by Skellie
Photo by Paul Worthington
I thought I’d take a little time out from our regular content flow to write some follow-up thoughts on the post ‘Why Great Writing Doesn’t Matter Online‘. It’s something that many of you had mixed feelings about and I seem not to have made myself as clear as I would have liked. When an argument is read in a dozen different ways by a dozen different people — intelligent people, too — that’s usually the writer’s fault, and I take responsibility for that.
For many, it was as if I had written a post titled ‘Why Writing Doesn’t Matter Online’. The word ‘Great’ didn’t figure in to it. I was at various points seen to be railing against grammar, spelling, and basic expression, advocating impenetrable, careless, or very poor writing, and devaluing anyone who takes pride in their writing work. These things are the opposite of what I hoped to communicate, and it shows that I myself have a long way to go when it comes to writing with clarity.
If this much isn’t known, writing is what sustains me, writing makes me proud, writing causes my life to bloom. If I couldn’t write, my world would be gray. To be seen as anti-writer and anti-writing (even by some) is never what I intended.
I had thought it was a thoroughly optimistic article — a response to the many bloggers who’ve told me that they love blogging, but they’re no good at writing, and will never succeed for that reason. 99% of them are in fact good enough writers. Not exceptional, not remarkable, but good enough to transfer great ideas to an audience online. Good enough to be outstanding bloggers. I wanted to tell those bloggers that they have as much chance at success as the great writers of the world wide web.
My thoughts on bad writing seemed to be the least clear of them all, judging by some reader responses. To clarify: if your writing is bad, your ideas must be truly exceptional to shine through, and you’ll forever be at a disadvantage because of that. My argument is that it’s possible to succeed with bad writing, but it’s unnecessarily hard, and it’s certainly not advisable.
Once your writing is good enough (not necessarily good or great) the strength of your ideas will play a much bigger part in your success than your ability to write.
My argument is not that anything goes. I’m arguing that greatness is not required. I’d also argue that very few of you would consider yourself great writers (unless you have an over-abundance of confidence, and in that case, I’d like to borrow some), and yet you still strive every day to create remarkable content and reach a wider audience, or connect more strongly with your existing audience. Not perceiving yourself as ‘great’ won’t stop you, though it may cause you to have doubts every once and a while. My argument is that it shouldn’t. (A note: While I’m sure that none of you consider yourself ‘great’ writers, some of you are, even if you don’t know it.)
Being a great writer is enviable. It’s not a worthless skill, it’s a highly valuable one, and it will help you in all walks of life. If you’ve got it, great. If you’re like most of us — if you’re OK, or average, or good enough, or even pretty good, you can strive towards greatness, but the points where you fall below it won’t matter online — as long as your writing doesn’t get in the way of what you’re trying to communicate.
I also want to clarify the way I use the term ‘ideas’. In this context, an idea is one ‘thing’ you are trying to communicate, whether it’s a story, a moral, an opinion, an argument, a tip, a rule to live by, a joke, a thought, a strategy, or a reflection. These are the things people look for online.
In retrospect, I’ll agree that my argument was somewhat too sweeping. Your metaphors and turns of phrases, similes and adjectives, crisp descriptions and well-chosen analogies can make good ideas better, and for that reason, great writing is a nice thing to have, if you’ve got it. If I could retitle the post, I’d call it: ‘Why Great Writing Doesn’t Matter (Much) Online’. It won’t make or break your blog, but it can take a good blog to a level above.
I still maintain that it’s very possible to succeed without being great at writing, though. While it would be unfair to point out a dozen examples of stellar blogs maintained by average writers, examples do exist, and you will have your own pool to draw from.
If I could restate my argument simply, it would be this: don’t feel inadequate because you’re not an exceptional writer. Make the best of what you have, be clear, understand the way people consume information online and play to your strengths by writing with substance over style (if you can’t do both).
While I’ll take all responsibility for any confusion over the post, I do want to emphasize the dangers of being overly pessimistic about other bloggers. I’m not asking you to go easy on me, but on the notion of bloggers as a whole. It was implicit in many of the comments that most blogs are badly written, and that most bloggers write badly, and this is something I strongly disagree with.
Most of the writing we consume — if we read books, newspapers and magazines regularly — is written by professionals who devote their lives to writing. It’s unfair to judge bloggers by this standard. Most bloggers can’t match this level of polish, but for ordinary people — people who may never have wanted to be writers, but feel they have something to say — we do alright.
I’ve visited thousands of blogs, and I don’t think the argument that most blogs are badly written holds true. The writings of an ordinary, self-taught person who puts care into what they do, even if it’s a bit rough around the edges, is not ‘bad’ by any standards. Real bad writing (as opposed to what is perceived as bad by formal standards) is written without any level of care, and without consideration for the person reading it. At most, 1 in 100 blogs match this description.
