Changing the Way We Write

It time to stop producing for the algorithm and start crafting art

Jason Weiland
6 min readAug 23, 2021

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Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

We learn one thing when writing for the big platforms and it is that quantity matters. Yes, many also say quality matters, and pretend they believe it, but it is an enormous amount of work to pump out two or three pieces a day that are examples of the best work we can produce. Most writers don’t have that much time or motivation.

The first thing that suffers is quality.

I can always tell when I’ve been trying to rush a piece out the door. After publishing, I get messages from my true fans pointing out mistakes in spelling and grammar — a lot of messages. Because, when I take the time to improve the pieces I publish, draft by draft, the mistakes just don’t exist, so I know I half-assed it when a piece gets too much attention from my grammar contingent.

Three of the pieces I submitted to the Medium contest were like that. Full of mistakes, repetition, change in tone and voice. I ended up pulling all three and reworking them before the contest ended. I even had my friend/genius editor take a look to make sure they were up to snuff.

Each of those four stories had a minimum of ten drafts each, and I guarantee you can tell the difference between them and any one of the other pieces I have…

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Jason Weiland

Personal essays and articles from a guy who never tires of writing about his life - jasonweiland.substack.com