To Be Original, Be Well-Versed

“Originality is important for publication, and to be as original as possible, you have to be well versed in what has already been done,” Ran Walker, author of 28 books, tells writers in a Writer’s Digest piece. With millions of people working in the horror novel genre, for example, “it’s easy to go for the easy scares or gross-outs. It’s good to be inspired by other writers, he admits, but that inspiration needs to guide you into new and uncharted territory.

When it comes to online content marketing, Camille Allegrucci has a slightly divergent view, citing “the myth of originality”. Your voice, Allegrucci says, is more important than new ideas, and no “original” idea is truly original, anyway. (Would anyone seriously contend that Anna Karenina lacks originality or is not worth reading because of the plot points it shares with Madame Bovary?) The question to ask yourself is not “How can I say something that has never been said before?” but rather “How can I express myself in the best way that my voice allows?”

It helps to bring in less well-known facts about familiar things and processes, and even more when you suggest new ways of thinking about things readers already know. New ideas may not be “a thing”, but new insights and opinions can be. At Say It For You, our advice to business owners and their content writers is that you must offer an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up to readers. No, it’s not “new information”, and you’re not re-inventing the proverbial wheel. What’s “new is the clarity of your views on the subject.

There may, in fact, be “millions of people” working in the horror novel genre, as Ran Walker points out, but there are 4.4 million new blog posts being published every DAY! So, as Allegrucci claims, it may not be about “originality” after all, but more about “un-packaging” information already out there, proactively interpreting content in ways that are not only understandable, but usable by readers.

The other “piece” of being well-versed to be original involves the research into emotive power responsiveness. Researchers at the University of Bath, working with Nielson, came up with two ways to score ads.

1. Information Power Score – measures what the consumer perceives as the value of the message
2. Emotive Power Score – measures if the emotion is going to change feelings about the brand

The “originality” of effective blog posts, I teach at Say It For You, consists of offering the business owner’s (or the professional’s, or the organizational executive’s) unique perspective on issues related to the search topic and their unique experiences and insights gained.