There are articles I leave in open tabs, mentally marking them ‘to read later’, for weeks on end. They’re good articles with captivating titles and clever subject matter. I click, I read the first sentence, the third and then my brain tells me there’s something else I should be doing.
But there isn’t.
The writing doesn’t connect. It doesn’t hit.
The first sentence usually checks the first box on the ‘good writing’ check list: grip the reader’s curiosity and make them want to read more.
By the tenth, however, I am swimming in the authors’ need to appear smart. Swimming in something that doesn’t feel right; honest; vulnerable. Real.
There are other pieces of writing where the first sentence doesn’t make sense. The writing style might not be the best. Yet I find myself spending the time to read them, right then and there, knowing full well it’ll make me late to meet a friend. Or even worst, late to work.
Good writing, I’m beginning to learn, doesn’t adhere to the rules of good writing. At least not from the reader’s perspective.
Maybe I shouldn’t say ‘good writing’. Maybe what I mean instead is ‘readable writing’. Enjoyable to read writing. But then again, shouldn’t all good writing be enjoyable to read?
