PureBlogging

The next time you sit down to watch a show on TV, pay attention to how the director uses the camera. They don’t stay with one shot too long. They’re constantly changing camera angles and changing distances. They know that if they stay with any shot for too long the audience will get bored.

In TV shows and movies directors add interest by changing camera angles. The use of the camera becomes almost as important as the actor’s ability to deliver lines. They alternate between zooming in to get a close-up of the actors face, and then pulling back to get several characters interacting at the same time.

Watch what happens at the opening of a movie. Many times, it starts with a wide-angle taking in the entire scene. The camera moves closer to set up the location where the action takes place. Then the camera moves even closer to pick up more details about what is actually happening. Directors change the camera angles to keep things interesting. You can do similar things with your writing.

Unfortunately, many new writers never get past the wide-angle and far-away shots. Their blogs never zoom in to give us details. Their posts end up being a series of overviews and articles written for the search engines. Wide angles are great to get an overview of topics that the readers are not familiar with, but as the reader becomes more familiar with the topic, the wide-angle does not provide enough detail. It’s the details that your reader needs to be successful.

In his post last week, Kevin Ott wrote about the need for more detail in our writings. He’s right. Too many times I’ve read blog posts that promise to give me great new information, but never get around to giving me anything useful. You need to zoom in and give real information, not just keyword rich text.

Look at some of your recent posts and try to select several smaller nuggets of information inside each article. Each one of those nuggets can become a new post. Dig into the nugget and uncover the details that are buried in it. It requires moving from the crowd shot and zooming in on the individual person. Then zoom in even closer to pick up the detail of their shirt; what does the pattern look like, or what kind of buttons does it have?

For example, look at the coverage that social networking is getting on many of the blogs. They tell you what a great thing social networking is, and where you can go to sign up, but very few of them actually tell you how to make it work for you. We’ve read all about the benefits, but it’s the details your readers need. Dig in and tell them specifically how they can make it work to their advantage.

If given a choice between reading well-crafted fluff pieces and adequately written useful information, most of your readers will choose the useful information. They do want a well written blog, but they’re reading your blog because they want to succeed. They need details.

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