Go Into The Story, Medium, and You
Here are some important dates in the history of Go Into The Story:
May 16, 2008: The day I launched the site.
March 9, 2009: The day I began my Twitter account @GoIntoTheStory.
September 7, 2011: The day Go Into The Story became of the official screenwriting blog of The Black List.
I am hoping I will add April 5, 2016 to the list of significant events in this blog’s chronology. Medium is a growing online publishing community and yesterday it was announced that about a dozen outfits have already made or will be transitioning to use that service. Via The Wrap:
The full list of publications moving onto Medium were The Awl, Pacific Standard, Electric Literature, Franklin Leonard‘s The Black List, Femsplain, FilmSchoolRejects, The Bold Italic, Monday Note, NewCo Shift, The Banana Boat (by The Infatuation), MEL and Lorne Michaels‘s Above Average and The Kicker.
And the following companies planned to move publications on the platform soon: Time Inc.’s Money and Fortune Medium-native offshoots, The Hairpin, Women and Hollywood, Go Into the Story (by Scott Myers), Dangerous Minds, War Is Boring, and The Evergreen Review.
What this means to you
Obviously the impact on GITS readers was a primary consideration in the decision. So relax! The content will be the same. The schedule of posts will be the same. The URL, the same. Everything free of charge. No ads. And while one of the things about Medium is it provides ways for publishers to generate revenue from content, I won’t be doing that. I have not made a dime off my blog and I will stubbornly persist in that approach.
Why? First and foremost, I see Go Into The Story as an online educational resource and I make all of this content available for free as a counterpoint to the many screenwriting ‘gurus’ and outfits who charge fees for contests, consultations, and the like.
So in terms of actual content, words and images, no change.
The interface will change. The color scheme. The way content is presented on the page. The look and feel of the new site will be different. But one of the reasons I’m excited about this transition is it should make it easier for GITS readers to track daily posts and find information in the site’s 19,000+ posts.
And yes, every one of that aggregated tsunami of posts will make the transition over to the Medium platform.
If you want to get a feel for what Go Into The Story will resemble, check out The Black List blog here, now at Medium. Notice how the front page can host multiple posts? This is a plus right away because instead of items disappearing down the home page, as they currently do with each succeeding post, you will be able to see an entire day’s posts and even more on one page.
Plus the load times for pages including video and images will be much, much faster. If you’re interested in that kind of tech talk, check out this post via Film School Rejects, one of my favorite independent movie sites, as they talk specifically about page load time, one reason they are switching to Medium.
Bottom line: My goal is to make this blog easier to use and more enjoyable to read. I think you’re going to love the ‘new’ Go Into The Story!
What this means to me
Several things. First, I have a busy life. Between my writing, teaching, blogging, and everything else I do related to those activities, time is a precious commodity. And while I have learned the basics of Word Press, the actual process of composing a blog post is still a laborious effort. Multiply each post times 6 and that’s my daily regimen requiring on average 2 hours of my time. Medium has created an extremely friendly interface, what they call a “composing tool”, which should help cut down on the time I currently spend futzing around with HTML.
Another benefit: Go Into The Story will become part of the Medium community which should extend the reach of the content produced here and more importantly generate increased interaction with users. The conversations which occur as a result of many of my posts often elevate the value of the information aggregated on that particular subject. And that goes directly to my prime directive about this site being an educational resource. The more voices and ideas emerging here, the better. The transition to Medium should engender that.
And there’s this: What Medium is doing is an exciting new venture. Being someone who turned his back on seven years of college and graduate school to pursue creative ambitions, I am always up to push the envelope. Who knows where this shift will take the blog. My gut says this is a good thing. When it comes to creative decisions, I have found my gut is almost always right. In other words: Go for it!
[To read more about Medium and what they’re about, go here. I should note that the guiding light behind Medium is Ev Williams, who also helped launch Blogger and Twitter, both of which I have used, so there’s that.]
This transition will take time. There are issues related to bringing a site of this size and type over to a platform like Medium. I need to become comfortable with the interface. They need to figure out a few special technical things to facilitate the transition of the site onto their platform. So in all likelihood, we won’t be making an official switch over until sometime this summer. But again, let me affirm these points:
Same content. Same schedule. Free. No ads. Easier to use. Faster load time. Cleaner interface.
Okay? Okay.
Let me use this post as an opportunity to check in with folks. If you have suggestions about what you would like to see on the blog, please post your thoughts in comments. Or email me.
Joseph Campbell said the point of the Hero’s Journey is transformation. I believe that pertains to blogging as well. Here’s to a new adventure for you and me, one I hope will take what we do and elevate it to another level of quality and value to writers.
Onward!