Network society has become a transparent love-in, an orgy of oversharing, an endless digital Summer of Love.
Andrew Keen (@ajkeen)
Digital Vertigo: How Today’s Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us
I can be terse. I can be taut. I can be Didion.
OK, two out of three.
I’m prompted to try for such economy by Jane Friedman. She’s the host of Writing on the Ether. And she’s the digital czarina of Virginia Quarterly Review.
Yesterday, Jane waved to us all, resolute, from her career train. It was her farewell to Writer Unboxed.
Did you notice how clean her post was?
No sentiment. No clutter. Crap-free.
Let’s think together here in such a mode.
Let’s think about one form of interaction on our “social” media, specifically how we praise everybody from Caesar on down.
In the spirit of economy, let’s drop “media” (still a plural word, damn it).
We’re just going to call it “social” now. “The social.”
One of my favorite authors, Andrew Keen, green-lights this for us.
He does it in his new book, Digital Vertigo. Keen nods to another fine critic of our modern mayhem, author Clay Shirky. The emphasis is mine: “In an age of radically transparent online communities like Twitter and Facebook, the social has become, in Shirky’s words, the ‘default’ setting on the Internet.”
JONAH LEHRER DISCLAIMER*: I have used this point before. I referenced both Mssrs. Keen and Shirky in Thursday’s Writing on the Ether, section 16, “Last Gas: Excruciating Eloquence.”
*Hereafter, any needed JONAH LEHRER DISCLAIMER will be coded JLD for brevity.
Good. Housekeeping done.
On we go.
How To Offer Praise on the Grid
(or: If You’re a Writer, Tweet Like One, Will You?)
This is the last time I want you to even consider the phrase “best ever.”
It’s gone. Right out. Over. 86-ed. Kaput. OK, one exception: Shopping-mall teenagers in Pasadena get special dispensation. Apparently, they can’t help themselves. I suspect the glue that holds those flowers on the parade floats. Don’t ask too many questions, they cry easily. We’ll just move on.
How many times have you had the wan joy of being tweeted up for writing:
- A “best ever” post?
- A “great” post?
- A “fab” post?
- A “super” post? or, God forgive us
- A “must-read” post?
I still don’t understand the physics behind the fact that every experience had by anyone under 30-years-old is the best ever.
— Noah Gray (@noahWG) June 17, 2012
Nothing is must-read. Nothing. This is as silly a phrase as the one you hear TV news anchors use: “All eyes on …” (fill in the blank stare at the TelePrompTer). Seven billion pairs of eyes will never focus on one thing. You must leave television behind you now. But that’s another post, and it’s going to be a must-read, too.
Now, you take Gladys. She’s the Twitter friend with whom you trade recipes. Even though she leaves out key ingredients. Gladys has posted a particularly effective recipe for Eggs Hemingway. Even though she left out the English muffin, you want to say something kind, encouraging, and celebratory.
Stop yourself. Restrain your initial slapdash, uncaring, and reckless impulse. And remember: you are a writer. A writer. You don’t have to resort to the squalid foolishness of “great” and “super” and “fab” and “must-read,” let alone Satan’s own phrase, “best ever.”
Check out our list of Kate Middleton’s best-ever outfit repeats. Could La Duchess be more endearing and cost-efficient? bit.ly/LIf2CW
— Fashionista.com (@Fashionista_com) June 14, 2012
You can choose an applicable word. An apt term. A bona fide descriptor. Because you are, say it with me, a writer. Possessed of words. Or maybe just possessed. But still. You’ve got a thesaurus, right? And our colleague and curry lover Roz Morris in London, has recently written that it’s OK to use your thesarus, after all.
Just like when it was suddenly OK to eat eggs again, huh?
She’s right. Roz is right. You can use your thesaurus to praise the Eggs Hemingway. And you can eat your eggs, too.
JLD: I noted Morris’ post on the usefulness of the thesaurus in a recent edition of Writing on the Ether.
You might tweet “tasty.” Or “appetizing.” Or “flaversome.” You’re not going to change anybody’s life with those adjectives, no, but every one of them beats “fab.”
