On Writing: Short Enough to Finish, Long Enough to Matter
My instinct is to ramble when I write. And whilst my final ruthlessly edited drafts are fairly compact, could I go further, into minimalist territory?
As a blogger, what style and length should your writing be? Short and punchy? Or longer and more in-depth, with plenty of details and examples?
I have a “Essays & Long-form” folder in my RSS reader, full of great writers. Yet most days I don’t even look in there. It’s rare for me to have the motivation to read 2000 words on medieval side hustles, for example. And when I do look in there and see a long post I like I’ll save it in my ‘read later’ app. Where the article will likely remain, unread.
I never have that problem with concise writers. Derek Sivers' writing is compact in the extreme.1 I’ll always read it right away.
And yet, when I look at some of my favourite ever articles they’re nearly always detailed, long-form and verbose. My life has never been changed by a 250 word article. In fact, I often forget I ever read them.
Take Shortform, a service that summarises books so you don’t have to bother reading the book. It’s a nice idea. I was subscribed for a month or two. But I can’t remember much about the books I ‘read’ on there.
Concepts themselves are often easy enough to understand. It’s the nuances, the multiple examples, the drawn-out explanations that actually make them stick. And it’s tough for a reader to emotionally connect with a summary.
As a blogger, you should default to succinctness. People often read in ‘in between’ moments and there’s always fierce competition for a blog readers attention. But it’s vital to find a balance between making your writing concise enough to respect readers' time, but long enough to let your ideas breathe.
The ultimate aim is to make it short enough to finish, long enough to matter.
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They’re almost edited to the point of sounding like Kevin in The Office. “Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick? ↩︎
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