Bad writing and bad blogging are not one and the same: bad blogging communicates unremarkable ideas. Bad writing is marked by a complete lack of care in how ideas are communicated. Many bloggers put a level of care into their writing, but make mistakes when it comes to choosing the right ideas to communicate. A lot of what is construed as bad writing is really just blogging that has missed the mark.
The dichotomy between ‘good’ writing and ‘bad’ writing is a false one. Some writing is good, some is great, some is bad, and a vast majority of it is good enough for what we, as bloggers, are trying to do. While great writing is a valuable and enviable thing, and something worth moving towards — even if very few of us get there — it’s not a prerequisite for success. You don’t have to look very far to see that online audiences value substance over style, and that style does not guarantee substance.
This post is only intended to clarify my own argument, not to bring everyone who disagrees over to my side of the fence. My goal is to make an argument to the best of my abilities, and to help you test your own assumptions, whether they stay strong or whether you see the merit in thinking differently. I write to encourage you to think — even if you end up thinking very differently to me :).
I don’t think I could say any more on the topic without getting boring. It would be unfair of me to debate comments on this post, considering I have all this luxurious space to make my argument and you only get a crappy comment form. To make up some of the difference, I give you the right to a completely unchallenged response, and the right to take as much time and space as you need to make it.
Thank you for being such an enigmatic, intelligent and thought-provoking group of people. All my writing here is an effort to repay you for that, but I think I will always be one step behind — and that’s what keeps me going.
Skelliewag features daily discussions on content creation, great ideas you can use, and design tips. Join the community by subscribing!
rss feed
25 Comments, Comment or Ping
Sumesh
Relevant points - I can’t count the number of times that I have thought “how do these sites/blogs get popular with crappy writers like these”.
Soon, I realized that writing skills is only a small part of blogging. Your ideas, presenting your content in attractive words, good title, marketing efforts, your network of friends/fellow bloggers etc. is even more important.
PS: Many of the images on this page (mostly theme images) are from 5thirtyone. Not only does this slow down pageload (due to multiple http requests from different servers), but also puts load on 531’s host. Consider saving them to your theme folder under images. Shouldn’t be hard.
Mar 22nd, 2008
Mark McGuinness
Thanks Skellie for a thoughtful follow up. Your motivation for writing this and the original post is admirable - i.e. to encourage people to take the plunge and start writing and not to let a few doubts about your writing style get in the way. On reflection I didn’t give you enough credit for that in my comment - sorry about that.
And I like the clarification re greatness not being required - good or even average can be just fine, as long as you have plenty of useful ideas and enthusiasm. I’m happy to read a less-than-perfectly-written blog as long as I have a genuine sense of the blogger’s individual voice coming through.
Mar 22nd, 2008
skellie
@ Sumesh: Thanks! I’m also interested to know which images you believe are being drawn from 5ThirtyOne? This blog uses the Grid Focus theme which was developed by Derek Punsalan for free use, but all the images are locally hosted in my wp-content folder.
@ Mark: Thanks for your kind words — I know you disagreed with me strongly, and while I’m sure we don’t see eye to eye on every aspect of the argument, knowing that I was trying to create something positive is really all I could ask. Thanks :).
Mar 22nd, 2008
Mark McGuinness
@ Skellie - all’s well that ends well.
Mar 22nd, 2008
OldSailor
In blogging ’substance over style’ only matters. A polling on ‘whether substance or style matters ?’ could have made things more clear.
Mar 22nd, 2008
Rob in Denver
This post was unnecessary… at least it was unnecessary for me.
While I didn’t agree with every word you wrote, the position you took was reasonable and entirely defensible — if for no other reason than terms like “good” or “great” or “terrible” are subjective.
Mar 22nd, 2008
skellie
@ Old Sailor: Good point.
@ Rob in Denver: Unnecessary, maybe, cathartic, definitely ;).
Mar 22nd, 2008
Kelly
Skellie,
I agree with Rob, not a needed post, but yet another well-written post with solid thought behind it. I think most A-list and nearly-there blogs like yours prove the opposite of your original point (i.e. great writing does matter). I also think that reasonable writers can expect their skills to get better with practice, which should just about coincide with their readership’s growth, and so work out just fine. Practicing “out loud” every day is a lot better than waiting for the perfect moment when all is in place, to begin. That moment never comes.
Regards,
Kelly
Mar 22nd, 2008
James Chartrand - Men with Pens
Skellie, this post made you jump back up on my list of people that I respect. This makes your point a lot more clearer and removes that “What’s she smoking these days?” thought from my mind. I couldn’t understand why you would be saying what I thought you were saying. I couldn’t understand where I’d misunderstood.