If it’s early in the day and you don’t mind answering 400 tweets from folks who can’t be bothered to use their own dictionaries and thesauri, you could even let Roget do his best work and declare Gladys’ recipe “sapid.”
Of course, Gladys will think you meant vapid. Let’s look at better places to spend your terms.
When will politicians admit the present generation of teachers are the best ever?And give them some credit and freedom. #bbcaq
— Peter Smith (@Redpeter99) June 16, 2012
The blog post that made you reconsider using your antagonist’s point of view? Tell Katie Weiland it was thought-provoking. Better than “great.”
The revelation that Seth Godin made you feel you were giving to a war charity when you donated to his Kickstarter campaign? Tell Dan Blank it was insightful. Better than “fab.”
And this rare bluebird of wittiness from the editorial team of n+1 magazine? Well, its a lot better than “super.”
JLD: I referenced this essay, titled “Please RT,” here in Writing on the Ether.
What the writer-editors at n+1 know about the social is that we’re not just out here passing around compliments on the grid because the glue fumes make us swell together. As they put it:
Pretty nice, also, when the ricocheting retweets say that the witty one is you!
If you say something nice — fab! great! super! must-read! — they’ll feel compelled to say something nice back, right? Maybe even must-read! super! great! fab!
#Believe is poised to earn the highest debut sales frame of the year and @justinbieber‘s best EVER.
— Justin Bieber Army (@bieberarmy) June 22, 2012
Did — or do — your parents always say “I love you” at the end of a phone call or letter or email, as mine did? And do you sometimes wonder if, as sweet as that seems, it might also be a prompt to make sure you say, “I love you, too,” back to them? For mine it was. Maybe not for yours. Don’t let me frag your childhood’s harder drives with my own clan’s dysfunctional downgrades.
But just that kind of toxic tradeoff is what the n+onesies are getting at here:
In exactly 140 characters: “I need to be noticed so badly that I can’t pay attention to you except inasmuch as it calls attention to me. I know for you it’s the same.”
- Maybe when you “fab” somebody, you’re desperate to be fabbed back?
- Maybe “great” would look good on you, too?
- How “super” might they think your latest rant is, if you slap on some “super”-latives about their endless posts?
- And perhaps you “must read” that drivel of theirs only because it means they “must read” yours in return?
Roget, it’s said, worked on his original thesaurus in part to help combat serious depression.
Don’t let that guy’s bitter tears and sobbing lexicon go to waste while you chirp generic flattery from one end of the Net to the other.
Your kid at the shopping mall tells me you’re totally good with words. So tweet like you’re not raising a gullible iPhone jockey. Put some vocabulary into it. And maybe the social networks won’t end up turning into, as the articulate artists of n+1 slice it:
This scrolling suicide note of Western civilization.
Help shout down the faux flattery of the fops.
Why tweet as if you’re one of those parents who dresses like their teens, trying to look cool? You know how well that always works out.
Deck your hosannas with the specificity that your profession promotes.
Pour your words into these tiny 140-character rowboats as if we could all be lost on a sea of blandishment for the rest of our lives.
When I was reading Imagine: How Creativity Works this spring, I found Lehrer online one evening.
I was impressed with the long, well-publicized book tour he was on, in support of the new title. At the time, he was in California, no doubt near our shopping mall. It appeared to me that Houghton, his publisher, was doing a rock-solid job for him. I messaged Lehrer my congratulations. He messaged back a simple “Thank you!”
And I noted at the time what a clean, unadorned response that was. Like Friedman’s swan song. Efficient, not indulgent.
He’ll be fine. Lehrer will. If you need to catch up with the issue around him, it’s here for you on the Ether. And if you’re confused, as many are, about what’s so wrong with “self-plagiarizing,” as it’s been called, too loosely, we have some good exchanges in comments that will help.
Meanwhile, I think it’s the rest of us who need to stop dissembling and dithering, hyping and hollering, woot!-ing and wallowing in adulatory exchanges of the glibbest kind.
