What Does It Mean to Write Well on Substack?
Writing on Substack is tricky because we’re writing in two genres at once.
Substack is partly a newsletter, i.e., a routine email that promotes/sells/announces. We’re supposed to address our subscribers, deliver some sort of news or ask them to buy or do something, and sign off.
It’s also a personal media platform where we produce our literary and journalistic work. That’s the reason so many of us are on here: to write essays (personal, meditative, creative criticism, narrative, etc.) or journalism (features, opinion pieces, etc.).
We end up writing those genres in the guise of a newsletter, trying to blend routine hellos, promotions, and announcements with deeply personal, opinionated, narrative, thoughtful, and researched posts.
As I said, it’s tricky.
What’s the trick to writing on Substack?
I don’t know (wish I did), but if one person is doing it really well, it’s
of .We could use any of her posts as a model, but I’ll use “Culture Study Meets Bama RushTok.” (A must-read whether you care about Bama Rush or TikTok or not.) She manages to start it as a newsletter with a bid to support her work and then seamlessly moves into a personal-essay-esque opening—
“I was supposed to have jury duty this week. I cleared my schedule in anticipation. Then I showed up day one and was dismissed — which meant that I had a full week of largely unscheduled time….time to fill with Bama RushTok.”—
and then evolves into a deeply researched (and fascinating) feature on Bama RushTok. Seamless. She’s in total control of her genres.
And we have to be too.
What is a genre?
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