Better writing: Snappy works best online
Short snappy pieces work best online for a number of reasons.
First, people are less prepared to read long pieces online than short articles. I wrote about this previously in Why people read less online than with print.
Second, people read online material about 25 percent slower than print. Jakob Nielsen explains why in In defence of print. Nielsen’s article was written in 1996, but things haven’t changed substantially.
Third, people get distracted easily online. There are advertisements and links to other web sites as well as bleeping notification of incoming emails, tweets and instant messages. If you write a brief article there’s a much better chance readers will get to the end before skipping off elsewhere.
Fourth, skilled writers aim for brevity because good, vigourous English is concise. Your goal should be to get your message to your reader as swiftly and as accurately as possible. Get on. Say what needs to be said. Get off. Leave the fancy, flowery stuff to poets and fiction writers.
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I love the implications: fiction and poetry authors are fancy and flowery (false), therefore they’re unskilled (also false). All it says is, you don’t know much poetry at all.
Leonardo Boiko
19 Jun 09 at 4:36 am
Leonardo
I’m not suggesting poets or fiction writers are unskilled – some are, some aren’t. However, their goals and motivations are different.
For most people writing is a means to an end. For poets and fiction writers, writing is the end.
billbennettnz
19 Jun 09 at 8:14 am
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