Waves of Worthless lit and book blogs
I alluded the other day to motivation. What prompts the writing of a post, the quoting of a quote. For me, as much as anything it’s emotion. Do I like something, or don’t I. When the needle goes past either edge of the median, I write. In fact, the further from the centre the better. If the response is extreme, if the engine red-lines, I know it’s time to blog.
If there is a less interesting distinction than that between “first wave” “litblogs” and “second wave” “book blogs,” I don’t know what it is. (Perhaps the distinction between English professors and the Left.)…The various distinctions that have been proposed, including Daniel Green’s between “litblogs” and “critblogs,” are worthless. The only meaningful distinction is between those blogs that are well-written and those that are not. Few are.
All I might add is the obvious: that what is well written about should also be well conceived; should also contain stimulating ideas; should amuse, rough up, inform, contradict, enchant, infuriate, contain kick-ass links, and change and prompt comment from those who visit.
June 11th, 2009 at 9:00 AM
I’m not really sure that’s a better judge than anything else that’s been suggested. What determines “well-written”? That the site (for the most part) abides by the rules of the English language? Sometimes typos and stupid mistakes come out. Sometimes people stick in stupid jokes that don’t translate that well on screen that they just miss when proofreading. It happens.
Besides, “well-written” depends on the audience as well. If your audience is composed of scholars and professors, chances are your writing will be pretentious and difficult to understand. If you’re just writing for yourself and others like you, it’ll probably be a simpler style. Well-conceived, I get: these are all relevant claims. But well-written sounds no different than “first vs. second wave” and falls into the same traps.