“It isn’t that people are mean or cruel.
They’re just busy.
Nobody wants to read your shit.
What’s the answer?
When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, your mind becomes powerfully concentrated. You begin to understand that writing/reading is, above all, a transaction. The reader donates his time and attention, which are supremely valuable commodities. In return, you the writer must give him something worthy of his gift to you.
When you understand that nobody wants to read your shit, you develop empathy.
You acquire the skill that is indispensable to all artists and entrepreneurs—the ability to switch back and forth in your imagination from your own point of view as writer/painter/seller to the point of view of your reader/gallery-goer/customer. You learn to ask yourself with every sentence and every phrase: Is this interesting? Is it fun or challenging or inventive? Am I giving the reader enough? Is she bored? Is she following where I want to lead her?”
Strolling a mile or two in the moccasins of your time-pressed reader has (hopefully!) taught me to be succinct, stop the waffle.
Pithy is an adjective that describes speech or writing that is brief, forceful, and packed with meaning.
- First: “Streamline your message. Focus it and pare it down to its simplest, clearest, easiest-to-understand form.” Which heartens me, as that is why Philosophers Quotes was born, to distil great thought down to its essence: Pithy Style!
- Second: “Make its expression fun. Or sexy or interesting or scary or informative. Make it so compelling that a person would have to be crazy NOT to read it.” I don’t know which of these “Jamie-ese” is, but I shall persist with it!
- Third: “Apply that to all forms of writing or art or commerce.” I am going to apply it to conversations too, as they are a similar exchange of time and attention. I have been meaning to “Shut the flock up, and listen” for a while now: two ears, one mouth, and all that.
Photo by Octavian-Dan Craciun on Unsplash
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