Let’s Talk Bookish – Blogging 101: how to write a discussion

Hola mis amigos!! How are you guys doing? I hope your week has been going great! This weekend is going to be Eid (Muslim Holiday) and I am so excited!! And school is over at least for the next 2 weeks so I’m feeling free for the first time all year lol my excitement is ridiculous! Hopefully I’ll get back into blogging normally next week or so. I have a couple of fun posts planned!

Anyways, welcome back to Let’s Talk Bookish! Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted by me @ Eternity Books & Dani @ Literary Lion, where we discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts.

Today’s topic is: Blogging 101: How to Write Your Favorite Post

Since I started doing LTB in August of last year, I’ve had so much fun writing discussion posts and honestly don’t understand why I ran away from them before. They’re so simple and fun, and a way to be creative without following a generic form like you would with tags or other weekly memes. So today, I’m going to give you guys an idea of what I feel is important while writing a discussion post.

I was thinking that I should use a discussion that I’ve already written and analyze it for you guys, but I don’t have the first drafts which kind of really matter when writing a discussion.

But never fear, I’ll just talk about my discussions in general.

Of course, I’m going to start off with a topic that I’m going to be discussing, and depending on what it is, my post might be salty/sarcastic, or informative, or just me giving advice when I’m not entirely an expert which I seem to do a lot of.

For my informative and advice discussions, it’s fairly simple, I just talk about the subject and give my bland opinion regarding it if there is a reason to take sides. For instance, owning books and bookish items was a recent topic, and well, I didn’t have much to say because I don’t own either, so I wrote a rather bland and short “discussion”.

My advice ones are obviously filled with un-expert advice and tips that I’ve picked up from my short year and a half-ish of blogging. You can find an example here (this is kind of old, and I’m guessing really cringy, so my apologies! If you guys want, I’ll try to write another updated advice post soon)

Now, my salty/sarcastic posts are honestly my most favorite ones to write because I get to have a lot of little side comments, and I love awesome and funny side comments. I hope that mine are funny they probably aren’t and at least I think that they are. It’s just really fun to let my sarcastic side loose. A great example was my letter to the censor that I wrote about banning books, and the whole thing was intended to be sarcastic and kind of funny, while still showing my semi-upset thoughts.

That’s the thing about discussions. The best ones in my opinion are the ones that are showing your thoughts while still being entertaining for the reader. I would love to know your opinion and debate it, but it makes it so much nicer and more fun if you write the discussion in an entertaining way it may also make me more agreeable and willing to side with you lol. Whether that be by adding gifs, side comments, funny anecdotes, or whatever it is, it all helps to elevate your discussion to another level.

So my number #1 tip for writing a good discussion is to include some personality and life in it. We don’t want to always read bland informative discussions, we want something that has your touch to it, something that makes your discussion stand out.

Also, researching your facts before you start talking is a really good idea. I know I don’t always do that and I’m trying to do so more often. It’s kind of because many of the topics for LTB are just mainly opinion discussions and don’t necessarily have facts, but nonetheless, I still need to work on that.

Now for the final type of discussions: angry/upset ones. These are very tricky. You don’t want to start lecturing your reader, or yelling at them, but with upset discussions, it’s very easy to do so unintentionally, especially if you’re writing it in the heat of the moment. Another problem is that you quickly shift from talking about “them” who did something that upset you to “you” which makes it seem like you’re ranting at the reader. I think it’s because it’s easier to address a problem when you’re writing as if the person that you’re upset about is the person that you’re talking to, but it’s fine line that you have to be careful with since that isn’t the person who will be reading your discussion.

Disclaimer: so in my discussions, I never literally mean you guys if I’m saying you and I’m upset/angry. However, it’s a shift that I make, and by the time that I realize, I’ve written a good essay long discussion and I’m not in the mood to go back and edit it to make it not you. But just to clarify, I never actually mean you guys that are reading 🙂

Some examples of my more serious and upset posts are the ones that I wrote about representation in YA and the previously mentioned banning books discussion. For the banning books one, I started off with an idea to write a letter, and that saved me the “you” problem because it’s addressed explicitly to censors. So that’s an idea if you find yourself writing a discussion addressing the person that you are upset at and you don’t want it to seem like you’re ranting at your reader.

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In the end, there are different categories of discussions. You have the informative ones, the advice ones, the sarcastic and salty ones, and then the angry/upset ones. The best way to make your discussion stand out is to put your own spin on it and add some personality to it, because the topic you’re discussing has probably been discussed a few million times, and you’re probably just going to say the same thing that a few thousand other people have already said. And that’s the great thing about discussions: you can always put your own personality/spin to it and voila, you have a new and unique discussion that people will stop to read even if they’ve read a few 100 other posts about the same thing. So put some spice and life in it, and you’ll be okay.

Now for recommendations! Some of my favorite discussion writers are Caitlin @ Caitlin Althea, Sophie @ Me & Ink, and Kerys @ The Everlasting Library (the links take you to their most recent discussions that I loved). They are not all my favorites, and I love so many others for different reasons, but these three ladies have so many special and hilarious discussions that perfectly balance serious and non-serious topics with humor and amazing personality. You should definitely check them out!

This Week’s Participants:

Rian @ Dogs & Books | Dani @ Literary Lion | Evelyn @ Evelyn Reads | Amber @ Escape Life in the Pages

That’s it for today my friends!! Do let me know if you’d like to see an updated advice post and what you’d like it to be about!

What’s your favorite kind of post to write? Who’s your favorite discussion writer? What’s your favorite kind of discussion? please tell me I’m not alone in living for salty and super sarcastic discussions Do you have any advice/tips/suggestions about my discussions that you’d like to share? Chat with me in the comments below!!