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I finally took that feedback about my book summaries being too long
Last year in my online book club, someone told me my summaries were basically the whole chapter again. They said "I just want the main point, not every detail." At first I got defensive but then I tried cutting each summary down to 3 sentences max. Now people actually read them and reply. Has anyone else had to totally change how they do something after someone pointed out a blind spot?
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jenny_lane121d ago
I saw something once about how we tend to write for ourselves, not for the reader, and your story really hits that. That line about "I just want the main point, not every detail" is so honest and probably hard to hear. I read an article that said most people skim before they commit to reading anything long, so three sentences is smart. It forces you to figure out what actually matters. Good for you for listening and making that change, honestly that takes a lot of guts.
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willowr961d ago
Yeah, that part about "I saw something once about how we tend to write for ourselves" is really close but it's actually more specific than that. It's not just that we write for ourselves, it's that we write the story we think we're telling instead of the story the reader needs to hear. The three sentence thing isn't about making things shorter for its own sake, it's about cutting through all the stuff you think is important but nobody else cares about. @jenny_lane12 you got the spirit of it right though, and honestly that's what matters. The article you're remembering was probably about "reader empathy" not just skimming habits. It's less about attention spans and more about realizing that every extra word is a chance to lose someone who just wanted to know what happened.
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