The art of sample-writing

Recently, I was watching a documentary on sampling in the hip-hop industry.

Although hi hop seems tangential to writing, I realized a thread connecting the two after I was 15 minutes into the 30-minute documentary.

I call it sample-writing. It's drawing tokens from unrelated industries, to make the article original, and make it one of high quality.

It's the hallmark of many great, and original articles, especially opinion or thought leadership pieces.

Let me explain...

Any lover of old-school hip hop will be used to the cut-and-paste nature of the beats.

Back then, before the advent of technology and licensing laws, DJs would simply sample beats that they loved from different artists from diverse musical genres.

It could be an insane guitar riff by ESG, the 8-bar-funky drum beat by Clyde Stubblefield, the amen break by Gregory Coleman, or the hollering of an artist such as James Brown.

Back then, rap songs were the product. But sampling was the science behind the entire process.

And that's just how good writing is--or is supposed to be.

The best writers pull ideas from hard-to-reach places. Sometimes, that could be a quote from Romeo and Juliet. Or research by a scientist in Oxford. Then they bring them all together in Frankenstein fashion.

Even B2B writers are not left out. Besides, they're also writing to humans, right?

So, how can you master the art of sample-writing?

It's simple, but hard: read wide.

As much as we want to only read pieces relevant to our industries in a bid to grow knowledge-wise, reading a little fiction, scientific reports, etc., once in a while won't hurt. Instead, it widens your mind.

And you never know whether that sentence that will catch your attention while reading, would become the insane opening or angle for your next article. You just can never know.

Sample writing and content differentiation

We're all tired of seeing the same generic content showing up whenever we search. They all have the same opening, idea, and angle.

And as attention spans diminish and competition for attention increases, nailing content differentiation is the best way to win with content. Readers --including myself-- are tired to the bones of seeing rehashed content.

As a solution, sample writing (drawing analogies from tangential industries) is a great way to nail content differentiation.

Take this article.

Although you may find other articles on the web talking about drawing ideas from other industries when writing, none of them uses the angle of music sampling. Now, that's content differentiation at work.

But the problem is: how can you recall those gems at the 23rd hour when your fingers are eager to type away on the keyboard?

Getting your samples at the 23rd hour

In most cases, it's hard to get a hold of those gems you read in a book when writing. It's like the brain goes on a sabbatical just when you need it to work its magic.

So, it's best to have a scrapbook (physically or digitally) where you keep all the diamonds you might need later.

Also, instead of just writing down the quotes or ideas, write a little background as to why the quote or information interests you. So, when you decide to use it, you get a bit of context. Because without context, you'll forget why it caught your interest in the first place.

Conclusion

When it comes to writing, every idea, regardless of how tangential it may seem, can come in handy. It can be the difference between a blank page and 100 words.

So, read wide.

You're allowed to have general knowledge of just about everything. Go on and sample write!