Story length

What closet tidying taught me about editing

Audition your words to go in, not out

When Lynn Wylie, aka Best Sister Ever, sent me an Unfancy blog post arguing that all you need to look great every day is a capsule wardrobe of 37 items per season, I scoffed.… Read the full article

Story angle ideas: Summarize it on a billboard

6 words is the new black

Before you start writing, find your focus. Summarize your story angle in:

An elevator pitch

Say your biggest prospect joins you on the elevator in the lobby.… Read the full article

Measure estimated reading time to condense copy

How many minutes will it take them to read?

Writers measure copy in words, inches or pages. Readers use a different measure: time.

So instead of using writer-centric measures, think like your reader.… Read the full article

Short-form digital content helps readers choose

Too many options paralyze people

Here’s a famous story among persuasion researchers and Malcolm Gladwell fans:

When a researcher offered shoppers 24 types of jam, many customers stopped by for a sample, but only 3% made a purchase.… Read the full article

Use Average Reading Time for short content

How long will it take them to read?

I am, sadly, monolingual, so I am not able to read 20 minutes, a free commuter newspaper published in Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland.… Read the full article

Short form vs long form for decision-making

People perform better when they’re not drowning in data

The more information you have, the better decisions you can make, right?

Wrong.

Yes, your digital marketing messages are more likely to climb higher in search results when the length of your content is 1,000 words or more.… Read the full article

Less is more

The longer your piece, the less readers will read

Size does matter.

The longer your story, the less of it your readers will read — and the less likely they are to understand and act on it.… Read the full article

How small is small?

Mini narratives can be as brief as a paragraph

In The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee shares this tiny tale:

“In 2005, a man diagnosed with multiple myeloma asked me if he would be alive to watch his daughter graduate from high school in a few months.… Read the full article

The (One-Page) Magazine

The New York Times goes brief

Talk about brief: The New York Times packs 13 stories onto its briefs page, called The (One-Page) Magazine.

Notice the combination of:

One-paragraph profiles, trend pieces and new nuggets
One-sentence reviews
Charts (History, in Kardashians)
Glossary items (This should be a word: Denigreet)
Timelines (This one’s running across the top and down the right side)
Infographics (This one’s running across the bottom of the page)

How brief are your briefs?… Read the full article

Add words, reduce readership

Longer stories lose readers faster