… and no, I’m not gonna talk about the old single by The Kinks.

Fact is, I’ve just witnessed one of the most amazing tricks I ever saw.
A friend of mine – who’s very wise in the ways of the web – basically summarized the main points in a blog post, without reading the post itself.
He already knew in detail what the post was all about, how it was written – he even predicted a few phrases exactly.
Pure intellectual sleight of hand.
It’s all about structure, he explained.

Which is something that strikes me at various levels – because I’m very fond of structure when writing, because I am a blogger, and because I’m very fond of sleight of hand and stage magic.
And to me, someone that reads a blog post without actually reading it, knowing the full contents just by the title, is performing a mentalist trick worth of a fine stage magician.

But the whole thing also calls in question the matter of predictability in writing.
Is it a good thing?
Well, in part it certainly is – after all, our readers come back for more because they expect something.
And yet, “predictable” is not the sort of… ehm, compliment, I’d like to receive too often.

You see, dear, we prefer to call it consistency…

Exactly.
And so the whole thing makes me wonder – do I have a predict– no, ok, consistent, fixed structure for my posts?

And I think there is such a thing in what I write – if nothing else, because all of my posts come from the same source, and they all conform to my way of thinking out my discussions.

Now there’s a bit I found somewhere, a short instructional piece about zen poetry and haikus.
It basically defines the structure as such

• there’s a first line setting a theme
• there’s a second line talking about something completely different
• there’s a final line which brings the two topics together, making it clear because they are related after all.

Now, that structure is normally sitting at the back of my brain when I write my posts.
It would be nice, being able to pull a trick like that when blogging.
It might be a good way to strike a balance between predictability and surprise.

Sure as hell, in the next few days I’ll catch myself thinking about the structure of my posts, often.
And I’ll hate myself because of it.

Ah, let’s hear it from the Kinks…

Related articles

• Haiku
• Sleight of Hand #haiku #magician