Brevity wins.
That’s the lesson integrated marketers have learned when writing content for our attention-deficient society of buyers. However, it’s not easy to write less and still convey context in content. Even Mark Twain struggled with it: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
Maybe Twain would have benefitted from the tips of writing guru Ann Wylie. In a recent article penned for the Public Relations Society of America, Wylie pointed out that readers skip long paragraphs.
“Readers take measure of — and make decisions about — your copy based on how it looks. One of the most important visual cues that we give our readers is paragraph length,” she wrote.
“A story packed with too many long paragraphs looks thick and off-putting. In fact, readers are likely to skip even a single lengthy paragraph,” Wylie cautioned.
The next time you’re writing content for print or online, try one of Wylie’s writing tips:
- Use the return key more often to present your thoughts in scannable units
- Tweak paragraphs by eliminating unnecessary sentences, phrases and words
- Break up a series of three or more items with bullets
“Brief paragraphs encourage readership,” Wylie instructed. “But use your judgment: Some paragraphs can be a little longer, while others can be much shorter. Varying the length of your paragraphs will add rhythm to your story as well as increase readership.”
For more writing tips, check out “Two Fast Ways to Write Better Email Headlines.”
