A Core Team member said today:

I just had a great feature idea: the Entry editing thingy needs an in-built word counter with a progress bar that goes from red to green to red again, showing green at about 1200-2500 or something. Certain people probably also need an acoustic signal above a certain number of words.

This is an excellent suggestion. I call it the Verbosity Alarm. It should go off – at least, in a writer's head.

1200-2500 is also a good indicator of how many words it takes before a reader's eyes glaze over with factual content. Me, I'd err on the low end of that count.

You want to tell what you know? Good. Awesome, in fact: that's what h2g2 is about. But writing factoids down is not all we're about. We're about educating people, showing them the world they live in. To do that, you've got to attract their attention – and keep it.

How do you do that? Here are a few tips:

• The topic doesn't have to be 'naturally' interesting. In other words, you don't have to 'rip it from the headlines' or watch what's 'trending' on the internet. Instead, you have to make it interesting. Sure, you're writing about it because you think it's interesting. Now, tell somebody else why it's interesting. To do that, find a connection. Start with something everybody knows, or thinks they know. Then introduce the topic by telling them what's unusual about what you're going to say.
• Keep it as light as you can. Obviously, some topics are more serious than others. I recently wrote a Guide Entry about hippies and bananas. That's sort of a no-brainer in the humour department. If you can't laugh about hippies convincing people to smoke dried banana peels, you probably should take up a different avocation. But you shouldn't be needlessly flippant. The point is: use the unusual, the imaginative, and the humorous to keep the reader on your side.
• Think about what's interesting to others, not just yourself. You know everything there is to know about azaleas? Train schedules in Azerbaijan? The history of the Whiffenpoofs, a musical group from Yale University? Guess what. Just because you know all that, doesn't mean somebody else wants you to dump the whole catalogue of your encyclopaedic knowledge on them. Pick out the good bits, and share them.
• 'Now that I have your attention. . . ' Do not, not, not assume that, once you have the reader's attention, you are free to go on for 5,000 more words about your favourite subject. They can, and do, stop reading and click on another page. We know this: we have recourse to a statistical tool that shows the 'bounce rate' on our website. Eyes glaze over, clicking ensues. Trust us on this. Adopt as your mantram the advice I got during teacher training: 'Assume the students will become bored before you do. Change the subject often.' People reading online probably have about 5-10 minutes to devote to your topic¹.
• Get to the point. Stop and think what the 'take-home message' of your information is. Why would someone want to know the hippie banana story? Because it says something about life in the Sixties. Because it tells us that people are gullible. There's a moral in there somewhere. You don't have to beat it to death, but you should indicate it.

LEONATO: Neighbours, you are tedious.

DOGBERRY: It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the

poor duke's officers; but truly, for mine own part,

if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in

my heart to bestow it all of your worship.

LEONATO: All thy tediousness on me, ah?

DOGBERRY: Yea, an 'twere a thousand pound more than 'tis; for

I hear as good exclamation on your worship as of any

man in the city; and though I be but a poor man, I

am glad to hear it.

Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Don't be like Dogberry. Be a good internet writer. Become reconciled to the attention span of the Twitter generation. Tell your story succinctly.

That's not to say that you should leave the 'good bits' out. Just choose your factoids wisely. It's also not to say that your writing shouldn't be well-researched. It will take me 2-4 hours of research to produce 800-1000 words of text. I think that's a good rule of thumb, sort of like Robbie Stamp's oft-repeated adage of 'measure twice, cut once.' We want to be accurate. But accurate doesn't mean verbose. It just means accurate.

So, do we need a Verbosity Alarm? Let's ask that excellent source, the 'old saying':

A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

14.08.17 Front Page

Back Issue Page