June 13th, 2008 in Communication, Featured

How to Write in 140 Characters or Less

On Wednesday, I wrote a set of tips on writing (http://is.gd/wlJ). I had in mind business and similar situations where solid writing counts.

Joel, also of Lifehack, linked to the post on his blog (http://is.gd/wlU), saying I should do a guide to writing in 140 characters or less.

With Twitter fast becoming an important marketing tool – maybe THE important marketing tool (http://is.gd/wlZ) – there’s something to that.

Being able to express yourself, clearly and forcefully, in less than the 140 characters allowed by Twitter (and SMS) is no small thing!

Being able to do it with style and panache, to present yourself in all your greatness, to make people want to know more, is harder still.

But worth it. If markets are conversations, you need to be where the conversations are happening. And Twitter is that place right now.

Sure, maybe Twitter’s a fad. Maybe, like Friendster, it will collapse under its own coolness and people will move on. We’re not there yet.

And even if (when?) it does pass, as fads eventually do, the 140-character message probably won’t – it’s too well-suited to mobile screens.

Writing Really, Really Short

If concision is the key to good writing, learning to write for Twitter should place you among the greats. Already great writing is emerging.

Hemingway, whose 6-word short story – "For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn" – is hailed as a clear ancestor to the form, would have loved it.

But how do you get there? How do you strip your expression down to its very roots in a way that’s still meaningful, still worth reading?

Here are a few tips, from my participation on Twitter and what I know about writing overall. Short writing still needs to be good writing.

Every character counts, so use strong verbs and a minimum of adverbs - you just can’t afford to say in two words what you can say in one.
Once again, avoid "university words". Almost every long word in English has a short, blunt word that means the same thing. Use it instead.
Forget about breaking your thoughts into two posts. You have no control over how your post will get read or whether they will stay together.
Write first, then rewrite. It’s hard when you can feel that 140-character limit breathing down your neck. Spill it all out and then trim.
You can usually cut "that" and "which". "The toy train that my sister got for Christmas" can be "The toy train my sister got for Christmas."
Take your cue from Spanish (and Obama) and eliminate personal pronouns. "I am going to the Apple store" can be "Going to the Apple Store".
Write short sentences. They stand out more. You share a page with dozens of posts. Many short sentences looks like something worth reading.
Use punctuation! Many will tell you to rely on forceful words, not exclamation marks, but when words are limited, punctuation adds impact.
Be personal. Short posts are very conversational and almost intimate. That’s something business doesn’t do well, but on Twitter, it counts.
Get to the point. Say what you want me to do and why I should do it. You have no room to build anticipation – cut straight to the chase.

Lots of companies are paying attention to Twitter and the services emerging in its wake. Nobody knows quite what to do with it yet, though.

Which is fine. That just means there’s plenty of room for creative people to do what they do best – come up with innovative ways to connect.

Get in there, follow some of the top Twitterers, and pay close attention to how they craft their posts. And remember a last couple things:

Humor works. 140 characters is well suited to the snarky jab, the aphorism, the epigram. Brevity is, after all, the soul of wit. And Tweets.
The best you can do in 140 characters is entice – leave the sale for longer copy. Get their attention and give them someplace good to go.

Do you have any other advice for tweeters and messaging mavens? Let us know in the comments – this is all new, I know I’ve missed something.

I’ll admit, this post was hard to write! If you appreciate the effort, please digg it, Stumble it!, or bookmark it on del.icio.us. Or all 3!

Dustin Wax

Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He can be reached though his freelancing site at DustinWax.comDon't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.

