I’ve had it with these sorts of comments:
“Blog posts should be short because people skim them.”
“Write in short paragraphs because they’re easier to absorb.”
“Readers love bulleted lists because they can skip right to the relevant information when it’s bulleted.”
You know what? You’re shooting yourself in the foot if you turn away from relevant content because it doesn’t fit into a quick-read format. Yes, you’re pressed for time, and yes, we’re lucky to have you stop by our measly little blog, but have you ever thought that absorbing information shortened for the purposes of easy reading might actually be a bad way to take in the good stuff? Does a 30-second skim or a horribly truncated write-up give you food for thought? Maybe. But almost certainly not as much mental nourishment as a full-length, head-to-toes post.
I strongly believe that the shorter we write — the more we condense and tighten up for readers’ benefit — the more likely we are to leave out the most relevant, thought-provoking, salient points we’re trying to make. There’s obviously a balance between writing a 250-word topic snippet and a 1,000-word op. ed. piece, but the excuse that you don’t want to read longer blog posts because they’re just too arduous get through doesn’t fly with me.
We compromise our points by chopping them short. We give little to no credit to the critical thinking skills of ourselves and our peers by offering up lamely clipped, easily-consumable content. We find no exercise for improving our ability to communicate fully-developed thoughts in writing numbered lists of random crap we think our readers might be interested in. And we sure as hell don’t add to any conversation by operating within the boundaries of how people think a blog post should be constructed.
Unless you’re Seth Godin, there’s a good chance you’re going to have a hard time sending home a truly valuable argument or idea with 300 words smashed into quasi-paragraphs or bulleted lists. And if you’re sitting on the sorry excuse that a blog isn’t a medium that lends itself to long-form writing, I don’t buy it. Your blog won’t self-destruct if you write more than 500 words. I promise.
Get off your mental ass. Find the time to read longer content, and think about it. Find the time to write longer content, and think about that, too. Find the time to leave thoughtful comments on long blog posts. And if you have to trade in the 75-blog reader for the 10-blog reader to do this, I’m all for it. Sacrifice quantity for quality just this once, okay?
This is the part where I usually get all disclaimer-ish and say I have no place to tell you what to read or how to write, but I don’t think that’s appropriate in this instance. I challenge you to read from top to bottom every article and blog post you click through to. I challenge you to write from beginning to end, without bullets, in full literary paragraphs filled with complete thoughts.
Just this once, stretch outside your usual blogging confines and see where it takes your brain. And challenge your own blog readers to stick with you through the lengthier bits you write. You never know what might happen when you stop taking the easy route.
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
Although it takes up a lot of time to read a lengthy post, I usually get more from those long posts than I do from a short one. I barely ever remember reading a 200 word post because they end up blurring with all he other 200 word posts. While I’m guilty of a couple short posts here and there – I do think that a long post connects the reader and author on a deeper level. A short blog will take up 5 minutes of your time while a lengthy one could take anywhere from 10-30minutes… That’s a commitment…
Great Post… Motivated to write a doozy now…
You make a great point about one 200-word post blurring with the rest, Ross. The more we try to absorb, the harder it is to remember what the heck we’re actually trying to absorb. And yep, reading and writing long-form posts is a commitment, but I think one too few of us are willing to make.
Glad I could help motivate.
Thanks for the comment!
As a fellow long poster, I totally agree. A “short” post for me is still a couple of paragraphs, without a bullet in sight. Long posts show that you’ve put time, effort, and thought into a post, and allow you to fully expand on your thoughts. My feeling is, if you’re passionate about your writing, just keep going until you feel you’re done expressing what you wanted to express. You’ll know when. Great post!
Awesome point, Sam. If you really love the art of writing, you keep going until you’re done. I understand the push to write for your readers, but sometimes…sometimes I think we’re not giving our readers enough credit, and we’re not giving our writing enough credit, either, by stopping so short. Glad to see you back again.
