Writing, Media & Blogs: April 2004 Archives
Bloggers need to learn to write more descriptive titles for their posts. I know it's tempting to hold back the key to your argument and unveil it triumphantly at the end of your essay, but most of the time that desire results in stupid headlines and wastes my time.
I'm not going to pick on anyone, but it should be obvious to any casual student of the blogosphere that most post titles are just filler. You have no idea how many times I've been scanning a blog and seen titles like:
"A surprising twist!"
"More of the same."
"A common mistake."
None of those titles tell me anything about the post, and they generally won't engender enough interest to make me wonder what the "twist" is, what's the "same", or what the "mistake" is about.
I don't have time to read a thousand words before even being able to tell if I'm interested in the topic you're writing about. Get to the point, right up front, and if I want to know more I'll read the rest. Otherwise I'm not going to care -- even when you finally deliver the clever punch-line.
[Miss/Ms./Mrs.] Tushnet also links to an unneeded distraction on Crooked Timber: "Fiction Mash-Ups". (That's the best title they could up with?) My favorite:
Goodnight Moon Is a Harsh MistressBoth those books have sentimental value to me, and I recently came upon my old copy of Goodnight Moon while rooting through some boxes at my mom's house.
Goodnight penal colony on the moon. Goodnight earth controlling the penal colony on the moon. Goodnight supercomputer named Mike.
The only one I can come up with off the top of my head:
The Lord of the Ring of the Flies
Frodo et al become marooned on an island, slowly go mad, and eat Sam.
Into the Ether contributor Seldom Sober has started a new blog called Instapoet -- for when you absolutely, positively, need a poem right now!
I wrote hundreds of poems when I was a love-lorn, angst-ridden teenager, but I've (thankfully) outgrown that. Or perhaps my heart has been irredeemably hardened in the crucible of time?
Either way, it's a good thing -- my poetry was bad.
I'm sure I'm not the only person to find it ironic that journalists -- who depend on leaks from others for their livelihoods -- are concerned that members of their own profession are leaking the names of Pulitzer Prize winners before the public announcement. To paraphrase Captain Renault in the mens' room: I'm shocked, shocked to find that leaking going on in here!
Ever feel like you just don't fit in? Why don't the girls like you? How come you're always picked last for everything? Why does everyone stop talking when you enter the room? Why does your mom spit in your breakfast every morning? Maybe it's because you're still using 20th century punctuation!
The future is now, my friend. For example, check out a writing sample from blogosphere cool-kid Steven Den Beste and trench-coat mafia reject David Theroux; DT in red, SDB in blue.
Dear Steve,Thanks for your note.
Since you regularly and critically address public policy issues, including foreign policy, we thought that you might be interested in some of our articles.
If not, we will not send them to you.
Just let me know.
As for "link slutting," sending you a personal note about a new article hardly fits.
That would be "not".
Notice how Mr. Thorax puts his comma inside the quotes! I know, ridiculous. That's so 1990s. It's no wonder SDB didn't link to such plebeian drivel.
Review your notes -- there will be a test. Class dismissed.
