I’ve gotten a few letters since I compared the on-line world to a large High School, desperate for the veneer of coolness. I’d like for people to post in the public comments section, in order to get a dialogue going, but I can still talk to you in private if you’d prefer.

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewblog.asp?authorid=55121&blogid=33411

The most interesting point raised was that in a world of 200-400 word blog posts, what qualifies as “good writing”? Hasn’t our attention span dropped to the point where it’s impossible to have good, coherent writing?

I’m always an optimist, so I will say that good writing is good and that’s all there is to it. In fact, the shorter info-bursts of today’s world don’t preclude good writing but demand more of it. The problem is that good writing is like good cooking or pornography; you know it when you see it. How can I describe what is important? I’ll give it a shot.

First of all, 400 words demands that you stay with one point, not several. The need for a solid opening stating the point and a strong closer showing it was proven may take up words, but somewhere between bluntness and poetry the right word choice tells the reader that you care – and they should, too.

What the reader is going to care about isn’t you, incidentally. They care about the subject matter. When I see a blog advertised as full of “snarky wonkishness”, I know that the writer is more interested in looking cool than communicating something meaningful in the English language (no, I haven’t read it to find out). If you’re going to write well, you’re going to write for your readers and not yourself.

All writing is a connection to the world, or at least from one person to another. While you shouldn’t assert your own coolness, you should explain your thinking as concisely as possible to keep fact and opinion separate. For example, the statement “Obama isn’t ready to be President because of his lack of experience” explains itself very well; the lack of the ideal, “I think �” at the front of it is not a problem, as we all know it’s an opinion. But a statement like “Saint Paul needs to invest in wind power because it has the potential to be powered entirely by wind” demands a lot more explanation – what are you thinking of? A good, solid edit from the perspective of an outside reader helps all writing, especially short pieces. If you can’t do it yourself, find a “blog buddy” to read your stuff pre-post as you read theirs.

Things like grammar and spelling are important, but I can overlook them when a person has a point to make. Even truly annoying mistakes, such as “you’re” and “your” confusion can be forgiven. This is all my opinion, of course, as some people can’t stand grammatical mistakes. They are a warning sign of sloppiness no matter what, so be careful. Conversational writing is one thing, raw mistakes are another.

There is really only one thing to remember: your blog isn’t about you, it’s about the readers. If you care about your readers, all of these things will become very important to you. That’s all it really takes. If you care about your readers, you will be a bit more critical of your own small mistakes and gradually you will become a better writer. If you read your own stuff carefully, you’ll know if it’s good; if you don’t read it, why the Hell should anyone else?