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I was a bit of Jonny-come-lately to Entity magazine. Does anyone say that anymore, or am I pulling a Hugh Grant-esque “Oops-a-Daisy” from Notting Hill? For that matter, does anyone even watch Notting Hill anymore?
Anyway, my first day in our chic office in LA came with a whirlwind tour of the facilities and the job description – everyone else had been writing for a month or so at that point. It was late June, the weather was sunny, Entity’s office was gorgeous and professional, my coworkers were welcoming. Life was looking up, and I was terrified.
Jennifer Schwab, our editor, sat us down in her equally reviewed one of our early pieces and gave a few critiques for the new writers.
After the first piece, I knew I had a lot to learn.
“Your writing is beautiful, but it’s so academic,” Jennifer said to one of my fellow newbies. “Writing for the internet is different.”
Jennifer wasn’t critiquing my piece, but the advice hit home for a writer whose previous experience had been with college English essays, book reviews and poetry. My writing was high-minded, high-brow, way too interested in impressing people with my elegant prose and literary genius (ha).
In other words, my writing was thesaurus-heavy and totally condescending. And way too self-conscious.
At Entity, I couldn’t spend two weeks tweaking an essay to impress my professor. I was writing five pieces a day, and that meant I had to write. Furiously. I couldn’t spend two hours rephrasing my thesis statement (or, in journalism-speak, my lede). Now, that didn’t mean five pieces a day always happened – but some things are worth some extra time on the weekends.
I also had to be conversational. Approachable. Informed without being off-putting. Though it’s easy to think popular internet pieces are all about clicks and SEO and references to Pokemon Go, the Kardashians and Justin Bieber, that’s not what really good internet writing is about. Which is fine, because as you can tell from my references above, my pop culture knowledge is … well, let’s just call it eclectic.
The way I see it after three months of tossing my words into WordPress, internet writing is an extra challenge to be both an entertainer and a teacher. I have to distract someone from their cat videos long enough to read an article about politics or generational struggles or nerdy Latin phrases – but I also have to make that time worth it. From my own internet reading, I know that I’m willing to spend time on substantive pieces that wear their brilliance lightly. Our kindergarten teachers were right, guys. Learning is fun.
Writing for Entity taught me to write furiously – throw words at the internet and see what happens. And when I loosened up and stopped worrying so much about how brilliant I sounded, I found out that I could have wonderful conversations with my (as-yet-imaginary) Entity audience.
So, Entity readers, how did we do?
