No matter how long you’ve been blogging, sooner or later you may find yourself staring at an empty page with nothing new to say. It happens to everyone. If you are just getting started in the world of family history and genealogy blogging, you may find that you have the opposite problem, so many ideas that you don’t quite know where to begin.
Blog Carnivals, Daily Themes, and Memes are all other names for old-fashioned writing prompts, and they can help get your fingers flying over the keyboard once again.
A Writing Prompt by Any Other Name is still a Writing Prompt
A basic writing prompt is a simple instruction about a specific topic, designed to help the writer focus on the subject at hand.
- The prompt can be as straightforward as proposing a theme
- Write about one day you spent as a 13-year-old
- or it may encourage the writer to try a new approach
- Recall the worst day of your teenage years, and write about it from your mother’s or father’s point of view
Where To Find ‘em
Look for writing prompts, memes, and carnivals at
- GeneaBloggers under the GeneaBloggers Calendar
- Genea-Bloggers Group on Facebook
- footnoteMaven or Creative Gene, hosts of many Blog Carnivals
- GeneaMusings, where you will find prompt-type ideas at Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Fun
3 Things to Think About Before You Write
After selecting a prompt, carnival, or theme, take a few minutes to think about what you will write. Ask yourself, How can I make this interesting and well-crafted?
- Use a hook to pull a reader into your story. Open your article with the most interesting thing of all.
- Stick with the topic. Focus, focus, focus. Try to address the prompt in 300 words or less; hard to do, but it will help you be clear and concise.
- Write the headline AFTER you’ve written the article. Make it even more interesting than the opening hook. If you’re clever, use a joke, a pun, a song or movie reference.
Using genealogy and family history writing prompts can help you enjoy writing blog articles instead of dreading deadlines.
