Blogs have something of a reputation for either low standard writing or formulaic writing that lacks diversity. It’s easy to see why it gets this reputation; the blogosphere is full of content that imitates for a standard purpose. But it doesn’t have to be like that. With some creativity and narrative devices in your writer’s toolbox, you can write blog posts that grab the attention of audiences for the right reasons.
If you’re wondering what those ‘rights’ reasons then think about your own engagement with blogs and stories. What books and movies get your attention, and why. Why do you stop watching a series on Netflix? If you explore these questions, you might come up with some valuable insights. Until then, here are some interesting narrative structures to help improve your blog writing.
The Mountain
Sometimes known as the Hero’s Journey, The Mountain is a narrative technique that leads the reader through a series of events, one building on the other, until the story reaches a climax, then moves into a denouement. It’s a very classic device that’s found in ancient folklore, Greek epics, and many contemporary stories, such as Inception and the Marvel Universe.
The Mountain can be used effectively in your blog writing, particularly for personal achievement stories, or overcoming life challenges. For each point in The hero’s journey, write a premise sentence that describes what happened, toilet bowl leak detection, for instance, These sentences should build on one another towards a conclusion. When writing, you will have an excellent framework or a loose outline to follow.
The Framed Narrative
Think of an onion. In the centre of the onion is the core of your story and the layers around it are various aspects of the story. They could be characters, settings, mysteries, knowledge, or in the case of professional blogging, opinions. Each layer is a story in its own right, and as you peel the layer, you reveal another aspect of the story-core. This is the framed narrative.
The framed narrative can be used to good effect in blog writing as well as essays, travel writing, and fiction. It’s excellent for articles where more than one person is giving an opinion, or there is more than one perspective. It is also good for explaining a topic or imparting information about a subject. The key to its success is understanding the subject or story premise and revealing that in creative ways.
In Media Res
In Media Res is another classic technique used by ancient storytellers and modern-day screenwriters. The idea is to drop the audience into the middle of the story without any exposition. Examples include Memento, Forrest Gump, and Donnie Darko. The beauty of the technique is the curiosity it raises in the mind of the audience: since we’re being given the action we naturally want to know what came before it and how it will end.
This effective narrative technique can also be used in your blog, writing for personal or professional purposes. It works very well with short stories with unusual premises, emergency announcements, and for news broadcasts. In Media Res quickly engages an audience and connects them with the story, it allows good flexibility in your storytelling, but it can fall flat if miscalculated.
Branching
With branching the main story is divided up into smaller stories that go in various directions. The mini-stories are still part of the main narrative. They may exist in the same world, and in the same story-time, but. They can end in different ways as long as they are consistent with the main narrative. War and Peace has examples of branching in its narrative structure to organize multiple stories within the same time frame.
Branching can also be used in your blog posts, especially if you have articles with divergent voices or opinions. If you find your article needs to go in different directions, you might think about branching them and coming to different conclusions. This narrative system benefits from the consistent interconnectedness of different storylines with each divergent branch relating back to an overriding subject, theme, or conclusion. The downside is that it can be complex and hard to implement well, leading to a loss of engagement from your audience.
Sparklines
Sparklines are used more in speeches than narrative writing, but they do translate well into other forms such as blogs as well. Sparklines consist of a linear narrative that drives towards a conclusion, but that linear narrative diverges throughout. The first diversion goes to an ideal, the second to a reality. In the end, a third path is revealed, and a call to action presented.
Use this technique for awareness-raising articles, fundraising campaigns or personal causes. It can be an inspirational and motivating narrative form to deploy for the right cause.
