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I think the problem here is the motivation for reading. I enjoy reading fiction, love watching movies etc. But I clicked the link to the Wired article to learn
by jablan 14y ago
I think the problem here is the motivation for reading. I enjoy reading fiction, love watching movies etc. But I clicked the link to the Wired article to learn something new. If I get entertained too, it's just a bonus, but it's entirely optional. Journalism even has a term for what I ask for, they call it "inverted pyramid"[1]. All the petty details intended to spice-up a story are welcome, but they should be placed appropriately, and should be easy to skim over. And this article is a perfect counter-example.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid
- jessriedel 14y agoThe concept of an inverted pyramid isn't quite what you're looking for here, is it? The inverted pyramid is the idea that a newspaper article leads with the most important facts first, followed by lesser and lesser details, so that one will always have read the most important facts for a given amount of reading no matter how long that amount of reading is. But that's not really the problem with the Wired article. It's not in a newspaper, so it's legitimate to write it assuming the reader will read the whole thing. It's perfectly fine for the author to tell the story in chronological order (or whatever order is appropriate for communicating the important ideas). Instead, I think the problem you and I have with it are the unnecessary artistic flourishes and the non-standard chronology designed to "pull" the reader into the article. Does anyone know what this aspect is called? Edit: On second thought, maybe I'm just projecting. Do you really think that this article would have been better as a reverse pyramid?