readers.
I did say I was talking about blogs/posts that are not explicitly targeted at beginners, but maybe you missed that line. This post relates to author blogs that for the most part post about their writing journey etc, but then when it comes to craft topics, get extremely basic and often patronizing. I think you're of a similar mindset with your efforts to make craft-related posts interesting and original.
Delete