Do writers work better in groups?
The notion that writing in solitude makes one more productive and insightful may not be all its cracked up to be, says one writer. Plus, Taylor Swift’s Wall Street Journal article and more.
I spend more time talking… which makes me a faster and better writer. the clarification of an argument, the identification of a larger point to be made, the firmer realization of what I want to say before I start crafting the prose — the writing that results is inevitably clearer and smarter.
Taylor Swift: The singer draws clicks, and that’s part of the reason for the title of this section. Yes, the article is about Taylor Swift, her recent piece for the Wall Street Journal, and the criticism of that article, but in a broader sense, this is a piece of criticism about the model for publishing on the Internet in 2014, told through the story of how everyone covered one of the world’s most clicked (and liked, and hated) names when she tried to become someone who writes about serious things. Writing for Pacific Standard, Noah Davis highlights the highlights and lowlights of the endless varieties of tonal coverage on the Internet. What draws readers online is no longer specific voice. It’s a tone:
Internet publishing used to be about individual voices; now, it’s about small groups nailing a collective tone, which is the only way to produce enough content to grow on a massive scale.
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