Web Writing Quotes

The trouble with writing for the web is that writing is about getting people to forget they're reading. Anything that reminds them they are reading, or which annoys or distracts them, bounces them out of the world. And the web, it seems to me, is all bounce. A very, very difficult medium to write for.

I'm curious about writing in the age of online publishing. Because nobody cares about good writing online.

I think of us as journalists; the medium we work in is blogging.

Templeton was down there now, rummaging around. When he returned to the barn, he carried in his mouth an advertisement he had torn from a crumpled magazine. How's this?" he asked, showing the ad to Charlotte. It says 'Crunchy.' 'Crunchy' would be a good word to write in your web." Just the wrong idea," replied Charlotte. "Couldn't be worse. We don't want Zuckerman to think Wilbur is crunchy. He might start thinking about crisp, crunchy bacon and tasty ham. That would put ideas into his head. We must advertise Wilbur's noble qualities, not his tastiness.

The tone of good web writing grows out of email. It's more direct, personal, colloquial, urgent, witty, efficient. It doesn't waste your time. It reflects that engagement, responsiveness, and haste of web surfers, as opposed to the more general passivity of print readers.

If I were to write Web now, it would be a much, much darker book.

I think for a young journalist, it's better to write for the Web at the moment than it is for print.

Writing that's native to the web is different in ways that are crucial but subtle enough that you can miss them if you conceive of your audience as reading a printed product.

It's precisely on the Internet that the majority of the writing is terribly bad and uninteresting.