When I blog, I try to employ Minimalism as my guiding principle. Not because it makes things easier for me, quite the opposite. It’s about respect for the reader, but also about the challenge, as illustrated by this famous quote:
I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
– Blaise Pascal
I’m calling it the Blogger’s Curse: An endless supply of electrons, a limited amount of time and no editor.
Almost no matter what you have to say, and how you say it, there is a shorter way. The trick is to find it and use it, without losing any of the semantic payload. If you’re good, you’ll make your message more elegant in the process, and increase its punch.
Now to live by it.
And that’s it, end of post. QED.
Hah! A person after my own heart. Why say something in 4 words when you can say it in 40?
I am constantly struggling with brevity. One of the reasons I started Twittering. Forced to express cohesive thought in 140 letters is a real challenge for me.
Good post
I publish an email newsletter for a small group of journalists who are members of the American Amateur Press Association. The byword is “brevity” and I get a marvelous response from my readers who appreciate the short items and style.
It all stems from my years as a newspaper an, later, a broadcast reporter. “Keeping it short” was a way of life. d
I had a managing editor at the Syracuse Post Standard whose favorite advice was: “There is no story that cannot be told in a page and half.” (Typewritte, double spaced).
And, later in radio, before I went on the air, I was legman for an anchor man whose constant reminder for our five minute newscasts (really three because of cmmercials): “I want a lot of short items. It makes it look like you are working like hell” (I was).
My other inspiration has come from an archbvishop in Medieval times, Msgr. Fenelon. In instructing his priests about sermons he is said to have commented: “Remember. The more you say, the less people remember.” Amen to that.