You're not 99% of readers, sorry to say. and you're a different usecase anyway...you go to sources you already have a habit of believing has content worth reading, no matter the presentation. But 99% of aspiring writers are not in these situations...that is, belonging to a brand that has loyal repeat readers. for them, it's best for them to lose any preconceptions of entitlement that they deserve to be read.
No, I don't think that that's correct now with media now: Consider Web sites that want to report news on some of the common subjects, e.g., politics, the economy, international relations, business, science, technology, computing, energy. For each of these subjects, there are Web sites with interested readers.
Then, good news for aspiring writers: For such a subject and Web site, go for it! Just write some solid, new, meaningful, hopefully useful and insightful, information about the subject. Then attach an appropriate headline, subheading, and first paragraph, and, presto, be confident that you will have done 'good writing' and will reach about as much of your audience as is reasonable. No tricks. No magic. No secrets. No special techniques. Just accumulate, organize, and document the information and, then, publish it on an appropriate Web site with appropriate titles, etc. Then, if I am interested in your subject, you will get my full attention; no more secrets of writing will be required.
Here is a big, huge point about writing now, media now, and the points here: It has finally become fairly clear that the best writing on Web sites now is not from 'writers' or journalists at all! Such 'writers' can polish their craft, work on their technique, etc. all they want and will still lose. What such writers are losing out to are subject matter experts with no particular skills in writing at all. So, for a piece about, say, US-China trade, f'get about a business journalist-writer and, instead, get an expert in US-China trade. Want to know about a new supercar? F'get about the auto 'journalists' and, instead, go to a video at Jay Leno's Web site and watch the chief engineer of the car describe the details.
This lesson has been so well appreciated that many Web 'news' sites are trying to get as much of their content as possible from subject matter experts who are not 'writers',
with good lessons or bad, at all.
E.g., want to know about venture capital? Okay, read the business journalists? Usually not! Instead read Hacker News, especially the comments, Fred Wilson's blog AVC.com, etc. Net, the good content is not where writers have learned lessons in writing but where the writers are subject matter experts and know what the heck they are writing about, i.e., have the information.
A) Why did you think he is American? You can find cusswords distasteful and be from another country.
B) Why do you think he doesn't like the F-word? It's possible to respect a word for its emotional power while thinking it gratuitous or counter-productive in some cases.
> A) Why did you think he is American? You can find cusswords distasteful and be from another country.
A squeamishness around swear words ('cussword' is not a word I've ever heard a non-american use) is I'm afriad one of the perceived traits of America by other english-speaking nations, so from a purely Bayesian point of view it's an assumption he could make with some confidence. Just like we (Englishman here) don't understand why one arab would get unspeakably offended by another arab hitting him with a shoe unless someone told us that it was the highest insult, culturally (it is not apparent that this is the most insulting thing you can do in and of itself, it's a conditioned, learned response). There is a quote, attributed to lots of people, but seemingly either George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde, that Britain and America are 'two nations divided by a common language'. There is real incomprehension and bafflement in the UK, for example, that a swear word or nipple on US tv seems to cause comparable levels of outrage to a shooting spree.
So, I wouldn't jump down the GP's throat too much, even if his assertion was put forward rather abrasively.
> or example, that a swear word or nipple on US tv
> seems to cause comparable levels of outrage to a
> shooting spree.
Welcome to America, where people will flock in droves to show their support of anti-gay marriage attitudes[1], while none of those people will lift a finger to volunteer at a soup kitchen to help out people that actually need the support.