It’s unimaginative. It’s not how creativity works. And who wants to read a book by somebody who tweets like a seventh grader?
What do you think? Am I right? Or is it really OK to pretend online as if language suddenly doesn’t matter? Is there a chance that tweeting specifically and more discerningly could make us better writers?
About Porter Anderson
@Porter_Anderson is a recipient of London Book Fair's International Excellence Award for Trade Press Journalist of the Year. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, the international news medium of Frankfurt Book Fair New York. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for trade and indie authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman. Priors: The Bookseller's The FutureBook in London, CNN, CNN.com and CNN International–as well as the Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, and the United Nations' WFP in Rome. PorterAndersonMedia.com
This post is awesome!
Sorry.
Color me guilty and consider me effectively admonished. I am embarrassed to admit that your article initiates a bit of table-turning in that I am often reminding my students to use academic language in their essays, yet I have fallen into the regrettable habit of pedestrian posting.
Thank you for the reprimand.
No apology needed, Ricki, we all have our banal moments, let’s face it. Thanks for being so receptive. It sounds as though your students are getting the kind of useful guidance we all need to allow ourselves. Congratulations on the good work with them, and don’t take this as a reprimand, please, just a friendly nudge in another direction we call can go. Cheers,
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
Thank you, Porter. I’ll try to remember this – I promise.
Thank you, Marilyn, and it’s a learning curve (at least a memory curve) for all of us, don’t worry. I do think it’s infectious. If we writers see each other making some good, telling points about posts and articles we want to hold up, we’ll be prompted to do more of that, ourselves. So we’re watching for more shared range on the grid together. Good on you for going for it!
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
Thank you for saying what I have been thinking. I follow writers on Twitter hoping to see something clever. Mostly I see self-promotion. “Here’s a link to my book. Buy it.” “Here’s my last guest blog post. Follow me.” I look forward to seeing more creativity. Thank you.
Lisa, thanks so much for reading today at Writer Unboxed, and for your game attitude. We do all get in a big hurry (way too frequently) and sometimes the fast-and-bland is about the best we feel we can muster. But particularly, as you say, when the expected cleverness turns out to be self-promotion, it’s such a disappointment. As you say, here’s to more creativity. And who knows, if some folks show us some of their best stuff that way, we might actually want to buy their books! :-)
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
Oh so many spiffy lines that get your point across. This is my favorite: “Why tweet as if you’re one of those parents who dresses like their teens, trying to look cool? You know how well that always works out.”
I don’t yet Tweet, but I’ll be heading there soon. Thanks for making this argument and making me laugh at the same time.
Boy, Natalie, what a great thing that you’re thinking about these issues now, before you begin to tweet. (And welcome, when you do, to one of the most dynamic, intriguing forms of coummunity and communication yet, I hope you’re going to enjoy it.) Remember as you start that the rest of us you find out there, thousands of tweets down the road, have all learned by the same trial-and-error you will. You’re hardly alone, and asking folks you meet along the way for help almost inevitably gets you a good, solid, useful response. For all the snark a lot of us seem to enjoy “on the grid,” most people plying “the social” for work and/or pleasure are really very generous types, I’ve found. Only the commercial people (“buy my book!”) are the ones to really look out for. The key is to make actual connection with others online, in rich, comfortable, engaging exchanges. Believe it or not it works. And it flies through the air unseen! Prospero should have had the Internet. Glad you do, and welcome to us. Thanks for reading Writer Unboxed, you can’t go wrong with the writings and thoughts that Kath and Teri bring us here from so many talented people. Just a technical note, as you get into tweeting, have a look at this piece I wrote up at agent Rachelle Gardner’s good site about how to use Twitter handles (particularly in your byline, so that others of us can tweet your good work — creatively, I hope — easily and spread the word.