You are now in my Reader, so I’ll be back again!
Great post — I agree to some extent. I think it depends on the goal of each blog post. If you are introducing a new concept, influencing peoples ideals or demonstrating complex thought — one should really write out a long post.
But, if you are reiterating someone else’s though and then adding your own spin to it — I dont think you should waste peoples time when bullets would do to get people up to speed.
I do agree that a lot can get lost if you are trying to stick to a “blog format” in evert post. Great critical thought here.
See, I’m not a huge fan of re-purposing other peoples’ thoughts. I completely agree with the idea of finding inspiration from someone and offering them attribution, but I believe in adding on, not just re-shuffling. Although, I’m sure there are instances in which there’s value in re-shuffling — especially if you want readers to get a quick glimpse of the core concepts you’re adding to.
Thanks for the comment, Bryan!
Thanks for writing this Teresa, it needed to be said. Honestly some of the best bloggers I am reading right now are saying:
1) don’t worry about posting frequency just post when you have something of value to say, and
2) don’t worry about how much you write. Read a Steve Pavlina post and you’ll see what I mean.
Marc
Hey, thanks for stopping by, Marc. I agree with those bloggers you read — don’t write when you don’t feel it (that’s some of the best advice I’ve gotten and taken to heart), and don’t be overly concerned about how much you’re writing. Sometimes you’ll write a novel of a post, sometimes you’ll write a couple paragraphs and be done. Whatever the case is, don’t cut yourself off.
I think you both have a great point here, that most people overlook. Writing to adhere to a specific format or structure is fine if that’s the rules of the challenge or you’re doing it for a specific reason.
But if you’re writing short posts just because “it’s cool” or you’re writing long posts because “everybody does it”, then you’re probably not writing very well.
My advice is just write. Then edit as you see needed, and post. Conforming to how bloggers are “supposed to write” is pointless, as that doesn’t exist.
T –
Here’s what I’ve learned about blogging (over the past few months – ha ha). There are all sorts of different styles with blog posts. Some long, some short; some with tons of links, some with none; some look pretty, some look like crap; some make you think, some make you just go “hmm.”
Also some posts are written for the benefit of the audience, while others are penned just b/c you are pumped or passionate about a particular idea/thought.
I learned this one from Hubspot. (Forgive me as the following is not verbatim). They did a cool webinar that talks about blogs posts as food. Some are salad – light, simple, and easy to digest. Other posts are like a piece of triple chocolate cake (yum. that sounds good.) – dense and time consuming, but worth it!
Same goes for the comments too, right?
FWIW – I love that you used both “shut up” and “crap” in the title. Carry on…
DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
@djwaldow
The lesson in your comment, DJ? Variety is the spice of blog life. We all have formats that work for us, that are our personal writing style, and it’s good to mix that up with formats from the other side of the spectrum. If you think about it, mixing it up is a great way to stretch your writing muscles.
And re: the “shut up” and “crap” — it started out much worse.
Interestingly enough, I just wrote a post similar to this.
The call for critical thinking is much needed, and perhaps overdue. I fear though, that the economic reality is stacked up against it—short posts get more glancing views, increase traffic, increase eyeballs, increase revenue (or at least ego).
I am hoping though, that fluffy content bubble with burst and we’ll all turn back to in-depth analysis and thinking (like Stowe Boyd does for example).
I’m just not holding my breath.
Keep doing what you’re doing Teresa. We need more bloggers like you to balance out the mostly useless noise that’s so prevalent here.
I’ll be hopping over to your neck of the woods shortly to read that post.
You hit the nail on the head regarding the economic reality of blog posting — quick-read posts garner more attention, and so many bloggers are looking at numbers and not much else.
Everything lives in a bit of a cycle, right? So hopefully this short-post trend will indeed cycle out at some point. It can be frustrating to see so many people lean on the easiness of short content, in writing and reading, because fostering those habits is a recipe for brain atrophy. Especially when we leave school, there are so many opportunities to become mentally complacent; take advantage of the few opportunities that are out there to expand your mind!
