I’m new to this – I admit it. Like any green horn, I’ve already made my fair share of bonehead mistakes.
A couple of posts ago, I made a classic.
I wrote a piece describing the exciting details of a marital squabble between my wife and me as to whether or not I should shave my head. The topic was not the mistake (though one could argue that, I suppose). The mistake was choosing the title “I Blame Vincent Price..” What the hell was I thinking?!
Yes, Vincent Price’s name and one of his old TV roles is discussed, but the article didn’t have that much to do with him, really. I posted it and then sat there watching as no one read it for the longest time. I was actually confused for a few minutes until I realized that I wouldn’t read a story with that title either!
I may not think things through as well as I’d like, but in the future I’m going to have some rules of thumb to follow. In the spirit of collegiality and because I’m sure my loyal readers will want to once again peak inside my troubled mind, I’ll share these rules with you now. If you’re a fellow blog writer, feel free to apply these gems to your own writing
- 1) Always lead with a sexy, tantalizing title, even if it’s not even marginally related to the mediocre topic
- 2 ) Throw a few photos in there, again no need to be overly relevant to the actual subject. We’ll worry about copyright issues once I have more followers than David Koresh.
- 3) Give the reader some kind of sexy or scandalous tease to keep their attention (Scroll Down – Warning! Not safe for work!)
- 4) Don’t try to be cute, doing things like making David Koresh references; half the readers haven’t heard of him, and the other half wish they hadn’t
- 5) Keep it short! (I’m working on this one already, but my love of parentheses doesn’t help)
- 6) As long as you’re keeping it short, feel free to leave out the 6 dollar words – nobody likes feeling stupid!
- 7) Don’t go nuts on the lists – top ten at the most! Nobody gives a crap about the 11th best idea, and you’re probably reaching by then anyway
- 8) Don’t alienate the younger readers. If need be, go out and do some research – find out who this Taylor Swift gal is and why the kids today wear their trousers so darn low.
- 9) Don’t be too clingy – women hate guys who are too emotionally needy. Oops, wrong list!
- 10) If you don’t think it’s funny, you’re probably right, if you do think it’s funny, you’re probably wrong – don’t quit your day job.
1pointperspective 
Don’t try to be cute? Really? Damn, well, back to the drawing board. Thanks for the tip, I guess : )
people of my particular physical stature and follicular impairment seldom warrant the use of that adjective….feel free to ignore my free advice if either you or your writing are fortunate enough to be considered cute…just sayin…
That Vincent Price post was the first post of yours that I read and it was great! You’re doing just fine.
you know why they wear their pants so low? its a gang type mentality; it originated as a prison thing. Since prisoners are not issued belts, their pants tend to be baggy and falling off. So it would appear that the genius of today think its cool to immulate prison culture. It is also “sexy” in jail to wear your pants so low…and I’m sure you know why that is. Not cool. and by the way, where is the free lobster??
you cute little lamb-chop! of course i’m aware of the reason kids today wear their pants so low. i’m even aware that they call them “pants” and not trousers…i was just trying to come across like a crotchety old timer to fool my readers into thinking i’m a 50-something suburbanite, when they suspect that in truth, i’m a 30-something urban hipster who’s poking fun at the world…i’m sure they already suspect that i wear my $150, pre-stained, strategically torn jeans half way down the crack of my rather young tush…(although the use of the word “tush” may confuse them further)
emulate by the way
we knew what you meant…by the way, no lobster – it was part of my sneaky title. perhaps you need to review rule #1 again.
I know that! But one never knows with you……
Nope. I demand more Vincent Price. Him and Tom Selleck have the best mustaches on the planet. Off planet would have to be Lando Calrissian. And yeah I’m all up for more David Koresh references.
Clearly my guidelines were aimed at a much more low-brow audience than you. Perhaps I need to revisit my guidelines and raise the bar a tad.