On-Line readers need for speed. Keep it brief, bunkey!

Posted on September 15, 2008 by Michael Paskel |

“What do you mean you can’t write 400 words?” she asked. “It’s simple. Word has a word counter. You simply start writing till you hit 400 -then go back and edit”

“I need that done no less than weekly.”

So began my truncated career as an on-line writer for a fairly well known site,( at least it’s fairly well known to unknown writers…) which provides running political commentary to publications throughout the country.

My charge, had I chosen to accept it, was to churn and burn rapier sharp- biting at times-commentary on subjects both compelling and timely and to do so weekly and most importantly, under 400 words. All my protests to the editor I was assigned, fell on transcendently cold, deaf, ears.

“On-line readers don’t read more than a couple of paragraphs” she groused. “ They’re too busy surfing. They don’t have time to wait for you to get to your point. So GET TO YOUR POINT!”

“You wanna write a book, write a book”.

I’ve written under deadline before so that wasn’t a problem. It’s a bit like making it to the office on time or getting the kids out the door for school so they don’t miss the bus. Anyone who ever tried to get to Sunday School on time with a passel of less than enthusiastic kids in tow has done it, and if you’ve every been held up at home and then darted out to the door to cover a 20 minute drive in under 12, you not only learned how but came to appreciate the benefit of “hitting all the lights.” I’ve seen people putting on make up, eating breakfast or even reading the paper while driving their morning commute. These are the people who can’t read more than 400 words on-line.

Deadline? What deadline?

However 400 words, that was more than I could handle…or more accurately, it was less than I could handle.

So I washed out in the first week, not because I can’t write, but because I can’t write 400 words. Humiliation, unlike on-line editors, knows no limits.

I’ve had a few submissions, which didn’t make it past the thought police- hardly a surprise given my liberal bend and the political geography of my native East Tennessee. I came to realize early on that no one can suffer fools interminably, therefore if I ever expected to share a thought with a person with whom I disagree, there’d better be a reason offered in the first sentence to make them want to hang around long enough to see where I’m heading with this. At least that’s always been my plan. It works to greater or lesser degrees depending on the mood I’m in.

I’ve actually deep six’d an article or two myself that I really didn’t like.  At first I thought it would make a good article or at least its genesis was something I felt I could do justice. But somewhere along the way it just fell apart. Its aggregate thoughts were convoluted or the inspiration failed to deliver just the right structure. I really can’t explain it. Suffice it to say, some of my hardest work went into something that fell victim to my own delete button.

If self-rejected trash were bucks, I’d be in Aspen for the winter, lighting $20.00 cigars with leafs from a bundle of fifties I kept stashed in the corner.

See, that’s 568 words and I’m just getting around to my point. Some things are just too important for terseness. Some of the best books I’ve ever read went on for hundreds of pages -the Holy Bible for one. Shelby Foote’s “The Civil War: A Narrative” is another great example.

In 1951 Bennit Cerf of Random House contacted Foote about writing a “brief “ history of the civil war. Foote had just moved to Memphis and while he was well established in his writing career he was never the less a novelist not a historian. If he were the least bit hesitant about taking on the project, it was not from a lack of self-confidence. In fact, he was in the middle of outlining a book he felt would be his “magnum opus” which he would have to shelve were he to take on this assignment. Still, money is money and Foote was a capitalist from the part of his regal white mane down to the point of his quill tip pen so, late in 1951, he signed a contract with Random House Publishing to produce a 200,000 word history of the Civil War.

When Random House finally went to press with “The Civil War: A Narrative” it had grown to close to 2,000,000 words (3,000 pages). It took Shelby Foote 20 years to write and it is the seminal history of the conflagration that nearly ended the United States a century before. It was the cornerstone of Ken Burns PBS documentary on the subject and at one point was selling 400,000 copies a day. Because of this book, Shelby Foote died a multi-millionaire.

“ I tried” he once said.” But I learned that I could not tell this story in a brief book”.

If brevity were the soul of propriety, Shelby Foote would be its most ardent and successfully egregious transgressor.

Now then, where was I?

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