PONDERING OVER QUALITY

What Would You Write If You Had a Chance for a Boost?

And what would your action plan be?

I, for one, have decided not to care about boosts.

On one hand, I think I have a lot more work to do on improving my language and writing skills. On the other hand, I’m not exactly writing the type of stuff that can be considered for a boost.

But that won’t stop me from musing and pondering what’s the right thing to do in a certain situation. And I’d like to think that my ruminations will inspire others and prompt them to look for answers of their own.

Let’s pretend a boost nominator came to me one day and told me I had a few days to send them my best work. Yes, that’s highly unlikely, but humor me.

How would I tackle that challenge? What should my work process be? Thinking along these lines, I came up with an imaginary plan of action.

1] I’d choose my poison first

The first thing I would need to do is find a story I can write that aligns with Medium’s quality guidelines.

To my understanding, beside a catchy title and picture, there are four main boxes a boost-worthy story has to check:

A) Entertain the reader (no boring or off-topic details; good writing skills)

B) Educate about a certain subject (provide actual information about something)

C) Share a unique life experience (teach a life lesson or broaden the reader’s perspective through a personal experience and point of view)

D) Stimulate an emotional response (make the reader emotionally invested in the story; make them relate to or empathize with it)

It seems like A is the base here. A needs to be combined with at least one other point on the list to create something boost-worthy.

For something technical, a historical piece, a “professional experience” post, or a science-related article, I would need to combine at least A & B.

For poetry and fiction, I would need to cover at least A & D.

For a memoir, the bar is a bit high. It would require the magical trifecta of A, C, & D.

2] I’d choose the focus of the story

Let’s say I participated in a civic protest in my country. I was arrested and had to deal with police brutality both before and during my arrest.

The focus of the story should be on:

A) Briefly explore the context and the events that took place in my country (Why? How? Why me?)

B) Focus on how I felt during every stage of the story and how the whole atmosphere was (What did things look like? How others felt or perceived the situation?)

C) Look back on things, exploring the now vs. then (reflections, conclusions, and reinterpretation of the past events from the perspective of the more experienced and wiser current self)

3] Sketch an outline for my story

It would be best if my story was engaging from the start. For that to happen, I might need to discard the chronological order of the story.

ACT 1: REPERCUSSIONS

Instead of spending time setting a long and boring context, I could start the story with me in jail, facing abuse.

How do I feel? What do things look like? How do others seem?

Transition to a scene in which I’m pondering how I got here.

Why did I have to suffer? For standing up for my rights? For fighting against injustice?

ACT 2: INCEPTION

By now, my readers would already be emotionally invested in the story and crave some brief context of how I got myself into that situation.

I’d provide some context without lingering too much. Once again, the focus of the context would involve: How do I feel? What do things look like? How do others seem?

ACT 3: AFTERMATH

Paving the way towards the conclusion. My release from prison; me jumping into the arms of my loved ones waiting for me outside of the prison gates.

How do I feel? What do things look like? How do others seem?

ACT 4: REFLECTION

The final act would involve my current self pondering over my memories.

What went wrong? How should I have acted? Did I have any share of the blame for what happened? Where am I now in my life? Better or worse?

4] Write and edit the body of the story

Extra details and chunky, unrelated pieces of information would be my worst enemies. These could bore my readers and make them skim through or give up on my story.

In the worst-case scenario, I can afford to bore my readers a bit with some extra context somewhere around the upper middle of the story (in ACT 2, let’s say).

But only for a moment, and only to set up a stronger context.

My final touches would focus on improving the imagery (making everything as vivid as possible) and trimming out those unnecessary bits I already talked about.

What do you guys think of my imaginary action plan? It seems to me that I have the theory pretty much on point.

All I would need is a unique life experience that I could share and the writing skills to sell it to my readers. Basically, the hard part, lol.

That being said, maybe it would be wise to ponder over what we could write in case we had the chance for a boost, work on it, and shape it to life over time in our drafts as we continue to publish our regular posts.

The focus is not on chasing a boost but on using Medium’s quality guidelines to improve our writing skills. Food for thought…

If we play around and construct a few drafts focusing on quality, maybe in time we will achieve a level at which we could actually write some boost-worthy stories.

Heck, I’m tempted to turn my civil revolt example into an actual fiction story. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. But I would do it just for fun, not for a boost, haha!