This story is about writing for the sake of writing, only.
Although writers supposedly write because they genuinely love it: love their world, their characters, their style… it’s evident that they also write to be read. For most of us at least.
This seems all the more true when writing on Medium, Wattpad, or other writing platforms.
In an era where everyone is constantly submerged by information coming from everywhere, all day, every day, on every channel, the goal of the race is more than ever to stand out.
This is why a lot of the writing content, much importance is given to the title and the image… “Is it clickbait enough? But without looking cheap?”
And logically, since more and more content has the “4 best practices to…” or “Why you should…” kind of title, we, as readers, get used to it, and realise that those are also the contents we tend to end up interested in.
Why are boring, simple titles not sexy anymore?
Because nobody has time. Time to read, time to think, time to take the time. And because our phones, Ubers, and Netflix shows are available 24/7 and give us the rewards the crave in usually less than 1 minute.
So, similarly, we look for quick fixes.
An article with a promise: in a 3-minute read, you will have 5 tips to know to do bla-bla-bla.
Also, big titles, headings, subheadings, making your keywords bold… we want the readers to access our information, understand our message, and have their damn fix easily, without patience or effort!
(I admit it is more pleasant to read than huge blocks of text — but then again, that’s a cultural change. Nobody used to complain about reading 1000-page Dante books with no spaces and tiny writing) — or did they?
So I don’t separate myself from the creator nor the consumer habits that grow on us all, how presumptuous that would be.
But tonight, I wanted to do this simply because these were the word I felt like putting out there. No spicy title, no quick solution or promise, just a few words that in the end, do exactly the job they are supposed to: make feel amazing after writing them.
NB: With this relatively unclear and unattractive title, will I get readers?
How will this story be received compared to others I’ve written?
I’ll follow up with an update soon.
