Anyone read Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB)? I gave up halfway through, and shamefully admitted it to a really smart guy named Chris I met at a conference.
He said "duh, you aren't supposed to finish it - you should only get to the parable about book length, a couple chapters in!"
The parable explores the idea that a reader always has a piece of information you don't want them to have: the amount of remaining pages! If the bad guy dies and you still have 3/4 of the book in your right hand you can be sure it's not over... So as an author what do you do? Add a bunch of Lorem Ipsum? The reader will flip through and figure out where that starts. Splice in an unrelated story? The reader can still find the boundary. So you have to continue the story, but have nothing important happen (e.g., 'the next day Harry Potter ate some toast and watched Friends'). Chris was arguing that GEB talked about doing this, and then actually did it.
The author was clear that he makes his point early on and then just explains it many different ways, so maybe I believe Chris... Or maybe Chris and I are just happy to rationalize our laziness however we can :P
Just like most nonfiction books, this post is a lot longer than it has to be. I think the core idea here is good, but it's pretty ironic that I wanted to stop halfway through.
When writing is good, succinct, and to the point, people will finish reading if they're interested in the material. If it's too long, fluffy, repetitive, annoying... people won't. I don't think it's a huge surprise.
Ironically, I read this article from start to finish, something that rarely happens with blog posts, which I usually abandon halfway through.
More seriously, I agree that writing short books or articles is an important skill. Writing long is easy; conveying the same amount of information concisely is much harder. It is also a sign of respect for busy readers.
I constantly find myself asking LLMs to be shorter, more direct, and more to the point, without fluff. They seem to have a tendency to generate endless streams of words.
To me, books aren't meant simply to be read, they're to be used, and I often treat them like references. Many would benefit from concept indexes, or at least being broken into more discrete parts beyond the chapter.
Search helps with digital, but it's not the same as being able to get a high-level physical impression from thumbing around. I'm a fan of longer-form content indices found in some volumes of poetry, or the way a cookbook might list "Beef" and then include every recipe that contains it.
If we can characterize how or what is happening, then depending on the format of the book, it could make sense to include information like summaries, timelines, maps and diagrams, etc, but I rarely see that in modern works.
I honestly don’t know the attribution. Was told the quote in school when being taught on the spirit of Hemingway’s writing and tasked with rewriting a story into only 5 sentences.
One thing that I recall reading (but can't find now) is that people are statistically significantly likely to finish books with shorter chapters. It just makes so much sense to me - I want a feeling of accomplishment as I go through the content, with clear stopping points, making it easy to keep going, and also easy to pick up again.
My favorite in this regard is Minsky's "Society of Mind" where essentially every chapter/mini-essay is one page, a form which he argued is a good fit for our mental processes.
Shorter chapters allow me to have more frequent natural break points. I often have limited time to read, or the time I have is broken up into shorter chunks. So books with shorter chapters are easier to stop and then pick back up.
His initial point is about critics. Critics are incentivized to review many books. So, more than ordinary readers, you would expect them to read summaries, or only parts of books.
Anyone read Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB)? I gave up halfway through, and shamefully admitted it to a really smart guy named Chris I met at a conference.
He said "duh, you aren't supposed to finish it - you should only get to the parable about book length, a couple chapters in!"
The parable explores the idea that a reader always has a piece of information you don't want them to have: the amount of remaining pages! If the bad guy dies and you still have 3/4 of the book in your right hand you can be sure it's not over... So as an author what do you do? Add a bunch of Lorem Ipsum? The reader will flip through and figure out where that starts. Splice in an unrelated story? The reader can still find the boundary. So you have to continue the story, but have nothing important happen (e.g., 'the next day Harry Potter ate some toast and watched Friends'). Chris was arguing that GEB talked about doing this, and then actually did it.
The author was clear that he makes his point early on and then just explains it many different ways, so maybe I believe Chris... Or maybe Chris and I are just happy to rationalize our laziness however we can :P
Just like most nonfiction books, this post is a lot longer than it has to be. I think the core idea here is good, but it's pretty ironic that I wanted to stop halfway through.
When writing is good, succinct, and to the point, people will finish reading if they're interested in the material. If it's too long, fluffy, repetitive, annoying... people won't. I don't think it's a huge surprise.
Ironically, I read this article from start to finish, something that rarely happens with blog posts, which I usually abandon halfway through.
More seriously, I agree that writing short books or articles is an important skill. Writing long is easy; conveying the same amount of information concisely is much harder. It is also a sign of respect for busy readers.
I constantly find myself asking LLMs to be shorter, more direct, and more to the point, without fluff. They seem to have a tendency to generate endless streams of words.
Succinct, or at least rightly organized.
To me, books aren't meant simply to be read, they're to be used, and I often treat them like references. Many would benefit from concept indexes, or at least being broken into more discrete parts beyond the chapter.
Search helps with digital, but it's not the same as being able to get a high-level physical impression from thumbing around. I'm a fan of longer-form content indices found in some volumes of poetry, or the way a cookbook might list "Beef" and then include every recipe that contains it.
If we can characterize how or what is happening, then depending on the format of the book, it could make sense to include information like summaries, timelines, maps and diagrams, etc, but I rarely see that in modern works.
Fantastic article, I particularly liked the fist 15 percent of it.
“If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter”
Mark Twain?
I honestly don’t know the attribution. Was told the quote in school when being taught on the spirit of Hemingway’s writing and tasked with rewriting a story into only 5 sentences.
This reconceptualized the article as victim blaming. Spot on.
One thing that I recall reading (but can't find now) is that people are statistically significantly likely to finish books with shorter chapters. It just makes so much sense to me - I want a feeling of accomplishment as I go through the content, with clear stopping points, making it easy to keep going, and also easy to pick up again.
My favorite in this regard is Minsky's "Society of Mind" where essentially every chapter/mini-essay is one page, a form which he argued is a good fit for our mental processes.
Shorter chapters allow me to have more frequent natural break points. I often have limited time to read, or the time I have is broken up into shorter chunks. So books with shorter chapters are easier to stop and then pick back up.
His initial point is about critics. Critics are incentivized to review many books. So, more than ordinary readers, you would expect them to read summaries, or only parts of books.
[dead]