Why Articles Lack Emotion (And How To Get The Emotion Going)

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:41:04 EST

There's a specific reason why I wake up in the morning and end up writing three-four articles before I even hit the first sip of coffee. It's because I'm all charged up.

The emotions are flowing.
I'm either happy. Or sad. Or frustrated beyond belief. And the reason why I get into these crazy moods is because I've just read a blog post.

Or someone's just written to me an email that I strongly disagree with. Or someone's just asked me a question.

I don't need caffeine to get going

I'm now all charged up, and ready to answer that email, refute that blog post, or give a suitable, sorta-distinguished answer to the question in the forum. The emotions are raging like a river in a
thunderstorm.

I don't even pause to stop for structure.
I just write. And write furiously. And suddenly, I've fashioned out an answer, but aha, that answer is no longer just an answer to a blog post, or forum post, or email. It's a full-blown article.

But it's far superior to the article I was going to write.
It doesn't matter what article I was going to write, there's no way on earth I can drum up enough emotion with a cold-start. I struggle through the words.

I long for structure. I edit, re-edit, post-edit, pre-edit. In other words, I go nuts when sitting down to write an article from scratch.

But when I respond to a blog post or email, I'm no longer trying to be super-smart.

I'm just trying to get a point across as I would in a conversation. And it helps one heck of a lot that I know who I'm talking to in the first place.

So if JoeShmoe says: Work Smarter, Not Harder, then something in my brain explodeth. I suddenly think, this JoeShmoe has no freakin' idea at all.

That term of 'Work Smart' is a bloomin' myth, because you actually work harder as you get higher up the ranks. Now that Joe Shmoe (whoever he is) has got me going. I'm roller-coasting my way into the answer without even knowing it.

When I've finished answering the post, I've done quite a few things:
1) I've dumped a truckload of emotion into the article (Can you feel it, can you feel it?...)

2) I've written with a sense of flow. Not pausing. Mulling. Pausing. Just writing.

3) My answer on the post, email, forum is long, detailed, and hence stands out not only in length, but also in depth.

4) The post I've answered is so nice and detailed, that it's chunky enough to use on my own blog/website/booklet/course/
presentation/podcast/video (you're
getting the idea, eh?)

But what about the structure of the article?
Structure matters. And it helps to learn how to write better. (Um, you really should check out the 'Article Writing Homestudy Course).

But in many cases, emotion will save the day. All you really have to do is take your response, tweak it a bit and while you haven't got the world's best article, you've got one heck of an article.

Most writers need coffee to get going.
They need some additional stimulant.
Well, now you have your stimulant.

Go find some posts you can answer. And let that torrent of emotion run wild. :)

(Um, this article was written in www.5000bc.com in answer to a forum
post-just in case you were wondering)!

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Why Articles Lack Emotion (And How To Get The Emotion Going)