How to Write Unique Content or at least stop worrying about it so much and conquer Writer's Block forever

I wrote this because of a forum post from a slightly discouraged Hubber (a Hubber is just someone who writes here at HubPages). I say "slightly discouraged" because his concern was that whenever he settled upon something to write about, he found that hundreds or thousands of other people had beat him to it. His lament was that he felt he had nothing new to add, so he felt somewhat hopeless: why should he just add another "Me too!" page to the World Wide Web?

(Ecclesiastes): What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

I think maybe I have to add yet another reason to my hub on "Why I don't do keyword research" because this kind of "I have nothing new to say!" writer's block wailing surely comes directly from that. And no, I don't mean you shouldn't do keyword research (even though I don't), but I don't think you should read any of what you find and you should not even be looking at the titles very closely.

Why? Because you'll get discouraged. Because it has all been said before. A hundred times, a thousand times, a hundred thousand times.

I just did a Google search for "how to write unique content" and supposedly got 43,300,000 results. Now, Google fibs about that - they may have found that many results, but they won't actually show you that many.

Nevertheless, that is a lot of results, I guess I'm not the first to write about this, am I?

Have some Ego

When I did that search, the first result was a hub right here at HubPages: "How To Write Fresh And Unique Content" by Hope Wilbanks.

Have you ever noticed how often HubPages content reaches the top of Google? That's a good reason to be writing here, isn't it?

Hope wrote a good hub. So why should I bother to write another one on the same subject?

Because I can write a better hub.

What? How dare you!

Oh, don't get all bristled up quite yet. I don't mean that quite the way it sounds. I'll explain exactly what I mean by that in just a moment, but I'm not putting Hope down or disparaging her work in any way. I can write a better hub but Hope has already written a better hub. We are both "better".

We are just "better" for different people. Everybody has different needs and different preferences. You may love my writing style or hate it. You may feel the same way or completely differently about Hope's style. If you dislike my style, or if you can take it or leave it, Hope's treatment of this subject might be just what you want. It might be perfect for you.

But it won't be perfect for everyone, and that is one of the reasons there is always room for another look at a well traveled subject.

Let's say you were about to write on this very subject. Oh, poor thing: you found Hope's hub and now mine so what can you possibly have to say about it?

Lemme ask you something

Let me ask you a question or two.

Why do you think you CAN'T do a better job or at least present a unique take on this? Why do you think there is no person in the world who might not prefer the way YOU write over the way Hope and I and everyone else who wrote about this wrote our take on it?

Some people like to read Joe Friday, Just the Facts. Some people like a more chatty, conversational style. Some people like twenty-five dollar words and lots of 'em. Some people detest slang or humor, some love it.

Surely you don't think there is no one who likes YOUR style?

Who says they found that anyway?

Do you remember I said I searched for "how to write unique content"?

Anyone who did that would be sure to find Hope's post. But who says they searched with those words? Those are the words I would use, and they might even be the words most people would use, but people do make odd searches and they might NOT find Hope's page at all.

They might find mine. They might find yours. Let me ask another question: will they get something of value if they find yours? Will you be cheating them, short-changing them, misleading them? No? Then what's your problem? Why do you think you should NOT write a page about this if that's what you want to do?

Recently I wrote about Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. How many people do you think have written about that very subject?

Yet, within hours, I had email from four different people thanking me for the review. Two of them had never even heard of the product! The other two had seen these advertised but didn't bother to see if they were actually any good - my review helped them decide to buy and try.

What makes you think everybody even KNOWS about the things that have been written about a hundred thousand times?

Different Strokes

We all sometimes need a different slant. You might go read one of my hubs on computer stuff.

Maybe it's a good hub, but maybe there's something you just don't get. I explained it well enough, but it just didn't bump your knobs at the right angle. So you go read somebody else's page on the same subject. Eureka! You understand now - but if you had read that hub first, you still needed mine or someone elses to get it really straight in your head.

I know that's how it works for me. When I am new to a subject, I like to read several different articles. If I am confused about some aspect of it, I go hunting for different pages to help me understand.

I can give you another example. In 2003 I wrote "Understanding Floating Point Formats". If you search for "Understanding Floating Point Numbers", it will be in the top results for Google or Bing. Of course that's hardly a common search, but if you did want to understand how numbers are stored in your computer, that's what you'd be looking for.

My article is geekish and techy, but the Wikipedia result is even worse. The Webopedia result is very non-techy. If you were searching for this, both your background and your specific needs might make any one of these the perfect result for you, but it is easy to see that none of them are exactly right for everyone.

Conquer Writer's Block! Go forth and write!

I hope you understand now why you really don't need to be concerned by what other people have or have not written. Yeah, it's great if you can find that unique thing that no one has ever said before, but those are few and far between.

Don't worry about other people. Just go do your thing. It will be unique, because you wrote in your own style, with your own understanding and your own words. That is unique.

Because of that, you really shouldn't be worrying about writer's block any longer, should you? You don't need a NEW idea, you need an idea that you can write about.

Go do that. Now.