I Remade My First Article
A Lot Has Changed
I can’t believe it’s been 7 months since I decided to write on Medium!
As the title states, I remade my first article from the ground up.
This wasn’t just a republish (Medium has guidelines preventing that); but the same topic, different ideas and written drastically differently.
My first article is unlisted, but you can view it through the link. Even if you don’t know which one is the new or old one, it won’t take long to find out.
Why It’s Unlisted
My first article is unlisted not just because I’m embarrassed about it, but also because the images used aren’t credited.
Back then, I didn’t know if you had to, or how to credit images. I was still used to the notion from school of crediting information and images at the end. Looking through a few articles on Medium, I didn’t see any sources at the end so I assumed you didn’t have to credit them (I completely skipped over the caption of the images).
Once I learned about Unsplash, I tried to find the original images to credit them but couldn’t, so I just unlisted the article.
Why I Remade It
I truly believed that the information in the original article is good advice and I thought it could help others. I was judging by the comments it did!
But that’s not the only reason.
My first thought was to change the article.
Okay, let’s see. Time to kick back and spend some time editing this article.
It was only a few minutes in when I realized how horribly I had made it. I caught onto this feeling of disgust for my past self and I realized it represents growth.
This article is a time capsule for me to look back and compare myself. This disgusted feeling changed to pride, truly proud of how much I’ve grown.
So I ctrl Z everything to keep it in its original, horrible glory and click on the Write a Story button to make it from scratch.
What Changed?
Style
When I say style, I mean the demeanour in which I write.
Am I formal? Jokey? Serious? Relaxed?
There isn’t a correct answer, I can’t say that my first article used the wrong style and now I use the right one, it’s just a matter of which one I prefer now.
I was super serious in my original article; this is fine if you are a professional that wants to be blunt in the information.
The difference is that I am not. I am just saying my experiences and what has worked for me. Going all serious for this is not the way to go.
Giving that feeling to the reader that I’m just a friend casually talking about my opinion is what I am most comfortable with and what I want to portray.
Formatting
The main thing you’ll realize is the change in formatting from both articles.
While my first article contains titles and subtitles, that’s about it. There are no bolded key phrases, quotations, or links. It’s as bland as it could be.
Strategy 2: Just Get Started
The hardest part of a project is usually to get started and have an idea of what to do, especially if you are given an open-ended project where you could do anything to show off your learning. Ironically, this freedom can cause less creativity as creativity comes from constraints and how you bend the rules of the constraints. This can make it really difficult to even get started on the project since the freedom can feel overwhelming. This is why it’s so important to get started, set up a day for yourself to get started and even if you don’t get much done, as long as you’ve done progress, that’s good progress.
It might feel pointless to spend a couple of hours on starting the project and not have done much. However, what’s important is that you have a clear idea of where to go next, and the rest of the project will seem to flow by quickly. It’s really important to begin this as early as possible because you’ll have more time to accurately judge how long the project will take you and you can plan accordingly.
However, the two biggest atrocities I committed in this article are the lack of pictures and the large paragraphs.
Not every article needs tons of pictures, but it can go a long way to keep the reader’s interest. This is especially true when combined with no text decoration. It becomes a wall of text for the reader.
The paragraph structure is a mistake that I think is excusable for the time being. This is the school system rubbing off and how they teach you to write in paragraph formats all the time.
But unless you’re writing a short story, please don’t do this. The audience will click off if they have to exert effort to get your information.
Writing an article is different from writing an essay
How is this solved? Let’s look at my latest article.
Get Started
No, I don’t mean just use your willpower to get started and finish whatever you have. If you could do that, then you don’t need any advice.
Have you ever noticed how it’s just starting the project that takes you ages to get to? But when you finish that topic sentence on your essay or open those first few tabs for your research, you find that motivation you need.
What does this mean? Get the initial ideas down and work on the rest later when you have time.
If you have homework, do the first question in class and start working on the rest when you go home. If you have a project to do, make the plan and create the research word document.
You’ll find that you’ll be more comfortable starting the task later when you have some stuff down, rather than nothing at all.
I’m not going to claim I’m a master at writing articles now, there is still more I have to learn. But I can comment on the things I implement now that have changed how I write.
I add more images when needed, and each block of information conveys one small idea and breaks it apart, so it only needs to be 1 or 2 sentences.
One of the biggest changes is the choice to bold important phrases that convey the simple idea of the section. This shouldn’t be overdone. You can get a clear idea of the section from reading the bolded and surrounding words alone.
Information
It’s not just the obvious style or formatting that has changed but also the information I use and discard.
I would write down everything I knew and could talk about in the original article, as long as the information was somewhat related I would write it down. The more, the merrier, right?
I’m pickier of the information now. If I think something is important but not necessary, I would comment on it briefly. You need to have respect for the audience’s time.
Before You Go!
Hi, just before you click off, I have a question for you. It will become important soon enough.
Do you think Success on Medium is Luck or Skill? To what extent?
Please comment and state whether you are just a Medium viewer or a writer.
Write What You Love, Love What You Write
