How to write that perfect diary post...

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Steemians don’t like writing diary posts, they LOVE writing diary posts.

At least 90% of posts I read on a daily basis is post related to “The diary game”. Is it wrong? Not at all but what is frustrating is that 80% of these posts are not quality posts.

The overall feeling is that Steemians write a diary entry just for the sake of posting a post. The idea of “The diary game” is for us to learn from each other and for this to happen we need to share our culture, our countries, our believes etc.

Today I am going to take you step by step through the process of writing a diary entry.

First let’s take a closer look at two terms, “diary” and “diary entry”.

Diary – It is your personal record keeping of your thoughts, your feelings, and your events of a specific day.

Diary entry – It is the form in which you write your thoughts, feelings, and your events of a specific day.

Of importance is to understand that it is not just about what you did for the day but your full experience of the day.

To write a quality diary post there are 5 steps you must follow.

1. Think about your day
2. Plan your post
3. Choose your images
4. Write your draft
5. Check… check… check and then post!

If you follow these steps you cannot go wrong and soon you will be noticed by Steemians.

Step 1 – Think about your day

The most important factor which is going to make your diary post successful is the thoughts you are putting into your day.

You cannot just start firing away and start writing about your day. I believe that this is where so many Steemians go wrong. They just start writing to… write something. No, you have to reflect back on your day.
Give it some thought before you “put it to paper”.

The best way to do this is to ask yourself some questions.

1. What did I do today?
2. Did I enjoy what I did? Why?
3. What did I experience today? Was it something new?
4. Have I learned anything from my day?
5. Was there a decision I had to take today?
6. What is that one thing I can share with others so that they can learn more about my believes, my culture etc.?
7. What was different from my day?
8. Did other people have an impact on my life today?
9. What must I do to make tomorrow different?
10. What would I like to change from my day?

I have given you 10 examples of questions you can ask yourself which will help you to plan your diary entry. If you choose 5 of these questions and write 50 words on each one of them you already have a post with 200 words.

Once you have your answers to the questions you will have to decide in which section of your post you are going to write them down.

2. Plan your post

A diary post can be broken up into 4 parts.

What	How	Word count
The heading	That first impression you make on the reader	not more than 12 words
The introduction	What will make the reader want to read your post	+/- 30 to 50
The body of the post	The various sections of your day	300+ words
The closure	How you will close your day	+/- 30 to 50 words

The heading – Short and sweet!!!

The heading or title of your post is what is being displayed all over Steemit. It is the one thing that will give you the edge over the thousands of post which is being posted on Steemit every day.

It is in sight of the reader at all times. Best of all, it is in BOLD and it cannot be missed.
You cannot compete with a lengthy heading that doesn’t say a thing.

Example:
Burnsteem25 | CLUB100 | THE DIARY GAME | Doing my morning routine and meeting with my friends for coffee after cleaning the house and feeding the dog 05 September by @patjewell

My friends this is the kind of headings we see on Steemit every day!

put burnsteem, club status, your country or any of these things in your heading. It should be in your tagline.
write a long heading.
put your name in the heading.

What I often do with my post is that I write my heading last. Once I have my draft I know what will catch the eye.

The introduction – Keep the interest!

You have written a great heading and you now have the attention of the reader. What comes next is the introduction of your post. You have to make the reader want to read further.

Example:
I am good today. How are you? Thank you for reading my post today. i woke up and I brushed my teeth.

You are not going to get the reader to read further if you start by thanking them for reading your post nor by starting to write about brushing your teeth. No! Get them excited!

forget that the first few words of your introduction will be visible under your heading therefor make it count.
greet everyone and ask them how they are. It is your diary. If you want to greet someone you can greet your diary with “Dear diary” or “Hi there”.
start writing about what you did. Keep the interest.

Example: “What an eventful day I had today. I know you are curious for me to tell you about it but you will just have to wait a bit longer”.

make the introduction to your diary post long. All that is need of it is to capture the attention. For sure no longer than two sentences.

Your diary should be filled up with what you did during the course of the day.

The body of the post - Share facts!

Once you have your introduction you can now divide your post into the various sections you want to write about. The best is to divide your post into three or four sections.

