Blue scissors, from Ikea, on my desk, from Ikea. The scissors are the only pair in my house. They’ve been used multiple times to open boxes, remove tags and tear through tape…many of which were also from Ikea. These are cannibal scissors. Do they feel a little weird about it? Sure they do. But sometimes you’ve just gotta cut. Don’t judge.
“Tell me, Carmen, do you know what foreplay is?”
“No.”
“Good! Neither does El Guapo.”
…and apparently neither does Google.
One of the first lessons that hit home for me in writing was the concept of the introduction. The lede. The hook. Those crucial first few seconds that a writer has to catch the reader’s attention, get her to taste the bait long enough for the claws to sink in, gain traction and snatch her up for the ride.
To accomplish this, I try to use interesting metaphors, analogies and anecdotes in the introductions that can appear to have nothing to do with the subject at hand and then find a way to tie it creatively to my main points. The rule I follow for most feature stories says that the reader should be captivated and interested in the first paragraph, but not realize what the story is really about until the end of the second paragraph.
The problem, unfortunately, with following this rule is that if you’re sneakily walking your reader down a winding path, you’re probably not going to use the major keywords that align with your subject matter very often in the beginning. After all, you don’t want to scare her off, and the punch line is nothing without an efficient set-up.
But sadly, search engine optimization (SEO) techniques frown on any fooling around, even during the courting stages, and encourage you to get the point early and often.
This is because writing that has keywords in the titles, headings and lead paragraphs of the text will have increased visibility in searches for related content, and thus, usually increased views. This strategy plays nicely with news stories, since the most important information in a news story is concentrated in the lead paragraph. But what about stories that don’t blow their load in the first three lines?
Isn’t the chase half the fun? I think so, and I’m afraid of having to choose between SEO and quality content. I prefer the seductive, methodical ledes that serve the story rather than the search and think that increased exposure to compromised content is counter productive.
But is there a way to accomplish both?
What role does the introduction play in your writing?
Nothing like a kick-ass band playing a kick-ass show to lead you into Friday and Halloween weekend. “Portugal. The Man” played in Tempe on Thursday, October 28, 2010 and I was happily in attendance.
I forgot to bring my flash to the show, but still came away with some pretty cool shots. Thought the one below was particularly weird.
See more pictures of Portugal. The Man on my Flickr account.
This is my first attempt at the terrifying technique of camera toss photography. I took the photos below by turning off the lights in my kitchen, lining the tile floor with cushions, setting the shutter speed to about 5 seconds, aiming the lens at the digital display on my microwave and tossing my camera in the air repeatedly. Happy to say that my camera is fine after this session, but I’ll never look at my microwave the same again.
This shot is not technically a camera toss and more in-hand movement…still looks cool.
This one is a camera toss: multiple flips of the untethered camera.
See more microwave madness here.
Most people can’t go a day without hearing or reading about how vital social media is for a business or how channels like Facebook and Twitter are revolutionizing our relationships and the way we communicate. If you are absorbed by social media on a daily basis, both personally and professionally, it can be especially difficult, at times, to remind yourself or convince others that social media is not the answer to all of life’s problems.
I encourage you to read Malcolm Gladwell’s recent essay in The New Yorker for an excellent commentary on the value of social media: Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted.
He provides some interesting examples and clear arguments for why activism and revolution didn’t, don’t and won’t require social media to have an effect. As with most of his work, I enjoyed this piece and echo much of his sentiment. My takeaway from this article is that in most cases social media serves best as a means to provide added value: compliments to the core.
A solid business model is probably not going to fail due to the absence of an active Facebook page or thousands of Twitter followers. If you have a bad fight with your best friend or family member, you’re probably not going resolve it on his wall or via Direct Message. However, most successful businesses, and people for that matter, look for and find ways to provide and receive added value. And this is where social media shines.
One person may love tagging her friends in photos on Facebook while a company may use the same channel to gauge customer sentiment after a new initiative. A co-worker may post daily updates on Twitter about lunch plans while his boss may use it to vent about computer frustrations and catch up on sporting news.
Whatever way you use it, you, and millions of others across the world, find this added value in social media. But the key to keep in mind here is that this value has not taken the place of the most important values or people in your life (I hope). As phenomenal and ground-breaking as social media is, it is still not a substitute for a solid business model, a strong friendship or a passionate movement.