What makes and article really interesting?

[jimclay75051]

Any thoughts on this? I'm not talking about the subject, which can be made boring or interesting depended on the presentation.

I read one post that proposes that it is the author's voice that makes a blog article great. I do think that is part of the equation.

Good writing is another part.

Maybe being imaginative with your writing is one more part.

[ChickenFreak]

All of that, yep - voice and writing and imagination.

And often a slightly different "take" can turn a boring bread-and-butter blog post into something more interesting. If you're posting the bald facts about how to un-mat your Maine Coon cat's fur, nobody who doesn't have a matted Maine Coon at that very moment is going to care. But if you dance your way there with an anecdote about your cat, or about the beauty products at the human salon that you frequent, or a well-phrased lament about your own hair, or exactly how much blood you spilled while debating with the cat about grooming strategies, or... well, something, then the piece will be interesting to read, not just a sort of mini-manual.

I also think that a blogger should usually speak as if he's a peer with his audience, rather than someone who's above them preaching to them or instructing them.

For example, look at Smitten Kitchen again, one of my examples in your other thread. I'm sure that blogger knows lots more about cooking than me, but she doesn't loom and instruct and command "do this" and "never do that". Instead, it's "_I_ did this" and "_I_ thought that." Her latest post has the line "But we've established by now that I'm not normal..." That's the kind of self-deprecating "peer" mood that I have in mind.

A blogger trying to put themselves above their readers is particularly bad when it's someone who _doesn't_ have special expertise, but still speaks as if they do, especially when they're giving bad information in bad grammar and bad spelling but a superior and authoritative mood. That's often one of the characteristics of blogging-for-ad-clicks blogs: The blogger seems to believe that the readers want an expert in the field, so they pretend, unsuccessfully, to be one, with disastrous results.

No doubt I'll think of another aspect of a good post, as soon as I click Submit. But right now, my mind's a blank.