I normally divide the body of my post into the following;
• Waking up
• My early morning
• My afternoon
• My late afternoon/evening

You don’t have to follow this. You can divide your post into “Going to work”, “Shopping for the family”, “How the day ended” etc.

There are various reasons why we must divide our posts into sections.

1. It makes reading easier
2. It looks neater
3. It will keep the reader’s attention
4. It allow you specific “places” in which you can answer those questions you have asked yourself right at the beginning of this post
5. It will allow you the opportunity to write enough words (minimum of 100 words per section)

Of importance is that you must synchronize your events. In other words, place what you write in the order in which it happened.

write garbage but be honest.
follow other authors, be unique.
be boring.
write the same thing over and over. Example: “I went to the barber to cut my hair. The barber cut my hair.”
forget to write to catch the eyes. Short sentences, enough paragraphs, making use of divider and those perfect images.
forget to share your thoughts, your feeling, and the event.

The closure - Bitter sweet!

A diary is your best friend!

It is patient, it is tolerant but it also needs to be treated with respect. End your diary politely with a conclusion on the overall experience of your day, what you have learned and what you are looking forward to doing in the next few days.

overdo your conclusion. Keep it short.
forget that writing a diary post is like writing to a person. End your “conversation” on a high note.
include other Steemians in your diary posts. It is your diary and not there’s.

3. Choose your images

The two questions I am asked most of the time,
1. How can I get SC01 to notice me?
2. How many images must I post?

SC01 attention – You will get attention only by writing good content AND posting good images.

How many images to post in a diary post – It depends. If you are traveling you are going to share more images than when you are sharing just a normal day. Three to four images for a normal diary post is enough.
No matter the kind of post I am posting I will never post more than 6 images.

Choose your best images!

Gosh! You can tell someone today to take care of the images and then tomorrow they do the exact same thing.
If you don’t have good images rather post copyright-free images.

If you go shopping, how do you shop? You shop with your eyes! You look around for the product, you look at what is on display, you look for good quality and you look for a product that fits your purse.
Why not do this with your images also? Readers also shop with their eyes.

Your post can be fantastic but one skew photo can ruin it.

Products on a shelf are labeled. You also have to “label your images”. Tell the reader where it is, what it is etc.

post large images!! Never ever!
post more than one selfie! Your diary knows how you look.
post images that are not clear or out of focus.
post images that are skew!
post an image more than once.
post images that are not related to your diary post.

4. Write your draft

You have to write a draft first!

I always say that my draft is putting my story to paper.

Your draft allows you to get your thoughts together and it enables you to check and change your post. Changes you will make, that I can assure you of.

“Do not imagine that the first draft of your book is the one that will be published. My latest novel, The Sins of the Father, was 14 drafts and took approximately 1000 hours.” - Jeffrey Archer

think that if you post from your phone you don't have to write a draft. You must!
read your draft only once. Read it over and over and over.

5. Check… check… check and then post!

No matter what great author you are you still have to check your post.

Spelling, grammar, and punctuation matter!

The beauty these day is that you have so many free application which can help you in checking your posts. All that is required of you is to copy, paste and start. It is as easy as 1, 2, and 3!

Grammarly tells us that the most common mistake authors/bloggers make when they write a post is that they use the same word often in the post. It is that “and then”, I had breakfast. “And then” I went to work. “And then”...

Beware not to do this!

What I normally do is that just before I click that “post” button I read my post out loud. Gosh! I cannot tell you how many times I have found mistakes by doing this.

post a diary entry without checking it!!!

All that remains is for me to share a few extra tips for you to use when you write that next diary post.

Tips:

• Challenge yourself
• Be different each time
• If you cannot think about anything to write, don’t!
• Don’t start your post with a HUGE selfie!
• Don’t write a diary post that consist of less than 400 words
• If you write a fact make sure it is correct
• Remember you are writing to your diary and you are not writing for us!
• If you get stuck, get up and make a cup of tea or coffee
• Enjoy what you write!

I'm sharing one of my diary posts in the hope that it will help you when you write your next diary post. The Diary Game, 14/06/2022: The big move!

Good luck for that next post!