Writing On The Web

For about fifty years now, people have been claiming that the short story is dead. What they mean, of course, is that the outlet is dead, and writers who specialise in short stories of the general type have nowhere to place them. But, now, all that has changed.  The short story (as we all know and love it - a vehicle for the brief tale, a crucible for the distillation of a single idea) has migrated to the web. One drawback of this, is that almost no web magazine pays their writers. They see themselves, primarily, as showcases, where readers can view a writer's work and download it to read, really a bit like a library of short stories.  Most web magazines will also take poetry, a smaller number will take articles or features, and a few will even take novels. In the latter case, it may be better to have a novel permanently available for reading on the web, rather than on a publisher's slush pile, where it may never be read at all.  If prose is to be comfortably read from the screen, it should have a blank line between each paragraph. It may also help to have the first line of each paragraph indented by one tab stop, but this is purely a matter of personal preference. If you are putting up your own web page, make sure you have good margins on each side of the text. It can confuse and tire the eye to have the text running up against the sides of the text box.  It goes without saying that the editors of these web magazines would prefer to get a writer's work without spelling, context, or grammar mistakes, leaving any editing that has to be done to a minimum.  Some web magazines will take work of a variable quality, which is a blessing for the writers just starting out, and unsure of themselves. It gives encouragement at a time when it is most needed, and the chance to see ones work on display to the public.  There are usually only two reasons for writing. The first is to make money and the second is simply to have others read what you have written. Given the restriction, at the moment, of the first option, the second option seems a sensible choice - and there is always the possibility that it may lead to other things!