Be A Better Blogger: Slant

Saturday, January 14, I had the pleasure of speaking to the West Houston Romance Writers of America Chapter. These talented writers leave me in awe. My topic was Blogging with a Q&A at the end about Blogging and Indie Publishing.

Sometime this year, I'll compile all my posts about blogging into an ebook Be A Better Blogger.

I gave 3 handouts at the presentation. Since I'm still being careful because of my slashed finger (code for avoiding typing), I'm going to post one of the handouts here as today's blog.

Blog Better & Faster: Find Your Slant
by Joan Reeves©2012

Slant

What is slant and what does that mean when you're talking about writing? It means you must find the angle, the smaller part of the bigger picture about which you want to write. You simply can't write everything about a given subject. This is where a lot of beginning writers go wrong.

They tackle a subject and try to tell every single thing about it. That's called rambling, and that's the surest way to ensure that you'll lose an audience. Also, if you're trying to write for money, you won't write something for which you'll get paid -- whether it's an article or a book.

Endless Ideas

You see, every subject has an infinite number of slants or angles. For instance, if you wanted to write something about book publishing, the ideas are endless. You can come up with hundreds if not thousands of ideas about book publishing.

A short list includes: paperback book publishing, hardcover book publishing, ebook publishing, book rights, the library book market, nonfiction books, fiction books, history of publishing, first novel published, how authors write books, how agents sell books, how editors bring a book manuscript to publication, how publishers make money on books, how publishers are now parts of conglomerates, etc.

Narrow Your Focus

You must figure out which part of the subject you want to address. That makes the subject manageable for you and your audience. You focus on that aspect, exploring it so that your reader comes away with real information that's of use. When you have an idea, you must play with that idea until you've figured out what narrowed, focused part of the idea you want to explore. Then you have the slant.

Takeaway Truth

Find your slant, and you'll write better and faster, and your writing -- whether blog posts or book-length will be the better for it.