I’m getting ranty again, haha. Thanks for the comment, Andrew!
I find this discussion very interesting but somewhat sad. Shouldn’t the topic and the writer dictate the appropriate length of a post? Personally, I write stories that are probably a bit too long to hold the attention of most internet readers. But a story or article is done when it is done, and I believe the readers will follow good content. At least I hope so. And I also hope that I can be creative enough to find some short items to write, a few unique lists and valuable resources that will increase traffic. Thanks for the great discussion and the long posts.
I love the essence of this post. Going straight from college-style academic paper writing I’m used to be very detailed and long-winded when necessary. Hell, my first post on my new blog is 1500 words! But with those 1500 words I try to make it as readable as possible too. I utilize sub-titles and a few lists because I know not everyone will read every word and I have to accommodate those people too.
Thanks for the comment, Cameron! Your integration of subheadings and lists within longer posts is a great compromise. Sometimes there’s no other way to effectively organize your writing without elements like bullets and subheads.
Welcome to the blogging world! Enjoy the long-form writing.
I got off my mental ass and read your post!
Actually I’m not a big fan of long posts but if it’s well written and the content is good then definitely I won’t skim and read it to the last word.
Out of curiosity, what specifically turns you off from long posts?
Yes! Jeez, say what you gotta say. I have total Seth Godin blog envy. The man is the king of succinct power blogging, but we can’t all be him. You want the long version? Buy the book.
For me, I will read anything that is beautiful written and resonates with me – whatever the length. Some subjects take longer. Sometimes you just have more, or less, to say. It’s all good.
I’m still trying to figure out the blogoshere, but the few posts I have written didn’t subscribe to a set of rules. I just wrote until I was done, and I suspect, I will continue to write that way. It just seems natural.
I did a survey about my blog and got the same comments!
The bottom line is that most people aren’t going to give up their habit of skimming 100 blogs a day. It’s not their personality. However,I do think that there are ways to please people on both sides of the argument.
I think most blog writers and even book authors use a couple of common tactics: they bold or highlight certain phrases, they split up content with smaller headers, they spend extra time on their introduction and conclusion, and some even create a “condensed version” at the end. I’m not really a fan of all of these techniques, but I almost think that it’s the effort to try and please the “blog skimmers” that makes them happy.
Do you think the quality comments are tied to people who don’t care how much time they spend reading blogs? People who are in it for the discussion, for the sparked thoughts?
I wouldn’t say they are the people who dont care home much time they spend on a blog. They’re simply people that like to spend less time than most people, or they don’t have a lot of free time.
I’m just speaking from the perspective of someone who used to be in this boat. I never participated in discussion and long blog posts turned me off (I’ve since grown to appreciate both types of posts). I just always appreciated the writers that tried to make things easier to read. It’s what helped me transition and change my ways.
I hear ya. I guess it’s a matter of perspective, depending on your goals for participating in blogging (whether reading or writing). You mention “they don’t have a lot of free time”, which infers that blogging is something extraciricular, rather than part of their business.
Some people find business value in writing blogs and commenting on blog posts, whether it’s direct sales, brand awareness, etc. I definitely get where you’re coming from though – even if blogging is part of your business, there can be a million other things that require a big chunk of your attention too.
I wouldn’t say they are the people who dont care home much time they spend on a blog. They’re simply people that like to spend less time than most people, or they don’t have a lot of free time.
I’m just speaking from the perspective of someone who used to be in this boat. I never participated in discussion and long blog posts turned me off (I’ve since grown to appreciate both types of posts). I just always appreciated the writers that tried to make things easier to read. It’s what helped me transition and change my ways.
I don’t think the length of the post is what’s most important, but rather the actual content and message. I’m a fan of saying what you need to say, and that’s it. Whether that takes 100 words or 1,000 words.
