How To Write Short: an Essential Book for Fast Times

TAKEAWAY: The latest book from writing guru Dr. Roy Peter Clark is just what storytellers need to tackle writing across platforms—especially when less is best.

My Poynter colleague Dr. Roy Peter Clark and I have had three decades of discussions about the important roles of writing and design.

For the two of us it has always been a reasonable, sensible way of approaching storytelling.

As a song reminds us: love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. Just the same, writing and design can’t and shouldn’t be separated.

From those conversations—-which continue to this day, by the way—we developed the WED philosophy, emphasizing this marriage of words and visual images and how the best storytelling combines the two. We seduce with visuals, we seduce with words. Indeed, let the two disciplines fight for which one seduces first. The audience is usually the winner in this competition.

At a recent lunch, Roy honored me with an early copy of his new book, How to Write Short, which will be published in August, but that you can pre order (info below).

As I was leaving for a beach family vacation, I packed the paperback in my beach bag and read it in less than two days.

Each chapter surprised me with new examples. We all have heard a lot of what is in this book, mind you, since short forms of writing have always existed—from ship logs and telegrams to prayers and haikus.

But, oh, to hear the grand maestro Dr. Clark tell it, was a reminder of how much ALL of us need to hear it again, especially in those “fast times” we live in (which is included in the book’s subtitle—Word Craft for Fast Times).

And, because Roy believes that visuals are important, the book even includes a graphic detail of a “flash line” that applies well here.

Short is good…but long narratives are not dead

Roy still believes in the long narrative, of course, and he and I discussed how the tablet, as a lean back platform, invites users to relax while reading and enjoying long form storytelling—-not just through words, but also with appeal to other senses, as with audio and video.

But, like William Shakespeare, whom Roy mentions in his preface, Roy demonstrates in this book how long and short writing can coexist, something I remind editors and designers at all of my workshops.

In fact, one reason this book should be REQUIRED in every newsroom is because it addresses the need for shorter writing now that we produce stories for the media quartet: smartphone, online, print and radio.

Short writing has never been more vital. And, as Roy points out in his book: “A hard part of the writing process is cutting….and the pain is magnified when the writing is short.“

Why short writing is important in today’s digital newsroom

Almost every reporter can produce a long narrative on demand.

It is a different story to tell a story in 10 lines, for example.

Today, news alerts for smartphones and for first editions of news online are usually extremely short. Tough to write.

Furthermore, we need to develop the art of writing what I call the “mini story”, to accompany photo galleries on digital devices.

Mini stories may not be new, since LIFE magazine used to carry them on those marvelous double page photos that made the magazine famous and memorable. In fact, one of our current client publications, Paris Match, continues to foster the art of the mini story.

But writers usually struggle with it. The tendency is to write a traditional photo caption, but a mini story is NOT a caption. It is a self contained story in 10 or fewer lines.

In fact, Roy reminds us that “there is no more underdeveloped form of short writing that the photo caption and cutline.“ There is great potential for writing meaningful captions and mini stories, however.

Roy’s book shows us how, and I will make sure it is incorporated into my workshops. It is part of what iWED (integrated WED) is all about. Roy and I think iWED should be a subject of discussion in every newsroom.

Examples that illustrate

A highlight of Roy’s book is that it not only provides tips and actual writing techniques for the art of writing short, but it draws inspiration from the classics to the signs hanging on the bathroom of his hotel room.

“If you want to write long, begin by writing short,“ Roy reminds us.

Here you will read short writing forms that range from the ramson note written by the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby (“The child is in gut care”), to the sign hanging on a Florida cafe (“Let Go, Slack Away, All Clear….“) to classified ads (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn”)

Yes, I know, by Roy’s standards this review may already be a bit too long.

However, I now must prepare to do a tweet about it in 140 characters or less, so here you go: