Dave,

I think knowing how to format your writing for the Web is an invaluable writing skill. Even the most captivating copy in the world won’t get read if it causes eye strain for the reader.

Breaking posts apart with white space, sub headings, bullet points, and lists helps ensure you reader makes it to the end of the post. Using a pleasing, large enough font is crucial, too, but that’s REALLy bordering on the design side. Thanks for bringing up that point, Dave. It’s a good one!

And, I think it’s a good lead in for another post. *hint hint*

@Sean – I am not a big fan of lists either, but I think that my posts are usually set up in a list format with the different headers as the points in the list…I guess that means that I could do a better job at recapping the article as a list toward the beginning or end, just never get around to it when I feel like I am done. Usually I scan lists until I hit something that I want to read about and then go from there.

My biggest thing is if there is a lot of good info in the list, trying to find the time to dive in and unpack all of the links and angles. I guess that is why I usually have about 30 or so tabs open at once – boo for low bandwidth
Sal’s last blog post… Thanksgiving: Part II

Ok, that got my attention.

@Jamie: Thanks for guest posting, Plenty of good advice here.

@Sal: a new face! Yay! Welcome to Sirius. The hardest thing to nail down? Hm, I think for me it would be being original. I’ve always been of a mind to take what everyone else is doing and push it a step further, or find the one angle that no one’s thought of yet. Sometimes I hit the mark, other times not, but it’s fun trying to stay one step ahead of the herd.

@Sean: Hey! You know, I kind of feel the same way about lists. They seem like the kind of post you do when you can’t think of anything else to write about. Lists do have their place though. Just have to find a twist on doing them

One of the biggest mistakes I see “new” writers make is ignoring the target audience. They write for their own ears, not the ears of the reader.

Original content is often what sets a real writer apart from those who are out to make a quick buck with very little effort. It’s easy to re-purpose old content if you have a decent grasp of the technical side of writing. The hard part, is breathing life into a new creation.

Sean,

I think lists are more for informational pieces, and your work is most often for entertainment. That doesn’t make them bad, just different. They’re a great way to feed those page scanning, speed readers, and can often get them to stop and read the entire post. Think of it as tempting an excited puppy into your lap with a piece of bacon.

Use them enough and they’ll start to feel natural.

Very well done indeed. I am big on being original and knowing what your audience needs. If you can do both of those, the others come naturally.

Which do you think is the hardest for most writers to nail down?

For me, it was my voice (being original). I tried so hard to be like the other great writers that I read, only to find that no one was interested in a carbon copy.
Sal’s last blog post… Thanksgiving: Part II