If you write boring content, youve got a tough road ahead of you. I hate to break it down to you, but in todays content-saturated world, people don’t have time to spend reading boring stuff. Fortunately, there are some powerful antidotes to creating interesting content.
There are some powerful ways to spice up boring content. Here are some of my favorite things that you can do to spice things up. I’m sharing some of my favorite things in this article.
After you read this article, go write one of your own.
You’ll be amazed at how interesting people are. If you do what I suggested, your article will be 81% more interesting. That number was totally up to me. But it really works. We made that up. But still, we know that this stuff works.
1. Tell a story.
This can be done in a number of ways that will interest readers.
I have science to help me with this one.
Stories trigger the brain to be more active.
When the brain hears a story, it experiences a phenomenon called neurocoupling, which causes the brain to experience the ideas being presented in the story. Even the motor cortex, the part of the brain responsible for voluntary muscle movement, is activated by telling a good story.
Dopamine, the brain’s happy chemical, is released when people are feeling happy or at high emotional points in a story. Telling a story can make an article interesting. Short, simple stories can be told in an article about any subject to increase its interest factor.
2. Write in the first person.
If you think about it, you should be thinking about the things that you think about.
Write in the first person. It’s natural to write in this voice. It is like talking to someone else. It is how you talk to others.
I could say to you: If you and I were to go to a nice place for lunch, I know of a really good sushi place about five minutes away. I have eaten there a couple of times and the food was delicious. Come with me! I’ve eaten there a couple of times, and the food is very good. Would you like to go with me? I use the first person verbs I, I’ve, and I am.
It would be really weird to say to you, I’m sure that Neil knows a good place to have sushi. Or, to say to you, I know a place that serves really good sushi. He has eaten at that place a couple of times, and his experience has been great. That guy knows a good place to have a good lunch. He invites you to go with him.
Don’t be afraid to write in the first person.
It is very natural to say things that are in your own words. It’s awkward to speak in the third person if you are speaking to someone who wrote the book, and you are only referring to that person in passing.
3. Foreshadow.
Good writers use what’s known as foreshadowing to hint at what’s coming ahead in a story. They aren’t telling anything about the plot; they are telling what will happen. They’re not telling readers what’s going to happen. They promise to give readers a hint as to what will happen in the story. What they promise, the reader tells them what will happen later.
Foreshadowing tells readers about what’s to come. It helps to create excitement and anticipation. When we read “The Lord of the Rings”, Gandalf describes what happens to Gollum before the book ends. He says, My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or for ill, before the book ends.
Some readers will notice that Gandalf said something that was predicted to happen and then ask, What’s going to happen next? Will Gollum do good things or will he do something evil? So readers are eager to know what will happen when they read your article. They keep turning the pages to find out what will happen.
I often foreshadow what I’m going to say in my articles by revealing what I want to say. I try to make readers feel good about what I plan to say. I preempted the content of this article by stating that there are some powerful ways to avoid boring content. In this article, I’m dishing up some of my favorite things that writers can do to increase the enjoyment of their writing.
I promised a benefit to everyone who reads this article: After you finish reading it, go write one of your own articles! If you do what I suggest, your article will be much more interesting (or, if you read this article, you’ll be able to write a more interesting article, I promise that your article will be much more interesting).
Foreshadowing is as simple as stating the direction you’re going to take your article. It simply hints at the content that will be in the article. It prevents readers from becoming bored by promising the reader what the article will be about.
4. Transition.
Transitions signal to your readers when you’re about to change directions. Some writers suddenly turn their attention to another topic, and when that happens, the reader is confused. Transitions are helpful. The person who is unprepared for the transition is mentally wiped out. Transitions are what prevent this from happening.
It’s easiest to create transitions in the copy by using big headlines and numbers in lists. My transitions are best when I use header tags. But if you’re preparing to make a new point, you should include transitional elements in your copy.
5. Be really, really clear.
If I had to summarize everything that I’ve written so far into one powerful point, it would be this: Be clear. Sometimes, when writers want to be more interesting, they look for techniques like using active verbs or sparkling words. I don’t have anything against the use of active verbs and cool words, but that’s not the main way to become more interesting. If you are clear, you will be more interesting.
If you are clear, you will be interested.
Being clear means saying exactly what you need to say. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s all about using the right words in the right places. It’s about cutting out things that distract you. It’s about being clear. It’s all about being plain and unpolished.
If you are clear, you will be more interesting. It really is that simple. It really is that simple. If you are clear, other people will find you more interesting.
6. Don’t take on more than you need to.
Some people obsess over word count a lot. Word count is not as important as you think it is. It really doesn’t matter how many words someone writes because few people get paid per word and some editors are really worried about word count.
You probably won’t be able to figure out how many words I wrote by copying/pasting this article from wordcounter.net to find out how many words I wrote. Why would you care? It is boring.
If it is helpful, you care whether or not this article is interesting. If not, you won’t bother reading it. If you find this article helpful, you’ll spend seven or eight minutes reading it. If I continue to make this article long, you’ll lose your patience. I only need to say what I think and then stop and start to be interesting. Being boring is as boring as writing lots of unnecessary words. If you don’t need to say something to convince someone, say it.
7. Avoid being shorter than you should be.
Content length is a two-edged sword. It enables you to express more than you should. No, your article should not be too long. But you still need to say enough to get your point across.
It is good to be brief, but you should be able to have some flow in your writing. If you trim the article to its bare bones, it will be like a simple outline, not an article. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that outlines make for great reading.
8. Write sentences that are very short.
That keeps readers interested. But I try to keep my sentences short. Why? Because people lose interest in long sentences. Did you get that? Probably not. But I am going to give you some suggestions. You did. You probably understood that sentence. You probably remember the name of the runner who raced in the Olympics — Carl Lewis. You might have thought that he ran in the Olympics.
But what a sentence! It means that you are really trying to tell a story! After you read it, you will start to feel physically exhausted. Reading a sentence is like holding your breath while you sigh. You will not be able to hold your breath for very long before you start to pass out. Short sentences help readers to take a lot of deep breaths. That helps them to stay interested.
9. Break it up.
If you have a big piece of text, break it down into smaller chunks.
Do you ever see the big wall of text? It’s really not very interesting.
You’ve read a lot of blog posts on how to create a wall of text. If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably seen a lot of wall of text. Those three things are what make a compelling pull-quote interesting. Just look at that sentence. It’s impossible to read. It’s intimidating to just read. It takes up so many lines on a page.
Don’t put up a big wall of text to make sure people can easily read the information you write. If you have brilliant ideas, people will love your content. But if you don’t break it up into chunks, people will think that it’s boring.
Why? Because the way you present your information matters visually. People think about the way people see things visually and how they are presented in a written document, not just what is written on a piece of paper.
Font, kerning, line spacing, paragraphs, headings, numbers — all of these are important things that help you make your message look interesting. They help people retain their attention. They help a user absorb the information that you’re sharing and stay engaged.
Conclusion
It doesn’t take a lot of writing to write something that is interesting. It just takes great technique and a very natural approach to writing.
When you go to write your next blog article, just be naturally yourself. You’re not writing for your English teacher. You’re writing for regular people like me. When I read your blog articles, I understand that you’re writing for me. Your readers are normal people who just want to read some simple stuff.
Do not try to impress people by writing a very convincing blog post. Just try to be natural. Try to show clearly that you know what you are trying to say.
What do you do to write interesting blog posts?
