FACTORS THAT DISTORT THE HAPPINESS OF GOING VIRAL

Have you ever rushed to post, publish or submit a piece, thinking many readers would rush to read it? Or do you think all writers are happy when many people read their work?

It took me almost a haul or so to reach this article to completion, yet this is not remarkable. This is not even enough, some articles or culumns you read on magazines or newspapers might have taken the writer a couple of weeks to completion. Even editors know this, and so they advise writers to take their time or else suffer rejections, expecting them to be aware of these errors that make them regret after publishing their work, so as to avoid them ealier. These are factors that distort the happiness of going viral. These include:

*.Meaning Error
*.Swear Words
*.Wrong Ideas Networking
*.Poor Detailing
*.Style
*.Spelling And Punctuations Error

Here we discussed them one after the other.

Meaning Error

This is where most writers mess up, especially new ones like me. It can occur through a word, phrase, clause or sentence and it must affect the general meaning of the whole piece, when a writer means what a reader doesn’t capture. The following passage illustrates it:

These days going to school does not guarantee government to offer you employment—after graduation. This is the wrong thinking of teenagers nowadays.

The writer that wrote the above extract means it’s wrong for teenagers to think that when they graduate Government will employ them. But as you can read the passage, as ambiguous as it is, it does not tell the reader exactly what the writer means. Here the reader may quickly guess or imagine what the writer means and continue reading the piece.

The reader may capture that “the wrong thinking of teenagers nowadays” could be:

A. about going to school or…
B. about government or…
C. about graduation.

In this case, the reader does not know what “This” in particular (in the second sentence) is referring to. It becomes a dark side in the whole piece.

It is also like another illustration thus:

Well, let’s say, you want to explain in details why something occurred, and you start it right away but soon begin to use big English to blow our minds. In a way you are right. Latter, whether you get it successful, you’ll feel unhappy that you wrote what you don’t really mean: as if you got it by coincidence, which means you can’t do it again, or probably you’re not a whiskid.

The following sentence also has a meaning error:

Dominion wanted to go to school to work hard.

The writer means Dominion wanted to study hard in school, especting the reader to reason, but it is ambiguous. Dominion can work hard as a teacher or as a typist in school, not only as a student.

Swear Words

According to a Google Search, Swear word is “An offensive word, used especially as an expression of anger.” In online Urban Dictionary examples of swear words include:

lameass-loser
lardass-overweight individual
asscock-idiot

In Nigeria, words like beggar, Almajiri, illiterate, corrupt government, uneducated, Islamic terrorists, educated-illiterate, and words that describe someone that is short, albino, ugly or disable in some ways—all words that offend someone or act against any religious belief are swear words. some writers use them deliberately, while some spontaneously to regret. For instance:

“Most graduates nowadays are educated-illiterate.” will make the writer feel regret after publication.

“The Islamic Terrorists are still conquering the North-east.” is even worst.

‘At the street corner, Emeka held an empty dish like an ‘almajiri.” This can make Hausa people feel offended.

Wrong Ideas Networking or Wrong Connection Of Ideas

Observe the difference between these two passages:

A. A dog entered a room like a shooting of an arrow. It was still a puppy but its big head, showed it would grow to be a bulldog.

B. A dog, which was still a puppy but its big head showed it would grow to be a bulldog, entered a room like a shooting of an arrow.

Both of them mean the same and are correctly written but the second one is tightened and easier to pass than the first one. The second one demonstrates the right network of ideas, which will not make a writer regret after publication. This shows when the sentences are linked correctly (when there are focuss, unity and coherence), the paragraphs can be automatically ok and can make it to the next error….

continue reading on the next page....

Poor Detailing

This means giving insuficient details to a particular topic that needs more details for clear explanations. This error is related to wrong networking of ideas in that if you don’t connect your ideas, it will show poor detailing. If you don’t write on something you ever experienced before, without a thorough reasearch on it, it will show poor detailing, as it is in the following passage:

People living in dirt are unknowingly making their immune system strong. You can imagine a lunatic in a disorganized street in Africa, who’s house is an incinerator, yet it never fell seriously sick as those billionaires in the upstairs.

In this passage the first sentence is a topic sentence. The writer feels he has detailed it with the second sentence. But a reader is not satisfied with the detail*, since he only imagined what could not be true, expecting the writer to further explain or make the assertion (topic sentence) more believable.

Style

This often confuses new writers like me.

As a new writer, the first thing you need to vow is:

I solemnly swear I will NOT consider any form of a style in the course of writing any piece. I will only work hard to make my writing clean. I will never believe I have a style even if my audience say, “Sir, I love your style.” So help me God!

This is for a purpose. Believe me, no any good writer has ever had a style. People tend to mistaken voice, which comes naturally without you knowing it, with a style. The more you struggle to style your piece the more you’re causing wrong networking of ideas and poor detailing and adding unnecessary words or ideas.

To ignore a style, start with:
1. avoiding cliché
2. avoiding using fancy words, phrases or clauses
3. avoiding using difficult proverbs and idioms or just letting them come naturally.

Spelling And Punctuations Error
Here sometimes you won’t forget to punctuate your piece, but you can’t punctuate it correctly. The most difficult punctuation mark to use is comma. Using it is difficult, because sometimes it doesn’t follow a conventional rule, but still serving its own purpose (listing things, introducing an independent clause and separating sentences and poetry lines, etc). Someone may decide to use it before ‘although’, while someone may not, as it is in Sentence B below:

Sentence A. I was tired, although I worked a lot the previous day.

Sentence B. I was tired although I worked a lot the previous day.

In Sentence B comma is not used because it doesn’t flow the way the writer needs it to do. Wrong use of comma can make a piece sound somehow. It can make a reader get tired and stop reading the piece.

In the other case of spelling, you can make errors too. Is it ‘the man is safe’ or ‘the man is save’ or ‘the man is saved?’ Is it ‘a lovely piece’ or ‘a lovingly piece’? Here you can see spelling problem lies more in the usage than in the word itself, unless if the writer is too poor in grammar.

Coming back to the other case of spelling, when you are ‘safe’, you have securities and when you are ‘saved’ you are helped out. But you can’t be ‘save’ because it is not correct. ‘Lovely’ is an adjective, so a ‘lovely’ piece is correct, whereas ‘lovingly’ is an adverb. So a ‘lovingly’ piece is not correct.

Now, at least, these errors we discussed here may remind you of something you’re forgetting to check in your writing, thinking all is done. It seemed as if you’ve not yet started it.

*It was a disappointment.

This is a nice article. Well done, OP. However, there are still some obvious errors in the posts. Kindly edit.