Express Yourself
Why the Internet Is a Mixed Bag for Writers
Online, expression is ephemeral and lighting-fast. Maybe we should slow it down.
Welcome to The Draft, an advice column about writing and life from Eileen Pollack, former director of the University of Michigan MFA Program. We’re here to answer your questions about storycraft, writing, and telling the truth.
Have a question? Share it with us.
Dear Draft,
How has social media changed how we think about nonfiction writing? How has it changed how we recount and share our experiences and observations?
Signed,
Too Young To Know
Dear Too Young,
I’m not sure anyone younger than 50 can appreciate how profoundly the internet has changed the way writers write. Until the late 1990s, every time you were stymied by a fact, you needed to consult your 32-volume Encyclopedia Britannica, which most writers were too poor to own, or dash off to a library, where you spent hours roaming around a reference room, then begging the librarian to pitch in and help.
Tracking down clues about a historical event or a person’s life meant you needed to raise the money to travel to whatever institution stored the…
