Writing a short post that stands on its own

A short post has nowhere to hide. In a long article a weak paragraph can be carried by the ones around it; in a post of sixty or a hundred and fifty words, every sentence is load-bearing. That sounds like pressure, but it is also good news. A short post is small enough to get right, and the habits that make one work can be learned in an afternoon and practised every day after.

This is how we think about it at the Spot. None of it is a formula. Treat it as a set of questions to ask a draft before you send it into the timeline.

Know the one thing before you start

Most weak short posts are weak before the first word is typed. The writer has a feeling, a topic or a vague itch, and starts typing in the hope that a point will turn up on the way. In a long piece that can work, because you have room to wander and come back. In a short one, the wandering is the post.

So before you write, try to finish this sentence in your head: “The reader should come away knowing that…” If you can finish it, you have a post. If you cannot, you have a note for later, which is fine. Put it somewhere safe and come back when it has a shape.

One thing means one. A short post that makes two points usually makes neither well. If you notice a second idea pushing its way in, give it its own post tomorrow.

Put the point in the first line

On a timeline, the first line is the post for most readers. People scan; they decide in a glance whether to stop. A first line that warms up (“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about…”) spends that glance on nothing.

Compare two openings for the same post:

• Warm-up: “So I’ve been editing a lot of drafts this month and noticed something interesting about endings.”
• Point first: “Most drafts end one paragraph too late.”

The second one is a claim. The reader can agree, disagree or want to know why, and all three are reasons to keep reading. The first one asks for patience it has not earned yet.

Putting the point first does not mean shouting. It means not hiding it. A quiet, plain sentence that says what you think is stronger than a dramatic one that says nothing.

Claim, reason, example

Once the point is out, a short post usually needs only two more things: a reason and an example. That pattern is old and unglamorous, and it works because it answers the two questions a reader has after any claim: why? and such as?

Taking the post above:

Most drafts end one paragraph too late. The real ending is often the line just before the summary, the one that still has some charge in it. Try deleting your last paragraph and reading the piece again. More often than not, it ends better.

Four sentences: a claim, a reason, a small test the reader can try. There is no introduction, no recap and no sign-off, and nothing is missing.

You will not always need all three parts. Sometimes the example carries the reason inside it. But if a draft feels thin, check which of the three is absent. If it feels bloated, check whether you have two reasons or three examples where one would do.

Make it concrete

Abstract posts slide off the timeline. “Clarity matters in writing” is true and forgettable. “If you have to read your own sentence twice, your reader will read it zero times” is the same idea with a hook in it.

Concrete does not have to mean clever. It means pointing at something the reader can picture or do:

• a number you actually used (“I cut the draft from 900 words to 600”),
• a specific moment (“the third time I rewrote the opening”),
• an instruction (“read it aloud once before posting”),
• a before-and-after, even a tiny one.

Be careful with borrowed numbers. A figure you measured yourself is an honest detail; a statistic half-remembered from somewhere is a liability in a post this short, because it has nothing around it to soften a mistake. If you cannot point to where a number came from, leave it out and use your own experience instead.

Stop where the thought stops

Short posts often go wrong at the end. The point is made, and then the writer adds a line to wrap it up: “Anyway, just something to think about.” “What do you all think?” “Hope this helps!” Each of these is understandable and each one lets a little air out of the post.

A better habit is to stop on the strongest sentence. Usually that is the example or the instruction, the line that gives the reader something to take away. If you want responses, it is fine to ask, but ask something specific (“What is the last paragraph you cut, and did you miss it?”) rather than a general invitation.

The same goes for hashtags and decoration. On ReedSpot, tags live with the post rather than in the text, so the body can stay clean. Pick the two or three that describe what the post is about, and let the sentences do the rest.

A check before you post

Here is the short list we run through on our own drafts. It takes about a minute.

1. Read the first line alone. If someone saw only this, would they know what the post is about?
2. Find the one point. Can you say it in a sentence? Is there a second point hiding in there that deserves its own post?
3. Look for the reason and the example. Is at least one of them present? Is either of them doubled?
4. Cut the warm-up and the wrap-up. Delete the first clause and the last line, then read again. Restore them only if the post is worse without them.
5. Read it aloud. Short posts are often read fast. Anything you trip over, a reader will too.

When a short post keeps wanting to grow, that is not a failure. It is often the start of something longer. We wrote about that in growing a short note into a full article, and about the choice between several linked posts and one longer piece in thread or one longer post.

If you are new here and want to know what a writer’s page on ReedSpot includes, the features page has the details. And for the house rules that apply to every post, short or long, see the guidelines.