And I wondered if it wasn’t a huge link bait strategy to stir up controversy. I didn’t think you were like that, but people often surprise me when I thought they were someone else. I think this post goes a long way to remove some of the doubts I had - though it could also be a carefully constructed plan… and if it is, LOL, it’s brilliant. I tip my hat off to you.
Alright, all that said, your message now makes perfect sense and would be something that I could agree with. A lot of what you wrote in this post was something that I too would say and much of it is what I too believe. It sounds much more encouraging without removing the sense of still striving for high quality. I couldn’t believe that you’d push forth an idea that said quality didn’t matter.
Anyways, I’m rambling. Thanks for listening, Skel.
Mar 22nd, 2008
danielb
hi, Skellie, how are you?
I remember sitting on a bus a couple of years ago, reading a book by paul rand, the great graphic designer. he defined graphic design along these lines: graphic design is the placing & styling of visual elements to communicate a message in the best way possible to the desired audience.
Blog writing is similar: you’re trying to communicate with a specific audience. maybe you want to teach that audience. maybe you want to make them laugh. maybe you want them to come back again tomorrow. maybe you just want to get a ton of links. I think “great writing” is just that - writing that achieves its motives to the greatest extent.
I hope life’s good,
daniel
Mar 22nd, 2008
Hunter Nuttall
This was a wonderful clarification, Skellie. You seem to be more on the side of “great writing is unnecessary” than “great writing doesn’t matter,” and I think that’s something most of us can agree with.
I blur the distinction between writing and ideas. To me, a person who writes beautiful sentences about dull ideas is a bad writer. If I can’t stand to read it, it’s bad writing (unless I just don’t like the topic).
I agree that bloggers can’t be held to the same standards as professional writers. Not that blogging standards are necessarily lower, just different. Someone could say that Steve Pavlina writes better than Ernest Hemingway–they’re writing according to completely different standards, so there’s plenty of room to disagree about who’s better.
But I also think most blogs I’ve seen fall short of what I would consider good blogging (meaning both ideas and writing). I’m fine with agreeing to disagree though!
I really appreciate that you took the time to clarify your position. While it wasn’t really necessary, it shows how much you care.
Mar 22nd, 2008
abby ives
I think the one factor left out of the equation was the audience. When you talk about adequate, acceptable, good or exceptional writing, you have to ask to whom. Yeah, yeah, the terms are subjective, but we all have a sense of what is good or what is great. However, there are a limited number of people, a finite number, even, who can appreciate, or care about the nuances of good writing. When bloggers talk to bloggers, this looms large. When bloggers talk to whoever is out there, all bets are off. If I am writing a financial blog, or a tech blog (neither of which I do) and I am able to say what I want to say, with grace and style, will that trump a plodding, no nonsense blog with solid information? I suppose it depends upon what people are looking for. Is utility king (or queen)? What DO women want… it is not an easy question to answer because there is no one answer. Crappy blogs draw readers because the world is full of idiots and good writing does not mean much to them. Is that a bad thing? I think it is a lamentable thing, but also the reality, and that maybe we write for ourselves and those people whom we want to impress/reach/touch. I like reading good stuff myself,
and I like someone who can make anything interesting, but in the end, it is about how we want to communicate, what we have to say, and who is going to want to listen. Good writing may be more important to the writer than the reader, sometimes, if not always.
Mar 22nd, 2008
Charlie Gilkey
This is a brilliant clarification to the point you made in the original post. I was a bit dismayed by some of the comments, as I didn’t read the post in negative way that some commenters did. I read it to be more of a gentle nudge to some people to not let their fear of inadequate writing stop them for pursuing something they were passionate about. We all improve with time, but only if we keep doing it and trying to get better.
Great job!
Mar 22nd, 2008
Cath Lawson
That makes a lot of sense Skellie. And I totally agree - begin good enough is better than aiming for perfection, because it frees up your time to do other things, like market your blog.
And being good enough and showing up is far better than being extremely talented and not showing up at all, in any profession.
I think, the difference in pay between writing for offline publications and blogs also makes a difference. Most offline publications pay more, so you’re able to devote more time to writing an article for them.
Mar 22nd, 2008
Linda
I, too, agree with the point of good-enough writing, and I also did when I read the original blog post. Nevertheless, I appreciated the blog post of today. It has a personal touch (more than many of the latest blog posts), and it conveys the feeling of a true writing-reading-listening-dialogue, which is one of the important reasons for why I always want to read what you say.
I guess ideas + writing + personality makes a good blog, in my opinion. Sometimes one or the other is stronger, you’ve got them all three.
