Each week new Odyssey articles clutter every Millennial's Facebook newsfeed. Each one comes with a catchy one line caption that catches our attention, if it's good enough. Sometimes, these articles are really great and reflect on politics, education, relationships, and other important issues. Other times, these articles read more like uncontrolled rants that lack organization and contain grammatical errors.
The problem is that these authors put off writing their articles until the last minute, rush to get it done before the deadline, and turn in a sloppy piece that consists of nothing more than their musings on a topic that they have never researched. Then, the next week there will be dozens of "response" articles, where well-meaning authors critique the original article. Without fail, each of these responses sound exactly the same.
This is true of many other websites that publish journalism content online and is not a problem solely connected to The Odyssey. However, since I write for The Odyssey, follow many other creators, and try to keep up with their content I have noticed that this issue is prevalent in these writing communities.
One of the great things about Odyssey is that you don't need any experience to start writing. This is awesome and provides novice journalists with a starting place for their craft, but without proper guidance, it is easy for new writers to become lost and spit out content that may be less than their best.
I've written for Odyssey for almost a year and have worked as a writer for other organizations as well, so I wanted to compile some of the best advice that I have received from my leaders that have helped me develop methods to better shape my content as I write.
So, what do you do when you just can't come up with a topic? This summer, I started keeping a running list of topic ideas and sometimes even full paragraphs on my phone, in a Word document, and in a notebook. Ask your team members and your friends for help.
When you first start writing about a topic, it might suck. In fact, there's a good chance that if you write about something that you aren't very passionate about and you have little writing experience, the piece won't be particularly great.
Don't give up. Rework the topic, or save the article in a draft and walk away from it. Never turn in something that you aren't okay with posting on the internet. It's always going to be out there and your name is attached to it. Forever. Take your writing seriously, because as you write, you build your reputation.
It's okay if you start writing something, just to find out you hate it. No one's going to know how many topics you burned through to get to the article that you ultimately created and had published.
Likewise, it doesn't matter how long it takes you to pump out an article. No one's going to care that it took you longer to write than Cindy, that girl from your marketing class and guess what? She's never going to find out.
Before you submit, please, please, please check your spelling and grammar. Of course, sometimes mistakes are going to slip through the cracks.
I've made mistakes and so have my editors and that's totally okay, but I still beat myself up about it every time I type "your" instead of "you're." When I see an article with mistake after mistake, I cry a little on the inside. Just reading your article out loud once makes a world of a difference and you'll catch things that you wouldn't otherwise notice.
One of the best pieces of advice that I have ever gotten from an editor was about avoiding writing in the passive tense. I have a huge problem with this and I probably wrote something in the passive during this article. He told me to add "by zombies" after my verbs and if the sentence still makes sense with the addition, it's passive.
Lastly, find your weakness and ask someone who has been writing longer than you for their tricks. Everyone has something that they constantly screw up on with writing. This includes your editors and your professors. I promise they won't bite if you ask them for help.
It feels so much better to create content that you can be proud of, regardless of how many people share it by the end of the week. I know I'm not the best writer in the world and will never come close, but I am constantly working to improve myself and refuse to submit anything that I am not proud of to my editors.
The Odyssey has a bad reputation in the eyes of many because they publish controversial content. It's totally fine and cool to write things that will catch the attention of strangers, but it's going to be so much better for you and the company as a whole if that controversial article is well-written and properly thought out before you press submit.
