Yes, I think, as a big picture, you need to see the article as a whole. Last week I spoke about having a "clear idea" in your head and the art and skill of writing is to create a sufficiently high "conceptual resolution" version of that image. Then, you choose the ingredients you want to use to try and create that article and you have to see them as a whole, I think, just like the ingredients that make up a recipe. The content itself, how you decide to layer the levels of abstraction, the format of the article, the language you use, any analogies or stories, the visual aids—I don't think you can see them separately. You may need to work on them separately, to some extent, but if you lose the picture of the "whole article", I think the end product will lack coherence and clarity.
I like the idea of supporting the piece w/visuals, but of course breaking up the space is really important too.
Some authors offer a recorded version of their articles as well... I haven't really thought too much about how different my stuff will be, but I can see that it's going to have an impact should I go that route.
Also, my next article on The Python Coding Stack is an experiment in using visual aids… We'll see how that one turns out (it's nearly ready for publication)
I've recently (I noticed this today) that on the Substack app, there's an auto-generated recorded version of the article. I listened to it to see how it portrays my first two paragraphs in this this article, and it was nice to listened to that pace I was talking about, spoken out by someone else (artificial as she may have been!)
I didn’t do anything, as far as I know, it was just there. I mean, there may be a setting I don’t know about, but I didn’t have to do anything special for the audio to be available
What I'm trying to do in Breaking the Rules is to take all these ingredients and talk about them separately, in bite-sized (I don't like that phrase, not sure why I used it there!) chunks
Stephen, do you think about visual aids as well when considering this presentation? It's gotta be holistic for me!
Yes, I think, as a big picture, you need to see the article as a whole. Last week I spoke about having a "clear idea" in your head and the art and skill of writing is to create a sufficiently high "conceptual resolution" version of that image. Then, you choose the ingredients you want to use to try and create that article and you have to see them as a whole, I think, just like the ingredients that make up a recipe. The content itself, how you decide to layer the levels of abstraction, the format of the article, the language you use, any analogies or stories, the visual aids—I don't think you can see them separately. You may need to work on them separately, to some extent, but if you lose the picture of the "whole article", I think the end product will lack coherence and clarity.
I like the idea of supporting the piece w/visuals, but of course breaking up the space is really important too.
Some authors offer a recorded version of their articles as well... I haven't really thought too much about how different my stuff will be, but I can see that it's going to have an impact should I go that route.
Also, my next article on The Python Coding Stack is an experiment in using visual aids… We'll see how that one turns out (it's nearly ready for publication)
I've recently (I noticed this today) that on the Substack app, there's an auto-generated recorded version of the article. I listened to it to see how it portrays my first two paragraphs in this this article, and it was nice to listened to that pace I was talking about, spoken out by someone else (artificial as she may have been!)
I need to play with this feature some time.
I didn’t do anything, as far as I know, it was just there. I mean, there may be a setting I don’t know about, but I didn’t have to do anything special for the audio to be available
No rush for me, but it could be useful.... I think I'm still perfecting my visual style, though, you know?
What I'm trying to do in Breaking the Rules is to take all these ingredients and talk about them separately, in bite-sized (I don't like that phrase, not sure why I used it there!) chunks