Being a Storyteller in a World of Bloggers − 2 March, 2008
Writing for Dandelife has been a challenging experience for me. I’d been sure that I would never blog. But I loved writing. I believed that to blog, one must have something to say on a regular basis. But I’m a storyteller; I don’t have something to say on a regular basis. I didn’t think that storytelling and blogging had much in common.
That was until I found Dandelife. With its timeline metaphor, I thought that perhaps I could begin by posting excerpts of longer stories I’d written back in 2004, when I’d done a lot of writing. I’d been posting my longer stories to a wiki because I could use it to create my own structure. I broke lengthy stories in to pages and created navigational links from one page to the next.
Once I’d posted some stories on Dandelife, I discovered that I could see how many people had visited them. That had not been true of my wiki. As luck would have it, I’d posted what became one of my most popular stories first (Bicycle Ride with a Fairy Tale Ending). The views climbed rapidly. It was utterly intoxicating. I had always written for myself. I’d kept quiet about the fact that I wrote, and when I did mention it, I was vague about the location of my wiki.
To know that people were reading my material blew my mind. I am not a good enough writer to get published in print. But now I knew that I could pursue my passion and be read. Although I continued to post pieces that I’d written in the past, I was running out of worthy material (the number of reads was shrinking with the quality of my posts). Soon I would need to shake the cobwebs off of my pen and begin to flex my writing muscles again.
I had been posting my trip log for Seattle ‘07 to my wiki. Since this counted as fresh material, I posted an excerpt to Danelife (Understanding a Brother). The number of reads was disappointingly small. I loved the piece and it meant a lot to me. But the lack of reads didn’t stop me from writing for Dandelife. I wrote a few other short pieces that did all right. I even used the Dandelife timeline to post stories about events that happened long ago.
But then I posted Sicko, which blew all my other stories out of the water in popularity. What’s going on? I wondered. I tried to think about the qualities of the piece that might have made it so popular. It was shorter. It had a title with a good “hook”. It was punchy. It was probably relevant to a lot of readers. It came directly from my emotional core. I was angry when I wrote it. I wanted to write more stories that could reach the same level of popularity, but Sicko had little in common with my usual writing style. It was a complete departure, in fact.
Now I felt conflicted. Should I write in a way that felt natural to me, or should I try to write for the Dandelife audience? What did the audience want? Did it want shorter, not longer? Did it want punchy, not dry? Did it want raw emotion? I wouldn’t generally be able to provide the raw emotion that I’ve seen in some other people’s posts. Because I’ve used “peahayes” all over the web, anyone who knew about that id could find everything I’d ever written. I didn’t want to spill my guts to my employer, co-workers and colleagues in whom I’d never confide, future employers, and even my family.
For a little while I experimented with my writing style and content to cater to what I thought might be appealing to my audience. But I had only mixed success. I wrote to the screenwriter I met in Seattle (Picking up Chicks in Seattle) about my dilemma, and she wrote back to say that:
“I think you set yourself up for a fall by trying to ‘market’ yourself to an audience. You set yourself up for a lot of disappointment and potential disillusion if you let the ‘hits’ of others dictate what and how you write.”
I’d already begun to realize that she was right. Fortunately, I hadn’t had a “lot of” disappointment, only minor disappointment. I didn’t even feel particularly disillusioned, either. Since I enjoy writing, now I focus mostly on writing. But I never forget that I have an audience. Even in print (especially in print!) the writer must write for an audience if he or she wishes to be read. I try to strike a balance between what I think my audience might enjoy and what I want to write.
So far, so good. I enjoy writing, and I enjoy reading my favorite Dandelifers. I envy those ‘lifers who post their raw emotions. I like their writing and feel close to them in a weird way. I have been especially gratified to read the posts of Rik (musashi2000), who tends to write looooong pieces. I like those long pieces. He’s a good storyteller. I started out on Dandelife writing longer pieces, but I’d begun to wonder whether people skip over long posts, so I’d been writing shorter pieces. Reading Rik’s pieces showed me that long is OK, at least for some readers.
Thanks, you guys, you help me to feel the joy of writing. Without you, I would not be writing. And thanks, Dandelife, for making it possible for all of us to write about whatever it is that we care about.
That was until I found Dandelife. With its timeline metaphor, I thought that perhaps I could begin by posting excerpts of longer stories I’d written back in 2004, when I’d done a lot of writing. I’d been posting my longer stories to a wiki because I could use it to create my own structure. I broke lengthy stories in to pages and created navigational links from one page to the next.
Once I’d posted some stories on Dandelife, I discovered that I could see how many people had visited them. That had not been true of my wiki. As luck would have it, I’d posted what became one of my most popular stories first (Bicycle Ride with a Fairy Tale Ending). The views climbed rapidly. It was utterly intoxicating. I had always written for myself. I’d kept quiet about the fact that I wrote, and when I did mention it, I was vague about the location of my wiki.
To know that people were reading my material blew my mind. I am not a good enough writer to get published in print. But now I knew that I could pursue my passion and be read. Although I continued to post pieces that I’d written in the past, I was running out of worthy material (the number of reads was shrinking with the quality of my posts). Soon I would need to shake the cobwebs off of my pen and begin to flex my writing muscles again.
