Guidelines for Writing a Paintball Blog

Sustaining a Theme

Sustaining a theme for a paintball blog is not necessarily the hardest thing in the world to do. Since it is a blog, you don’t have to answer to anyone; everything you say is your opinion. Having said that, you can use your own experiences to relate your views and thoughts to whatever you hope to accomplish with your blog. As long as your posts have a similar feel and/or setup, your mission or theme will shine through your words and give you style and credibility. Sustaining your theme is simple if you prove your points in similar ways (i.e. your experience).

Coming up with Ideas

The best source of fresh ideas for writing a paintball blog comes from your very own experience. A large majority of the talk that goes on at the fields is stories about prior experiences and cool things that have happened in the past. You can draw upon these experiences to create many different kinds of posts. You can post about types of players, different positions and their importance, give a review of a field, or just tell a cool story. You can even combine some of these ideas into one post. For example, you could explain an in-game experience and at the same time comment on a larger overarching issue. If this starts to get a little repetitive check reputable message boards and see what the new buzz is and blog about your own comments or position on the issue. This can also help draw in more readers and possibly bring up more hits for your blog if you are blogging about recent ideas.

Writing Approaches

I think a good approach to writing about a paintball experience is to simply begin telling what happened. I found it allows you to get your thoughts organized enough so you can begin identifying what exactly were the failures and successes of the game or tournament. This, in turn, allows you to develop an overarching piece of advice or sort of a lesson of the day. It is helpful not only to those who read it, but it will also give you a chance to think about your actions and potentially improve your game through deeper reflection. I find that starting out with an intangible of the game can be more difficult to elaborate on without an in-game experience to help the reader really identify with the points you are trying to make.

Including Outside Information

Including outside information can be a really helpful tool when writing blog posts. When doing this, make sure you include where you got the information for obvious reasons. You don’t want to be stealing ideas or information and if it turns out to be false information you can blame it on the source. I would not rely so heavily on using outside information though. This can make your posts sound like more of a “he said, she said” blog. Instead, throw in some information from other sources and then comment on it through your own knowledge and experience. We want to know what you think about it!

How to Catch People’s Attention and Connect with Them

A really easy way to connect with people when beginning a paintball blog is by bringing up something that many people may be insecure about. Examples of this are showing your opinions on certain markers, or commenting on poor shooting stances. I went the way of defining what a paintball poser is. This caught the attention of many people and led to a lot of conversation on my blog about different definitions of a poser. Now that you have the audiences’ attention, you have to keep them interested. After you discuss the controversial issue, prove to be more understanding than they initially thought from your earlier posts. I’m not saying you should lie to them but include their comments in your subsequent posts and elaborate on your posts. This will keep readers coming back for more if they see their input being addressed in your posts.

Developing a Voice

An easy way to develop the voice that you wish to convey is to simply write how you talk at the field. Keep a very conversational, relaxed tone and don’t be afraid to throw in some common terms in paintball. The people reading your blog will start to identify themselves with you and your writing. As I said before, keep it relaxed this is paintball we’re talking about here, not a book report. Writing how you talk about paintball is an important tool in developing a voice. No body wants to read a perfectly grammatically correct story about a paintball game. Throw some life into it! If you caught some dude in his dome, then say it like that! It brings more personality and energy to your posts.

General Do’s and Don’ts

Do: The biggest “do” I can think of is to simply be sincere and earnest when sharing your experiences. If you have been around the game long enough, you know how to spot someone feeding you a bunch of crap and you know that other people can spot it as well.

Don’t: I think the most important thing to remember when writing a paintball blog is to not sound like a jackass. Show that you know what you’re talking about but don’t pretend like you’re the best around. There is always someone out there with more information or experience than you, and in this community they will not hesitate to call you on shortcomings. And don’t blame your own failures on poor officiating. If you’re going to complain about the refs, site a number of instances where they failed as a whole group not just particular calls.