What an interesting post - I haven't had a lot of time to digest it, but what springs to mind first and foremost was how I saw Three Martini Playdate in the sale bin at Barnes & Noble last weekend - already. Then, I think of the recent arguments for blogging for a sponsored site as a way to put someting on your CV - but thre are so few jobs that would consider it valuable experience. Then, I think of how I know Mimi Smartypants has a book out there somewhere - but I can't imagine what it's like, if I can't click through a link to find "Abstinence Jewellery".

It's a shame I have to surf your post now, and read it later. I'll come back later with better thoughts - because its' really great info.

What a great post! Blogging tonds to be lesss detail oriented, which may be why I feel more comfortable with it. I'm not good with visual details (obviously), and in blogging, that's okay. I also feel my "voice" comes through better in blogging.

Well, hot diggity dog! I've been following the rules of good blogging, and all this time I've been mentally filing all those posts away under "Lazy" and "Crap." No more! I'm just mastering the genre! This calls for more bulleted lists! And exclamation points!!!

Well, your rules for online writing are dead on. As a web developer I have had those rules drilled into me for years!

But I think you're talking about 2 different things -- success and good writing. Lots of great novelists never get read; most good poets never get read. Why would blogging be any different? And lots of poor novels are widely read. (I'd name some authors but that would be snark, no?)

It is true that a lot of the popular bloggers are either snarky or sentimental or just plain outrageous. But that's because most people go online for entertainment. They take a few seconds out of their job in order to surf. They don't want to have to think hard, they don't want to wade through long paragraphs and dense text: they just want a laugh. I don't think that's wrong. It's just not _your_ preferred mode; and it's not the audience you're writing for.

Just because a person is a good blogger doesn't mean they'll be a good novelist. But I don't think it's precluded. I mean, a good blogger could be a good novelist, too. She would have to change her writing style a bit.

OK I have been writing all this with a child in my lap asking me questions, I will think more & come back.

Jennifer, I absolutely agree. And you're right, it's not wrong. I'm just trying to get at the idea that a blog with lots of regular readers is necessarily well-written, in the conventional sense; I don't think there's a correlation. And this comes back to whether or not the blogosphere is a meritocracy.

I know that I personally find it difficult to switch back and forth. I'm better off if I use my normal style here, with a few modifications, rather than trying to use bullets and pictures and all the rest of it.

When I said that blogging is terrible writing practice if you measure your success by hits, I meant that. Because I think if you measure your success by hits, you'll end up encouraging in yourself the kinds of writing that the internet specifically rewards, and which don't do well in print. It isn't that blog writing is bad or wrong; it's that it's radically different than any print media, so writing blogs is good practice only for writing blogs. Whereas I think if you wrote a lot of mainstream fiction, it wouldn't be sufficien to learn how to master sci fi; but at least some of the practice would be transferable (dialogue, setting, plots, etc.). And consider how hard even that sort of transition would be.

You're right that it doesn't preclude it; what I'm trying to say is, it doesn't guarantee it, and assuming that it does is dangerous for a writer because the styles demanded are too different.

There is one aspect of blog writing which is, I think, transferrable to fiction writing. Some blogs -- not all -- attempt to invoke a world. Either the writer is trying to explain "what it's like to be me" or she is trying to show outsiders what her homeplace is like.

A clear example of the 2nd type would be jo(e) -- and it's something I try to do, too, but with less success I think. It requires description of setting and to some extent mood -- both good skills for fiction writing.

Phantom Scribbler might be an example of the first type. She never describes setting or what a person looks like but still you get a sense of character. If I saw her kids in a playground I would recognize them. I think it's a matter of choosing the right incidents to describe the archetypical incidents -- also a good skill in fiction writing.

Blog writing is quite different from fiction writing but in this aspect I do think it's good practice. (Of course the best practice for writing fiction is, yep, writing fiction!)

I love this topic, can you tell?

Some things which are true for blogging which are not true for most print media (w/ exception of maybe newspaper columns):

* Each post should be short, not more than a handful of paras
* Limit yourself to one point per post
* Short, snappy paras
* Engage immediately, esp. if you have readers on RSS -- in the first para!

One more thing and then I'll give your blog back : )

Most popular blogs have an element of community. Perhaps the blog feels "cool" and the reader feels like an insider; readers will race to be the first to comment; and by commenting the reader will feel like a part of the blog, since their comment could very well start a side conversation that the author of the blog then feels obliged to raise in a new post.

Or. Some blogs are popular for commisserating. Phantom Scribbler's Wednesday Whining does this. It's a way for the reader to feel less alone, to realize that other people feel the same way.

Some blogs are just fun, readers are invited to participate in some game, no one judges them or says they can't play for whatever reason -- all are welcome. Your holiday blog extravaganza is like this.

Anyway I think this community-building is an important aspect of "good" blogging & clearly there's no offline equivalent!

Yup ... and I'm so doomed, because I don't do any of it.

