by Terrence Aym

Created on: July 30, 2010

The good news is: there are many ways to succeed at Helium.com.

Yet, there are also ways to fail—and fail miserably.

For those wishing to fail, just apply this handy guideline outlining 10 easy-to-follow steps. In no time you'll be well on your way to abject failure …

1. Choose a sterile subject that appeals to the least amount of people.

A time-tested way to short-circuit any promising writing career is to focus on topics that have little appeal to the demographic population you're writing to (your potential audience). Boring, redundant and overworked themes often work well for those seeking to avoid attention to their writing efforts.

2. If you cannot find a sterile subject, try choosing a topic that you have only a passing interest in or little knowledge.

The second best way to fail at Helium.com—or just about anywhere else in the world of writing for that matter—is by writing to a topic that you have virtually no knowledge or experience with. To make sure your writing is not only given the cold shoulder, but the deep freeze, don't bother doing any research on the subject: write whatever comes to mind, what you believe to be true and what 'sounds good.'

3. When you write, write as dispassionately as you can. Cold, hard statements presented with the least amount of 'clutter' are the best.

Nothing can grab a reader's attention like dramatic words and ideas presented with passion. Avoid writing that way at all costs!

4. Insert many of your own opinions into the article with absolutely no citations to back them up.

Long rambling sentences and lengthy paragraphs that go on for 15 or 20 lines also work well.

If you're writing an article that lends itself to factual citations to back up what you present, just forget about it. Researching for citations to support and/or validate your contentions is often a long, laborious process. Who really bothers to check out citations anyway?

5. Write in a challenging, argumentative style … as if you're daring the reader to disagree with you.

The best way to put off many readers is to write as if they're dummies. Argue your points using absolutes and make sure readers understand that if they don't agree with your writing you know they're a bunch of nincompoops anyway. Don't respect your reader, after all you know more than they do anyway, don't you? Besides, you wrote the article; they didn't.

6. Don't worry about punctuation, grammar, spelling, capitalization, tense, or any of the other rules of writing.

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