The Areopagus

The Areopagus ignored the advice to keep it short, and readers liked long issues. Everyone told The Cultural Tutor to keep The Areopagus short, but he had more to say and found readers liked looking at a subject from several angles. Some issues now run six or seven thousand words, and readers seem to enjoy them.

He first accepted the advice, then outgrew it as the pieces kept expanding. He hedges on the result: readers enjoy the long form, "touch wood".

How I Write▶ 29:14

Give a fuller, stranger style its own home separate from social posts. He keeps his writing on X short and plain, but uses the newsletter for slower, more maximalist prose. After reading funny 16th-century writers like Stephen Gosson or Thomas Dekker, he writes in their vein there for a while.

"I would never tweet that stuff, but I put in the newsletter." Even on X he uses sub-clauses and hyphens, but the platform sets the register, so one writer runs two styles in two places.

How I Write▶ 29:14

Writing with weight online takes nerve because platforms reward the shallow version. He notes the attention economy rewards hooks in two seconds, and the reading data shows the more complicated the piece, the less time the average reader spends on it.

His view is that resisting that pull is a deliberate choice: slow down and write with more gravity, since outrageous clickbait claims win attention even when 20 or 30 seconds of thought would sink them.

How I Write