Some thoughts on writing for the web
The rising popularity of the social networks has been matched by the growth of new ways of creating and managing online content. For example, I am can now write and edit texts in ways that would have been impossible when they were still printed on paper, and that now seem completely normal, logical, and justified.
The idea that a written work culminates in a “moment of truth”, a point at which it is set forever, now belongs to another age, a time when editing involved creating a series of hard copies that were difficult to make changes to. Once an article was published, any number of errors might come to light, and that could only be corrected by the subsequent publication of a correction; in extreme cases this would require a complete reprint. In short, once something was published, it remained in that state for evermore.
The web is clearly a very different place. There is nothing to prevent the author of a text from using an editing tool to make any number of changes to something that has already been published online, including the addition of links. The evolutionary process from the printed word has, however, been relatively conservative: many online publications prefer not to make corrections to texts, and when they do, they often use the strikethrough format to make it clear that a change has been made. While it is understandable that in some cases the original version of a text should be maintained, particularly when its publication prompted responses that could be decontextualized by subsequent changes, my impression is that this approach is rooted in technological limitations that no longer apply.
We are not talking here about changing the meaning or sense of a text, or altering the arguments of the author. When I write, what I am interested in doing is putting down in words something in my head about a subject, along with a series of links that support my argument or propositions, and that provide useful background information. There is no “moment of truth” in my creative process; instead there is a kind of mechanism that comes into play when I sit down with an editing tool. From that moment on, the creative process takes place “in private”: just me and my computer, with links to sources, and the frame into which I will compose my text.
Once the creative process is over, which usually takes place not because I have said all that I want, but instead because I am tired, I press the “publish” button and the text now has a “public life”: it appears in the RSS readers of those who subscribe to the page, and I begin to receive visitors from the social networks where I have a presence.
What often happens once I have published my piece, either due to a comment or simply because I have reread it, is that I find that in the creative process of writing, I have forgotten some of the arguments I wanted to put down. I’m not talking about typos or spelling mistakes, which I correct as soon as I see them or they are pointed out to me, and which I am often only able to offer a brief thanks to the eagle-eyed reader.
But when it comes to an argument that I had in mind but forgot to put down, I will usually add it in after publication. This is something that I began when doing my live blog: you publish a first reference, but continue adding to it as you receive further information, or the event in question develops. This has now become my normal way of working, so much so that it feels perfectly natural to publish something, and then to continue working on it over the following hours until I reach something like a final version. What’s more, few readers comment on this: the huge majority of readers do not compare the different versions of the text; they read the article once.
Another thing I do with increasing frequency is to add links after publication: information that I have found later, or analyses or ideas that I think enrich the article. This is particularly the case with ongoing news stories that continue to unfold after I have written and published my piece: I use these sources to support my text. From the traditional publishing perspective, this can give rise to a temporary paradox: an earlier piece links to something written afterwards. My criteria are purely utilitarian: if I think that the link adds something to the text, I will include it. In the case of Medium, there is another tool, the “Suggest a link for further reading” option that I also use.
Information on the web has several lives: after the initial explosion of traffic that follows publication, the piece enters the realm of the search engines where it enjoys a brief revival whenever somebody is looking for something on a particular subject. Abandoning a piece once its is published, in the same that a newspaper ships off its copies to the newsstand, makes less and less sense. On some occasions, I edit a piece months, or even years later, when for example, some new information comes to light, prompting me to update the piece. In these cases, I will do this through a footnote.
Obviously a posteriori editing cannot be applied to all writing: it wouldn’t make sense, nor would it be cost-effective to undertake a kind of “responsible parenting” approach, correcting, amending, and shaping a text for years after a piece was published. Texts are a reflection of context, and it makes no sense to completely alter the sense of something you said in the context of a particular event. But on other occasions, I would say that it is not only reasonable to make use of the advantages that technology offers us here, but that to not do so is to remain tied to practices that belong to another age, and that are today absurd.
In all honesty, I do not know to what extent we are rewriting some kind of new journalist dogma, but at least in my own particular style guide, this is not something I am going to stop doing any time soon.
