When you’re blogging your number one goal is to capture attention. Once you’ve captured the audience, you must do battle with their individual attention spans. One of the things that drive my batty about blogging is that I will really enjoy a writer’s thought, but what I tend to pass up is the thought that tends to go on and on- to the point of rambling.
I really do enjoy the depth in which many write in blogging and at times it is necessary to paint with very broad brushes, deep rich color, on a canvas the size of Texas- but not every time you write.
My observations of many writers is they have a moment of inspiration so the tendency is to write it all down at one time- but then what? They write nothing for a week. They’re exhausted and depend on the one 6 page long text to carry them through to the next week.
My suggestion is simple. Write in stages- Part I, Part I or simply an ongoing series. Post your posts over a period of days, or every other day. Now, what you have created is a following, and a knowledge that reading you does no require a full pot of coffee, and a sack breakfast lunch and dinner. Your ‘blog’ is just that, a simple blog that fills the gap on a subject that is consistent and being read consistently.
Todd Carpenter
October 30, 2007 at 7:30 pm
People have only the first paragraph or two to suck me into a long post. Otherwise I just pass them up.
BTW, I Can Has Cheezeburger Called. They’d like their blog back. 😉
Ben Martin
October 30, 2007 at 8:10 pm
I agree completely. Five or six paragraphs is about the most I can stomach unless it’s REALLY compelling content.
Jay Thompson
October 30, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Breaking a post into parts is something I need to do often, and forget always. Thanks for the reminder.
I’ve had a problem with being too wordy all my life. In high school, when the teacher said “500 words essay” everyone would moan. I’d ask the teach later if 1,500 was OK…
My college Senior thesis advisor said to her class of 12, “The expectation is at least 25 pages. Thompson, keep it under 50”.
It came in at 49.5.
Kelley Koehler
October 31, 2007 at 1:10 am
Okay, okay, so I tend to ramble, sheesh. I just posted a huge thing about 5 minutes ago, but from now on I promise, I’ll keep it down. You could’ve just facebooked me, you know. No need to go public!