You love reading about showers and sex.
This declaration does not seek confirmation and nor is it a question.
It’s fact.
Photo by krystle.
I’ll go on a limb and suggest the reason you love reading about people’s experiences in the shower and under the covers is because you love writing and talking and sharing the deeds yourself.
When my high school friend Jenn Dignan writes about the incredulity she feels when her 7-year-old son was in and out of the shower in 90 seconds, I smile and laugh.
Been there, can’t do that, I giggle to myself and I, the abuser of shower water, keep reading until the very end.
I bet you won’t be able to stop reading her dialogue either.
The jury is undecided whether writing a blog in first person or in third person works best.
Olivier Blanchard shares first person metrics from his blog indicating that you want to read what someone has to say and that voice matters.
[T]alking about yourself works better than listening to customers or dispensing good advice.
Geoff Livingston disagrees, pointing to his own metrics over the course of a month when he didn’t write about himself and that the lack of first person increased his blog traffic by 100 percent.
[R]emoving first person pronouns increased the quality of writing on the site, as evidenced by the generally positive trend of statistics. It also increased from the writer’s perspective.
While slightly more challenging, opinion is still obvious as the author. If one states it, then they must think it. In fact, the tone seemed more authoritative, relying on links and facts to justify opinions rather than conjecture. In context, losing the words me, myself and I were not so hard.
I respect that you’re undecided on this conflict. I recall your feelings when you wrote your LinkedIn summary, some in first and others in third. I stand by my then-decision that first is best.
It’s best for LinkedIn, it’s best for shower stories, and it’s best for sex.
I’ll grant that you could read an article in Geoff’s experimental style about having sex with a woman with Asperger Syndrome but the article is more readable when Penelope Trunk writes in first person.
I am one of the one percent of women who can have an orgasm just by thinking about having an orgasm. I’m not sure why this is. Maybe because my mom taught me to do Kegel exercises before I even got my first period. I can orgasm ten times before the guy has one.
Imagine if she wrote that in third person. Would you want to keep reading?
Then again, maybe you’re not into it.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I think first person is far more engaging in a blog post than third person. I write most comfortably in the first person, even when writing fiction. I have a blog post written in the second person, I even prefer that to writing in the third person.
Also, it depends on your content and your audience. If I blog about Occupy Wall Street, then yes, taking out personal pronouns is going to give my piece a more authoritative sound. But if I’m blogging about something light, an ‘everyman’ sort of post, my goal there is to connect with my reader, make her or him feel as though we’re friends, like she or he is sitting on my couch with a beer or a glass of wine, letting it rip. For that, first person is far more effective.
October 14, 2011 at 8:57 PM
I only blog about me; how in the world can I do that in the third person……………
@bdorman264 Good question. Try it.Begin with your obituary and work back.
As a footnote, since I’m not sure where you’re going with that post… I hope you realize that the BrandBuilder blog piece you linked to was meant as a joke. It was part of a week of #StepfordTBB posts meant to lampoon typical social media “guru” fares.
@ariherzog @thebrandbuilder Um, thanks. I think
Very nice point man! there seems to be a whole lot of difference to it.