You are taking your bath, or cooking. Or just laying on your bed reading a book.
And it just flashes out of nowhere.
The perfect idea for a blog post, one that your readers will find irressistable.
You hurriedly scribble down the magic idea and get to work fleshing it out and when you are done you post it and wait for the Flood of upvotes.
Then Nothing happens, you get no reactions, no comments, no one stopping by to acknowledge the undeniable fact that you are a genius.
All you get is the sound of cryptic tumbleweeds blowing across the virtual blockchain savannah.
You sit in front of your Laptop wondering what went wrong, was it that your idea was foolish?
That might be the reason, but there is another reason.
Your writing was not simply clear enough.
Writing Is Assembling An Idea.
Communicating an idea to people is like building a house of cards, if you miss one vital piece, it will not stand.
The end product will always fall apart no matter how hard you try.
It is exactly the same sceneriao with your ideas. Let me break it down.
Communicating an idea is simply transmitting it from your brain into someone else's.
You have to put the vital points together, communicate your ideas in a logical way so as to recreate the idea perfectly in the mind of your reader.
It is more like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, write clearly and you achieve that perfect conceptual blueprint, write less clearly and soon the missing parts become more galring and soon it becomes an abandoned project.
So since clarity is so important how can you ensure that your idea surivives the journey to the brain of your readers.
How can you ensure that every Steemian who reads your post gets the idea or message you are trying to pass across.
How can you make them "get it" ?
7 Rules For Writing With Clarity
Rule #1: Use the Ying-Yang Formula to Enthrall Readers
Clear writing should always have a clearly defined audience.
When you know who you are writing for then answering your readers questions will be easier.
What are the basic things they know and what added information do they need?
What is new and relevant in their field?
Describing your audience with the Ying-Yang formula is more like this
" Traders who want more Sales"
" Farmers who want increased harvest"
" Chefs who wanted to Improve their knowledge on a recipe"
And in this case " Bloggers who want to write clearly"
So you have to always write with a clear audience in mind.
Rule #2: The morsel test
I explained in my post last week that sentences are morsel sized information that communicates value.
You have to be able to explain what your post is all about in one sentence preferably the Header.
If you header is cryptic then readers might not click to view what your post is talking about.
Posts which fails the Morsel test tend to be too complex and unfocused.
And you will find it difficult writing with clarity.
Rule #3 Be Predictable
You have to be predictable in the beggining of your post.
Your post introduction should rhyme with the message the Header and Body are trying to pass across
If you fail to achieve this, your reader is likely to get distracted or confused.
Most writers think that creating a disconnect will increase readers curiousity, but what it does is that it confuses the reader instead.
Rule #4: Repeat Repeat Repeat
Repetition is good.
A point worth making, is worth making twice.
Always make sure to sprinkle the main idea you are trying to pass across the post.
Mention it in the begining, more than once in the body and end with it.
If you fail to do this, then your readers will have nothing to take away from your post.
This post keeps repeating its central message: Clarity is vital if you want your idea to spread.
Rule #5: Be Specific
When you fail to provide specific details in your writing, you give room for ambiguity.
Your readers find it more easy to slip through the cracks you fail to cement with your writing.
Your idea fails to get passed across to them.
When you write generally, people choose whether or not your message is for them or they have trouble following the advice you give.
So instead of telling them to "jog regularily", tell them to "jog for 1 hour every morning"
Instead of telling them to " brush their teeth regularily" tell them to "brush twice a day"
By doing so you get your message passed across clearly.
Rule #6 Guns are Dangerous, Bullets are good
When it comes to the business of spreading ideas, bullets points are important.
For a long time , bullets and lists have made it easier to communicate ideas.
They have made it easier to communicate and break down related ideas into easily digestable morsels.
In using bullet points, never store apples with pears ,make sure that each point is related to others
Also make sure to follow the natural order of things.
If you are a food blogger like Hive account@progressivechef and you want to teach your readers how to prepare a three course meal.
It is only natural if you start by explaining to them how the appetizer is prepared, you don't just jump into the main dish and then come back later to talk about the appetizer.
Writing with clarity is important and should be orderly
Rule #7 Call To Action
You should always make sure that your readers know what they are expected to do once the post is finished.
Your ideas can not be spread successfully is they don't know how.
In writing this post, I know that few Steemians have made a declaration to make their writing clear and concise.
But without clarity, I would not be able to make you see the importance of writing clealy.
And those amazing ideas that occasionally pops into your head will be doomed to remain there, while we are all here on this amazing platform waiting for it to be unleashed.
Unless you learn how to communicate these ideas to us clearly.
Matering the art of clarity is like giving your readers direct access to the ideas flowing through your brain stem.
Without noise or distortion.
So go through this post again and again, bookmark it and read it anytime you want to pass an idea across to us.
It is time to set those amazing ideas trapped in your head free.
and you want to teach your readers how to prepare a three course meal.
