Writing short passages
In this age of social media and Twitter, it is not surprising that people’s attention span is much shorter than it used to be. Twitter allows you to communicate with only 140 characters. This has flowed over into other applications also. While you can communicate in that length, it doesn’t give you much time to develop a story. Although I do remember hearing about someone who wrote a novel via Twitter, 140 characters at a time. That would take quite a bit of time to accomplish, let alone dedication. But the truth f the matter is, people would absorb the information in those bite sized chunks.
What does this mean for us as authors? It means that we need to learn to write in short passages. We may not need to stick to writing everything in 140 characters at a time but, we do need to keep it shorter than we may be used to and be more concise. If you have a huge chapter with long explanations where nothing seems to be moving along, you will lose the attention of your reader.
Short chapters are better than long chapters. That goes for the paragraphs and sentences too. It simply keeps the story moving. This holds true whether your work is fiction, non-fiction or a blog post. Shorter sections are just easier to read and can be digested quickly. If that is the case for your writing, then others will be more willing to comment on it and share or recommend it.
Writing concise can be a challenge and not everyone can do it well. It takes some people 5 pages just to say ‘the sun rose’. Sometimes it is just a matter of going back to basic English, mention the subject, the verb and the direct object. In other words, get your main point across and only that, leave out a lot of the description and narration that fills up so much dead space. There can be a place for some of that, but not all of it. Just keep it short and to the point. Don’t drone on, people will quit listening.
What are your recommendations for writing concisely?