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Being in the mood for ranting, but having no ideas on which to rant, a topic was kindly recommended to me. (Thanks, Ace! xd ) What has become the target of my ire? Rants. Ironically, this is fitting, since I'm currently annoyed with what I've seen of what passes for "rants" lately. Doubly ironic, because this is itself a rant.

So, for all you uninitiated, here's a few guidelines for how to write an effective rant that won't make you the target of the ire of others.


1.) Thou shalt have a Point
Note the capitalization. You will have a Point to your rant, not a point. This is important. If your rant has no Point, then why in the name of the grammar gods are you writing it in the first place? If you want to rant and expect it to have an impact, or at least be remembered as more than just a bout of whining that's a little louder than the rest, we need to know what you're trying to tell us.

But just telling us is not enough. Your rant is just going to be lost in the boundless sea of whining otherwise, as I said. Your Point has to be specific enough that you're not lost in tangents and tangled in paragraphs of directionless half-sense. At the same time, you must support your Point with reason, well rounded arguments, and example (where possible and applicable), or else your Point is going to be torn apart without mercy, leaving its tender innards undefended against the less kind elements.


2.) Thou shalt teach something
That's right. An effective rant teaches something. This is directly and inextricably related to your Point, and why your Point must be specific and well defined.

This is where telling us becomes teaching us.

Why should we care about your Point?

Why is your Point important to us or our writing?

How can we apply your Point to our works?

An ill-defined Point - such as telling us we need to improve our writing - quickly falls apart under the weight of trying to answer these deceptively simple questions. A clear Point - such as telling us why we should stop talking about our stories and just write the damn things - will greet these questions as long time friends and yield pages of sublime goodness that provide enlightenment to the poor, drab masses.

Did you catch the small but crucial difference in those two examples? It's a single word. Do you see it? That's right. It's 'why'. If you're Point has no 'why' (or 'how', in the case of a tutorial rant), or you can not give it a 'why', then you can not use your point to teach us anything and you'd be better off taking your Point, which is actually a point, out behind the shed and giving it a clean gun shot to the head before it causes you any embarrasment.


3.) Thy personal opinion is not fact
As much as you might like to think you're an exception to this rule simply because you're you, here's some news for you: You're not. Personal opinion does not float with everyone. Sometimes, it sinks like a nice dollop of lead into the black depths of the sea, never to be seen again. Hell, sometimes it goes right on by, dressed in a neon yellow leotard, prancing and singing along that iceberg while banging pots and pans together, and no one even sees it.

Personal opinion undermines your Point by turning it into a point, because your arguments become nothing more than, "I think this because..." They are not directed at us. They are directed at you telling us what you think.

If you must use personal opinion to support your Point, make it minimal and make it clear that it is your personal opinion. What do you do after this? Move on, pulling in reason and well rounded arguments to support your Point instead. If you can center these arguments around the 'why' of your opinion, that's great, but it's better if your arguments are derived from the Point of your opinion. Do you think adverbs are the devil? Then tell us how to use them effectively, not that you think they're evil.


4.) Thou shalt understand what thou art talking about
Nothing destroys a Point faster than an obvious display of ineptitude or ignorance. If both are displayed, you might as well kiss your credibility goodbye. After giving it a pleasant send off, of course. But then, if the display of ineptitude and/or ignorance is severe enough, your credibility may be so utterly eviscerated that the jackals will come in to feast on the festering corpse of your ego. Even the bare bones of your point, not your Point, will not be safe.

I'm making this intentionally ugly, not to scare people, but to make it blatantly clear that nothing will save your rant if you do not know what you're talking about. You could follow all the other points perfectly, but if you're ranting from a position of cluelessness, anything you say is going to be worse than worthless. It will be like an Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly love fest: Ugly, painful to watch (let alone think about), and likely to leave mental and emotional scars for years afterwards because it's so hideous.

In other words: Educate yourself before you write a rant. It will save you a lot of embarrasment and hassle.


5.) Thou Shalt Not Be An Insensitive a** Just to Be An Insensitive a**. (An addition by Muted Heretic.)
If you're going to be a jerk, be one because the person whose works you are reading has repeatedly refused to listen to any advice and is taking criticism like a teenage girl who is being told she might be losing too much weight.

In other words, if they are an a**, you may be an a**. Not before.

I'm sick of people who write enraged rants at someone who didn't do a thing to deserve such spite.

xd A good addition. Mind if I add it? With due credit, of course.