Talking To Strangers To Write Better

The most in-demand writing skills don’t just involve putting together grammatically correct sentences. Instead, it’s about turning a standard article into a memorable experience for the reader.

While you could read books and take courses, one of the more surprising and practical ways to improve your content writing is simply by talking to strangers. Often, it’s conversations that spur the best overall content.

Bringing Personality To Content

Some of the best writers have one thing in common — their personality shines in their writing. This isn’t just with books, either. Any type of content writing, such as blogs and articles, all have elements of the writer’s personality in it. This is also what sets some writers apart. Their writing is instantly recognizable.

Plus, adding more personality to an article makes it more engaging. Instead of just reading some boring facts, it feels more like talking to a good friend. You can imagine the tone, what words might be emphasized, and even hand gestures. This is all a part of the experience of high-quality content writing.

Of course, bringing more personality into a topic involves actually talking about the topic and going outside your usual circle of friends and colleagues. Talking with strangers expands your horizons, encourages you to consider things from different perspectives, and makes it much easier to craft an article that feels more like a conversation versus a college research paper. When it comes down to it, which would you rather read?

How Strangers Affect Your Writing Skills

If your writing feels a bit bland right now, don’t worry. Writing skills are something you learn and develop over time. Only a rare few are magnificent writers overnight.

An often overlooked way to boost your skills is simply talking to strangers. It might go against everything your parents taught you as a child. But, every friend you’ve made, a co-worker you’ve worked with, or a mentor who’s helped you along the way were once strangers. The key is picking the right strangers to have fun, stimulating conversations with.

With each stranger you strike up a conversation with, you’re expanding your knowledge, seeing the world from a different viewpoint, discovering new stories, empathizing with scenarios you’ve never experienced, and so much more. Somehow even a conversation about the weather could lead to the inspiration for an article on how climate change affects a daily trip to the grocery store across several generations.

For some writers, strangers offer the chance for endless writing prompts. Striking up a conversation might feel uncomfortable at first, but if you’re drawing a blank on what to write about, talk to random strangers.

Make a list of things you talked about, what you noticed about the person, and even how the experience felt. Even if it’s just free writing exercises, practice your writing skills by writing about your experience. A fun exercise is to try and write something from the perspective of the stranger you just met. It’s not always easy, but an excellent way to reach a higher cognitive state as it forces you to think beyond your comfort zone.

Benefits Of Talking To Strangers

For many people, not just writers, the idea of talking to strangers is terrifying. After all, what do you even talk about? However, it has been proven that taking the time to speak with strangers improves your mental and even physical health. Of course, if you feel better, it’s easier to stay focused on writing too.

Dr. Katherine L. Fiori of Adelphi University explains these conversations create weak ties to others. The more weak ties people have, the more positive and less depressed they feel. Dr. Karen L. Fingerman, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, says talking with strangers has a few additional benefits. First, the more social you are, the more physically active you tend to be. Also, conversations with strangers stimulate the mind more than conversations with people you know.

In a 2019 study, people taking UK public transportation were encouraged to talk with fellow passengers versus sitting quietly. Despite obvious reservations about changing their routines, people who talked to strangers felt happier during the experiment. If nothing else, consider it a self-improvement strategy.

Improving your mood also affects your writing skills. If you’re feeling low and stressed, it’s harder to focus. It’s also hard not to let your sour mood come out in your writing. When you’re trying to craft engaging content, you need more personality than doom and gloom.

Tips For Talking With Strangers

First of all, since you’re doing this in part to improve article generation, take a small notebook with you to jot down ideas and notes after conversations. Otherwise, you’ll feel distracted throughout the rest of the day until you’re able to write everything out.

Now, it’s time to find someone to talk to. A few tips to keep in mind when picking someone to include:

• Avoid anyone who’s obviously not interested, such as if they’re wearing headphones or avoiding all eye contact with anyone around them.
• Skip people who seem overly angry or nervous (if you know why they’re nervous, you might use this as an opportunity to help soothe them, though)
• Consider talking to someone who seems sad as a way to let them talk about their problems and feel better.
• Start with people you often see, such as store clerks, someone who’s always at the coffee shop when you are, or someone who takes the same bus as you often.
• Maintain a safe distance when approaching a stranger to make them feel safer
• Test the waters with a simple “hello” or “hi” (if they respond, they may be willing to talk more, if not, move on to someone else)

The most important rule is to stay relaxed. You don’t have to start a conversation with an amazing fact. Small talk is fine. Let the conversation naturally evolve. Ask questions, but don’t get too personal. If you struggle with conversation, consider this a self-improvement strategy for boosting your conversation skills along with your writing skills.

Quality Writing Doesn’t Have To Be Rare.

The art of high-quality content writing has become rare. It’s all about regurgitating facts versus truly crafting something new and unique. However, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Let strangers inspire your writing. Get away from just doing research online and talk to people. If you’re not comfortable simply approaching a random stranger, schedule an interview with someone. It could be a mentor, someone in your community, a person involved in the niche you write in, or anyone else.

Or, create a list of questions and ask strangers you meet to take a quick survey. Often, this takes off a lot of the pressure for both parties. Plus, it gives you a variety of writing prompts based on the survey.

Make a point of talking with at least one stranger each week. Then, set aside at least an hour to write afterward. As mentioned earlier, you can think from their perspective, write about the experience itself, write about something they made you think of, or anything else.

Most importantly, improve your writing skills and start crafting that rare high-quality content by writing as if you’re having a conversation. Think about what a stranger might want to know and how you’d tell them about it. Mixing thorough research with conversational elements turns boring, weak content into something people are eager to read and share with others.