And all the best with it,
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
Ah, ya got me. I sometimes use “must read” but I really do mean it. I don’t use it for every dang thing I post on my FB or Twitter. Same goes for books I feel are “must read.” I do not offer that missive lightly. Of the hundreds of books I’ve read (or started to read), I post only a handful to my FB page. There are those who use “fabulous” and “must read” five, ten, twenty times a day. You come to recognize these people – they are the ones I ignore! The “trading of favors” on social media (you like me, I’ll like you, or you give my book five stars, I’ll give your book five stars) cheapens everything. I don’t offer an endorsement until I have read a book or blog. I promise – I will use Roget more often and try to find stronger words.
You’re all over it, Karen. In fact, it’s a shame you have to worry about saying “must read” when you mean it. “Fabulous,” on the right occasions, can mean something terrific. But, as you say, the overuse just wipes out all value in the terms and we’re left … with posts like this and you and me shaking our heads in comments. :-) You’re doing it well, I can tell, keep that up and do spread the word as you go, highlighting your good use of the language to be sure others will be tempted to venture past the easy and quick, as well.
Thanks for reading and commenting, great to have you!
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
I think you’ve started something here: now the glut of super fab socials called writers will change flock direction; they’ll be reaching for a thesaurus and the new ‘movement’ will be Obscure Adjectorial Injectivism. Ooh, hash tag that, would you Deirdre?
PS: The dog just came in and he’s wet.
Hey, Bree! Let’s start that movement. :-) Herds and flocks all swinging Roget-ward … but hopefully not to those obscure adjectives. (Isn’t “sapid” a kick? — I’ve just discovered that one, and it’s a positive word for something that tastes great, who knew? LOL — would NOT try that one at home. It’s one of those words you can pretty much count on never being able to use, huh?)
No, seriously, we don’t want to confound and confuse, but at least elevate things a tad if we can — and without driving Deirdre crazy trying to hashtag the impossible!
Thanks for reading and commenting, and watch out for that stampede, lol.
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
I LOVE your response, LOL.
It’s a rare bird who is willing to fly near the dreariest of flocks and not fear being counted as one of them. ~briellezbub
Whoa, amazing line about flight patterns and flocks-by-night, pull up, pull up! :)
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
I’m coming to the end of a 3 week me me me phase with my book tour, so I am no doubt guilty as charged.
Thanks for a great post. My takeaway: permission/ encouragement to communicate less but with more substance.
Hey, Laura! In fact, I should say, “Hail, Laura,” returning home (not quite on the shield, I hope) from that long tour. Wearying for anybody. But I can tell you that what I’ve seen of your tweets from the road have been remarkably lucid (I wish I could claim the same for mine, lol) and articulate, not at all just dives for the down-and-easy. Good for you, glad the ALA meetings mark the end of the push, and hope it all pays off enormously for you. Yes, substance over quantity, by all means, and encourage others to give themselves the same permission.
Thanks for spending some of that limited energy on the post today and dropping your comment, much appreciated!
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
Huh, well don’t I feel a bit on the silly side for not catching this. I am a writer, you’re right! It’s time to use my love of word-smithing on Twitter, too. It certainly can’t hurt.
I’m off to RT this post, using something other than the word ‘great’ to describe it ;)
Good for you, Juliana, and don’t feel silly — we’re all guilty of this, not least because everybody’s doing it on Twitter and it takes a little while to realize you don’t HAVE to use hackneyed phrases all the time, lol. Feels like a law of the territory half the time. Go for it, and I’ll look forward to seeing those eye-catching, cool ways of praising the good stuff (or even slamming the crap, lol).
Cheers,
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
Awesome, Porter. Maybe even trippy.
Gosh, aren’t we all guilty of falling in love with one word and beating it to death?
The woman who leads my writing group – 87 years old and sharper than you and I put together – admonished us this way: read over what you just wrote. Find the descriptive word or phrase you use the most and get rid of it. If you use it a lot, that’s when you know you shouldn’t. Worked for me.
For the record, my daughter and her friends (well east of Pasadena) never say “best ever”. They seem to describe most things as “amazing” (second syllable elongated).
Carry on –
Viki
Oh, and nice photo. I’ve never seen you captured from that particular angle before. ;)
Thank you. I was pushed. You know I prefer escalators.
