Short-form content is all the rage across – YouTube shorts, Facebook and Instagram reels, 5-minute articles to name a few. Given the sheer quantity of content dumped upon audiences in a single day, it’s no wonder that they struggle to stay engaged with long-form content.
Not to say long-form is bad, but when audiences are spoiled and expect to get into the juicy details as quickly as possible, the build-up associated with long-form content may take too long to hold readers’ interest. For more traditional writers who aren’t accustomed to writing for modern audiences, this presents a rather difficult challenge – how can we train ourselves to become more proficient at short-form content? Join Wordsmith and let’s find out!
Six or bust
Most people expect stories to have an introduction, middle and conclusion – but have you ever come across a story as short as six words? Neil Taylor, author of Brilliant Business Writing: How to Inspire, Engage and Persuade Through Words, recounts reading about Ernest Hemingway’s greatest short story in a Guardian article:
“For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”
Although we don’t know what Hemmingway’s intended reason for the shoes being unworn were, the story still packs an emotional punch despite the lack of context – perhaps the baby did not survive birth, or for the more optimistic reader, they were simply stuffed away in a closet and forgotten about.
Regardless, Hemingway’s story inspired The Guardian to invite readers to submit their own six-word stories – here are a few of Taylor’s favourites:
“It can’t be. I’m a virgin.” ~ Kate Atkinson
“See that shadow? (It’s not yours.) ~Jim Crace
“Evil isn’t necessarily unkind. Gran next.” ~DBC Pierre
Each of these stories involves a subject and object (which takes up at least 1/3 of the six-word quota already)… so how well the story presents itself is entirely dependent on a scant four word (or less) bridge between the subject and object! This sounds like a monumental task if you were to take the logical route of determining a subject-verb-object – but we found it to be easier when we have the “what” sorted out first. The key to Hemingway’s impactful short story is to have a “what” that shocks readers. Hemingway picked the subject of a (potentially dead) infant, Crace an ominous shadow… and so forth. Whether you choose something fictional or real is entirely up to you, but we think it works best if it’s something that can resonate with readers, like so:
Day 730 – the Russians come still.
The hunger. It only knew hunger.
Last man standing wins. I didn’t.
“They manage to provoke different reactions – fear, inspiration, embarrassment –… If you can do this in six words, then writing a headline shouldn’t be that difficult after all,” comments Taylor.
Hiking up with haikus
If you thought six-word stories were a tough exercise, then the haiku is the equivalent of striking up an enterprise with naught but a pocketful of dreams and loose change. A Japanese poem following a mandatory 17-syllable structure across three lines in a 5-7-5 syllable arrangement, haikus are notoriously difficult to make both compelling and coherent. Poet Matsuo Basho’s “The Old Pond” is said to be the most famous haiku:
Old pond
A frog jumps in
The sound of water
“There’s something about the form that tickles people’s fancy: it’s just enough room to say something, but too short for you to say it in an ordinary or expected way,” describes Taylor.
Despite how simple Matsuo’s poem is, it effortlessly evokes the serenity of nature – because he knew how to weave short descriptions with effective visual imagery. “Suddenly, those big long corporate words become very expensive,” writes Taylor. “Heck, use a phrase like operational efficiency, and you’ll suddenly discover that half of your haiku has been used up before you’ve even said anything. You’ll need to say what you’ve got to say in much simpler, or more unusual, terms.”
Let’s say we want to write a haiku about how the boss is unfairly overworking an employee. Words like un-fair-ly, o-ver-work-ing, em-ploy-ee are inefficient, nor do they paint a particularly descriptive picture of what is happening. Here’s how we would write the haiku:
Midnight comes and goes
Boss clenches his iron fist
My tears flow freely
It’s not too difficult once you get the hang of it. When writing your first draft, consider putting aside the syllable limit as you structure each line – then consult a thesaurus to see if there are any words or terms that can be rewritten more concisely. Finally, use a handy syllable counter to make sure each line doesn’t run over the limit.
You might wonder – why haikus? Surely nobody talks or writes like this in business writing! “It does two things,” explains Taylor. “First, it forces me to really get to the point of what I’ve got to say. But it also helps me put it in simple, interesting terms… usually I can take something from that wording: a word itself; a rhythm or structure; an idea or an image. Then just plugging that element into the main thing that I’m writing – or even better, into its title or heading – will usually and a bit of spice and bring it to life.”
Simplicity and repetition for emphasis
When people think sentences, they often think of a cluster of words strung together to convey a message… but a single word can also be its own sentence:
Yes.
Unbelievable.
However, the effect is most potent when you use a single word sentence sparingly to emphasise a particular point, like with this iconic opening quote in the video game Fallout 4:
“War. War never changes.”
‘The odd one-word sentence is really useful to make your writing less predictable,” writes Taylor. “It changes the rhythm, and adds a bit of drama or emphasis… At the beginning of a paragraph, it’ll set you off on a different tack to the way you’d usually start, and help change the shape and feel of the rest of what you’re writing.”
Reusing the example of us an overworked employee, here’s how we might describe the scenario:
Midnight. Just another day of over-time.
Aside from using single words for emphasis, repetition is also an effective strategy – consider using it alongside one-word sentences for a more dramatic effect!
Taxes. That’s what did Al Capone in.
Red. The walls were caked in red.
Tick. Tick. Midnight. Just another day of over-time.
To solidify the effectiveness of repetition, Taylor points to one of Churchill’s most famous speeches during the height of World War II:
“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
“It feels a bit cheap to analyse something as powerful and important as that speech, but I’m sure he did. He knew what would make his words emphatic, powerful, compelling. This example is from a speech, designed to be read out – performed… but your reader will be hearing your words in their head, even if they’re not reading them out loud. That’s’ why the very best business writing – often advertising – works really well when it’s read out, even if it was never intended for that,” explains Taylor.
Transitioning from long-form to short-form content is not an easy feat, especially when you have to forego corporate lingo and other buzzwords tied to your industry. However, you don’t need to be a haiku master to know the benefits of writing concisely. Not only is it liberating to have a better grasp over your diction, it’s also highly necessary to motivate audience engagement today. Try out the exercises above and let us know if they work for you!