Why I Started Writing Shorter Articles
By: Some Dude Says
Tags: Writing Tips, Productivity, Writing, Self, Writer

I started with an article. And then another. And then another. My brain was on fire that weekend.

I didn’t wake up with the plan to just sit and write. All I knew is that I wasn’t going to go out for the day without writing something I could put on my blog. The irony is that I had been trying to focus on longer content, but my hand was a bit forced.

I had written an article about quantity over quality which I wanted to live up to. My time had been heavily constrained with work and my baby. I also found it was a lot less pressure to write something when I lowered my minimum word count for what I was willing to write.

Aiming Closer

My aim was to write articles which were roughly 1,500 to 2,000 words, with a minimum of 1,500. I used the same approach for pretty much any kind of article, with the exception of certain short articles. This kind of structure gave me a concrete goal to keep my writing more consistent. I could write things outside of this, but this was my general benchmark for a “complete” article.

One day, I noticed I could knock out a short article which was roughly 1,000 words in less than half the time it took to knock out one which was 1,500 words. Writing two 1,000 word articles also left me feeling less tired than I did after a single 1,500 word article. I had many articles I stalled out on or forced an extra point into to make my minimum. I also had multiple factors from work and life which made it increasingly difficult to allocate time. If I could get the free time, I could knock out more, but that’s not really an option at present.

I decided to start shooting for somewhere between 750 to 1,000 words as my minimum depending on the type of content. Certain content I wanted to hit 1,200 words before I felt finished, but if I stopped or ran out of ideas, I ended it and moved on. This strategy has worked amazingly so far. My writing has become more organic, though a bit more volatile. I can feel the growth from the writing process more immediately and I can keep the heat up.

I have basically been able to double my output of content without feeling rushed or that I’m missing something. When I want to write more, I do. If I hit a dead end, I wrap it up and move on.

Quantity Over Quality

Sometimes you just need to do more to get more practice. Instead of obsessing over perfection, drop it and move on. Splitting up a task into smaller tasks means more practice with each individual component.

By shrinking the minimum I was aiming for, I could produce more, and it ended up faster. There is more to writing the just writing itself, especially when creating blog content or writing for something like Medium. You have to consider research, planning, writing, rewriting and editing, media production or procurement, title creation and summary, and polishing. Some of these factors have a fixed cost, some grow evenly with the word count, and some can grow exponentially for minimum time required per step.

Skill Sets

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Each of these factors is also its own skill set. Research won’t make your writing itself better, but it provides better evidence and better topics to write about. Media production or procurement just enhances your writing and can help make a better product. Planning makes the writing more coherent and consistent and can give a scaffolding. Rewriting, editing, and polishing are all their own skills which temper writing into something better and better at different steps of the process. Title creation and summary writing are their own kind of writing entirely which impact how your writing is received.

By shortening the writing cycle, I get more practice on the skills that can help shape my writing as well as my writing itself. I can also test more ideas since the cycle is much shorter and a bad article is less of a hit to my productivity. Repeating the process more means I can focus on how everything goes together instead of trying to kill 200 more words for the sake of a number on my screen.

Working Around Time Constraints

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My job has calmed down, but can still take a toll on my time outside the office. As my baby gets bigger and bigger, she gets to need more and more time with me. She doesn’t want to sleep early anymore either.

Most tasks have a warm-up period before getting productive, and writing is no exception. I have fewer and fewer blocks of time I can allocate to my writing, so I had to simplify my workflow to make use of what I had. It takes me a lot longer to get into the flow when I have to catch up on a massive amount of text. Smaller articles have a lower associated cost to get back in the flow.

I worked as an editor for years, so I have a specific workflow which requires periods of focus. The longer the article, the longer the period necessary. Shortening the writing cycle means I don’t need as much time so I can play fit my editing blocks in gaps of free time more efficiently.

My kid may not cooperate to give me productive writing time for days if she’s going through a growth spurt. The more of the process I can fully complete, the easier it is to keep the momentum going. I can knock a shorter article out on a moderately bad night now. If the baby or work don’t cooperate, I don’t get stuck halfway through the process.

Lowering Pressure

Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

More practice and lower time constraints on individual steps lead to less pressure. I don’t have to force the article, I can end it when I want. Setting a limit may arguably be restrictive, but I find it gives me structure which makes me write better. If I just sit down without some end in sight, I’ll either ramble or not write much. I may write for the sake of writing, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a process for writing.

If I set a minimum, I feel a need to reach it, but some articles just don’t have 1,500 good words in them. A good writer can arbitrarily hit that (or pretty much any arbitrary standard), but I never said I was good. Setting my standards lower and surpassing them has helped me keep on track and write better. Don’t make the bar low enough to be pointless, but an easy win is still a win and can still provide great feedback.

Why It Works

I tend to obsess over the ritual for my writing process. The structure makes me pace myself and not burn myself out. If you tell me to run a mile, I’ll sprint until I can barely walk the last 9/10ths (I’m also not a runner), but if you tell me to run for 20 minutes, I’ll jog at a consistent speed. Setting conditions and restrictions forces me to pace myself. Writing is a release for me, and by controlling the release, I am able to get the most out of it for myself.

This advice may not be as applicable to you if you have plenty of free time and write organically. By slashing my articles down, I have more time to focus on other aspects of writing and perfect my overall process. I can fit more small sessions in where I can, and I feel a lot less pressure to finish an article. Try writing less and see if you don’t get more out of it.

Featured image by Jess Watters from Pixabay