Ah, yes, the Eastern Amaaaaazing Cult, heard of them too. The poor glue-stoned Pasadenettes are now doing the abbreviations, too, you know. BE BFF BARF — no, that’s not one of them, what came over me?
Here’s something for you and your 87-year-old sharpie: Cliché Cleaner, ever heard of it? It’s a pretty rudimentary UI (you’ll feel mildly close to DOS) but what it does, in addition to suggesting where you have something overused in your text, is catch repetitions. So you can tell if “asparagus” has had its requisite 49 appearances in your mini-book or not. Pretty neat. I’ve asked in newsrooms for years for the IT Children to provide us with a way to catch repeated words in stories … they never get around to that one, seems quite daunting, for some reason. So this might be fun.
And thanks for reading and commenting, as ever, Viki, see you in the next fab-ness to come. :)
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
As others have above, I confess to past culpability. Even though I’ve dished more than my share of superfluous verbiage, I don’t recall ever using ‘fab.’
Leave to Jane, even in gracefully exiting (sorry, but it was graceful), to inspire us to strive. I know your column is about the grid, Porter, but I this is a lesson I always need to apply to my occasionally verbose style in my novels as well. I need regular reminding. So thanks, to you and to the hashtag onto herself.
You and me, bro, cannot recall using “fab,” myself (but then this could be wishful thinking, my tweets laid end to end now reach past Neptune, so who knows WHAT I’ve said in all that time. (Do not say the CIA does, I don’t want to hear it.)
Graceful IS the word for Jane’s departure, Pavlova herself would bow. Humbled all of us.
And you’re right on the money about the verbosity in our long-form work, too. I’m in a heavy edit at the moment, myself, and occasionally stunned at what convolutions I can produce when simplicity would help. Also humbling, huh? BTW, for an interesting bit of info, check out some of the background on Roget, turns out the dude started keeping LISTS as a kid to cope with unhappiness. (18th century, no TV available.) Somehow that morphed into the word-meister work he ended up doing. And we have Roz Morris to thank for recently — at least in our own neighborhood — helping to revive the guys’ efforts. We don’t want to use that “sapid” word, LOL, but boy, can he free up the pipes when you’re looking at your 83rd use of “wonder” in a manuscript, LOL.
Thanks again, my friend, and have a great weekend!
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
I knew this post was coming and I *still* feel embarrassed to admit that I do this quite a lot. It’s lazy shorthand, I know, but sometimes a post does feel fab and must-read to me, and I want others to come over here and read immediatamente. (Note: Use of Italian adverb is my partial penance.) I promise to attempt more industrious lures in the future, though I can’t promise a “must-read” won’t sneak out now and again–especially when Don posts one of his “fab” craft essays.
Fantastico, Teri, you keep that Italian coming, cara, and all is forgiven. Seriously, as I was saying to a couple of other commenters, we all SHOULD be able to use “fab” or “must read” when it’s right to. It’s just this “over the top” usage of those phrases by so many that has dumbed them down into Twitter wallpaper you don’t even notice as you scroll through. So I say use those terms when they’re right, just take two seconds before hitting the button to see if your “Internal Roget” (may he not be depressed) has an alternative handy for you.
Allora, va bene, great weekend!
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
I confess that for me, it’s a matter of time and attention. I catch myself in the act of tweeting one too many ‘awesomes’ and then I resort to ‘excellent’ or ‘stellar’, knowing this is not a change for the better. The fact is that it takes time to think of an intelligent response to a tweet or a post. I don’t know about anyone else, but as much as I enjoy my online time, (and I do) it’s also usually a guilty stop on the way to something else that needs to be done. My Thesaurus is round about here somewhere, but if I need to delve into it to find an apt and witty way to reference a post, I’m going to have to skip referencing the post. That said, I agree with you. We are writers. We can do better. Perhaps I need to just slow down and only be on “the social” as you call it, when I have the time to give it my full an undivided attention. At the least, I shall proceed more mindfully at least for a time.
