5 Things Bloggers Can Learn From Action Movies

You might be scratching your head at my title. Yes – us bloggers can learn a little something from our favorite action movies. The first being –

1. Pacing

Action movies aren’t slow, and if they’re slow, you change the channel. If you spend more than 5 minutes wondering why you’re hearing about this secondary character and his moral issues robbing a bank, the yawns begin. It’s the same thing with blogging. If you spend more than oh, 200 words talking circles around a topic, or not even making it clear what your topic is, a) you’re probably not a very good writer and b) your readers will have gone elsewhere. Be succinct.

2. KISS

No, not the band – but “Keep it simple, stupid!” The plot of an action movie is straightforward, and usually there are very few surprises. Neither is it extremely complicated or convoluted. The same goes for your blog posts. Keep your language streamlined, and don’t jump around between 5 different topics on one post. If you want to cover a few different topics in a day, simply write a few posts. Clarity is quite important when your audience usually has a very short attention span.

The only exception to this rule is if you set out to write a dense, meandering, philosophical blog. Then you’re ok – nobody will probably read your blog, but as long as you enjoy it….

3. Sex Sells

And no, I’m not suggesting you write a blog dedicated to pornography. What I am suggesting is figure out what the hot topics are to your audience (hopefully those hot topics will be things that you are interested in as well, because if they aren’t, well, what kind of blog are you running that you aren’t interested in the topics you write about?) and write about those. Whether you’re writing a travel blogs and the attractive topics at the moment are equatorial islands because it’s winter or travel deals because the economy sucks, take the time to figure out what works for your audience, and cater to it. Mind you, it’s a little different in action movies, because usually there are just very attractive women in very little clothing, but hey, I got your attention, didn’t I?

4. Be Controversial

Action movies usually do this because their heroes (or villains) typify one stereotype or another…or just because, well, they have no tact. You can translate this a little bit more gracefully in your blog by not being afraid to take a stance and defend it. Say what you mean and mean what you say – don’t be a politician or try to play to both sides.

5. Go Cliffdiving

This is more of a practical point of advice for bloggers, but doing a series of blogs are ok – as long as it’s painfully obvious that the blog post is going to be continued somehow, that there is a main point that needs to be unraveled, or an argument still to be made. I make this point with action movies because it is when action movies are syndicated (think Fast and Furious) the directors are so painfully obvious about the fact that they are going to milk as much money as they can out of this production. Do the same – sometimes it’s ok to string along your audience or break up your argument.

These are just a few things we can learn from our favorite action movie heroes. What would you add to the list?

This article is written by Celia Rees. She is a writer and dancer. If you wish to write for us, kindly check this.