10 Things you should know about 10 Things

If there is a topic then there must be an article with 10 things on that topic. Since this itself is a topic, I am going to write 10 things you should know about all these 10 things articles.

1. There are not actually 10 things to say, it may actually be 7 or 8 but to make it a round number the author rephrases a couple of them and makes the count to 10. Or he writes a classic last one – “10. There is no 10th thing!”

2. The title is not written first. The author keeps writing whatever comes to his minds and then writes the final number in the title. That is why we have a non standard 7 habits, 5 things, 10 steps etc.

3. Readers attention span is very important. So the author will make sure he doesn’t exceed beyond 13 points. 13 is the unlucky stop point number. Any more number of points he is going to get with the article, there are high chances that it will get converted into a book.

4. If it was written as a book, it will be publicized as the NYTimes #1 Best seller with a round, starry edged, fluorescent green sticker on top of it. No such thing will be done to the blog article. Heck, it won’t even make it to the WordPress front page. I mean take this one for example.

5. If it is published as a book, the front cover will always have the 3/4 portrait of the author standing at about 30 degrees to the side, arms folded, dressed in a blazer with a silly grin on his face.

6. Women don’t write 10 things article or the book. They just have too many things to say to be written in One article or One book. So they just have a TV show by their name like Oprah Winfrey show, Suze Orman Show, Rachel Ray show, with the word “Show” following their names, even though every one knows that it is a TV show!

7. This is the step the author finds out that there is no clear direction in his article and he cannot give a proper meaningful name for it. He will simply choose to name it as “10 things You should know about …”. Also, You will notice that Point number 8 will be missing.

8. This point is supposed to be missing. So you should not be reading this. No stop, stop! Don’t read it. Come on, This point is hidden! You are not supposed to read it, argh!!!!

9. There is no 10th thing. No Really, I mean it. I am going to stop at point 9.

10. Oh what the Heck! There are actually 11 things about the “10 things” articles.

11. Point no. 10 was not actually needed and I could have simply written Point 11 as Point 10. But, I just added it to show how clever I am. So, In essence, There is not really a 11th thing.

There, if you always keep all of these 10 or 11 things (with the 8th point missing) in your mind, you will be able to judge what those 10 things books are.

A “10 things to know about” article or book never goes complete without written testimonials of experts. Hence, I had an imaginary conversation with my fellow bloggers and I am coming up with their testimonials on this Article:

Anshul @ Brainstuck: (Scratches Head) WTF, 10 things about 10 things Article! (Scratches Head again!)

KrishAshok: This article is very inspiring it will definitely make me write 10 things to know about Jalsa and Jilpa.

Maxdavinci: There is only one thing that is true in this world – Dappankuthu. Everything else is written in this article.

Nikhil: The author is a very nice fellow. He bought me 10 beers, one for each thing.

Vishesh:  (and then when asked to elaborate) LOL

Sakhi: There is Fiction and then there is true story. This one is neither!

Twisted DNA: Just put on your bluetooth headset and read this aloud, no one will even notice, these sexy supple white 10 things.

Rads: Yay! I mean Yay!