Hey, Kerry,
Laura Harrington has just weighed in with that substance vs. quantity idea, as well. It’s true that we’re all so harried it’s pretty hard to even think of sorting through a reference for alternate ways of praising something. I use Merriam-Webster’s online unabridged, which has a thesaurus function, so it’s very easy for me to pop a word into it and see if any useful (not “sapid”) options arrive. But hey, when in a hurry, you just go. This isn’t intended to beat anybody up for the busy-ness we’re all confronting, just to say that if we, as writers, don’t raise the tone a little, it’s probably not going to get done. So when you have the chance, go for it. When not, “fab” it is. :)
Thanks again for reading and for commenting, really appreciate it!
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
I use every unimaginative modifier listed here (especially “fab”, “must-read”, and “best ever”), though not with every tweet or post.
I don’t know if it should be classified as (1) laziness (2) standard Internet shorthand or (3) acknowledgment of what works for your audience. Maybe all of those.
Using such words does help garner attention, so I only use it when I—as Karen says—really mean it. People appreciate signal words.
For me, a lot depends on context/venue. E.g., there’s only so much room on Twitter to explain why you’re linking to something. And I’m not going to spend much time crafting a tweet that has a lifespan of 5 minutes.
I hear you, Porter, but I’m not ready to take myself that seriously yet. :)
(P.S. Downloaded first chapter of Keen’s book to my Kindle. You have the BEST EVER book recommendations.)
Good points all, Jane, and you make a great point about standard signals to an audience you know well. Considering that nobody knows her crowd as well as you, this is a fully valid point, as is the lifespan of these little “rowboats” of verbiage floating around in the Tropic of Twitter.
As I was saying to Teri, you really don’t want to spend time “crafting” these things. Just the 2-second “do I have another word for this piece?” check gets it done. And if nothing comes to your Inner Roget, then “fab” it is. (And nobody’s going to turn down such a compliment, either, lol, including me.)
So glad you’re looking over Andrew Keen’s book — his first one, The Cult of the Amateur, was my introduction to him. He’s like Nick Carr with some Douglas Rushkoff edge. You’ll find that first chapter intriguing…you’re about to get really close to Jeremy Bentham in one spooky way. :) Let me know what you think.
And thanks for reading and commenting and leaving us all with that incredibly instructive piece, “graceful,” as Vaughn has rightly called it in his comment.
You can use FAB, MUST-READ, or BEST EVER on me any time you want. :-)
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
I might add the stipulation that some of this depends upon audience, though a variety in word choice is almost always preferable. I work in children’s and young adult literature, so for quite a few authors, a younger and more exclamatory vocabulary works well. It showcases who they are and their work with a younger generation. That isn’t to say that they dumb things down, but the way in which they deliver their message can, and often should, reflect their readership.
As for overuse of certain words and phrases, I’m as culpable as anyone else. It’s something I’ve been thinking about as I tweet over the past few weeks, but it’s not always practical to think up a unique or witty reply every single time. So while I’m making an effort to avoid endless repetition, sometimes it’s just easier to say, “Awesome!” than have to come up with a new response to some small bit of good news.
Very apt point, Michelle, there really is an audience-specific component in all this for some folks, and in the case of YA/MG communications between authors and readers, you’re right that a certain amount of vernacular is going to make sense. Preaching to Pasadena, as it were. :) I’d support such conscious decisions by authors in that situation and anyone else whose field has a language that’s important for the discipline to use and maintain.
It’s really, as you say, quite a feat at times to pull of anything other than the first generic term that comes to hand when you’re trying to live a life and “do your social media,” as Jim Cramer puts it. And at times, the quick fix is the right move. I’ll bet even Roget had some pretty lackluster things to say in his day.
Great of you to read, consider, and comment, that’s the real interaction we all need. It’s much appreciated. Best for an enriching weekend. :)
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
Geez-n-criminy, Dad, are you trying to suck all the fun out of the twitterverse?
I’m so vain I probably think this post is about me.
