Does Quality vs. Quantity Even Mean Anything?
Medium's Boost guide says they want writers to focus on quality, not quantity. Seems simple on the surface. But I'm not sure it is. Thoughts?
Questions are funny things. Seems to me they can open doors or slam them shut. Grease the wheels of conversation or make them grind to a halt, lips silent, people standing back waiting. Waiting. See what someone else says.
Here’s a conversation I’ve tried to have two, maybe three other places. Went nowhere. Turned the room to ice, no one had anything to say. Cat got all the tongues. Thought I’d bring it here because experience tells me you never fail to dive in. No matter what I throw at you. I like that. Something magic about this little group we got here. Well, not so little. But still magic. Like our own private think tank.
I was re-reading Medium’s boost guide one day. Looking to see if it said something I thought it said. Can’t even remember what I was looking for because I stumbled across another part that made me stop and go huh.
It says they are seeking quality over quantity.
On the surface, that seems real simple. Don’t just bang out some words and hit publish. Take the time to craft something worth reading. Seems to make sense at least on the surface. But for me, thoughts are like children pulling at their mama’s skirt.
Occurred to me there’s writers who can turn out quality every day. Five days a week. Journalists, for example. They have to turn out quality every day or they don’t eat. And there are writers like that on Medium. Day after day, they can hit you between the eyes with their words. Make you drop to your knees in awe. Every. Day.
If they miss a day it’s because they have other things to do. Not because they need a week to craft a post.
But? There are writers who cannot turn out quality if they labor for a week. I wish it was as easy as saying they don’t know what quality means, but they do. I know they do. Because when they read strong writing, they know it. See it. Say wow.
For them, there seems to be some kind of disconnect between what they read, and what they write. And I don’t know why. Maybe they can’t step back far enough to read their own writing through an editor’s eyes or even a reader’s eyes.
But here’s what occurs to me. Someone who can produce quality, the journalist for example, they’re not going to publish crap. Because, pride. You know? They take pride in their writing. And someone who can’t yet step back from their own writing and see it through an editors eyes think they “are” producing quality.
Like, does anyone really say this is crap, I think I’ll hit publish? I don’t think they do.
So it seems to me saying “quality over quantity” is like talking to ghosts. Means nothing to the person who can turn out quality day after day. And means nothing to the person who thinks they are writing quality. So what’s the point of saying it?
The whole quality vs quantity issue begs an entirely different question, for me.
Makes me wonder this…. what’s the difference between people who can turn out quality in quantity and people who can’t?
Love to know what you think. :)
I think there's a general misconception that if you work harder on something it's going to be better. That's not necessarily the case, particularly when it comes to creative work. It's true that there are times I need to revise (and revise, and revise...) to get something the way I want it, but there are other times I'll rattle something off and it will outperform everything else I've done that month. There has to be a balance between a willingness to create (and fail), and a drive to improve. I think the binary mode of thinking tricks us into misinterpreting the universe. We like to think in terms of two extremes, but what if we add another axis in there? What if we add two? You go from one dimension to two dimensions to three to four... Sometimes quality comes from being willing to embrace quantity ("I'll write 2 articles a day..."). Sometimes quantity limits your quality ("I have to work hard on this to make sure it's great, so I can't afford to do more than one article a week..."). But even the concept of "good" vs "bad" is oversimplified to the point of being useless. "Good and bad" aren't points, they're enormous overlapping zones of potential--but I feel I'm getting off in the weeds.
I think the creative process has to be organic and somewhat chaotic. When we try to impose order on it, we end up confusing ourselves. :) For me, it's not just quality vs quantity, there's also time, as in it has taken me until age 50 to consistently write articles that approach the standard I hope to meet.
Early on in my Medium days I kind of bought into the idea that in order to get anywhere, a writer needed to post OFTEN. As in, daily if possible. I tried it for a month on November, and saw my writing descend into a content canyon -- not pretty. I suspect this is what Medium is trying to get at: please, folks, write with patience and rigor! Write for clarity and meaning, write for originality and a fresh take, write stuff that actually adds something to readers' lives/minds/experience. Don't just journal-post into the void, add a clicky title, and hit Publish. It's impossible to legislate taste, but that's where I think (or hope) Medium is trying to go.