All writers struggle for inspiration at some stage in their writing career and it doesn’t matter if you’re writing online or offline you’re eventually going to wind up with writers block of some kind. We all have different ways of getting over that particular hurdle and one of my most recent finds in this regard surprised even me. I wound up realizing that the South Park TV series could make me a better writer.
How exactly does this work?
Read on loyal reader!
Be Controversial
South Park has been extremely controversial over the years and has made fun of just about everyone – including themselves. Nobody was safe from their ridicule and every time somebody predicted that the current controversy would be the end of the show it just kept on going. Now I’m not suggesting that everything you write be controversial in nature but absolutely do not be afraid of tackling topics that not everyone will agree with. Because even the people who don’t agree with you will still admire you, at some level, for having the guts to write what you did.
Use Simple Language
As your writing skills develop you’ll probably get a bit carried away with your own brilliance and use the type of language that leaves your readers reaching for a dictionary. That’s not how to do it. Trey Parker and Matt Stone write at a level that suits people from secondary school level upwards because that’s the level that has the largest audience. They’ve been doing that since 1998 and it’s working so they’re obviously doing something right – an awful lot.
Use Short Sentences
The longer your sentences are the harder they are to read. You might have them punctuated in all the right places and they’re grammatically perfect but they’re most likely pretty boring. When your reader switches off they’ve probably switched off for good. Listen to the dialogue in South Park – short, snappy and entertaining. You can learn an awful lot about writing just from listening to well written dialogue.
Stand Out From The Crowd
We live in a world where people are afraid to take a stand on a subject because it’s going to offend somebody and quite possibly wind up with you having a “label” of some sort attached to your writing. But that’s exactly the type of writing that gets people interested in a topic and gets discussion and debate flowing. Like in the “Be Controversial” tip above you don’t need to offend people but not writing like the 1,000 other sheep-like authors on the same topic will get you noticed.
The Message Is Important
If you’re a blogger or a writer of any kind you’ll probably get hung up on the design of your blog or how you sound in your video. What you need to focus on is writing and writing as often as possible. It’s the best way to develop your talents. Okay so when you start off your writing may not be very good but it will develop over time and with practice. The message is primary – the medium is secondary.
So there you have it there’s actual proof that your writing can really benefit from watching South Park. Having a great writing style and one that gets noticed is usually about getting in peoples faces, making them discuss the uncomfortable and making them think about things they’d rather just leave alone.
And again you don’t need to offend people while you’re doing this but you will create a writing style that has a true spark to it and the type of spark that people will follow you to read more of what you put out there.
This post was kindly written by Lior Levin who works for a psd to html conversion company and also advises to a website that reviews the best web hosting companies on the web and grades them.