NOT. (About you, lol.) You do a great job tweeting, Dee, and you can call me super any day of the week, I’ll forgive you. :-)
Always more fun in the twitterverse, have you seen the Expanded Tweets yet? If they put in a timeline, I’m hiding behind Zuckerberg. THANKS for reading and commenting, tweet early and often. :)
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
I find I over use “fascinating” and “interesting” in avoidance of the “must-read” and “best-ever”. I’ll agree with Jane up there that I’m usually in a hurry, trying to get all the reading, posting and tweeting done, and so don’t spend too much time coming up with alternatives. Maybe I should make a descriptive list… Voila! Just check the list for an appropriate modifier! :)
I don’t generally tweet in the vein of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” though. I really do try to pass on the articles I think others might find interesting or helpful, even if they aren’t going to reciprocate. I guess I really don’t know how to do “Social.” :)
I’m going to definitely try to steer clear of sounding like a 7th grader. Thanks for the warning! ;)
You’re an accomplished tweeter, Lara, no flies on you. And I hear you about the favorite words — I tend to try to substitute “intriguing” for “interesting,” as if that made it any less banal, LOL. It’s a constant challenge. Your idea of a ready list isn’t bad, actually — you could keep it right by a list of handy hashtags for writers (another thing I tend to get into a rut on, re-using the same hashtags too much).
And no, the mutual-scratching tweets are so tedious. I, too, try to broadcast what I think has the most value and avoid quid pro quo situations (though some folks never quite understand they don’t have to “reply” with a kind tweet about something I’ve posted).
Good, good thoughts. Hope your weekend is great, and thanks for reading and commenting today, see you back on the grid. :)
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
Bravo! Too many of us “take the plunge” into mediocrity far too often. Thx for the reminder:o)
Awe, thanks for citing my post… especially to urge us all to be more interesting.
I’m sure I’m guilty of tossing out the odd lazy tweet, although in real life I can’t write even a note to the milkman without getting the urge to redraft with more lively vocab.
Actually, Roz, I’d say you do one of the most careful jobs of tweeting I see on a regular basis out here in the gridly universe. And you always credit writers, which I love, too.
And yeah, I know. I pretty much edit my grocery lists.
Thanks for chiming in and for the good piece that gave us all permission to give Roget a shot again.
-p.
Hey, Virginia, thanks for the shout-out, glad it helped – yeah, we can all fall off that cliff any time. Keep the faith and many thanks for reading and commenting. Good weekend!
-p.
In the interest of brevity–I’ll just say “Thank you, Porter”- in regards to your post, but I’m going to add a post script:
P. S. I know this is a tangent, but you’ve got me hooked on Nevil Shute. I can’t put the man’s books down–he’s become a (yes, I know you said not to use the following phrase), “must-read” for me
Bernadette, thanks not only for leaving a note here today – great of you to read and comment – but also for letting me know you’ve enjoyed Nevil Shute’s work. Glad to find another kindred fan of the late Mr. Shute, and what a pleasure, too, to have so many of his books reissued now for Kindle, too, huh? http://ow.ly/bMAw0 — no problem calling Shute a “must-read,” as far as I’m concerned.
Really appreciate hearing from you, and thanks for reading the column today, too!
-p.
Porter,
OK, I’m guilty for those “must-reads” and “great, fab,etc” tweets. If we think of tweeting as an extension of our writing then we must “kill our darlings.” I have been duly warned!
Now how can I say this post was fabulous? It resonated, it rocked , it made a big splash..
How about well done, thank you and onward in “spending my terms wisely? :-)
Hey, Kathy, join the big club of us who are guilty of speedily tossing off the easy tweet. (At least we do hold up good work for others to find!).
No guilt involved, just chances at times to try for less prosaic approaches. In time, I think the whole industry will move back toward more carefully developed and deployed linguistic standards.
We’ll all get there. And meantime, thanks for the really lovely comments about the post, I do think I need to hire you as my publicist. :)
-p.
What an elegant reminder, Porter. I get lazy at times, trying to fulfill the requirement to engage, but you are so right..it is a perfect opportunity to engage creativity and the passion for language that presumably brought us to this pursuit.
