Despite not looking for short-form writing advice (which is rarely useful), it's become so trendy to tell people to write shorter pieces that I ran across this advice thrice last week.
As a general, unnuanced, dictum, this strikes me as very bad advice; the opposite of correct.
As a general, unnuanced, dictum, this strikes me as very bad advice; the opposite of correct.
Proper length is highly dependent on the material and the context. A problem we commonly see with books is that they're padded out to meet the perceived minimum length for a book, turning what should've been a long essay into a more prestigious, but worse, book.
But with blog posts, essays, tweets, etc., I think the more common problem is that a complex, nuanced, topic is reduced to, at best, TED-talk-like insight porn in the interest of keeping things short and punchy
Telling the median blogger to keep things short is not going to help
Telling the median blogger to keep things short is not going to help
A major justification for writing short posts is popularity. Putting aside whether or not that's the right goal, I don't think writing short posts boosts popularity.
Not many people write long posts, but people who do seem disproportionately popular (SSC, gwern, myself, etc.).
Not many people write long posts, but people who do seem disproportionately popular (SSC, gwern, myself, etc.).
I don't think it's prima facie obvious that long posts should be effective or popular. If anything, I think it's a bit surprising.
Are there really a lot of people who want to read 5.8k words on branch prediction, 6.6k words on filesystem correctness, etc.? Turns out there are!
Are there really a lot of people who want to read 5.8k words on branch prediction, 6.6k words on filesystem correctness, etc.? Turns out there are!
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