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Joel Falconer says on June 13th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Dustin’s advice is good. This is a guy who can fit a semiotic analysis into Twitter.
When I was studying journalism they really pushed us to write with concise sentences, short words, and no dribble. I think any serious Twitterer should take the course ;)
Kim Siever says on June 13th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
140 characters or fewer
Dustin Wax says on June 13th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Kim: Grammar’s great, but “or fewer” isn’t the idiom, is it? Teachers, contests, and others have been assigning writing “in x words or less” for generations, and the title plays on that. Actually, the title of my last writing post (on Wednesday) plays on that, and the title of this post plays on that post’s title.
Ann at One Bag Nation says on June 13th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Dustin,
Have you heard about “Not Quite What I was Planning”? It’s a collection of 6-word autobiographies.
Kim’s comment above cracked me up! He just plunked it down, then off he went without another word . . .
Alex Shalman says on June 13th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
This is a great post, I passed it on to twitter friends, because it’s useful!
Chantix says on June 13th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
This is really great advice. I’m a writer so I tend to write a lot all the time. I find it difficult to get my point across in just a few sentences. Thee tips are really going to help me in the long-run =)
Dustin Wax says on June 13th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Ann: I have heard of it — they’re planning a sequel, too.
You have to take those drive-by grammatical corrections with a grain of salt. Kim’s a grammar blogger, it’s what he does, so I prefer to think of it as a moment of sharing. I’ll say this, though: his comment is far less than 140 characters, simple, to the point, and absolutely clear. My work here is done :-)
consisor says on June 13th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Chantix, your write much words. Learn to follow tips. It should be:
Good advice, I write too much. These tips will help me write less.
Carolyn Bahm says on June 13th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
This was a very useful post. A few other tips for concise Twittering:
You can shorten with symbols: “&” instead of “and,” etc.
Shorten words, as long as you don’t start sounding like a real estate ad: “sis” instead of “sister,” and the occasional use of “10yo” instead of “10-year-old daughter.”
consisor says on June 13th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I wrte usng oly sme chrctrs but c
Daniel Smith says on June 13th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Excellent article – way to put your money where your mouth was, so to speak.
And by the way, this paragraph:
“Humor works. 140 characters is well suited to the snarky jab, the aphorism, the epigram. Brevity is, after all, the soul of wit. And Tweets.”
…is just -screaming- for a link to my “Can You Put the Wit in Twitter?” contest. In fact, that blurb is freakily similar to the exact words I used to introduce the contest lol
Anyway, there’s $350 in prizes on the table folks and all you have to do is Tweet witty, so if you think you’ve got the snark, it’s worth joining in.
I think Twitter is here to stay. I was a late adopter, but now that I’m on there I can’t deny its effectiveness for community building, link-finding and traffic-driving (if you’re a blogger.) It may never go “mainstream” in the Facebook sense… but so might blogging never.
Great article Dustin.
Daniel
Daniel Smith says on June 13th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Oh an @JoelFalconer – reL your comment about j-school. I can relate- my journalism profs ingrained the same virtues into us. But rather than making Tweeps take that course as you suggest, I think it would be helpful to make the students use Twitter! Nothing sharpens the mind like working within constraints.
Marelisa says on June 13th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
This post made me think of the shortest story ever written:
The story is called “The Dinosaur” and reads in its entirety (it’s in spanish but this is the translation):
“When [s]he awoke, the dinosaur was still there.”
The author is Augusto Monterroso from Honduras.
Shari says on June 14th, 2008 at 6:30 am
A sentence is not a “story” though it can be thought-provoking and lead the reader to imagine the story behind the sentence.
I’ll keep my “university” words if they happen to convey the essence of what I want to say better than something simple. After all, this post is full of words that could have been dumbed down (“brevity”, “panache”, etc.). If you can’t live it, don’t encourage others to do it.
Tara Kelly says on June 14th, 2008 at 8:32 am
This post is life poetry.
Brian Carter says on June 14th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Great post! Love what twitter does for writing. Love Hemmingway. Also you should put a sphinn badge on here for any search marketers- going to sphinn this myself! ;-)
Dustin Wax says on June 14th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Shari, a “university word” is a word that’s more complex than it needs to be. “Don’t subalternize me with your hegemonic discourses” when “Don’t talk down to me” will do. Brevity could have been replaced by “shortness”, though of course, that’s not the saying, is it? Panache — really? I don’t even know what panache is :-) and I’m supposed to find a shorter word for it?
Like you say, when a word is the best word for the situation, use it. And remember, using short words is *never* “dumbing down”. Damaging the truth for the sake of simplicity is.
Brad Collins says on June 14th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
My favorite short poem was from Charles Olson:
I set out now, in a box upon the sea
Brad Gross says on June 14th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Great post, I’m a Twitter-a-holic and update it everytime something changes in my day…yeah, I know, a little sad! LOL! Anyway, thanks for all the good info-shares!!
John Shepherd says on June 15th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Good post.