Hey, Barbara!
Great of you to look over the post and drop a comment! Thanks for your kind words, and, most particularly, for getting so completely what I hoped to say: We really do have a chance to ply our craft, if you will, while engaging online. That passion for language did bring us to this pursuit, and can support us in our lives and careers on social media and on the grid, as well as in our writing studios. Now, to just remember that when we get going so fast. :)
Thanks again, and hope your weekend is going well!
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
While I agree that “best ever” “must read” etc is tedious, I think you’ve missed the point about “fab”:
These are tweets. Tweets are short. With only 140 characters per message, the writer needs to use the shortest word available.
“Fab” is the shortest word conveying the desired meaning.
Your suggestion to replace “fab” with “appetizing” is great for a novel – but not for a tweet.
Hey, Rayne, you are correct. The brevity of the tweet form is a huge challenge. As a Twitter broadcaster with more than 44,000 tweets to my name (oy vey), I fully understand and appreciate what you mean. “Appetizing?” Only if you have room. “Yummy” might have to do, right? But “yummy” may be a useful alternative to “fab,” and it gives you only two more characters to work with.
Bottom line: Lots and lots of gorgeous words will never be of much use in busy tweets because of their length. You could not be more right. But where we can, if we try for something that does fit AND that, as Barbara Oneal has just so beautifully said it, engages our creativity and the passion for language that brought us to this pursuit in the first place — then we’ve raised things a notch.
When the tweet’s too tight, you use “fab,” no questions asked. :)
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
Awesome, Porter. Totally your best post EVER!
Ha! Thanks, Bill, GREAT of you to read the post, and FAB of you to drop a kind comment, many thanks, lol. :)
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
I am a guilty girl. I will work much harder on my Twitter vocabulary. Thank you for reminding me that I am a writer, and for pushing me to improve the quality of my tweets.
Thank you for your generous reception of it, Erika, and the thoughtful tweet you’ve just posted about it, too. I’m lucky to be having such a collegial reception from so many for this post. Nobody has backed the car over me yet! Shows you how many serious, committed folks we have around the Writer Unboxed community, a fine thing to see. And hey, we’ve all gone too fast and thrown an unthinking tweet or two out there, don’t feel bad!
Cheers, and thanks again,
-p. ( @Porter_Anderson )
Quality control of Tweets and blog comments? Self-censorship? Depth over breadth?
I’m a recent convert to the world of blogging, commenting and Tweeting, and at first I was so overwhelmed by the openness and democratic randomness of it all. But lately, I’ve been worrying about the quality of my responses, about my ability to really do justice to the blogs I follow, the poems and stories that I read. Sometimes you want to give a quick pat on the back and words like ‘fab’ and ‘great’ just slip out, just like the saying-nothing response of ‘I’m fine’ when someone asks you how you are.
It’s a bit like the issue of digital photography: now that it is so easy to take pictures, delete them, play around with them, hardly anyone takes the time to find that perfect angle, light and composition anymore.
Interesting post! I think it depends on the vernacular from whence it came. Here in London, some of our most respected doyens of gorgeous word-wisdom constantly pepper their real life conversations with words like – fab, super, gorg, must-read, see do. Some of it is hilarious – tribal and highly entertaining.
If Twitter really is the dinner party of the web – what your suggesting is akin to walking up to a short lister for the Booker and saying ‘Oh Darling do stop using that awful Fab word, why don’t you pull out the thesaurus…you’re boring me to death’
:-)
– Its twitter – if I want to see what they are really made of I take the trouble to click their links and see what they are on about.
I think there is also something around free speech and all that but that’s another story..xx
“Thought provoking.” Thanks for the Twitter Intervention.
I tried Tweeting. Wasn’t for me. I like to be succinct, but I’m still to verbose for Twitter! Also, maybe it’s a generational thing (is my age showing?), but I text using full words, full sentences, capitalization and proper punctuation. My friends tease me for spelling out y-o-u. I can’t help myself.
Thanks for the great post!