Write Creatively

We live in an age where a lack of information is a concept seen as archaic, dismal, and all around obscene. Because of this, we’re constantly bombarded with repetition. Providing the same information twice forces readers to make a choice, and when they choose, they usually opt for the prettier option. Substance be damned, your work is the exact same as someone else’s if all you do is post news and end your piece with a question in order to grab comments and push conversation. However, I think the majority of people willing to jump into the world of writing should consider writing differently. Not an overhaul, but a break from what we see on that site, and that site, and that site, and that site.

Every new blog that materializes makes the guarantee of being different. They promise to change the way things are done and how things are absorbed, but they rarely, if ever, follow through. For example: gaming sites. Game journalism these days is nothing more than a race for information because the one who posts the quickest becomes the most popular. The shocking part about this is that readers know these sites are all the same and fawn over those creating new, entertaining, and creative content (Giant Bomb, Rev3, Penny Arcade). Strangely, all gaming sites continue to push typical bland news content even though there clearly is a market for more creative editorials.

The thing, the one thing, that made me create Culture Milk was exactly this. When you gather your favorite sites together, you realize that all of them push out the same exact content (under different titles) around the same time. Sadly, with the desperation for page views, the titles become entirely misleading. Post a title ending in a question mark, and people will take it as truth. Is it the site’s fault that people are so gullible? Of course not, but it can be seen in the same vein as giving a starving kid cake and then blaming him for eating it. These people have the pure ability to write creative posts, to write about news and other features, but they don’t. It’s surprising that so few people follow this path since it could easily separate one blog from the next and set that blog above the others at the same time. I’ll never understand why it’s a road that is left unexplored.

People often sit down to write articles, but they rarely think about how to be different. How to break the mold. How to set themselves apart. They seldom think about (or care about) how they can be viewed as an original writer rather than another person who understands how words work. If people actually looked at what the tech, gaming, fashion, etc. world is and what it encompasses, they would be able to pump out creative pieces each and every single time. I want to see new things, but I can only read the editorials on Giant Bomb so many times. I truly want to see people innovate. The entire focus should never be on news, but news should be featured in your writing. Shift the focus and make yourself new. Following the crowd has only gotten people to places where everyone else has been.