Why You Should Write More Short-Form Articles
It’s not because they’re easy
My June 30-day challenge included a pledge to write one short-form article every day of June. I’m not even half way into the month, and I already love short-form. Here are the main benefits to writing articles of no more than 150 words (including titles).
It trains you to focus
People who were trained as journalists probably don’t need this. After all, they learned to think by the column-inch. But novelists, like me, learned to write with as much detail and elaboration as we wanted. Regular people tend to write with as many asides as they would use when telling the story in person.
With 150 words, there is no room for asides. There’s no room for lush and evocative descriptions. You have to keep on target, and cut everything else.
Editing is harder than writing
I wrote one of my short-form articles in 20 minutes. It was 267 words. It then took me the better part of an hour to cut that down to 150.
Writing is easy. Words flow out in a gushing torrent.
Editing is hard. You have to have a clear idea of what you want to say, and find the cleanest, most concise way of saying it.
If I was editing that last sentence for short-form, I’d get rid of the double description. Stylistically, it emphasizes the tight writing by describing it twice. But for the reader’s understanding, only one description is necessary. Knowing this, I can make a conscious choice when writing long-form, which helps me be a better writer.
It helps you write better beginnings
The opening of your story is what will convince the reader to read the rest of your story. If your openings are weak, you will have a very low read rate.
With only a total of 150 words, including titles and image attribution, you need to get to the point quickly. There’s no time for a meandering circumlocution of the point.
Your initial idea may not be the best beginning
I wrote a short-form essay about my experience working at a garage sale over the weekend. It was an extremely hot weekend, over 90 degrees in the shade, and my brain was melting. It reminded me of Sebacean Heat Delirium, from the science fiction tv show, Farscape.
When I wrote the essay, that’s how I started it. But even though that’s where my idea came from, it wasn’t the best way to introduce my topic. The actual essay had to do with wondering why no one came to the garage sale. The heat was a peripheral topic, as one possible explanation. So it didn’t work as an opening, because it used valuable words on a concept that was irrelevant to the main essay.
It helps you write better endings
Long-form writing conventions have made me lazy about writing good endings. Every article ends with a conclusion or final thoughts section, summarizing the rest. Well, almost every article.
That denies me the ability to close with a strong, pithy comment that people want to highlight. Working in short-form, there’s no room for a conclusion. You need to come up with a summary statement all on your own.
It also allows you play around with irony, insight, and any other feeling you want to emphasize to the reader.
Never underestimate the power of snark
The article I mentioned above, about the garage sale? That closed on my thought that in the future, I’d save time and energy by taking my donations straight to Good Will. That would have the added bonus of being air conditioned.
People loved the snarky comment. It was the most highlighted comment of the piece.
And I discovered I love writing those one-line zingers at the end of an article. That pays off when writing long-form, if you don’t use conclusions. For example, my bunny essay concludes with a metaphor of hope and resilience. It is also the most highlighted sentence of the piece.
Total freedom with titles
With long-form articles, it’s important to tell the reader exactly what they’re getting. The reader should be able to look at the title and decide if that’s something they need to know.
When you looked at this article’s title, you knew it was about writing short-form articles. It was going to give you reasons to write them.
If you are dead set against short-form, or already write them, you might not read the article. But if you’re wondering about them, and if they’re worth trying, the title might call to you.
Short-form titles are different. Because your title and subtitle count in your total word count, they need to be brief. They’re more of an evocative tease than an explicit statement of contents.
Also, I’m not trying to capture Google traffic that can later convert to Medium membership. These are 1-minute reads. Even if they did convert, they’d pay me next to nothing.
Playing with language is why I became a writer
I love being able to play around with language in my short-form titles. After all, my love of playing with language is why I became a writer. (Okay, really it was because my bookstore wasn’t getting another shipment until Thursday. I had nothing to read unless I wrote it myself. But love of language is why I kept writing.)
I’ve done twists on common phrases, such as A House Divided…By a Sauna.
I’ve repeated the key phrase of the article, as in One Phone Call Can Change Everything.
And I’ve played around with witty subtitles, even if they usually end up on the cutting room floor. For my short-form, Where Would You Happily Live?, the subtitle is “A great migration is afoot”. I originally wrote it as “A great migration is afoot…and acar, and aplane”. Sadly, I needed those four words elsewhere, and they had to be cut. But it amused me greatly to write them.
The algorithm loves them
It can take two or three days for me to write a “big” article, with research and quotations. Then who knows how long it will sit in the editor’s in-box? Those are days I’m not posting to Medium.
I can usually finish a short form article in half an hour. That gives me something to feed Medium’s algorithm every day. I also get comments on the short-forms, which I respond to. Those are more things to feed Medium.
People who read my short-form articles often sign up to follow me. They clap enthusiastically. This also signals the Medium algorithm, in some arcane and unknowable way, to show my work to more people.
High engagement and reads
On June 7–10, I had four straight days of 100+ views. You might think, that’s not so impressive. Except, while the views on the 7th were driven by a story published in The Writing Cooperative, that was it. The 8th through the 10th, I published a single short-form article.
That single publication of a short-form article each day was enough. The algorithm continued letting people know I’d written something new.
Very few of them actually read the short-form article that was published. But that didn’t matter. They read something else I’d published.
Conclusion
Short-form stories are limited to 150 words, including titles and attributions.
- Writing short-form helps you to focus and improves your editing skills.
- It helps you to write better beginnings and better endings.
- You have total freedom when it comes to titles. You’re not trying to lure search engine results, and can be as playful as you like.
- Best of all, the algorithm loves them.
Give short-form writing a try. You may end up loving it as much as I do!
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