I would also love to get deeper into a discussion of: What is actually great writing on the web? How does it differ from great writing in print? Who are the greatest writers when it comes to language use and style?
Mar 22nd, 2008
Keira
I don’t think it’s about the quality of writing. Good writing is good writing, but good writing is written by taking into account the medium, the message and the audience. Great writing in a children’s book is not the same as great writing in a sweeping historical novel. A great film script isn’t written the same as a great newspaper article.
Broadsheets and tabloids have different demands. You can produce great writing for both, but they will be radically different.
Great writing for a blog demands a level of conciseness; short sentences, easy scanability, the use of lists and sub-headers to break it up. Because that’s the format, it’s on a screen (harder to read), it needs to grab attention quickly (competiting demands for attention). It should be pithy, strong, and communicate a great/useful idea quickly.
For many people, ‘great writing’ conjures up Dickens et al. They were great at writing lengthy serial novels, but that doesn’t mean that style is appropriate for everything.
The pitfalls of bad blog writing are different to the pitfalls of bad novel writing. An overly disjointed blog post, which rambles unconvincingly from one thing to the next, is poorly structured and that will kill a blog very quickly. Equally, a blog post that is very formal will not work as well as one with a bit of humanity in it.
Great writing ALWAYS matters when you are communicating in a written medium.
Mar 22nd, 2008
Ria Kennedy
I think too many people get hung up on looks and don’t realize that what is being communicated is the thing, not the package.
A pretty picture constructed with words has no substance and is like a hollow chocolate bunny. It doesn’t last long and is soon forgotten.
Mar 22nd, 2008
sue
I think that great writing is something most writers aspire to but never quite hit the mark and although I think grammar and style are important there are writers out there who still communicate their ideas well - I suppose that basically I endorse everything that you’ve sadi in this post, that most of us, when we try to reach out to an audience and hit a spot with somebody, are good enough writers.
Mar 22nd, 2008
Bob Younce
This makes sense. I said from the get-go that, at least a part of what you were trying to do here was to encourage bloggers/writers who were beating themselves up because they were good, not great, writers.
James was right; this puts you back on my “good form” list. Not that you were that far off, or that you have a desire or a need to be on my little old list… but still: good form, Skellie!
Mar 23rd, 2008
Kelly Rigby@ SHE-POWER
I love it when I’m described as “enigmatic” and “intelligent”. It makes me sound very sexy. As for your post, I appreciate you writing a follow-up, though it wasn’t necessary for me.
I think all successful blogs have good enough writing because bad writing just can’t build and hold an audience. I also think some online articles are as insightful and stellar as those found in popular traditional media.
From my experience, great writers don’t tend to think they’re great all the time anyway. Sometimes they see glimmers of greatness, other days they’re throwing notepads at the wall cursing, while downing half a bottle of scotch. I’ve seen some amazing and prolific authors speak and they admit to all the insecurity of the rest of us.
Mar 25th, 2008
Dale
I would rather have lots of voices, lots of writers, and much of it average quality or less, than just a few “great” voices, and only partly because that would mean someone else was deciding what “great” was for me.
All writing is “good enough” writing, anyway (and I got this from something Hemingway wrote): no writer ever completes a piece of writing - he abandons it. And that’s because we could always make it better: one more revision, two more days airing out, another few words cut. Doesn’t every writer cringe inwardly at a published piece, spotting the flaws that suddenly glare?
Writing is also one of those great learn-by-failing crafts. The more we write, the more we fail, the better we get. I’m happy enough to read blogs that are works in progress, as long as the voice is sincere.
Mar 26th, 2008
Rob O.
I’d certainly agree that great writing isn’t a requirement. Indeed, there are many blogs I wouldn’t dare miss that quite often are riddled with poor grammar or simply less-than-stellar writing.
So, no, you don’t have to be a great writer… but there are distinct rewards for striving for that mark! The more you write - and make an attempt to write better - the better your writing skills become. Like others here have said, it’s a continual process.
Apr 2nd, 2008
Miguel Wickert (Pineiro)
Hey Skellie
Excellent follow up post, I really like your site! I believe this may be my first time here, it will not be the last. Keep up the great work!
Apr 12th, 2008
kristarella
Should have read this one before commenting on the previous one
Apr 18th, 2008
Ralph
I like your articles, because you write with own thought and give a lof of great piece of advices. Thanky you for this openness like this example from your article:
“I don’t think I could say any more on the topic without getting boring. It would be unfair of me to debate comments on this post, considering I have all this luxurious space to make my argument and you only get a crappy comment form.”
Ralph
Apr 20th, 2008
Reply to “On Writing and You”