I was looking at the brief I was sent for an article recently, and after reading it through several times, I finally figured out why I had zero interest whatsoever in writing the post.

It was far too passive.

All of the blog posts I write in my professional capacity are based around practical advice and resources. Following this particular brief to the letter would have resulted in a descriptive post of very little use to anyone; anyone can go to a website and describe what it looks like, or read an article and rewrite a couple of main concepts in their own words. Reading these kinds of posts is the equivalent of going to an art gallery when you’re not really that interested and looking at the pictures for a few seconds each whilst trying to stifle a yawn. You’re an observer, and not a particularly engaged one at that.

Instead, you should be inspired to go off and create your own masterpiece, even if you’re not specifically an artist. The use of colour, subjects, presentation and many other things can all be applied to any kind of creative medium, whether it’s a website or a piece of glass. The hard part when you’re the creator (rather than the consumer) is getting the balance right; you don’t want to spoon-feed people so that they just go off and directly copy the paintings, but neither do you want to be so vague that they can’t make the leap themselves.

When it comes to blog posts, it’s fine to tell people what to do now and then – it’s all part of the approach that works best for the topic and intended audience. But simply describing something as it is reduces the ability to engage. It reduces the capacity for thought. It increases the likelihood of someone looking at it with the gut reaction of ‘Oh, that’s nice’, rather than being inspired or considering how they can reinterpret and reapply some of those ideas in a practical context. You don’t have to do *all* the work for your visitors, but ask questions. Push them out of their comfort zone. Make them think about things in a different light. Play devil’s advocate.

And at the end of the day, that’s what makes the difference between a popular and valuable professional blog and a half-hearted ‘quick win’ type of website. You want your content to be something that people remember five minutes later. You want them to be frantically Googling phrases from an article six months later because they need to quote it, or share it with a specific friend, or use it as inspiration for a presentation.

You don’t have to be sensationalist. You don’t have to aim to piss people off. But you need to invoke emotion, and you need to do more than write passive descriptions. How do you do this? It’s not as hard as it might seem, so here are some ideas to get you started:

Don’t write about how things are, write about how they should be

Unless you’re specifically describing a news event, focus on the ideal. We don’t live in a perfect world, so what would you do to change the concept you’re writing about? How would you make it more successful, more efficient, more like your ideal? Even if it’s just a tiny, low-impact change, it’s still worth considering. If you’re applying this to a factual rather than opinion-based piece, make it work by asking ‘what if’. What if that wasn’t the case? How would things be better/worse, and what could we do to improve them (or improve them further)?

Always offer something new to the reader

You know that reaction that you have when someone sends you a funny image or video that you’ve seen before? There’s no element of surprise (detracting from or completely destroying the humour), and you often have to go to the effort of pretending you haven’t seen it before. Or maybe that’s just me.

Three different people sent me this image recently…

The same is true of written content. If I see another post titled or subtitled ‘Content is King’ I’ll scream. Don’t parrot something you’ve seen elsewhere. If it’s overused to the extent of ‘Content is King’, then even a different angle/‘controversial’ viewpoint/disagreement with the statement will not save you. There may be an interesting and unique viewpoint buried in your article, but most people will be put off long before that stage.

Using words such as ‘fresh’, ‘new’, ‘revolutionary’ and even specific months/years in your titles can make all the difference here. People, especially on the Internet, 1) want to feel like they’re seeing something new and exciting and 2) want to feel like they’re experiencing that before anyone else. Everyone wants to be the authority, because even if you aren’t responsible for creating it, if you’re the first to share it then you still get the glory. Have you ever had a friend proudly show off their new phone or tablet like it’s their firstborn child? It’s basically like that.

Spend time thinking

Often, especially when you’re pushed for time, you have a title or a topic in mind and you just start writing. Or, if you’re lazier, you look at a few other articles along the same lines first and then start writing. Change your approach by not seeing the post as a task to cross off a list. Instead, try to write about something because you’re interested in it. If you’re not thrilled by the initial concept – the situation I faced when I read the brief I was sent – then turn it into something you *are* interested in. This could be by changing the angle (a travel piece on Florida might be more interesting if you focus on surfing rather than hotels, for example), altering the style (in my case, I introduced a shift from passive descriptions to practical ‘how to’s and ‘why to’s), or using images as your inspiration rather than text (this helps you avoid writing traps that other people have fallen into and also prevents your finished result being a re-write of theirs). If you’re not thinking when you write it, then your reader isn’t going to think when they read it.

Make a list of go-to sources that you can mix and match with your article ideas – Twitter, your favourite forum and even Yahoo Answers can all make you think in different ways with a bit of digging and some imagination. Spending time thinking before you start writing makes the world of difference (even if you’re just brainstorming key words and phrases). The crucial thing is to make sure you give yourself enough time so that you’re not working to a tight deadline; this alone will instantly improve your writing.

Learn to change your thinking by pushing yourself out of your comfort zone with a few exercises. Take a concept you have a very strong opinion on, like abortion or terrorism or a particular political party, and argue the opposite side. Write against your beliefs, and come up with a strong and convincing argument. It’s one of the hardest things to do, but once you’ve done it you’ll be able to write from almost any perspective. Try it – you’ll be surprised what a difference it makes.

Be bossy

Telling people that they’re wrong and what to do about it has been a key feature of the web for as long as it’s existed – so use it to your advantage! If you’re not telling someone what to do at least once, then chances are you’re probably not providing them with any value. Your inspiration for crafting sentences that are bossy without being offensive is simple – call-to-action requests. Go to any website and take a look at what they ask (or tell) their visitors to do – even if you’re just looking at buttons – and incorporate these phrases into your own work. If you’re not confident about telling people what to do, then chances are you don’t know enough about a topic or you don’t feel strongly enough about it to be writing on it.

So, there you go

You have all the tools you need to make your writing more engaging simply by thinking differently. Be active, be constructive, and avoid being descriptive when you’re writing articles that aren’t based on current events, and you’ll finish with a much stronger and more appealing piece of writing.