Most of the time, longer posts are 75% filler crap that add no value to the overall message of the post. I’d much rather those people just use 25% of the words and say what they need to say.
That being said, I’ll read a post no matter the length if it’s a compelling post with something intriguing to say. The length isn’t what’s important to me; the message is.
Tim, I think you and I fundamentally disagree on this. But, I don’t know, let’s explore. You are one of the few bloggers I know of who makes salient points quickly. You get to the point and move on. But so many people can’t. Without the filler text, the dots just don’t quite connect. I attribute that to writing through a thought, you know? People often need the process to get to the point.
I agree with you that the message is what’s most important. Where I find we’re falling short — and I should’ve clarified — is in trying to appeal to the masses; we’re sacrificing the fullness of our message for readability. 100 words, 1,000 words, doesn’t matter. Just make sure you’ve hit home.
Thanks for the comment! Your points always get me thinking.
I’m not sure we disagree at the heart of it. I think we both agree that it comes down to the message, but as you pointed out, getting to that message in a concise manner is easier for some than others.
You’re right about needing the process to get to the point. I often do this when writing blog posts or my weekly Beyond The Pedway Newsletter. I’ll write as I think and get all the thoughts down, but then I’ll go back a few times and remove any words that are not absolutely needed. I purposely strip away anything that isn’t part of the core message of the writing. This way, the final product is a concise and strong message that isn’t weakened by words written for the sake of adding words.
I’ve found that the mindset often derives from writing papers in school. I was always a person that had the message ready to go in a few pages (or at least I thought I did), but the teacher required a 10 page paper. So that meant half a dozen pages of pure filler – totally unnecessary words.
Radian6 is blessed to have you – you’re a kick ass writer and even kicker asser (yup, totally made that up) thinker!
I agree with you completely that we need to remember to think critically, because good writing doesn’t exist without it. I learned that from one of my first journalism teachers.
I also learned from him, that we should write until we’re done writing. Sometimes you need to back up your ideas, and sometimes you need to write through things to get answers.
But there is something to be said for the ability to say a lot in few words. Concise writing is not always a cop-out, but an art. I find that a lot of people are far too long-winded, not because that’s what the topic warranted, but because they’re justifying. Or they don’t know when to truncate.
Well said! I’m a total amateur blog post writer and don’t presume to have any expertise to share here but I happen to like what you’re saying and how you’re saying it.
While time can be a barrier for many readers, I’m basically looking for one thing – a good story. If the writer doesn’t hook me early… I’m out! Subtle can be okay but only at times because if I don’t get it quickly, I won’t read on. I’m the same with books…
If a blog post can inform, be provocative, be analytical and entertain… all at the same time… I’m likely to read it end to end as long as it captures me. The storytelling is everything. And I think great writing will satisfy almost any reader… sub-par writing in a blog post (or anywhere for that matter), regardless of length*, will satisfy few.
* Is it just me, or do you hear Michael Scott saying “that’s what she said”?
The way I write, my blog’s for me first and then my readers. If that means 150 words, so be it (although I use Posterous for short-form posts, it’s an ongoing experiment). If it means 1,500 words, so be it instead.
I value my readers immensely, but if I’m not happy with a post then what’s the point? I’m just shortchanging everyone. So, um, yeah – the length is inconsequential. Keeping interest is the crux.
Funnily enough, the bloggers I enjoy the most seem to be of this mantra too. Bonus!
I guess we can say the lesson learned here is that we should all write until we’re done. If that’s 150 words, so be it. If it’s 800 words, then fantastic. The crux, like Danny said, is that we shouldn’t short-change our thoughts and points to try and live within the boundaries of what people say is a readable blog post.
Write on, my friends!
I have a comment above, but I thought I’d just say one more thing: after blogging for a few month its hard me to write anything but LONG POSTS. There’s no way to cover everything a topic really deserves in a couple hundred words.
Long posters forever.
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