Writing For Different Formats. Or Writing for the web.

Writing for the web, writing for residuals, freelance writing, and writing for publication can be very different things.

When I've taught writing or speech I've spent a lot of time talking to students about adapting for different audiences. Now that I'm writing for myself here and taking on some freelance work I'm fining I have to write for a whole new audience. Some of writing for the web is pretty common sense. Things like if you don't get your readers attention in the first few lines they'll click away. If you use to many big words they'll click away. If you use to many rhetorical devices, they'll click away.

And yes I know I just used three rhetorical statements and a big word all in the same paragraph. Irony? Nope I needed to use the best word possible and three rhetorical statements is about the max a reader can handle at once.

Like I said a lot of web writing is common sense if you've written in any other medium. What has not been common sense is learning about choosing the right words. Writing for different formats described exactly what I wanted this blog post to be about, so that's what I named it. Unfortunately no one would ever see it.

Readers find what you've written because they are searching for something similar. Very few peole would be looking for writing in different formats, on the other hand a lot of peole are looking for how to write for the web.

I know for most people this probably doesn't mean much. And right now it doesn't mean much for my writing in the Library, but for the freelance work I'm doing to earn residuals (notice how I just worked those words back in.) it can make a huge difference. Potential buyers of my editorials and how to's want to know that those articles will grab people who are searching for similar topics.

As a writer I find myself needing to be aware of those little differences in word choice if I want anyone on the web to read what I wrote. If I ever finish the novel that started me blogging those tools will be essential if it's to get the traffic it needs to get noticed.

I hope as a writer I just have enough ethics to not change the name of my novel from say Romeo and Juliet to hot under aged drunken porn. Although I bet the later would get a lot more readers.