Experimentation

ILLUMINATION Accepts Short-Form Stories

Answering questions from hundreds of writers about the new short-form story format on Medium

Introduction

The purpose of this post is to answer one of the most frequently asked questions within the last two weeks. I received hundreds of inquiries from writers of ILLUMINATION, ILLUMINATION-Curated, and Technology Hits.

It is not possible to answer each inquiry that came to me in email format. The best way is to outline my answers in this short story.

I am not an expert on this approach, but I read many stories in multiple publications. Some writers love it, but some don’t. With a growth mindset, I want to experiment with it. Otherwise, it is not possible to know without trying.

Before explaining what it is, I confirm that our writers can submit short-form stories to ILLUMINATION, ILLUMINATION-Curated, and Technology Hits.

Some of our editors and writers have already tried it.

Before skipping to the next section, I’d like to highlight that we have a writing challenge encouraging our writers to post 1,000 short forms to build their audience on Medium. Details are in the attached story. All writers are welcome to join this challenge.

If you missed the 100-story challenge, you can find it from the attached link.

Background

I initially came across this interesting feature on https://blog.medium.com/ in a story by Alexis Lloyd titled A more expressive Medium.

Alexis states that “ Medium has been a rich environment for, well, medium-length stories. But we want to allow space for a wider range of expression on the platform. Sometimes, you may not want to write a whole story, but instead want to post an interesting quote, link to a great article, or share a beautiful photo. Our new inline reading experience provides a natural space to experience short-form content, and we’ve relaxed our story requirements so that you can easily share something that doesn’t follow the format of a traditional story.

I was first concerned, but after seeing it widespread in many reputable publications, I became convinced and decided to support short-form stories in my publications. My goal is to give maximum visibility and readability to our writers. I take all the necessary measures to achieve this goal.

What is the purpose of short-form stories?

After reading many articles in several publications on benefits, my understanding is that short-form stories have three main goals.

1 — Introduce your readers to your profile using short stories from various topics.

2 — Collaborate with other writers and enhance your network.

3 — Demonstrate a variety of your writing.

These three goals look compelling to me.

Considering I dislike the new format and function of my profile, I believe the short-form stories can be a temporary relief to my pain.

I plan to try it shortly and encourage our writers to do so.

Key points for consideration

1 — Short-form stories are expected to be under 150 words.

2 — You need to bold the first sentence of the paragraph.

3 — Copy and paste the links to your first paragraph.

I won’t go into details as you can find many references on Medium.

My favorite one was from our prolific and engaging writer Aldric Chen.

I am attaching this excellent story for your information.

Useful sample stories from ILLUMINATION

Here are some sample short-form stories that you can review and gain insights. These writers are pioneers. I admire their courage to try new approaches.

Britni Pepper

Tree Langdon

Rebecca Sealfon

The Dozen

Greg Prince

Conclusions

Using the new short-form stories on Medium articles can create further visibility and readability for our stories. They may overcome the challenges of the new profile format, which adversely affected the performance of many writers.

Writers contributing to ILLUMINATION, ILLUMINATION-Curated, and Technology Hits can submit stories in short-form format.

It is the early stage; hence we don’t have much data to evaluate the performance of short-form stories; however, we need to experiment and prove. We have nothing to lose.

I look forward to hosting and reading your stories. Keep up the great work!

Thank you for reading my perspectives.

I invite all writers touching on technology topics to join our new initiative aiming to bring technology writers under one roof.

Here is my invitation to you to participate.

If you are interested in becoming a contributor to Technology Hits, ILLUMINATION and ILLUMINATION-Curated, please send a request via this link. Please point out the name of the preferred publication in your request form. Alternatively, you can leave a brief comment on this story showing your interest to participate.

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