I also think that Haiku is also a good way to focus one’s writing.
I “discovered” this in Gail Sher’s excellent book “One Continuous Mistake” in which she described how she used this brief form to develop good writing habits, i.e it is better to write something on a regular no matter how small.
Regards,
John
Marelisa says on June 15th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
@Shari: “A sentence is not a ’story’”. You can certainly hold that opinion, however, several experts in literature–including Mario Vargas Llosa–agree that “The Dinosaur” is the shortest story ever written, and it’s one sentence long.
Terry says on June 16th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
This is terrific. Some people (ok, me.) would benefit from examples, like your “that” one, for the rest of the points. Especially the short words. Especially, for instance, is TOO LONG. I could really use some help with conciseness.
Oh, and if you have any “further reading” to add. Please.
I don’t twitter, but am trying to add copy to my business site, and it’s just vastly excessively grossly verbose.
Thanks for this.
Ned says on June 16th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Every utterance/story expects the reader to supply context and much of the content, poetry especially so. The Dinosaur qualifies as a story if it speaks to you, otherwise it’s just another utterance, regardless of expert opinion.
More generally, the effectiveness of concise communication depends on the shared experience of the writer and the audience. Without that shared context, concision is just obfuscation (I couldn’t resist;-)
The ultra-short Hemingway (“For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.”) knocked me out: I’ve got 3 children, all living, and solid relationships with them all, but this so-brief story called up a profound sense of loss, a powerful reaction to an experience I’ve never had.
But it think that most of my reaction is subjective, i.e. created by me, catalyzed by those 6 words. To what degree did Hemingway “predict” or expect, or intend, my emotional response? How did you react? I can imagine that this brief piece might be almost unbearable for someone who’s lost a child, but it might have little impact on someone who’s not yet seriously considered becoming a parent.
If you are in this last category, I’d like to hear what your INITIAL response was. My hypothesis is that you felt very little, but it would say something pretty interesting about Mr Hemingway if I’m wrong.To be both concise AND communicate powerfully to a very broad audience – there’s a goal worth pursuing!
Dustin Wax says on June 16th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Ned: Although I think to some extent writers depend on shared sets of cultural knowledge and understanding, there is no need for the level of shared experience you’re describing. The “baby shoes” story is an extreme example, but Hemingway regularly wrote in a style that was concise, lean, and to the point — and which didn’t depend on his audience to have, say, fought in the Spanish Civil War, or attended a bullfight, to resonate with a huge number of people.
I know that I was very taken with the “baby shoes” story long before I became a step-parent. Hemingway’s talent — or any grteat writer’s — lay in a) reading the spirit of his audience in a way that he could speak to them, deeply and movingly, and b) creating enough context through his writing to “bring over” the ones he couldn’t even have imagined (e.g. us).
The writer makes the audience as much as speaks to them.
Angela Parker says on June 21st, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I can see a time when Twitter is used as a teaching tool for powerful story writing.
Fewer adjectives, more “punch” and impact.
Nice piece. Thanks for sharing.
john says on June 22nd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
if i ever HAVE to express an important, valuable idea in 140 char. or less on a regular basis i will stop caring about the audience. that audience is beneath respect.
—
the above is 175 char.
Bas says on June 23rd, 2008 at 8:05 am
Wow! Fully written in 140 char sentences. You’re a Twittermaster!
Andy says on June 30th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Roy Peter Clark publishes the indispensable “50 Writing Tools” blog at Poynter.org. They’re ostensibly for journalists, but I find the tips applicable to sharpen any writing.
http://www.poynter.org/article_feedback/?id=78
Mark David Gerson says on June 30th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Great practice for clear, concise writing of all sorts. May add the exercise to my writing workshops. Thanks for the post.
netrageouz says on August 6th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Awesome! Gotta go cut some words from my blog gabs now, bye…
Gabriella says on January 2nd, 2009 at 10:20 am
Now that I am a Twittaholic I have been trying my best to shorten my verbiage. Thanks for reminding us all to keep the hot air outside.
Meg Strout says on February 16th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Loved the post! Does anyone know why Twitter chose 140 characters? Why not 150? Why not 100?
Dustin Wax says on February 16th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Meg: Twitter is intended to be accessible through SMS, which is limited to 140 characters. I think the original idea was that Twitter would be public or group SMS’ing, and the rest grew from there. But the basic architecture was already decided by including SMS as an interface.
jb says on March 13th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Tweets with wit; chance become twits.
deepak says on April 15th, 2009 at 7:03 am
I liked your post. I had given up on Twitter due to lack of space to write. Your tips will help cut words form my posts. Thanx.
Keith says on August 14th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Write like Hemingway. Short, punchy and to the point. Advice I have given to quite a few who said they could not figure out Twitter. It has improved my writing. Expand when necessary. Otherwise, KISS.
Frederica says on October 7th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
An art form emerges: Twittered serial story.
T’wit: http://twitter.com/Othar , Twitter of Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, a recurring character in the online webcomic Girl Genius at http://www.girlgenius.net