It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. You’ve heard that before, right?

That story has been told a thousand times, but it’s how you tell it that makes it your own.

Show, don’t tell.

Or, as I like to say: you’ve got five seconds, or I’m out.

When you’re creating a narrative in your blog post—fiction, non-fiction, personal essay, how-to, how-not-to—whichever: it helps to remember your readers don’t know the story, yet. Even if it’s your mom reading the blog post and she was there when the events happened, she may not know it from your perspective, and it’s your job as the person writing it all down to translate it for everyone else.

So when yeah write says to bring us your best stuff, how do you know if it’s your best stuff?

Here’s a checklist:

1. Does it have a beginning, a middle and an end?

Something happened to start the tale, then something changed within the tale, then somehow the change affected the tale, then all the changes and somethings combined for a resolution. If there’s no conflict, no change, there’s no story.

2. Do you find yourself writing the phrase “…but I digress”?

This one I’m quasi-borrowing from Write On Edge. Go back and delete the entire paragraph before that. Delete two. Then delete the “…but I digress”. Those are your mental notes, not part of the story.

3. How does it sound as you’re reading it aloud?

Yes, I know it’s just a blog post, but how does it sound as you’re reading it aloud? If you’re tripping over certain words and it doesn’t sound exactly coherent to you, guess how it will read to those who are experiencing the events through you for the first time.

4. What does your writing partner think of it?

My writing partner is less writing partner and more the poor guy who has to share a bed with me and get unpublished posts emailed to him in his office every six seconds, but whoever you got—use that person liberally. Nearly every time, the paragraph that gave me the most trouble while I was writing it gave Q the most trouble while he was reading it. I take his suggestions (mostly) and rework it.

5. Are you being overly coy?

If you’re going to be cryptic, be courteous and reveal enough about the situation to keep our attention. Don’t hide the point of your story in the linen closet like it’s Crazy Aunt Sarah.

6. How many stories are you telling in one post?

If it’s more than one, it’s too many.

7. Have you given your readers someone to cheer for or empathize with throughout the post?

It’s a sign of a terrible movie when the audience is rooting for everyone to die, especially that bratty gifted and talented kid with the potty mouth. Don’t be that writer/director who forgot to include sympathetic characters.

8. Are you picking up a thesaurus every other word looking for different ways to say “yellow”?

Yes, there is a big difference between mustard yellow and neon yellow, but unless that difference alters the events of your story somehow, yellow will do fine. If you were to touch the yellow wire at your explosive peril, and the wires are red, yellow and blue, who cares if the yellow wire is sunshine yellow like the sun on a breezy day?

9. How’s your font discipline?

There are so many out there! Use two. One for headers, which would be a display font, and one for your body, which would be a text font. Pretend the bold, italic and underline options in your visual editor have been ripped off by a ninja tiger that’s hiding under your bed waiting for you to try to use them anyway after it went through all that trouble of ripping them off FOR YOUR OWN PERSONAL SAFETY.

10. How many times have you reread it, proofread it, edited it?

Do it all again before publishing.

Thirsty for more? You’ve made my day.

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Yeah write #47 opens Tuesday.