Oh my goodness! What must you think of my meagre attempts at blog-authoring?? UGH! Just kidding! I know you don't judge!

Ooo, interesting! Like Marla, I am in fact skimming and will be back when I can percolate on this a bit more. But Casey's comment made me laugh, and I wanted to jump in.

I think you're being hard on bloggers as writers. Sure, it's a different style of writing, but isn't a good portion of being a 'good' writer being about adapting your style to your audience? IMHO, the basic principles are the same, in good blogging and in good writing: be coherent, pay attention to details, spin a nice linear (or at least traceable) narrative, and above all, tell a good story (or at least say something that someone is going to be interested in reading.)

As I'm writing, I'm thinking that a good blogger is generally a good story-teller, and it helps to be a good writer when you tell stories, no matter the forum.

Sure, blogging is a more casual form, but I disagree that blogging is somehow detrimental to 'good' writing. To put it in musical terms, blogging helps you keep up your writing 'chops' - you get used to paying attention to how you put things together, and in looking back at your own stuff (or the stuff of others) you can see what works for you - and what doesn't. And it gives you a chance to try out other styles, other voices, other approaches.

I have more - but I'll wait and craft something decent, rather than blurting. Now, you could easily convince me that COMMENTING is dangerous to good writing!!!!

Hey! I left 2 comments in addition to the (um) 2 that are posted here. I am using a different browser so it said "your comments are being held for approval by the administrator" or something like that.

DAni, this won't surprise you, but I disagree! Yes, paying attention to audience is a critical skill for any writer; but the audience online is very different than the audience of print materials. Or at least, they behave differently. They click, they skim, they browse. There's nothing wrong with those behaviours; but I do think that if, as a writer, someone spends all of their time adapting their style to that demands of an online audience--especially if they pay no attention to how different than audience is than an offline audience--it's going to be detrimental to an offline writing style.

There's a reason people print off long emails and documents to read them, and it isn't just that they hate trees. It's a different experience that demands a different style *and*, critically, a different set of skills. Unlike differences between print genres, it is also physiologically different. And those physiological differences create situations in which an effective online style is the diametric opposite of a well-written print style, especially the difference between blogging and fiction.

It isn't that blogging per se is bad for print writing; it's that blogging *if you measure your success by hits* is bad for print writing, because what will draw an audience to a blog is, in many cases, the exact opposite of what will draw an audience to an article, a story, a novel, a poem, etc.

What I'm trying to get at here (and apparently not doing very well) is the idea that gets tossed around from time to time that bloggers with lots of hits must necessarily be great writers. In many cases, they are; in many cases, they're not, they're incredibly poor writers who have mastered a certain tone and style of writing which, if they ever tried to reproduce it in a print medium, would be terrible.

Jennifer, I'm so sorry! It's never held any of your comments for moderation before. I found htem and posted them, so they're up now.

I think you're right about jo(e), her blog is more fictiony. But even there, I think there are limitations provided by the format that limit the practice-value very specifically to describing setting or mood or place. Which are important and valuable skills, and she does them well; but I'm trying to imagine, say, what would be required to have the same sort of build-up of tension from chapter to chapter of a novel. One of the most popular tricks of building tension in fiction, especially novels, is to draw something out--make it long, force people to feel as if they need to skip ahead, get down to nitty-gritty details and spend a few paragraphs describing the particular look on someone's face or the way someone banged the coffee-pot on the table or how light slanted into the room through a hole in the living-room curtains--but on a blog that's exactly what would drive most people away.

If you can switch back and forth easily (which I can't, obviously) and you *know* about it, no problem. If you can't switch back and forth easily or if you aren't aware of the stylistic differences then blogging for traffic would teach you exactly the kinds of skills you'd need to avoid in print.

You're right, too, that community is the defining feature of blogs and what separates them from other media in terms of value. At least, I certainly think so. What blogging adds that books and magazines can't is the conversation that emerges. And it's great, potentially revolutionary, etc.--and I think writing style and skill are not relevant there, because at that point the value is what people are saying, not how they're saying it.

I'm not trying to criticize the value of blogging--just the idea that bloggers with lots of traffic are necessarily great writers, or that blogging-for-traffic is good writing practice.

The huge difference I find between blogging and writing proper is the editing. When I write something like a book review or essay I edit and edit and edit and edit and then other people edit and re-edit and in the end I think did I even write that? Whereas my blog is a direct transcription of the babbling going on between my ears.

Interesting topic, very. I'm so much more intrigued by people who do NOT assume a "character" or put on excess snarkiness or "cool" up their lives, but I might be in the minority. As you say, most people read blogs for entertainment, and look at popular entertainment. So to be unpopular is rather a compliment to one's writing, in a way... oh dear, look how I've nattered on. Violation of rule #3 already.

Also. Just one more thing, really! It is entirely possible that I write on my blog in order to avoid the more difficult and lonelier task of writing for print..