The Perils of Formatting

One thing that always makes me chafe is rules. It’s difficult to think of oneself a rebel (and let’s face it, who doesn’t?) by following something as crushingly mundane as formatting recommendations from these blogging gurus who’ve sprung up in the last few years. Who are they, anyway? What gives them the insight we lack?

My scant regard for authority, even conceitedly self-presented, multiplies exponentially.

In the fallout from a previous blog, several folks seemed perturbed by my preference for quality writing over the use of pretty decorations such as bold, italics, and

Random Sub-Headers
One dude insisted he could “see through” my being clever and witty. Apparently because being clever and witty is a smokescreen. A smokescreen for what, he failed to elucidate. I suspect because that smoke was tinged with the sweet, muddling tang of hemp.

Baulked at the Idea
Another reader baulked at the complicated idea I proposed: said he had to read it twice before he disagreed with me.

Wow
Just wow. A real-life natural selection bypass. I think it’s nice we let them play on the internet now rather than in traffic like we did in the old days.

• Fuck being clever and witty.
• Dumb it down for the guy at the back, picking his nose.
• There's absolutely no reason at all to communicate intelligently.
• Monosyllabicity via bullet lists is the name of the game.
• I know you'd be pointing your hairy wrist at the screen right now, Clyde, grunting in frustration (if you understood sarcasm).
• Oh fuck, I'm using a bullet list.

Of course, formatting can make your blog look prettier, but so what? Without compelling content it’s got nothing. That much has got to be obvious, even to our hairier brethren like the smokescreen dude and the two scoops guy. Some estimates were hiking the importance of formatting to the same level as content, as if it was a 50/50 relationship. I near fell off my stool when I read that.

Let’s be honest here; it’s nowhere near. Content succeeds without format, but format goes nowhere without content. It is whimsical décor, nothing more. I ask you, when was the last time you finished reading a blog and thought, “Wow, nice formatting”?

Exactly
Exactly.

Entertaining writing is a much more effective tool for dressing up mundane subject matter. I’ve lost count of the number of blogs I’ve finished reading feeling a little hollow because the content was boring or badly thought out. But if it’s garbed in vibrant prose, at least I’ve learned something about skilful composition and perhaps added to my vocabulary. By comparison, the addition of sub-headers and a proliferation of periods assuages and teaches nothing.

About Time for Another Random Sub-Header
I don’t believe there’s any “tricks” to making mundane topics compelling. You simply have to have something to say, and say it in a manner that doesn’t make you look like a fucking twit, which is harder than it sounds. If what you have to say is interesting, people will read it. If you don’t, they won’t. You can’t disguise the fact with pretty colors. We’re not on LSD. Not all of us, anyway.

Good writing can tune a bad topic; it can forge a hot-rod from a clunker. A good writer is the whiz mechanic at the top of his game. The Formula One Ferrari guy. By comparison, good formatting is the wax polish slung by a snot-guzzling apprentice, sluggish and saggy-eyed from sniffing the fumes.

Unpolished, the hot-rod is still a hot-rod, and polishing a clunker is a waste of energy.

Address the actual issue, folks. Don’t be belayed by superfluous opinion. Strive for excellence. Improving your content is the road; formatting is the roadhouse coffee flavor sachet.