Wednesday, March 30, 2011

What is a good length for a blog post?

I have been reading a lot of blog posts lately. One thing I notice is that I go into skimming mode when someone gets too wordy. When I look at my own posts, they meet the criteria for too wordy.

I know a preacher whose sermons are too long. He says he doesn't pay attention to length. How long a sermon lasts is simply how long it lasts. I use the same philosophy for my blog posts. I write until I've said what I want to say. That usually ends up being enough to fill a full page in a word processor. Just as my preacher friend ends up with too many words for his listeners to absorb, I end up with too many words for people to read.

Maybe I need to think in smaller chunks, corral the loose thoughts, trim out the fat.

New goal: for today, for this one post, I will not create a scroll bar in my posting window.

2 comments:

Mike W. McVey said...

I'm not sure, Marsha. It really depends what the purpose of the blog is in each setting. If the entry is too short, save maybe a quote, I feel a bit cheated.

Always enjoy what you have to write.

Mike

Marsha Lynn said...

Thanks, Mike. It's nice to know someone is reading.