Twitter’s taught us the value of bite-sized communication. Many people read more words via tweet than via books.
That’s one of the reasons I keep these blogs so bite-sized. People, especially creatives, are busy and overworked. It’s risky business to sit down and read a lengthy blog – not knowing if you’re wasting your time or if it’s something valuable.
So I go bite-sized. And since creatives tend to be a rather verbose bunch, I thought I’d share some of my tips for making your art, writings, music, etc bite-sized. How can you capture the essence of your art in bite-sized bits?
1. Complete thoughts aren’t necessary. One of the greatest keys to bite-sized thinking is eliminating unnecessary steps. Sometimes you have to allow your audience to leap between points on their own. Comedians are brilliant at this: “What’s the deal with airline food?” That joke works on its own because people can easily make their own connections and finish the thought.
2. Familiarity is your friend. This ties in with the previous thought. Incomplete thoughts are ok when it’s something people are familiar with.
I wanted to tweet about a phenomenon I’ve noticed with worship leaders. I call it the coffee/water shuffle. It’s when a worship leader has two cups in their hands…one with coffee and the other with water. He takes a sip of coffee then chases it with water. Worship leaders think that helps lubricate their throats.
That concept is neither familiar nor bite-sized for most people. So I avoided the topic.
3. Edit and replace with cleverness. Remove those excess bits. I could tweet, “I really hate it when people cut in front of me in line.” That’s lengthy and not clever. Instead, try, “Line cutters suck.” I created my own word/concept and edited out the excess words. Now I can leave it like it is or add some more context to make it more interesting.
4. Invest time. One of the biggest reasons creatives have a hard time making their art bite-sized is that it takes effort. It’s easy to speak for an hour. It’s easy to make a lengthy video. It’s easy to write a 700-word blog. But short takes effort. Be willing to take the time and wrestle with your art. Decide what’s necessary and look at things from a different perspective.
So those are my thoughts. What do you do to make your work bite-sized?