Take a little time to read what Crawford Kilian has to say about writing for the Web:
Webwriting is good writing adapted to the limits of the Web as a medium and to the needs of Web users.OK, that’s the one-liner. Now let me expand on what I just said. “Good writing,” by my definition, is plain text that does not usually call attention to itself. Orwell called it “transparent writing,” text that lets you see the subject without even noticing the words that convey it.
In fact, if you notice the elegant style, the similes as aromatic as fried shoes, the stuttering staccato of alliteration, then it’s not good writing. It’s just the writer showing off how cool he thinks he is.
This is a philosophy of writing, not a scientific law, and if your idea of literary heaven is mainlining on the high-calorie prose of Cormac McCarthy, I wish you every joy of him. But I aspire to Orwell’s clarity.
It’s one of those rare pieces that I can honestly say, I agree with almost every word.
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