In a fast paced and competitive world like the one we live in, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of various responsibilities that are placed on our shoulders. Although in an ideal world many of us would like to be able to focus all our energy and attention towards each and every element of our lives, the reality of the situation is, sometimes some things get pushed off. Whether it’s a research paper assigned you simply forgot about, or an article for an online publication named after a Greek epic, you’re bound to eventually find yourself hunched over a computer screen at eleven at night, chugging coffee and desperately wracking your brain for some sort of creative or interesting topic for your soon to be due obligation. Luckily for all of you, this article will set you on the right path to create a masterpiece in mere minutes, all in a neat and conveniently numbered fashion.
1. The More Adjectives the Better
If nouns are the cake of your sentences, then adjectives are the frosting, and any true cake connosiour knows that there is no such thing as too much frosting. Sure every English teacher you’ll ever have will claim that adjective “overuse” is in issue, but these biased claims are misguided, unfounded, imprudent, unsound, and flawed at best. The beauty of adjectives is that they are seemingly endless. If you start to run out of common ones you know, consult your local thesaurus and start pulling out funky ones. Chances are if you don’t know the meaning of a word, most of your readers won’t either, and they’ll be too lazy to look it up so they’ll just let it be. This technique is both amatory and gustatory in nature, making it ideal for your writing endeavors. So pile on those descriptive words, gobbling down that icing until you get sick and vomit out synonyms for excessive all over your pages. That metaphor went south fast.
2. Make Blanket Statements About General Topics so Nobody Will Disagree With You
It seems like almost every situation these days has two distinct sides to the story, which leads to controversy and arguments. This simply isn’t fun for writers. Having an opinion on heavier issues leaves you open for criticism which is basically impossible to handle, and besides, if you’re writing your article this late in the game, you simply don’t have the time to do much actual research on a topic. Instead, opt to make very basic and pretty much unanimously accepted statements. Things like “Racism is bad”, “Violence isn’t good”, and “Don’t steal things”, are good starting places. Take these, and apply tip one, to get things like “Racial prejudice is abhorring and unacceptable”, “Violence is fallible and incorrect”, and “Deceptive Thievery is intolerable”. Even with such bland topics, some people might find a way to disagree with you, so feel free to fall back on making totally not pointed lists about really vanilla things, such as “10 reasons TV is pretty cool”, or “15 pugs that totally shouldn’t be wearing hats but are”. Just steer clear of mixing these ideas up, or you might accidentally put out a confused hybrid article about “12 penguins that are clearly adamantly pro-choice”
3. Stay Hydrated
Whether it’s hiking up perilous mountain ranges with nothing but the clothes on your back and a diminishing sense of hope, or sitting in your safe air conditioned house typing an article, hydration is incredibly important. It is estimated over 1 million people die from dehydration or related issues each year, and that’s not a statistic you need to be a part of. Make sure to have a full water bottle nearby your workspace at all times.
4. Facts Are Unnecessary
A common misconception when writing opinion articles is that facts are required to make a point. In reality, writing opinion pieces is not so much about statistics and information, and is really focused on exaggerating everything to fit your agenda. Feel free to throw in some stretched “truths”, and half baked connections, and most importantly make sure to seem overly invested in whatever you’re writing about. Sure you’re a rich kid who lives in a bubble community writing about poverty, but hey, you watched the wire so you basically experienced life in an impoverished neighborhood of a big city. Write from the heart, because the heart doesn’t have to spend any precious time on research.
5. Grammar and Spelling Are Simply Suggestions
When writing an article quickly you’re bound to make errors in both spelling and grammar, however you can’t let such things deter you. Sure, you could “check them” before sending in your article, but if you do that you’re taking away from the raw experience of your writing. You want what you create to be organic, not cleaned up and sprayed with Microsoft auto correctional pesticides. Writing isn’t about being correct, it’s about being real. Not to mention, you only have about ten minutes left to finish your article before the new episode of game of thrones comes on HBO, and you really need to keep caught up so you can discuss is with your friends.
6. Don’t Give Up
Surrender is never an option. If you commit to something you follow through, even if you’ve had a full week of work, and it’s already near midnight, you need to finish what you’ve started. The millennial generation has been labeled by many as flaky, lazy, and noncommittal. We are constantly being put down by those older than us, as they treat us as failures before we’ve even had a chance to prove ourselves. We need to fight these ideas with everything we have. We need to prove to both the generations before us and ourselves that we too can achieve greatness. So even if to reach this goal you have to pump out several articles about cats wearing cute costumes, or which type of chicken pot pie is ideal to eat during flu season, never give up on what you have decided to do. Work to get it done, and work to create something you can be proud of. Did you see what I did there? I totally bullshitted my way through some pseudo point and took up a quarter of a page, and the best part is that took me like, not even five minutes. Just slap a couple more adjectives in there, and maybe add a personal anecdote, and you’re in business.
So there you have it, all you need to know about writing articles last minute. Hopefully this will help transform your last minute efforts into something beautiful, but if not, I know some particularly liberal penguins that could use some help rallying support.