I had been posting my trip log for Seattle ‘07 to my wiki. Since this counted as fresh material, I posted an excerpt to Danelife (Understanding a Brother). The number of reads was disappointingly small. I loved the piece and it meant a lot to me. But the lack of reads didn’t stop me from writing for Dandelife. I wrote a few other short pieces that did all right. I even used the Dandelife timeline to post stories about events that happened long ago.
But then I posted Sicko, which blew all my other stories out of the water in popularity. What’s going on? I wondered. I tried to think about the qualities of the piece that might have made it so popular. It was shorter. It had a title with a good “hook”. It was punchy. It was probably relevant to a lot of readers. It came directly from my emotional core. I was angry when I wrote it. I wanted to write more stories that could reach the same level of popularity, but Sicko had little in common with my usual writing style. It was a complete departure, in fact.
Now I felt conflicted. Should I write in a way that felt natural to me, or should I try to write for the Dandelife audience? What did the audience want? Did it want shorter, not longer? Did it want punchy, not dry? Did it want raw emotion? I wouldn’t generally be able to provide the raw emotion that I’ve seen in some other people’s posts. Because I’ve used “peahayes” all over the web, anyone who knew about that id could find everything I’d ever written. I didn’t want to spill my guts to my employer, co-workers and colleagues in whom I’d never confide, future employers, and even my family.
For a little while I experimented with my writing style and content to cater to what I thought might be appealing to my audience. But I had only mixed success. I wrote to the screenwriter I met in Seattle (Picking up Chicks in Seattle) about my dilemma, and she wrote back to say that:
“I think you set yourself up for a fall by trying to ‘market’ yourself to an audience. You set yourself up for a lot of disappointment and potential disillusion if you let the ‘hits’ of others dictate what and how you write.”
I’d already begun to realize that she was right. Fortunately, I hadn’t had a “lot of” disappointment, only minor disappointment. I didn’t even feel particularly disillusioned, either. Since I enjoy writing, now I focus mostly on writing. But I never forget that I have an audience. Even in print (especially in print!) the writer must write for an audience if he or she wishes to be read. I try to strike a balance between what I think my audience might enjoy and what I want to write.
So far, so good. I enjoy writing, and I enjoy reading my favorite Dandelifers. I envy those ‘lifers who post their raw emotions. I like their writing and feel close to them in a weird way. I have been especially gratified to read the posts of Rik (musashi2000), who tends to write looooong pieces. I like those long pieces. He’s a good storyteller. I started out on Dandelife writing longer pieces, but I’d begun to wonder whether people skip over long posts, so I’d been writing shorter pieces. Reading Rik’s pieces showed me that long is OK, at least for some readers.
Thanks, you guys, you help me to feel the joy of writing. Without you, I would not be writing. And thanks, Dandelife, for making it possible for all of us to write about whatever it is that we care about.
Comments:
edunn (March 3, 2008. 04:37am)
I enjoy reading your entries to much. Thank you for writing. Sometimes your reach is much greater than the number of people that look at your post :)
intrepideddie (March 5, 2008. 01:23am)
I don't know if it's the weird "comp sci" / "English" dynamic going on, but it's uncanny how I can change a word here, a phrase there, and viola -- this could have been written by me. Except you have a glaring absence of 4-letter words... Suffice to say, I couldn't agree more. I have long had a passion for writing, and until Dandelife came along I didn't have a very good outlet for it. I have my travel journals, but they're limited in scope (I am working on putting them in Dandelife). So add my thanks to those so eloquently expressed by PEP.
peahayes (March 5, 2008. 03:27am)
So, just let me know when you would like me to "ghost" write something you don't want to write! I'll even throw in a few four letter words if you'd like.
intrepideddie (April 17, 2008. 03:06am)
You know, something has been eating at my subconscious ever since I first read this story. I've been back a few times to read it over and think about it. I finally think I figured it out: it's about the number of visits that different stories receive. I looked through mine and those of a few others and did a bit of comparative statistics (I suck at stats, but this was pretty basic). Now this is a bit of a generalization, but it appears that the stories with the most visits (taking into account how long the story has been posted) are the ones with an intriguing or naughty title. For example, among my stories "Sex Gorilla" has a freaking ton of hits (and I think the story is a bit sub-par). I had a few pretty good English teachers in high school, one of them, in particular, imparted a small bit of wisdom I've carried with me through all my college papers and writings thereafter: a good title is almost as important as good content. In other words, people won't be compelled to read your writing if there isn't something there to "hook" them in. Then again, as you said in your story above, the real reason I'm here is to write because I enjoy writing. If someone reads my stories and is entertained, then so much the better. In my case, I'm pretty sure more people are offended rather than entertained...
peahayes (April 17, 2008. 11:32am)
Yeah, I noticed a long time ago that the title has to be catchy. I was thinking last night about a story that I wrote that was pretty interesting but didn't get a lot of reads. I wished I could rename it, but it'd kind of be cheating. It's a bit irksome, but I guess people are people, and if that's how it works, then we'd better think of catchy titles!
peahayes (April 17, 2008. 06:00pm)
PS Eddie - I don't know about you offending people - you might be surprised! In the privacy of people's homes, perhaps they laugh at things that they might not laugh at in public!