By Allan Roy Andrews
I attended a writer’s conference several months ago at which the emphasis leaned decidedly toward writing for electronic media, and the predominant and repeated axiom asserted: online essays should avoid the curse of excessive scrolling; that is, keep those blogs to a maximum of 400 words.
Readers, especially young readers, increasingly read on a computer (or on a pad device). Newspapers have taken this pronouncement to heart. At least one well-known newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, during the past year abandoned print and offers its news online (there is a vestige of print in a weekly news summary). Other major publications—newspapers and magazines--are leaning in the same direction. Writers take note: shorter is better.
I once claimed I’d discovered the secret of writing a successful newspaper column. Keep it under 600 words, I argued. In the era of electronic blogging, 600 words means long-windedness.
The standard is 400 words. In taking stock of my archive of postings for this blog, I estimate my average entry is between 900 and 1100 words (and I claim to be an editor). I’ve fallen prey to the notion that longer essays encourage deeper reflection.
I repent. I am taking a new tack and aiming for postings of 400 words or less; I call it “Faith at Ease Lite,” and in a way that title captures the conviction. Eugene Peterson, using Job’s comforters as illustrations in his book, Subversive Spirituality (Eerdmans, 1997), reminds us that much of our talk about Christian spirituality is “chatter.” I confess a proneness to such chatter, and my archives are convicting evidence.
Of course, the other lesson urged upon bloggers at the same writer’s conference: Write consistently and often.
So I stop here, in the neighborhood of 300 words, and hope to be back more often.
Be at ease.
No comments:
Post a Comment